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Arkady Mirvis wrote:
> You are outraged by the connection design.
>
Compared to the outrages I see in American cars, VW does rather well.
Frankly, you can ding any manufacturer on questionable engineering (or
their subcontractors). Honda did a poor job on the oil jet design for
2nd gear on their Odyssey and Pilot models- which in some circumstances
led to starvation for oil (for cooling and lubrication).
Chrysler botched a seal in their LH-platform transmissions, such that I
could guarantee that if you owned a 91-94 Concorde or Intrepid, I
guarantee you'd be getting your transmission torn down over a bad $2
seal inside.
The list could go on and on.
But you are right, there is a certain arrogance with modern VW vis-a-vis
American consumers, and the dealerships often don't help.
> Audi with self- jumping cars lost not long ago millions and
> Continental did trashed me when I complained about very premature
> cracking of made by them tires on my 1987 Westi.
Ok, I gotta disagree with you on the Audi thing being necessarily Audi's
fault.
The Audi sudden acceleration thing was driver error, largely. Owing to
the pedal positioning, it was possible for a driver to insist they were
stomping on the brakes when in reality they were hitting the gas. Many
of these drivers were new to the car, and unfamiliar with the pedal feel
of a European car, as they had owned American makes previously. No
faults were ever found with the braking system on any of these cars, and
there's no way a car will launch like that from a stop if you hold down
the brake, no matter how much gas you give it. Audi is not the only make
have been blamed for sudden acceleration, but its the most famous
because they were on 60 Minutes over it (and of course, 60 Minutes (Or
Dateline, or 20/20) would never play fast and loose with the truth and
make up a story, would they?). Audi very famously did a bad job of
handling PR over this, by using the term "driver error" time and time
again. Their opponents would trot out stories of children tragically run
over in the garage in response- and who wants to accept that it was a
tragic mistake on the part of the parent? Calling it "driver error",
even if true, makes it seem like VWoA was being heartless corporation,
heartless enough to willfully put out a faulty design and not stand
behind their product.
Car and Driver did a very good study on this ("Audi Agonistes, Cutting
Through All Hype & Hysteria in Search of the Truth About Unintended
Acceleration," Car & Driver, 6/87), and actually replicated the results-
going to far as to photograph a car accelerating out of control with an
observer in the passenger seat (they had rigged the idle speed control
motor to race using a hidden button controlled by the observer) when
shifting out of gear- and the brake lights were suspiciously off despite
the insistence of the test subject that they were pressing the brakes.
An inspection revealed all systems were functioning normally. The driver
was hitting the gas, not the brake. I remember reading this article when
it came out (I was a 14 year old car nut with a subscription to Car and
Driver- it made quite an impression on me at the time.).
Their ultimate fix was to install a shift-lock mechanism, where you had
to press the brake to shift out of park- a standard safety mechanism
today, but relatively new back then.
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