Known Faut Sir - Next?

[brucemillar]

The infuriating thing now with almost all manufacturers is the disjointed manner in which they allow cars to be designed by disparate groups who are under the control of finance/procurement.

This leads to an end product where the various contributors had no practical knowledge of how their bit interfaces with his bit.

We then get to test out their end product at our expense, watching in dismay and disbelief as bits fail and manufacturers deny any accountability. All this, safe in our knowledge that in the months to come the internet will show us that this is a "known" fault.

Take the W203 with its "door lock bounce" or the legendary "stepper motor clicking" This is before we get the annual joy of the "rear washer fail" or the "Hand Brake Cable Bracket".

All of these can be traced back to low cost plastic parts failing. All of these are known faults to the manufacturer and yet we are still forced to pay for the repair.

Is this unique to the motor industry? I don't hear of this with the airline industry where passenger safety is considered King. Is our safety not King to Mercedes?

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

I don't think this is unique to the car industry.

Reuse of existing components, insufficient testing, rush to market syndrome etc...then they try to deny responsibility to reduce payouts.

Got a similar situation with my phone. Seller passes buck to manufacturer, who gives me unacceptable fix regime...what to do?

 

[markjay]

I must say.... my 2006 W203 only had a couple of very minor faults so far (touch wood)... not bad for a ten years old car. But then again I may have been lucky.

 

[Prev]

Take the W203 with its "door lock bounce" or the legendary "stepper motor clicking" This is before we get the annual joy of the "rear washer fail" or the "Hand Brake Cable Bracket"....


...Is this unique to the motor industry? I don't hear of this with the airline industry where passenger safety is considered King. Is our safety not King to Mercedes?

Rear washers failing aren't exactly saftey critical systems, although I get your point.

Aircraft development isnt the same - Its, for obvious reason, far more rigorous in terms of testing.

Cars need to be brought to market quickly, with the latest Tech that customers want, for a price the market will accept.

Aircraft development tends to take decades and costs BN's (Airbus A350 is about $7BN before a single product delivered) not Millions. Aircraft are surprisingly low tech in some areas as well, as only tried, tested & proven tech makes it into production (For example some avionics computers still use 486 chips). That, coupled with massive amounts of redundancy built in in cae of failure means unit costs are massive (Above example list price is around $300M; and you don't get an interior for that either, thats on top, sir!)

Even with all that, you do get common problems on Aircraft as well: Lithium Ion Battery fires on the 787 Dream liner when first launched being a good example (Part of the fix for this particular issue being to simply build a fire proof box around the battery...).

Im sure MB (And all the others) could sort these issues before release, but the additional costs of doing so, plus the additional unit price for each vehicle has to make a compelling business case for them to do it.

 

[markjay]

...Cars need to be brought to market quickly, with the latest Tech that customers want, for a price the market will accept....

^^^^^^^^^ This

 

[190]

Part of the problem is unnecessary complexity. If they can't make it reliable then I unequivocally do not want the latest tech that cost a £1000 to fix. But I don't get a choice because I'm obviously not representative of the market.

 

[GP801]

We had one of the first W203s in the UK. It was a total disaster from day one. Numerous electrical faults - alarm, dash display, ignition switch, central locking, climate control and various others that I have forgotten. The dealer told us it was not an isolated case and was mainly down to components from different sources not talking to each other properly. It cost MB around 6000 pounds in warranty repairs in the three years we had it. Clearly had not been tested properly prior to marketing.

 

[markjay]

We had one of the first W203s in the UK. It was a total disaster from day one. Numerous electrical faults - alarm, dash display, ignition switch, central locking, climate control and various others that I have forgotten. The dealer told us it was not an isolated case and was mainly down to components from different sources not talking to each other properly. It cost MB around 6000 pounds in warranty repairs in the three years we had it. Clearly had not been tested properly prior to marketing.

Aha... always buy the facelift

Facelifts are the 'Service Pack 1' of the automotive industry

 

[Codger49]

^^^ +1

 

[Red C220]

This is much of the reason after many years of buying used and being depreciation averse I now by new.

The first three years warranty and current consumer laws make the large amount of money the car loses tolerable.

 

[markjay]

Well my other car is a Kia... with SEVEN years warranty.....

 

[StuartK]

We had one of the first W203s in the UK. It was a total disaster from day one. Numerous electrical faults - alarm, dash display, ignition switch, central locking, climate control and various others that I have forgotten. The dealer told us it was not an isolated case and was mainly down to components from different sources not talking to each other properly. It cost MB around 6000 pounds in warranty repairs in the three years we had it. Clearly had not been tested properly prior to marketing.

And that tells you the profit margins.

In 2002 my brother bought a brand new Renault Clio for £8850 the equivalent model now is nearly double the price. Why? Just that now you can get finance for everything so it's not the £££ it's the monthly.

 

[190]

As computers have been mentioned, I can give some feed back on how they have changed over a similar time span we are considering here. I've managed a network of 500+ computers for over 14 years and my experience is that hardware has got more reliable even though it's also got more complex but operating system software has got less reliable because of an excessive increase in complexity.

In many cases just like cars it's unnecessary complexity designed to dumb down the product so that any idiot can operate it. Microsoft just like the car manufacturers decide what they think the customer wants and then set out to provide it. They don't ask the customers what they want first and being of the we know best persuasion would not be good listeners if they did. Actually Microsoft employees are not from the same planet as the rest of us but that's another story. Inevitably they often get it wrong and reliability suffers not to mention frustration levels.

Give me something simple or complex as long as it's reliable but provide any unnecessary complexity needed by idiots as a cost option.

 

[MSG2004]

I rarely listen to my brother-in-law but many years ago when he was going to buy a brand new Mondeo, he sadi he's wait until the model was a couple of years old then buy a new or nearly new - he bought new, p/r reg if mem serves me well, kept it for ten yrs, not a bit of trouble and got 1k back i think re governments 'buy back and scrap if you buy a new car' - he then bought a jag xj6, that is now about 9 and half yrs old and no trouble as he only uses weekends and hols - so with a brand new model launch, steer clear of cars for the first year and u should be ok.

i have a w203 aut avtg had it 8 yrs, no major probs.

 

[John Jones Jr]

Is this unique to the motor industry?

I'd argue it is, simply because of the new product cost.

 

[Delayed Steve]

Microsoft just like the car manufacturers decide what they think the customer wants and then set out to provide it. They don't ask the customers what they want first and being of the we know best persuasion would not be good listeners if they did

There's a danger in asking customers what they want,
Henry Ford once said "if I asked my customers what they wanted they would they would have said a faster horse."

 

[SLKGirl]

I've had an ongoing battle with MB (not the dealer) for the last 17 months, since I had the car from new, the SLK has a noisy fuel pump, it's like driving with Woody Woodpecker in the cockpit, it's sent 9 days at the dealer "investigating" this, pressure tests, tests from cold etc, Dealer says it should be changed, MB keep requesting more tests, the same tests they have already done, it's a known issue, but MB have said not to replace the pump without prior approval, the tests as I said have been done several times.
The dealer agrees it's too noisy and should be replaced, we've sent MB recordings, and yet they keep coming back asking to do the tests again, each time it means the dealer has to have my car for 2 days, to do the tests from Cold.
MB have since withdrawn the original pump and replaced it with a new one, new part number, yet it seems to me although they know this is an issue they are trying to draw it out.
I called MB yesterday, who naturally played dumb and have opened yet another case number, I have told them in no uncertain terms, replace the pump or I will involve trading standards and get rid of the car and go buy an Audi!
Am getting mightily fed up of their games

 

[grober]

The mistake many folks make is to think that car manufacturers make money selling people cars- no - now they make money by selling people finance.

Daimler Financial Services | Daimler > Annual Report 2015

quote:-

Nearly half of all delivered vehicles are financed or leased by Daimler Financial Services

During the year under review, Daimler Financial Services concluded 1.5 million new financing and leasing contracts worth a total of €57.9 billion. The total value of all new contracts rose by 21 % compared with the prior year. As a result, the sales and leasing activities at Daimler Financial Services supported approximately half of all new-vehicle sales by our automotive divisions in 2015. More than 3.7 million financed or leased vehicles were on the books at the end of 2015; this corresponds to an 18 % increase in contract volume to €116.7 billion. Adjusted for exchange-rate effects, the increase amounted to 14 %. EBIT rose to a new high of €1,619 million (2014: €1,387 million).

 

[TheFoX]

In many cases just like cars it's unnecessary complexity designed to dumb down the product so that any idiot can operate it. Microsoft just like the car manufacturers decide what they think the customer wants and then set out to provide it. They don't ask the customers what they want first and being of the we know best persuasion would not be good listeners if they did. Actually Microsoft employees are not from the same planet as the rest of us but that's another story. Inevitably they often get it wrong and reliability suffers not to mention frustration levels.

Give me something simple or complex as long as it's reliable but provide any unnecessary complexity needed by idiots as a cost option.

Relating to computers, I used to run some lovely fractal programs which used to take 24 hours to process on an old 8086. As the processors got more powerful, those fractals would take hours, not days, then minutes, and now they are instant.

What I cannot understand is how Microsoft can manage to write an operating system that can take the most powerful processor and turn make it run at the same speed as a Windows 3.1 machine. Talk about resource hogging.

I also remember when Microsoft and IBM were working on a full 32 bit operating system called OS/2, then Microsoft pulled their development team to create NT. In my opinion, OS/2 was far more robust, yet NT which carried the Microsoft name was more popular, and three times more expensive.

I now use Linux. It serves all my needs, has no slow down due to memory leaks (does Windows still suffer from that?), and has a simple interface that isn't trying to be clever.

Your analogy about technology and how it is implemented is so true, though. The technology is fine, when used correctly, but someone somewhere is using the technology incorrectly.

It's like driver aids. Yes, anti lock brakes and traction control are beneficial when in an emergency situation, but what about lane assist, blind spot assist and collision detection? Should those charged with driving a vehicle on the road be alert at all times? After all, we are driving something that can kill if misused.

I question anything that diminishes the responsibility of the driver. What would happen in a court of law if a driver, after a collision, tried to blame the manufacturer for their crash?

I know this is going off at a tangent, but it seems that manufacturers are trying to give us more and more, often unnecessary in my eyes. It is like they are trying to cram as much as possible in the cars to try and sell them, and the more they cram in, the more there is to go wrong.

In my old Mondeo, there was a seat squib designed to let the system know if there was a passenger, so as to alert them to use their seat belt. All well and dandy until the seat belt clasp stops reporting the engagement of the seat belt, and you are continually warned that the passenger isn't belted up when they actually are.

What is wrong with making a human decision to belt up, without technology trying to control our lives. If I wish to drive without my belt, it should be a Police officer enforcing the wearing of a belt, and not an annoying bong.

As I have said, some systems benefit us, such as the Tyre Pressure Monitoring System, which can alert us should there be a rapid pressure loss in a tyre, but do we need, or should we have, collision detection systems or driver alertness systems? As drivers, we should be taking responsibility for our actions, and not relying on technology to decide whether we should pull over or not.

So, the manufacturers are obviously trying to cram in as much technology as possible, and not studying the implications of that technology. It appears to be a knee jerk reaction to competition. All a car really needs is a reliable engine and drive train, along with proper suspension, an adequate entertainment system, and comfortable seats. This is where the money should be spent, giving us a more sumptuous ride the more we spend.

Out of curiosity, I'd like to know how many features each of our cars have, and what percentage of those features we actually use. That would be an interesting statistic. For example, I have cruise control which I rarely use. I have a DAB radio which I never use. I have that Lingatronic which I never use. I am sure that there are other systems that never get used, if only I knew what they were.

So, with so much new technology, it is no wonder that things are failing as often as they do. Manufacturers need to stick to the tried and tested, and provide us with a solid product that does exactly what is said on the tin.

 

[zipdip]

I agree many car manufacturers are making a fortune from finance,I recall a few years ago now Porsche had a small team of FX guys who basically made most of the profit that Porsche made over a number of years