54 replies to this topic

[mr5000]

my old man has a vz crewman with the 6litre in it and i gotta say its the best ute ive ever driven rides good handles reasonable and tows like a freight train if your unfortunate to have to sit in the backseat but then you wont like it hahah but im always up front so that doesnt bother me were on our second ford work ute and those things are pieces of crap once they pass 30 000k run rough exhuast falls to bit pops wheel bearing autos heap of shit would not touch one with a barge pole

[orangeLJ]

A heap of those issues with the two wagons is quality control at the dealership level too.

Yes it shouldn't have gotten to them in that state BUT! the dealership is meant to have a QC process and a pre delivery station would always pick up on those issues.

I work for a Dealership group with a couple brands, biggest being Honda.

Lets just say that there are a fair share of horror stories about the Honda product too and thats just from our dealerships. Honda is still held as one of the best engineered japanese manufacturers.. so whats that say about everyone else?

[Evan]

Cheers for the interesting comments and stories.

As this thread shows and as other have said, it doesn't matter which manufacturer you buy from, you can have problems. I was just unlucky. Hell my neighbors mother in law has the new supercharged Volkswagen and its on its second motor.

My D22 Navara gets a harder life than the VE and all i ever do is service it. Saying that i have heard plenty of horror stories about them.

I'm sure there were plenty of people bagging torana's when they came out saying that their diffs are crap and the Aussie gearboxes are a piece of snot. As restores, we just replace them or make them stronger and still say the Torana was a great car.

Hybrid, the car is a 09 model. It doesn't have cylinder management.

Skap, the warranty is about 3 months out. The valve seats had walked and i was told Holden would use that as an excuse to get out of the warranty work.

Tyre biter, The only reason i mention the singe row timing chain as when i took it to the shop all of the guys there mentioned that the car hadn't been flogged as it was still nice and quiet. They said they can tell straight away if its had a hard life as the stretched chain and other things make them noisy.

I can see why people buy new cars and trade them in before the warranty period is over.

She is going to keep the car, Its a nice car to drive and she still likes it. Upon recommendation by the the mechanic that did the work, I will be ruining it on 20/50 oil and service it every 5000 km's. (Holden recommend cooking oil 5/30 and service every 15000)
He does this from new with them and says it avoids these kind of issues. In essence these motors are still under head cam dinosaurs and need the zinc and minerals that are not in synthetic oils.

Time will tell.




Evan.

Edited by Evan, 29 May 2012 - 09:41 AM.

[MRLXSS]

Well.... Might as well stick a decent happy stick in it now and get some more power out of it!!!

Got to look at the positives! HAHA!

[xu2308]

Wait to the Elec Cars get here full on, we will all be talking Elec Problems lol

[bullitA9X]

The company I work for just terminated the leases early on three Mitsubishi Tritons that had engine issues that Mitsubishi could or would not fix. The cars spent more time at the dealership than they did on the road. The engines would just shutdown without warning which can be quite exciting when you are overtaking a road train or entering an intersection. No more Mitsubishi's for our fleet.

I think all manufacturers are capable of making a dud. We need lemon laws like they have in the USA so if they make a dud they have to fix it or give you your money back.


.

im not talking about anything else m8 besides the 3.5 motors i have no doubt the newer the cars the more problems i can only comment on 1997-2004 3.5 motors....and look at it this way if car companys made their products not to break down lots of jobs would go as the need for spare parts would go....

[orangeLJ]

its called programmed obsolescence.

All companies knowingly (but not publically) partake in it.

Historically companies (be they whitegoods, vehicle etc manufacturers) would build their parts and machines to the best possible standard, built to last.

Say a car company can build a component out of one material or of one design that ensures it will last for 500,000kms and 20 years.

Essentially they are depriving themselves of spare parts sales, new car sales and ultimately revenue over that period of time, not to mention the added cost of the tougher material or the strengthened design (more material)

So they then set a minimum requirement for longevity and engineer the parts to that standard. So instead of building a component to last as long as possible, it only has to last for a percentage of the "life of the product" (a whole ball game of its own)

So we have cheaper purchase price (due to the reduced manufacturing costs and less engineering to make parts stronger) and we trade off the fact that after a reduced period of time we will have to replace repair or trade up to a newer model.

Look at washing machines as the best example.

Mum still had her 30+ year old washing machine up until 3 years ago. Each successive part that did start to show signs of wear or fatigue, was replaced with "new" parts that then lasted a small fraction of that endured by the original components. New washing machines are basically a 3-5 year life item.

Hell, even the "lifetime warranty" on many of our beloved tools only cover "the life of the tool" and is set at 10 years (or lower) for some tool makers.

[shanegtr]

Totally agree^.

I currently work in the reliablilty side of mining and I can tell you even the most expensive machines can and will breakdown. And the time they break down is totally random, machines can be built to last for X amount of time but theres nothing stopping them from failing earlier than designed or much, much later in life. Cars are just a machine and they can fail randomly as well

[Lima31]

You can drive a VS commy through water up to the windscreen with no ill effects.

Cheers.

I'll remember that next time I find myself looking for a cheap boat lol

[Evan]

Its crazy times we live in where things are engineered to fail. It just seems so wasteful.

As OrangeLJ mentions about the washing machines, they were goldies and lasted 30 years. In recent years my parents upgraded their fridge and washer that they have had since they were married over 30 years ago. My uncle still has my grandparents fridge, the old skool ones that lock when you close them. As you say though, back when they got it , it was probably a big expensive purchase made to last.

MRLXSS, They gave me the option of a larger cam but its a daily driver and she doesn't need the added fuel costs. Its got plenty of sting for her and the thing already idols a bit rough , so i decided to leave the big cam massage to the Torry drives.

Oz772, good to hear you are not having troubles with your VW.

Edited by Evan, 30 May 2012 - 09:07 AM.

[Dr Terry]

It's easy to say one bad car dosn't make them all bad if you are not the one 4k out of pocket. To me this is not acceptable considering the value of the car, even out of warranty. This is something that really should not happen at all even with a couple of hundred thousand more km's on the clock. I would contact Holden or the dealer and ask they compensate you as it is an extraordinary circumstance.

I don't think it is acceptable either. I would contact GM-H direct, if the dealer won't help.

You say this car has a perfect service history, has only travelled 80,000 km & is just out of warranty (3 years, I assume). I believe you have a very good case for compensation.

Dr Terry

[shanegtr]

imining companies pay labs big $$$$ to find out what parts are about to fail.....it's all there in the oil

I know, but its not limited to oil either. Our cleanliness standards we use on all our mines for diesel now is unbelivable, and it needs to be for the common rail engines in the haul trucks - you wont get diesel this clean outta the servo down the road. But it takes some $$$ to set it all up to do it. We spend alot a month just in oil analyis between all our sites - I wont give the $$$ amount, but I'll say its got 6 figures

[YELLAcakeu308]

You can drive a VS commy through water up to the windscreen with no ill effects. Cheers.

lol ive seen this done at the East aligator river, locals just open the doors let the water out & kept goin to make it to happyhour,