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Date:         Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:06:27 -0400
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: vanagon difficulty
Comments: To: David Kao <dtkao0205@YAHOO.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <333929.71368.qm@web82701.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Hi David -- At 04:21 AM 9/7/2009, David Kao wrote: >Comparing to a 2001 Passat that I currently own in my opinion the Passat >is a far more difficult vehicle to own despite that it is only 8 years >old. The first time when the check engine light came on I could never >solve it myself. Eventually it was fixed by a dealer under warranty >by reprogramming the ECU. That's something I will never be able to do >myself. That was almost 5 years ago. It just got a smog check yesterday >and it passed thanks god.

I think this sort of thing is a huge problem. Reprogramming the ECU itself is trivial if you have access to the gear, which undoubtedly could cost considerably to enormously less than whatever the dealer uses, depending how fancy/volume-oriented they get. Any modern computer will reflash it's own BIOS if you simply download the file from the maker's website and say "please do." Computer makers have found that this is a useful and simple answer as various obscure issues are uncovered with the hardware, since otherwise if you ran into one you'd simply toss the thing , swear and buy a different brand. You'd Really Rather Not have a power failure in the middle of the procedure, of course, since it's working on its own guts and won't run again if you do.

Something PC-based (overkill, but you have one!) would amount to a chunk of software and a cable, and how fancy it was would depend entirely on the software + car maker proprietary data. All you'd need would be to watch the tech bulletins and for the maker to release the code on a website. Depending on how vehicle-specific a problem was you might even just routinely keep the thing up to date and never worry. [A subsidiary issue is the truly astounding number of things running on code in truly modern cars -- well over 100 in some I believe. No idea how many are reflashable. And just wait. 48-volt or higher system voltage and One Big Wire (power and data both) in the car (impractical at lower voltages) are yelling and screaming at the door. But we won't worry about that just yet.]

But the car maker has powerful incentives to keep this Pandora in the box, and little-to-no motive to change except at gunpoint. Keeping the dealers happy is one, and that fight has been going on as long as there have been cars, I bet. The (US) government has them at gunpoint to not totally screw the independent shops, but owners don't have a big lobby in Congress. Also as things stand now, as soon as the code got out in the open the question of who is licensing what to who, who pays for upgrades etc is a potential nightmare. Don't be surprised if there's an End User License Agreement next time you buy a car.

But whether they've realized it yet or not, the big deal is liability. If this stuff isn't considered Critical Life Support code (and hardware) yet, it will be soon as things become even more integrated. The day is (potentially) quite near when an ECU bug *could* cause very interesting effects all over the car and a faulty taillight module could cause abrupt catastrophic system failure (probably not kill the vehicle, but kill its operation right then and there). The throttle on my brother's 36-foot Freightliner chassis is "fly by wire" so at the very least it depends on system voltage even though the diesel will keep going fine. These things can be planned against and will be, but not necessarily before they happen; and the economic incentive to both keep the equipment simple and not muddy the waters legally is strong. To get the new software you might have to sign in blood to accept total liability for random operation or abrupt simultaneous failure of lights, wipers, steering and brake assist, handling control, traction control, engine control, transmission control except for Park and mechanical overspeed and sudden-reverse protection; and ABS. And oh yes, your airbags might deploy before your stout vessel actually crashes. Would you sign? Some yes, some no, and some of the nos or certainly their relatives would try to weasel afterwards. That Continental-Tire liability case that was described on here some months ago was to my mind definitely a bad verdict in terms of who was really responsible for the accident.

Anyway, the Makers really don't want your hands on their code.

>me $3k to replace both catalytic converters.

Social and regulatory cost...plus ADP.

>kept my Vanagon for 25 years. The only answer to this is there is no >such a thing as Vanagon difficulty for the 25 years passed. My total >cost of owning it for 25 years excluding oil and gas is less than $1k >per year. So to me there is really no such a thing as Vanagon difficulty.

My sister paid UKP3000 to a Scottish dealer in 1991 to have transmission and clutch replaced (~85k) on D-P just before I got her. 091-1 3-4 slider failure. The clutch was from driving the thing 40 miles through hilly Scottish town centres -- in 4th. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

My local dealer replaced (good folks, incidentally) replaced R&P maybe 30K later, another user-aggravated failure.

>I remember been warned by someone that the wasser boxer engine is >so unreliable that a trip to Yosemite will break it.

That's just silly. Not that you couldn't get one into that condition maybe, but <shrug>. These are modern vehicles in my terms, sold in reasonable numbers all over the world. In the '80s the most repair-intensive vehicle in the country was the Omni/Horizon, though the total repair cost was less than you'd think. The only reliable thing on it was the paint. Literally, they had great paint. But -- I won't go into the litany completely. Have you ever heard of an engine that would wear the suspension ears off the carburetor float in under 100k miles? Or routinely *break* alternator mounts (early ones anyway, they had less trouble after they changed from a Rabbit to a Renault block). '78 Horizon is your man. Comfortable, kinda cute, and great paint. Huge interior-plastic shrinkage problem (how many split steering wheels have you seen, on a 6-7 year old car?). Negative damping on the steering, so you definitely didn't want to give the steering a pull and let go (this is why CU rated the early ones Unacceptable, and they fixed it eventually) and kinda twitchy feeling even over longitudinal highway strips. But go to Yosemite in it? Why not?

> Well, In the past >several years I have driven my Vanagon to Yosemite something like 5 times >a year. I am totally confident that the engine is in fact incredibly >rugged and reliable.

Given particularly that it's a fairly small motor pushing a big heavy-duty vehicle around I think it does pretty well overall, and tends to "fail soft" rather than just drop you in the cacky. The cooling system is intolerant because it's aluminum, Subaru's the same way. I think that having most of the system external to the engine is a definite reliability, even though (and maybe partly because) the VW hoses are of incredibly high quality. Definitely compounded by German vs American expectations about a) actually knowing the maintenance schedule and b) keeping it rigidly. And what we're all dealing with now is vehicles that have been owned under American conditions. I bet there isn't one in the country that has had every scheduled maintenance performed fully, correctly, and on time. I wouldn't be at all shocked if there isn't one that has absolutely had its brake fluid changed every two years.

Yours, Other David


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