Jeremy Clarkson does it again!!!

[79PonchoUK]

I'll add, I never liked most chrysler products. Excluding the Cherokee maybe.
For me, GM have always averaged as the best of the big 3. Particularly in the past 15 years. I simply don't get the quality concerns of cars like the 4th gen F-bodies etc. There was nothing wrong with the interior whatsoever, the mechanicals were durable (except optispark lol). It compared with anything you could buy of a similar price, and compared well.


And if you're mentioning the Caddy 4-6-8 crap motors, throttle body injection etc. I'll mention BMWs Vanos, the BMW nikosil liners etc. With innovations comes risk, sometimes it backfires. The caddy engine was a truly innovative idea that they got wrong. They didn't do that on the 'if we build it, people will buy it' philosophy. If they were running that ideal then they wouldn't have bothered trying that technology out. The idea is now in use, 20 years later, albeit with different methods.

Look at the histories of the companies...for the past 40 years they've tried every different type of car they could, every technology - HARDLY an example of companies in complacency.
If they ran by the ideal that 'if we build it, they'll buy it' then they wouldn't have tried anything new. Ever. Unless we actually speak to the top brass of the decades in question, we can just as easily write those quotes off as hearsay.



Damn, I said I'd stopped the argument. sorry. lol

[wmhjr]

And if you're mentioning the Caddy 4-6-8 crap motors, throttle body injection etc. I'll mention BMWs Vanos, the BMW nikosil liners etc.

I'll stop too after this one. Comparing the Caddy 4-6-8 to VANOS shows your massively different perspective. VANOS and VANOS 2 are IMHO huge successes. I've owned a number of them, though that makes no difference. The differences between VANOS and the Caddy system are night and day. VANOS works. VANOS boosts torque and overall power. It's a leading technology that was effectively implemented. Nikosil liners were frankly used by many manufacturers on ALL continents.

Bad, bad attempt at a comparison. Matter of fact, I think you just made my point. Suffice it to say that I'm not trying to discredit you. I'm simply pointing out that I don't trust your obvious bias, and that you're making statements as to the "why" things happened in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s HERE in terms of the Big 3 manufacturing when you clearly are without any experience in those areas. Sure, you may have driven some of the product. While we can agree that the quality of 2 of the Big 3 has increased sharply, some of your claims go well beyond the ludicrous (such as stating that US Domestic material quality is superior for example that MB or BMW.

I recently stayed in a Holiday Inn Express

[79PonchoUK]

I'll stop too after this one. Comparing the Caddy 4-6-8 to VANOS shows your massively different perspective. VANOS and VANOS 2 are IMHO huge successes. I've owned a number of them, though that makes no difference. The differences between VANOS and the Caddy system are night and day. VANOS works. VANOS boosts torque and overall power. It's a leading technology that was effectively implemented. Nikosil liners were frankly used by many manufacturers on ALL continents.

Bad, bad attempt at a comparison. Matter of fact, I think you just made my point. Suffice it to say that I'm not trying to discredit you. I'm simply pointing out that I don't trust your obvious bias, and that you're making statements as to the "why" things happened in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s HERE in terms of the Big 3 manufacturing when you clearly are without any experience in those areas. Sure, you may have driven some of the product. While we can agree that the quality of 2 of the Big 3 has increased sharply, some of your claims go well beyond the ludicrous (such as stating that US Domestic material quality is superior for example that MB or BMW.

I recently stayed in a Holiday Inn Express

I'm sorry, I wanted to stop, but I can't let that lie.....you're showing what you say I'm showing. It's not night and day, they're fundamentally very similar problems indeed.

VANOS was a huge PITA for BMW. Much of it was well swept under the rug but the problems with that system have cost them a lot of money and certainly didn't make it an easy system to make 'huge' success of, you can see that by the number of times it was dropped from the specsheet. If you can find a single VANOS bmw over 10 years old that hasn't had, or shows signs of a VANOS fault, I'll fly to the US and hand you a cheque for $10. It was there to make the engine more economical for it's size - like the caddy 4-6-8, which like the VANOS worked fine when in tip-top condition, but inevitably ended up with problems which, like the vanos, led to running problems (or in the VANOS case, nasty rattles too).

How is it not comparable? Because there was 10 years between the two efforts?

I'll admit, the nikasil liner is partly down to us having **** fuel....it's no excuse though. There were a few engines using nikasil lining at that time and it was BMW/JAG engines that showed the huge number of failures. On top of that, BMW released an engine with nikasil liners even after they had been made aware of the problems with exisiting engines....

....of course, with BMW, such a thing was honest and a mistake. How could they have known, it wasn't their fault.
With GM it's 'they sold it because they didn't care'.

Please.

If anything, you are making my point.

Re: Your comment about my thoughts ont he materials....
The materials you touch on a BMW are often very good. Some other materials aren't as nice as those you'll find on a GM product though. Strip down a modern BMW engine, get underneath a modern BMW and tell me the fixings are made using better materials. Do it, then come back to me. Tell me how most of the rubber products on any Volkswagen or Audi over 5 years old don't need replacing.

Maybe we're both equally as crazy and blind to reality....but maybe you do subscribe to the 'tap test'




PS, I drive a £22,000 BMW everyday that has an interior that makes a Mustang feel like a Bentley inside. It's cheap, it's plastic, it's rattly and the car itself has about 5 EXTREMELY common, costly faults, one of which is certainly dangerous. You'll ignore that though, no doubt. It somehow doesn't count because it's BMW.

[wmhjr]

If you can find a single VANOS bmw over 10 years old that hasn't had, or shows signs of a VANOS fault, I'll fly to the US and hand you a cheque for $10.

And right there is an example of how you let yourself get in trouble.

Buy the plane ticket and let me know when you'll be here. I can give you more examples than you can POSSIBLY shake a stick at. That is perhaps the most unsubstantiated and emotionally based statement I've seen.

I'm waiting for your dates so you can hand me the check. Sorry, but you really screwed the pooch on that one. Tell you what? When you get here I'll let you follow me in your rental car to a handful of examples of 10 yr old BMWs with VANOS that have never, ever, ever, ever had a single fault. As expected, your statement is not based on fact. Yeah, all those S52 and S54 engines were junk. They were EXACTLY like the Caddy 4-6-8. Rigggghhhhhtttttt....... Those M-Coupes that race here with S52 and S54 motors which were last built 10 years ago? Pure junk. Yup. BTW, the "number of times it was dropped from the spec sheet? Are you on crack? Seriously? What mind altering substances are involved here? VANOS has been (and is) a staple of BMW from 1992 to present. We're going on 20 years of VANOD or DOUBLE VANOS. And sorry, it (like so many other things) was really a performance enhancer at heart which waterfalled down. Here's a question - in what car did DOUBLE VANOS first appear? Was it an econobox? Hint. I owned one.

Like I said, make your flight reservations.

[79PonchoUK]

And right there is an example of how you let yourself get in trouble.

Buy the plane ticket and let me know when you'll be here. I can give you more examples than you can POSSIBLY shake a stick at. That is perhaps the most unsubstantiated and emotionally based statement I've seen.

I'm waiting for your dates so you can hand me the check. Sorry, but you really screwed the pooch on that one. Tell you what? When you get here I'll let you follow me in your rental car to a handful of examples of 10 yr old BMWs with VANOS that have never, ever, ever, ever had a single fault. As expected, your statement is not based on fact. Yeah, all those S52 and S54 engines were junk. They were EXACTLY like the Caddy 4-6-8. Rigggghhhhhtttttt....... Those M-Coupes that race here with S52 and S54 motors which were last built 10 years ago? Pure junk. Yup. BTW, the "number of times it was dropped from the spec sheet? Are you on crack? Seriously? What mind altering substances are involved here? VANOS has been (and is) a staple of BMW from 1992 to present. We're going on 20 years of VANOD or DOUBLE VANOS. And sorry, it (like so many other things) was really a performance enhancer at heart which waterfalled down. Here's a question - in what car did DOUBLE VANOS first appear? Was it an econobox? Hint. I owned one.

Like I said, make your flight reservations.

Are you on crack? You're paranoid as **** about what I say. I didn't say any of the engines were junk, did I? Some BMW engines are outstanding. Now you're lowering yourself to changing what people say. Does that sounds familiar?
I spent half of last week drewling over their legendary straight 6 sat in the back of 3-4 BMW M1s. Awesome.
I happen to love my mates e28 M5. Great car. I'm not a 'fanboy', good stuff deserves merit.



You're right, VANOS is perfect. It never failed. It never had any teething trouble and BMW never had thousands upon thousands of warranty claims over it. If you google VANOS, it doesn't fill the screen with VANOS faults and remedies....it just says how good VANOS really is. There's even a link to a website about how VANOS beat chuck norris. It really was that robust. (NOTE: to avoid litigation, there was in fact no website mentioning chuck norris, I used that for comedic/sensationalist reasons)

Every BMW enthusiast knows early VANOS wasn't reliable. Except you.

...and this needs spelling out for you it seems.....If BMW were looking for a performance increase, they'd just use a bigger engine, cheaper and more reliable with negligable weight gain. No, like most manufacturers they wanted to use a smaller engine to make it seem more efficient....that's what all performance enhancing devices on smaller engines are...they're not performance enhancing, they're effectively efficiency enhancing by replacing the performance giving displacement.


I'll hold back on my sensationalist statements for my own sanity from now on. You seem like the kind of person who'd take me to court for not actually flying over.


I'll happily concede one here.....I was on crack about it being dropped...I must have been living off the change to single VANOS for some of the M models over here. For that error, I apologise. The rest of my points still stand strong though.

VANOS, as a new technology designed with efficiency in mind, had problems when launched. Big problems. Problems that led to rough running and rattling engines on a substantial number of vehicles.

Cadillac 4-6-8, as a new technology designed with efficiency in mind, had problems when launched. Big problems. Problems that led to rough running on a substantial number of vehicles.


How untrue, and how different are those statements?

The fact that BMW stuck with theirs to eventually make it a success has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they both came unstuck trying to use new technology and that you only pick up on the GM fault, not the BMW one.

[wmhjr]

Now you're lowering yourself to changing what people say.

No I'm not. You said

If you can find a single VANOS bmw over 10 years old that hasn't had, or shows signs of a VANOS fault, I'll fly to the US and hand you a cheque for $10.

Your exact words. Now man up, buy the plane ticket, and hand me the check. I never said VANOS was perfect. I can't remember the last man made object that was perfect. But you made the above statement which is complete BS and now you need to back it up. Sorry. It's the down side of making BS statements.

Every BMW enthusiast knows early VANOS wasn't reliable. Except you.

And in the words of the Gipper, there you go again.