Royal Ford of the Boston Globe bashes VW/Audi on ignition coils

[DocWyte]

While it's ok to replace 1 coil at a time since supply
is low, once supply has caught up, VW/Audi should
recall all affected cars and replace ALL the defective
coils.

I know I'd be mighty upset about the car all of a
sudden going into limp mode in the middle of the
expressway during rush hour traffic.  Only to get the
car back and have it happen again in a month or two.

I'd be even more upset if it happened to my
girlfriends '01.5 Passat one morning at 3am when she's
on her way to Logan.  That's NOT a good time for a
woman to be stranded on the side of the road.

My time is worth alot of money and even tho a loaner
is nice (esp since the dealer never seems to be able
to offer these normally.  Meanwhile the BMW dealer
*always* has them for me, even tho my M3 is 8 years
old and I didn't buy it from them)  I still lose my
time.

I mean, how long has it taken VW/Audi to come out with
the fix for the power window regulators?  Meanwhile
almost every other company has been making reliable
power windows for 20+ years.

Pathetic.

-josh



>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 11:44:24 -0500
> To: William Ng <willng at netzero.net>,
> quattro at audifans.com
> From: Brett Dikeman <brett at cloud9.net>
> Subject: Re: Royal Ford of the Boston Globe bashes
> VW/Audi on ignition
>  coils
>
> At 12:48 AM -0500 1/27/03, William Ng wrote:
>
> >Hmmmm, just finished reading Mr. Ford's article.
> After evaluating it's
> >points as a 'buyer/owner' of these suspect models,
> I'd say his remarks are
> >spot on!
> >
> >4 coils known to be from a defective batch, yet
> only replace the one that
> >failed and send your customers back out on the
> streets. Sorry, but that
> >smells of something GM bean counters would do.
>
> Which part of "limited supply" did you not
> understand?
>
> Let's say a dealership has 40 cars sitting in their
> lot, each with
> only ONE failed coilpack(since as soon as one fails,
> that's when it
> gets towed in/driven in.)
>
> Let's say they have 40 coilpacks on hand.
>
> So let me guess- your system, which is 'the best',
> is to replace all
> the packs in 10 cars, leaving the other THIRTY to
> sit and rust in the
> dealership parking lot for a week or two(or however
> long it takes for
> them to come in)...instead of getting all forty back
> on the road so
> the customers can use them? Meanwhile, you have to
> give loaner cars
> to thirty people for a week.
>
> This is not a question of 'sending a nice letter to
> people about a
> recall' as Cobram suggested; the cars are failing
> and coming in, and
> the last thing they need is a recall.  Regardless of
> whether they say
> "wait for a call from your dealer" or somesuch,
> they'll be swamped by
> idiots with perfectly working cars demanding
> replacement coils while
> they've got stacks of dead cars out on the lot, and
> that's the honest
> ones.  There are probably scores of idiots who make
> up problems just
> so they can get the replacement coils.
>
> In this case, Audi's preferred method is to get as
> many cars as
> quickly on the road as possible and fix on a NEED
> basis until supply
> has caught up.  It makes sense for the customer(who
> on average is
> more likely to get their car back), among other
> things.
>
> Sorry, I'm with Audi on this one.  If I had a 1.8t,
> I would be
> annoyed at the problem, but happy with the temporary
> fix over not
> having the car until god knows when.
>
> Brett
> --
> ----
> "They that give up essential liberty to obtain
> temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben
> Franklin
> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/
> http://www.apple.com/switch/
>
>
> --__--__--
>
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> quattro at audifans.com
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>
>
> End of quattro Digest


=====
Josh Wyte
Momentum Motorsports
508-833-3024 After 5 pm EST

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