RE: NHTSA CAMPAIGN ID Number: 98V332000 (Audi V6 fuel injector recall)

[quk@isham-research.demon.co.uk (Phil Payne)]

In message <000101be8790$d1907be0$3b0343d8@seamus> "Sean & Tammy Ford" writes:

> It's my understanding that the dealers are using a VIN range per model line
> to determine the possibility of bad injectors. The unrealistic thing that I
> have seen here is that the VIN range begins, using the 100's for example, at
> a PN00..1 to a final SN.... VIN. I highly doubt that that the part was
> changed at so convenient a VIN. It is possible, in my opinion, that they
> statistically determined a date range of bad parts, mapped the date range to
> a set of VIN's, and added a fudge factor to determine 99% to 100%+
> probability of capturing all the parts, but what if they're wrong?

Don't assume that VIN ranges are continuous or contiguous - or that all
VINs for a given year are actually used.

What they seem to do is guesstimate how many of a particular car they
are going to make, and allocate a VIN range with plenty of room in it.

Then they manufacture into this range - but when they turn out a number
of vehicles with some special feature (a Swiss dashboard, perhaps) they
use a range of VIN numbers from the reservation they made.  You get
small batches of cars with seriously out-of-order features, such as
the range of _apparently_ old MB engines fitted to the ur-quattro in
1988/9.

--
 Phil Payne
 Phone: 0385 302803   Fax: 01536 723021
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