Marwood
Junior Member
- Messages
- 87
I'm up for this Kenny and would also suggest sending to a few key publications. Government won't pay any attention to this unless there is media attention.
Why is a state agency seemingly willing to ignore a potentially life-threatening issue and content to let the manufacturer lead on the matter? Said manufacturer is either in full denial mode, because its incompetent, or playing a statistical long game whereby it does the bare minimum now in relation to the complaints (but just enough to create a legal or PR evidence trail should one be needed later on,eg. "we did the responsible thing and alerted owners, etc"), and will rely on us getting bored and going away, or having to settle a few cases out of court under terms of anonymity.
Normally this would be of limited interest. After all, who cares about a few "spoiled petrol-heads whinging that their expensive toys are broken" ? However, VW woke mainstream media up to the manipulations of the car industry. Its a new trough of scandal for them to feed from with, in this instance, the added bonus of free schadenfreude: "look at the rich petrol heads whinging about their expensive toys being broken...!"
I had a candid conversation with a car journo pal recently who was shocked about the possibilities of wishbones failing at speed but he couldn't, he said, put his head above the parapet for fear of being blacklisted by the industry...He would however follow-up should the story break somewhere else. Again, as per VW. He trotted out other examples of where manufacturers failed to acknowledge issues and the obvious trend seems to be that mass market producers have to deal with things properly whereas niche players rely on owner's loyalty to brand, egos (ie. I can't admit publicly that I bought a duffer) and tiny numbers (one crash = unfortunate but unlikely to be news, two - more so. It only becomes a trend - and more newsworthy - with three or more smoking wrecks...).
It is pretty **** galling to think we have to brand our own cars 'killers' in oder to get traction but I fear that's what has to happen. The game is cynical and rigged. Resale values vs a life - no contest.
M
Why is a state agency seemingly willing to ignore a potentially life-threatening issue and content to let the manufacturer lead on the matter? Said manufacturer is either in full denial mode, because its incompetent, or playing a statistical long game whereby it does the bare minimum now in relation to the complaints (but just enough to create a legal or PR evidence trail should one be needed later on,eg. "we did the responsible thing and alerted owners, etc"), and will rely on us getting bored and going away, or having to settle a few cases out of court under terms of anonymity.
Normally this would be of limited interest. After all, who cares about a few "spoiled petrol-heads whinging that their expensive toys are broken" ? However, VW woke mainstream media up to the manipulations of the car industry. Its a new trough of scandal for them to feed from with, in this instance, the added bonus of free schadenfreude: "look at the rich petrol heads whinging about their expensive toys being broken...!"
I had a candid conversation with a car journo pal recently who was shocked about the possibilities of wishbones failing at speed but he couldn't, he said, put his head above the parapet for fear of being blacklisted by the industry...He would however follow-up should the story break somewhere else. Again, as per VW. He trotted out other examples of where manufacturers failed to acknowledge issues and the obvious trend seems to be that mass market producers have to deal with things properly whereas niche players rely on owner's loyalty to brand, egos (ie. I can't admit publicly that I bought a duffer) and tiny numbers (one crash = unfortunate but unlikely to be news, two - more so. It only becomes a trend - and more newsworthy - with three or more smoking wrecks...).
It is pretty **** galling to think we have to brand our own cars 'killers' in oder to get traction but I fear that's what has to happen. The game is cynical and rigged. Resale values vs a life - no contest.
M