This fact should be thought of when considering the scale of "Hitler's revenge on the afterworld".
VW/Audi hasn't only cheated on diesel cars. Moreover, even if Japanese car makers should have done exactly the same, the irrefutable fact remains that they should have caused less harm in every aspect due to better production quality. If, on the other hand they haven't cheated, then the gap is even bigger.
Will the muslimification of Germany improve German "quality"? Klevius thinks not.
EU was shaped as a protection zone against Japanese high quality products.The Germans have never (on this side of WW2) been even close to Japanese top quality. Even Porsche admitted it already back in the 1990s. And among German car makers VW is probably the worst, and in the VW family Audi is probably worst of them all because Audi is nothing else than tuned VW's, i.e. magnifying an already existing problem.
"Tuned" price tags and brand names made in Germany has been the surrogate for lack of quality (although, to be fair, German brands have at least outperformed French brands).
Klevius remembers when German "quality brands" like Blaupunkt etc. in the 1980's bought old Japanese video's, TVs etc. and labeled them with German brands, and stupid consumer bought them for a higher price than the same labeled Panasonic or JVC.An other revealing experience was when Klevius in the early 1990s needed a roller bearing for a Japanese car and was offered a European (Swedish) SKF bearing. When Klevius asked if they had the original Japanese they said yes but insisted that SKF was "at least equally good". Klevius said that wasn't his expterience and asked to see the Japanese bearing. When compared it turned out that
1 the Japanese brand was perfectly and hermetically packed while the European was loosely wrapped in some oil paper and placed in a cheap looking loose box. Klevius bought the Japanese one, opened it and compared it to the European. It turned out that while the European had scratch marks in all directions the Japanese marks were one directional and extremely even.
2 When turning the bearings around near one's ear the Japanese was silent and smooth while the European was noisy and shaky. Klevius asked the seller which one he thought would last longer. He agreed with a surprised face.
When Kobe in Japan was hit by an enormous earthquake in the late 1990s all European "super cars" had to stop production because the most crucial high quality items were made in Japan (read more further down).
European hybrid passenger cars came ten years after they were introduced in Japan. And only with the help of Japanese technology branded German.
Japanese superiority and VW/Audi inferiority has since long been known through a multitude of surveys etc.
Against this background one might ask why world leading Honda isn't even on the list of the most sold cars in Europe?!Honda (which together with Toyota/Lexus is the best car brand in the world) doesn't even show up on the list of the most sold Europan cars (2015 jan-jun):
1. Volkswagen: 867 147 sålda bilar, marknadsandel 12.1 %.
2. Ford: 528 902, 7.4 %
3. Renault: 508,850, 7.1 %
4. Opel/Vauxhall: 491,340, 6.9 %
5. Peugeot: 440 596, 6.1 %
6. Audi: 387 228, 5.4 %
7. Bmw: 356 444, 5.0 %
8. Mercedes: 354,471, 4.9 %
9. Fiat: 351,437, 4.9 %
10. Skoda: 304 635, 4.2 %
11. Nissan: 294 140, 4.1 %
12. Citroën: 287 344, 4.0 %
13. Toyota: 279 400, 3.9 %
14. Hyundai: 230 681, 3.2 %
15. Dacia: 205 115, 2.9 %
16. Kia: 195 158, 2.7 %
17. Seat: 180 272, 2.5 %
18. Volvo: 126 367, 1.8 %
Some quality notes
2014 Lexus luxury cars far outscored every other brand (especially European ones) in dependability, with just 68 PP100, compared with e.g. Mercedes' 104 PP100.Part of the reason for the misconception about German engineering is that German automakers did, at one time (i.e. before the Japanese showed up on the block, earn it. When Consumer Reports started its Long-Term Reliability Tests and Initial Quality Index tests way back in 1972, German brands like Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz came out on top. The initial quality of even the lowly VW Beetle topped many domestic vehicles from Ford, Jeep, Pontiac and Mercury.
In the 1980s and 90s the most reliable models ended up coming from Honda, Toyota, Acura, Infiniti and Lexus.
In the late ‘90s Mercedes had released the dismally unreliable M-Class SUV and the brand’s initial quality scores have plummeted since. Other German brands had similar experiences.
According to Consumer Reports, Mercedes boosted its reliability a bit in 2011, but is still inconsistent. The same can be said for Mercedes’ German competitors, Audi and BMW. In Consumer Reports last five annual reports, the last time these German brands have been above average in reliability was back in 2007. Since then, they’ve all slumped below the average in the industry.
Consumer Reports’ Long-Term Reliability test documents a car’s reliability over the course of three years, while the Initial Quality Index is based on consumer feedback from the first few months of a new cars ownership.
Consumer Reports also has a report card that ranks automakers based on their average car score, reliability score and the percentage of recommended vehicles. The average score for these carmaker report cards over the past five years (when they started the report cards) of the German brands doesn’t crack 68/100, below the industry average and the competition from the top Japanese automakers.
These results are reflected in numbers released by J.D. Power & Associates as well. In the both of the latest J.D. Power Surveys, the German brands can’t match up to their Japanese (and even some American) luxury peers. In the most recent vehicle dependability survey, Mercedes-Benz only gets a four out of five, which is “Better than most” rating, while Audi and BMW get 3/5 or “About Average.” Volkswagen falls below average with 2/5, what J.D. Power describes as “The Rest.” Porsche is also ranked “Better than most” in J.D. Power’s dependability survey, which give Mercedes-Benz some nice company. It’s important to note that only one car maker had a score of 5/5, and that’s Lexus. However, Lexus doesn't make cheap small cars for the masses as does Honda.
Nothing changes in J.D. Power’s Initial Quality rankings. Mercedes and Porsche have 4/5 ratings, BMW and Audi get just 3/5 and VW only achieves 2/5. Lexus tops that ranking as well with a 5/5.
The J.D. Power ratings are based on consumer surveys. Initial Quality is measured after 90 days of a new car’s purchase. Vehicle Dependability Ratings are surveys based on the past 12 months of original owners of three-year old cars. In other words, longterm quality issues do to poor parts quality will show the Germans being even worse.
In 2013 the German TÜV checked cars reliability etc and placed Toyota Prius in top for the up to 7 year old cars. Honda wasn't statstically available due to low sales.
In an other study German cars were 'among worst for engine failures'. Audi, BMW and VW ranked in the bottom 10 of a study into engine reliability.
German-made cars are not as reliable as many believe, according to new research. Warranty Direct has studied its claims data to compile a list of the manufacturers with the most reliable engines - and Audi, BMW and Volkswagen all finished in the bottom 10 out of a total 36 makers.
In fact, the only firm whose cars had a worse engine failure rate than Audi was MG Rover. MINI wasn’t much better, finishing third from bottom, while its parent company BMW came seventh from bottom. And, despite its unfounded reputation for "rock-solid reliability", Volkswagen came ninth from bottom.
Honda scooped the gold medal – the study found that just one in every 344 Honda engines failed, compared to one in every 27 Audi engines.
Apr 16, 2015 Honda has retained its status as the most reliable used car manufacturer in the UK for the ninth consecutive year, according to research by What Car? and Warranty Direct.
Already in the 1950's Frank Sinatra preferred a Japanese (Sony) microphone - just like thousands of youngsters preferred a cool Honda bike instead of the low performing old-fashioned and low quality BMWs.
Klevius wrote FIVE YEARS AGO:
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Shinto Honda high tech vs Protestant BMW old fogies
Honda has ALWAYS outperformed BMW when it comes to technology &
quality & safety & environment. However, when Klevius points to
this selfevident fact something similar happens as when a Dane draws a
funny pic of the desert robber Mohammed! Why this extreme self
delusion?! And why doesn't media talk abt the safety consequences of bad
engineering? BMW, VW, Audi, Volvo (not to mention French &
Italians) have extremely poor records throughout the last 5 decades!
What's more, the Euros turn out to burst into flames MUCH more often
than similar Japanese cars (same pattern with TV's btw)! See a Swedish insurance list over car fires
(not caused by islamic jihadists but mostly because of poor quality).
Obama's racist Detroit campaign against Japanese high tech is really a
low mark, isn't it!
Technology in religion
1 Shinto/Secularism/Buddhism etc non-monotheist true religions (see the web's best Definition of religion)
2 Protestantism (a protest against Catholic Christianity)
3 Other religions
4 Catholicism
5 Islam/Mohammedanism (the by far worst form of Judaic "monotheisms")
Is BMW a cult or a religion - or just insanity? BMWs have always been dangerous due to poor quality & poor handling
BMW rides high on an empty reputation boosted by racist attitudes against non-European cars (now Japanese but soon also Chinese - Korean cars are slightly less smeared because 1) Koreans are more "monotheist" & 2) Koreans have, wrongly, been seen as not a tech threat).
As a rule of thumb, everything that's going faster than an old fogie on your Bimmer is probably Made in Japan! Remember how the production of European performance cars stalled after the Kobe earth quake?!
Btw, isn't it strange howe different the real world is from that one on the news & superficial fashion outlets!
If you really need an oldfashioned 6-in line, go shop for an old Nissan GTR (1989-), the unbeaten Japanese super car. Then you also get 4WD, 4WS & computer controlled tuning so you don't have to suffer with the RWD (hotted up by Mitsubishi though) of a lousy over weight & over priced M3!
Here's a funny story abt some crazy Japanese street mechanics enlivening a tired BMW by the help of an old 1999 Honda S2000 STANDARD engine - 250 hp from 2 litre WITHOUT A TURBO more than a decade ago! Kiss my ass Ferrari). Note the BMW's rev meter's redline at 6000 plus, & how the lively Honda engine pushes the needle all the way round to the start position at zero! see the hilarious video!
Read Klevius - your way out of media indoctrination & false idols!
BMW makes below average quality cars which it manages to sell as quality cars although the only high quality on a BMW is the price tag. BMW has had serious safety & "drivability" issues as long as I can remember. But the selling (cheating) idea is good: Change as little as possible to save costs & spice up the old corpse with cheap electronics etc! In fact, the main part of BMW's marketing department is outside the office & works for free, i.e. the buyers! Just take a look at the Bimmer forums! Orthodox thinking is the rule & questioning where the Kaiser's clothes are is blasphemy.
I used to be a Bimmer fan some hundred years ago so I know it hurts to face the truth. However, I was well rewarded by the Japs I carefully chose for my particular way of life. The worst chock I as a driver have ever encountered was when I for the first time got a Subaru Leone Turbo in my rear mirror & a couple of seconds later saw it vanishing in the blizzard in front of me challenging my view on myself as the best ice/snow driver in the village, no in the world*. I was ready for the nut house until I was told it was a permanent (but switchable to FWD) 4WD with a front mounted boxer, computer controlled air suspension etc (btw Subaru was first in the world with mass produced 4WD passenger cars - Audi Quatro came a decade later!)! At that time I had already switched to FWD from RWD. RWD worked surprisingly well though in an old Mazda Luce 1800 from the 60s with good tyres & good balance, an extremely long stroke but soft & powerful high quality alu OHC engine with roller valve lifters & 94 mm stroke x 76 mm bore, & a built in rear axis "slip resitance", unlike the stupid Bimmers of the time which I frequently saw "parked" head down beside the road). The Luce had an electronic Mitsubishi fuel pump three times the size & power of other cars I checked (most cars back then had still conventional pumps, though). It also helped that it had four headlights which could be doubled (low+high beam) from the switch, plus a Mitsubishi generator that was among the biggest & most powerful of its time (plus a wonderful rarity still lacking on many cars, an analogue ampere meter! Everything of this was standard, as was the built in probably best engineering quality in the world at the time - due to Toyo Kogyo's expertice as precision instrument makers & the only company capable of producing functioning rotary engines - NSU/Audi & MB miserably failed!). Moreover, double big wiper motors & separate bass/discant horns with a lovely & convincing bass tone also added to the fun in the slippery snowy Finnish darkness! My first Luce was only driven some 300,000 km when I bought it so it lasted for years despite my youthful carelessness abt oil changes etc insignificant details! The gearbox was by far the best of its time & the clutch extremely smooth, responsive & light compared to e.g. Volvos & Saabs etc. Although only 104 hp on 1050 kg the car was very powerful at higher speeds for its time (we're of course talking the manual version). Cars with a lot more hp were easily beaten at high speed on long upward slopes due to the high & flat torque curve etc. The brakes were double the size of the neighbor's heavy American V8 & always in neat balance with the wonderful clutch/engine for some "creative driving". On top of this came an "oldfashioned" but extremely well made worm-and-roller steering system that kept the car going straight no matter if you hit a pothole (in fact I lost a front wheel while driving 120 km/h on a Finnish highway in a blizzard due to loose bolts - the car just dropped down a little & slided until it stopped. I was abt to pass another car so I had to waive to the driver to continue. He looked scared at me & the rolling wheel in front of us). However, the zero toe in & perfect camber/caster angles under most conditions paired with suitable tyres, resulted in a soft & forgiving, yet distinct control. When I got my Honda with rack & pinion I was first irritated of even "too much" steering precision. The Luce didn't have servo so I could read the road well via the wheel & through the well functioning seat. The front seats had continuously variable "lady killer" livers (not standard on all cars even today) that came in handy when tired or otherwise feeling for a horizontal position. The cons? Too short suspension movements (McPherson front/solid rear axle with leaf springs - i.e. as far you can get from a Honda!) which I stiffed up a bit by changing to the one's aimed for the "pickup". Even then you had to try avoiding chassi contacts at high speeds although the big bussings usually gave you a last chance.
* driving fast on poor icy/snowy roads in the dark for most part of the year makes a master of most (surviving) people!
When I first tried a Subaru with permanent 4WD I reved it up on a partly icy spot & expected a nice slip on both axis. However, there was no slip but a brutal push forward that almost hurt me! The second unexpected surprise came on the road when I switched from FWD to 4WD & realized how this stiffed up the whole car in a manner that I'd never felt before. It was as you were suddenly sucked to the ground through all four wheels (this you can never feel in AWD's). Third surprise was the wanderful & reliable AW throttle drifting experience - with no switching between the axis, just pure 50/50 power distribution all the time! Passing young foolish & struggling Bimmers in the blizzard with ease & speed while picking one's nose was admittedly always fun with a Subaru.
BMW silent iceberg of death & disaster
Unlike Toyota who has got a "quality problem" from Detroit/Ill's Mr X "president" without really having one**, BMW has a huge quality problem without anyone really talking abt it.
** The only possible fault was a device not made in Japan but by the American CTS Corp!
One of the many dangerous Bimmer "non-lemons" going on out there is here exemplified with the following commentator: "What I meant was with the documented unusually high failure rate of the N54 / x35i HPFPs and people being stranded on the highway or having a near accident, an extended warranty doesn't do anything to resolve these important issues, which certainly should not still be happening after four years. If a fuel pump on other BMW models can go 100K without failures, how can the N54 HPFPs failing in 400, 1,200, 3,000, 5,000, 7,000, or 30K miles be reasonable or acceptable?"
BMW M3 (2010) – poor engineering compensated with the oldest of tricks, a big V8!
Driving a BMW M3 (2010) compared to Subaru Sti is like having 3 big passengers while lacking 4WD! Both cars have the same torque, so the only advantage of M3 is more horsepower! And because of the extra weight & lack of 4WD (not to mention that the Subaru boxer is much lover) you may conclude the rest by yourself. And I’ve not even mentioned the price gap: M3 $58,400 Subaru Sti $34,995. Also consider the better reliability of the Subaru! In real life “drivability” there’s no way the M3 could ever compete with a Subaru. Some 240 kg extra load & dead front wheels will inevitably take its toll!
But of course you can comfort yourself that you got a BMW badge & some more or less insignificant extras for your $24,000 you paid on top of the Subaru $34,995 price tag! But the quality difference & the lack of 4WD will always annoy you.
Who makes the best V8 in the world, Yamaha or Lexus?
Of course you already know that Yamaha makes the V8 in Noble 650.
And of course you know that Lexus LFA is the best supersport car around! And that the 500 kg heavier (Veyron's AWD - which is significantly inferior to that of e.g. Subarus - doesn't help much to counteract half a tonne of mass in the curves) & three times more expensive Veyron is a laughable truck in comparison! And if you need more power than a Subaru go for a Nissan GTR! A Veyron doesn't stand a chance against a Nissan GFTR on Nurburgring!
The emotion trapped spin head(s?) on Top Gear got it (deliberately?!) all wrong with his smear campaign against the wonderful Honda Civic Type R when missing the real point of the best non hybrid green sports car. Because of Honda’s technological superiority it has managed to make engines that can be driven either as normal cars with below average fuel consumption & pollution, or, to rev it up when you feel for it & suddenly getting a sports car’s engine. Where others use turbos Honda rests on technical sophistication (just like the 1959 bike example above). A turbo consumes/pollutes much more in normal driving simply because you can't avoid using it when it's there. In fact, Honda's introduction of Civic many decades ago has saved the world from a lot of unnecessary fuel consumption.
In conclusion, Japan continues to offer not only the best cars for general usage but also the greenest cars (Prius presented 1996) as well as the best sports cars (incl. so called super cars - the aluminium Honda NSX & the Atessa Nissan GTR were already presented in the late 1980s & had both a long history of advanced sports technology going back to the 1950s & 60s)!
Audi's gas pedal disaster that no one seems to talk abt!
The plastic gas pedal in many new Audis is just falling on the floor because it breakes so easily, especially during winter! What's next for Audi - the brake pedal? And as you can see on the list below this is surely not the only problem with Audi's (& VW's) poor quality.
Technology in religion
1 Shinto/Secularism/Buddhism etc non-monotheist true religions (see the web's best Definition of religion)
2 Protestantism (a protest against Catholic Christianity)
3 Other religions
4 Catholicism
5 Islam/Mohammedanism (the by far worst form of Judaic "monotheisms")
Is BMW a cult or a religion - or just insanity? BMWs have always been dangerous due to poor quality & poor handling
BMW rides high on an empty reputation boosted by racist attitudes against non-European cars (now Japanese but soon also Chinese - Korean cars are slightly less smeared because 1) Koreans are more "monotheist" & 2) Koreans have, wrongly, been seen as not a tech threat).
As a rule of thumb, everything that's going faster than an old fogie on your Bimmer is probably Made in Japan! Remember how the production of European performance cars stalled after the Kobe earth quake?!
Btw, isn't it strange howe different the real world is from that one on the news & superficial fashion outlets!
If you really need an oldfashioned 6-in line, go shop for an old Nissan GTR (1989-), the unbeaten Japanese super car. Then you also get 4WD, 4WS & computer controlled tuning so you don't have to suffer with the RWD (hotted up by Mitsubishi though) of a lousy over weight & over priced M3!
Here's a funny story abt some crazy Japanese street mechanics enlivening a tired BMW by the help of an old 1999 Honda S2000 STANDARD engine - 250 hp from 2 litre WITHOUT A TURBO more than a decade ago! Kiss my ass Ferrari). Note the BMW's rev meter's redline at 6000 plus, & how the lively Honda engine pushes the needle all the way round to the start position at zero! see the hilarious video!
Read Klevius - your way out of media indoctrination & false idols!
BMW makes below average quality cars which it manages to sell as quality cars although the only high quality on a BMW is the price tag. BMW has had serious safety & "drivability" issues as long as I can remember. But the selling (cheating) idea is good: Change as little as possible to save costs & spice up the old corpse with cheap electronics etc! In fact, the main part of BMW's marketing department is outside the office & works for free, i.e. the buyers! Just take a look at the Bimmer forums! Orthodox thinking is the rule & questioning where the Kaiser's clothes are is blasphemy.
I used to be a Bimmer fan some hundred years ago so I know it hurts to face the truth. However, I was well rewarded by the Japs I carefully chose for my particular way of life. The worst chock I as a driver have ever encountered was when I for the first time got a Subaru Leone Turbo in my rear mirror & a couple of seconds later saw it vanishing in the blizzard in front of me challenging my view on myself as the best ice/snow driver in the village, no in the world*. I was ready for the nut house until I was told it was a permanent (but switchable to FWD) 4WD with a front mounted boxer, computer controlled air suspension etc (btw Subaru was first in the world with mass produced 4WD passenger cars - Audi Quatro came a decade later!)! At that time I had already switched to FWD from RWD. RWD worked surprisingly well though in an old Mazda Luce 1800 from the 60s with good tyres & good balance, an extremely long stroke but soft & powerful high quality alu OHC engine with roller valve lifters & 94 mm stroke x 76 mm bore, & a built in rear axis "slip resitance", unlike the stupid Bimmers of the time which I frequently saw "parked" head down beside the road). The Luce had an electronic Mitsubishi fuel pump three times the size & power of other cars I checked (most cars back then had still conventional pumps, though). It also helped that it had four headlights which could be doubled (low+high beam) from the switch, plus a Mitsubishi generator that was among the biggest & most powerful of its time (plus a wonderful rarity still lacking on many cars, an analogue ampere meter! Everything of this was standard, as was the built in probably best engineering quality in the world at the time - due to Toyo Kogyo's expertice as precision instrument makers & the only company capable of producing functioning rotary engines - NSU/Audi & MB miserably failed!). Moreover, double big wiper motors & separate bass/discant horns with a lovely & convincing bass tone also added to the fun in the slippery snowy Finnish darkness! My first Luce was only driven some 300,000 km when I bought it so it lasted for years despite my youthful carelessness abt oil changes etc insignificant details! The gearbox was by far the best of its time & the clutch extremely smooth, responsive & light compared to e.g. Volvos & Saabs etc. Although only 104 hp on 1050 kg the car was very powerful at higher speeds for its time (we're of course talking the manual version). Cars with a lot more hp were easily beaten at high speed on long upward slopes due to the high & flat torque curve etc. The brakes were double the size of the neighbor's heavy American V8 & always in neat balance with the wonderful clutch/engine for some "creative driving". On top of this came an "oldfashioned" but extremely well made worm-and-roller steering system that kept the car going straight no matter if you hit a pothole (in fact I lost a front wheel while driving 120 km/h on a Finnish highway in a blizzard due to loose bolts - the car just dropped down a little & slided until it stopped. I was abt to pass another car so I had to waive to the driver to continue. He looked scared at me & the rolling wheel in front of us). However, the zero toe in & perfect camber/caster angles under most conditions paired with suitable tyres, resulted in a soft & forgiving, yet distinct control. When I got my Honda with rack & pinion I was first irritated of even "too much" steering precision. The Luce didn't have servo so I could read the road well via the wheel & through the well functioning seat. The front seats had continuously variable "lady killer" livers (not standard on all cars even today) that came in handy when tired or otherwise feeling for a horizontal position. The cons? Too short suspension movements (McPherson front/solid rear axle with leaf springs - i.e. as far you can get from a Honda!) which I stiffed up a bit by changing to the one's aimed for the "pickup". Even then you had to try avoiding chassi contacts at high speeds although the big bussings usually gave you a last chance.
* driving fast on poor icy/snowy roads in the dark for most part of the year makes a master of most (surviving) people!
When I first tried a Subaru with permanent 4WD I reved it up on a partly icy spot & expected a nice slip on both axis. However, there was no slip but a brutal push forward that almost hurt me! The second unexpected surprise came on the road when I switched from FWD to 4WD & realized how this stiffed up the whole car in a manner that I'd never felt before. It was as you were suddenly sucked to the ground through all four wheels (this you can never feel in AWD's). Third surprise was the wanderful & reliable AW throttle drifting experience - with no switching between the axis, just pure 50/50 power distribution all the time! Passing young foolish & struggling Bimmers in the blizzard with ease & speed while picking one's nose was admittedly always fun with a Subaru.
BMW silent iceberg of death & disaster
Unlike Toyota who has got a "quality problem" from Detroit/Ill's Mr X "president" without really having one**, BMW has a huge quality problem without anyone really talking abt it.
** The only possible fault was a device not made in Japan but by the American CTS Corp!
One of the many dangerous Bimmer "non-lemons" going on out there is here exemplified with the following commentator: "What I meant was with the documented unusually high failure rate of the N54 / x35i HPFPs and people being stranded on the highway or having a near accident, an extended warranty doesn't do anything to resolve these important issues, which certainly should not still be happening after four years. If a fuel pump on other BMW models can go 100K without failures, how can the N54 HPFPs failing in 400, 1,200, 3,000, 5,000, 7,000, or 30K miles be reasonable or acceptable?"
BMW M3 (2010) – poor engineering compensated with the oldest of tricks, a big V8!
Driving a BMW M3 (2010) compared to Subaru Sti is like having 3 big passengers while lacking 4WD! Both cars have the same torque, so the only advantage of M3 is more horsepower! And because of the extra weight & lack of 4WD (not to mention that the Subaru boxer is much lover) you may conclude the rest by yourself. And I’ve not even mentioned the price gap: M3 $58,400 Subaru Sti $34,995. Also consider the better reliability of the Subaru! In real life “drivability” there’s no way the M3 could ever compete with a Subaru. Some 240 kg extra load & dead front wheels will inevitably take its toll!
But of course you can comfort yourself that you got a BMW badge & some more or less insignificant extras for your $24,000 you paid on top of the Subaru $34,995 price tag! But the quality difference & the lack of 4WD will always annoy you.
Who makes the best V8 in the world, Yamaha or Lexus?
Of course you already know that Yamaha makes the V8 in Noble 650.
And of course you know that Lexus LFA is the best supersport car around! And that the 500 kg heavier (Veyron's AWD - which is significantly inferior to that of e.g. Subarus - doesn't help much to counteract half a tonne of mass in the curves) & three times more expensive Veyron is a laughable truck in comparison! And if you need more power than a Subaru go for a Nissan GTR! A Veyron doesn't stand a chance against a Nissan GFTR on Nurburgring!
The emotion trapped spin head(s?) on Top Gear got it (deliberately?!) all wrong with his smear campaign against the wonderful Honda Civic Type R when missing the real point of the best non hybrid green sports car. Because of Honda’s technological superiority it has managed to make engines that can be driven either as normal cars with below average fuel consumption & pollution, or, to rev it up when you feel for it & suddenly getting a sports car’s engine. Where others use turbos Honda rests on technical sophistication (just like the 1959 bike example above). A turbo consumes/pollutes much more in normal driving simply because you can't avoid using it when it's there. In fact, Honda's introduction of Civic many decades ago has saved the world from a lot of unnecessary fuel consumption.
In conclusion, Japan continues to offer not only the best cars for general usage but also the greenest cars (Prius presented 1996) as well as the best sports cars (incl. so called super cars - the aluminium Honda NSX & the Atessa Nissan GTR were already presented in the late 1980s & had both a long history of advanced sports technology going back to the 1950s & 60s)!
Audi's gas pedal disaster that no one seems to talk abt!
The plastic gas pedal in many new Audis is just falling on the floor because it breakes so easily, especially during winter! What's next for Audi - the brake pedal? And as you can see on the list below this is surely not the only problem with Audi's (& VW's) poor quality.
Klevius wrote:
Saturday, May 16, 2015
VW/Audi, part of Hitler's revenge on the after-world
The German protestant myth and the Japanese Shinto secret
Audi has constantly managed to score below average quality. Japanese have constantly managed to score above average. Why?
Has Hitler's cars victimized more people than his army?
German car maker Audi used Nazi slave labor during World War II
It all started with the stupid idea of a cheap car for the masses with the driving unit over the driving wheels in the rear, the battery in the middle, and the fuel tank in the front as the main impact zone. As a consequence the engine was made air cooled with a huge noisy fan. Luckily we don't see these kinds of dangerous cars anymore - except for Porsche of course. Ever tried to drive a classic Porsche on a road littered with grovel, old leaves etc., or just wet?! The Beetle was definitely safer because of its lower power output and smother on the road. However, the noise is almost the same.
The need for a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for Hitler's new Autobahn network of Germany, was formulated by Hitler himself, the leader of the National-socialist Germany. In June 1934 Ferdinand Porsche received a contract from Hitler to design a "people's car" (or Volkswagen). The production of this death trap went on from 1938 until 2003. In other words, VW continued to spit out this dangerous car in less developed countries for profit for 40 years after its much safer front engine and front wheel driven successor Golf had been introduced.
In 1937, Porsche joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (becoming member no. 5,643,287) as well as Schutzstaffel (SS). By 1938, Porsche was using the SS as security members and drivers at his factory, and later set up a special unit called SS Sturmwerk Volkswagen. In 1942, Porsche reached the rank of SS-Oberführer. During the war, Porsche was further decorated with the SS-Ehrenring and awarded the War Merit Cross.
A new city, "Stadt des KdF-Wagens" was founded near Fallersleben for the Volkswagen factory, but wartime production concentrated almost exclusively on the military Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen variants. Mass production of the car, which later became known as the Beetle, began after the end of the war. The city is named Wolfsburg today and is still the headquarters of the Volkswagen Group.
Hitler contracted Porsche in 1934 to design and build it to his exacting standards. Ferdinand Porsche and his team took until 1938 to finalise the design. This is one of the first rear-engined cars. With over 21 million manufactured (21,529,464) in an air-cooled, rear-engined, rear-wheel drive configuration, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured and most dangerous car of a single design platform, worldwide
This car was made in the 1960s at the same time as this Japanese Mazda Luce (below) which in every aspect was its direct opposite - except for the price tag. Yet, people continued buying the catastrophic Beetle! Why? Because it was German and you couldn't trust the Japanese, could you.
VW Beetle 1966: Air cooled engine based on WW2 technology. Maximum Output: 50hp, Top speed: 123 km/h.
0-60mph 23.0 (declared by factory but usually slower - the lousy engine rarely worked as it was planned to).
Audi 1700, 1966, 71 hp / 72 PS, top speed: 148 km/h (declared by factory - not in real life); accelerations: 0- 60 mph 14.8 s (declared by factory - not in real life). The engine was extremely old fashioned compared to Mazda Luce's engine. Moreover, it was nowhere near the quality and reliability of the Japanese. The car was in every other aspect also inferior. Where the Audi had mechanical fuel pump, poor electric generator, poor brakes etc. Mazda was just the opposite.
Mazda 1500 Luce 1966: 84 hp/86 PS, top speed: 160 km/h; accelerations: 0- 60 mph 14.3 s (declared by a cautious factory but usually faster). OHC, Alu top, 50/50% weight distrib. Kad all the latest safety devices etc that VW lacked. The most beautiful (did BMW copy it?) and reliable (compared to its time) sedan ever made? Remember that Mazda was the only one who managed to develope a functioning rotary engine! After the 1992 le Mans win Mazda's rotary engine was, of course, excluded from racing again!
Sweden's biggest motoring organization warns: This is why Audi/VW engines fail
Is Audi the world's worst "luxury" car?
compared to the best
Some voices from VW/Audi victims further down on the posting
Klevius wrote:
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Japan makes the world's top technology - yet Europe gets the press! Why?
Why is the media shouting FIRST EVER when a bunch of European countries try to copy what Japan did a decade ago?!
Nissan rocket no. 1 with the Hayabusa robot first ever in the world to land and bring back stuff from a body (Itokawa asteroid) outside Earth/Moon
Nissan rocket no. 2 Nissan GT-R Nismo the world's fastest non-electric super car
With a lap time of 7 min 8 sec Nissan GTR is the fastest, (non-hybrid*) globally-homologated road car around the world's most famous race track Nurburgring in Germany.
The old GTR was the first car to go under 8 minutes at Nurburgring.
* i.e. using a battery and Japanese hybrid technology to get extra power for the short time the ride lasts.
A Nissan Skyline* GTR ATESSA 4WD (2700 cc 6 cyl 280-1600 hp) from the 1990s - the Japanese legend that Lambourghini Gallardo (5000 cc) was aimed to beat - more than a decade later! But consider huge difference in quality! The old Skyline GTR has the world record for legal cars abt 350 km/h on a German (!) autobahn (unofficial >380 km/h)!
What all GTRs have in common compared to non-Japanese super cars is superior quality. Already in the 1990s a Porsche CEO admitted that they can never achieve the same quality level as the Japanese.
* The new GTR has dropped the Skyline name. However, the basics are the same: 4WD and a small but powerful 6 cylinder engine.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Obama fines the cleanest cars and the highest quality - while the culprit is a US company and a rotten legal system!
What Obama & Co did against Toyota is perhaps the worst of crimes against consumers
but quite in line with other evils of his administration - like the eager support of medieval islamofascism.
Electrical failures (like other types of failures) rare in Japanese cars - because of a superior production policy compared to all others.
Decades of quality surveys paint an unambiguous picture.
Just one of hundreds of examples. In a study of the worst models, two thirds of all Chrysler Sebring’s (66 per cent) experienced electrical breakdowns, while the Hyundai Matrix (63 per cent) and Mercedes-Benz E Class (60 per cent) followed closely behind. The study also found that over 25 per cent of Renault, Saab, MG, Audi, Citroen, Seat and BMW models suffered electrical failure each year.
In contrast, just one out of seven Subarus developed an electrical fault each year, whilst there were no recorded claims with the Honda S2000 (the best high rewing non-turbo 4 in line engine ever built), Mazda 5, and Toyota Prius (the world's first mass produced hybrid already in 1997).
Why Toyota Must Replace Flawed CTS Gas Pedal With Superior (Japanese) Denso Pedal
By Paul Niedermeyer on February 1, 2010
Update: a portal to all of TTAC’s articles on the subject of Toyota gas pedals is here:
Toyota uses two different electronic gas pedal designs in its cars. The version built by CTS (lower) is the subject of a massive recall, and the 2.3 million units in affected Toyota cars are to be “fixed” by the insertion of a steel shim. This CTS design is also being modified for new Toyota production, currently suspended. To our knowledge, Toyotas built with the other design (by Denso, upper) are not subject to any recalls or NHTSA investigations,. We have spent the last two days tearing down both units, and familiarized ourselves with their designs, reviewed Toyota’s “shim fix”, and replicated the fix ourselves. Toyota’s planned fix will undoubtedly reduce the likelihood of sticky pedals in the short term, but after examining both units, we are convinced that the CTS unit is intrinsically a flawed design, and poses safety risks in the long term, even with the fix. The only right action for Toyota is to acknowledge the long history of problems with the CTS-type unit, and replace them all with the superior Denso or another pedal unit that lacks the intrinsic flaws of the CTS design.
Before we briefly review the key design differences, we must acknowledge that Toyota is ultimately responsible for both designs. CTS has stated that its product was built to Toyota specifications. What we don’t know (or understand) is why Toyota has two such fundamentally different units in production. Is one unit cheaper to build? Or was CTS tooled up to produce its unit because of other similar units it builds for other manufacturers? What we do know is that the CTS unit has been used in Toyota products since 2005, whereas the Denso unit has been in use since well before that time. Toyotas sold in Europe are also subject to a similar recall, and based on the description of the issues and the unit, it appears that it is the same or similar design as the CTS unit, but we do not know if it was built by CTS or another supplier.
The key component in question is the friction arm of the CTS. It is both essential and desirable to have a certain defined degree of friction in these electronic gas pedal assemblies. The amount of friction is designed to be some degree less than the return spring, so that when the pedal is released, it returns to the closed position. But the friction (hysteresis) makes it easier to maintain a steady throttle setting, and relieves strain from pushing against the spring continuously. It simulates the intrinsic friction that is present in the traditional throttle cable as it passes through the cable housing.
The two units generate the desired degree of friction in very different ways. In the Denso unit (above), the return spring (steel coil) is squeezed on both sides of its housing. It rubs against the plastic housing as it compresses, which generates the desired amount of friction. Both sides of the full length of the Denso coil are in continuous contact with the rubbed are, spreading out the contact area size. And the metal to plastic interface seems to be relatively unproblematic.
The CTS unit is a fundamentally different design. The friction is generated by two “teeth” (A) that extend from the friction arm, and ride in two grooved channels of the housing (B). The friction arm is an extension of the pedal itself, and moves as the pedal is moved. Both the friction arm, its teeth and the surface it rubs against are plastic. Notice the small area of contact (dulled gray spot on tooth). This is the fundamental source of the problem with this unit, and one that Toyota has not come clean about. The friction unit assembled, showing the teeth engaged in the two grooves, is shown below.
In Toyota V.P. Jim Lentz’ appearance on the Today show, he claimed that issues with the friction arm go back to only October of 2009. Not so. According to a letter from Toyota to the NHTSA , in 2007 Toyota changed the plastic material used in the friction arm (from PA46 to PPS) in response to problems similar to those occurring now.
Furthermore, Toyota has been facing similar issues in Europe going back to 2008:
Toyota has been modifying the friction-arm (CTS) type assembly since 2007. Yet to our knowledge, the Denso design has never been implicated in any sticking-pedal issue, and has presumably been in production for some ten years. Why didn’t Toyota change over years ago?
Klevius answer: Because Toyota wanted to use US suppliers for more easy to do components on its biggest market outside Japan. This is in line with what happened to their Avensis model long time ago when its production started in UK. A Finnish car magazine (Tekniikan Maailma) made an extremely thorough comparison between Toyota cars made in Japan and same cars made in UK. The magazine even demounted the engines into its smallest parts before measurements and analysis. The results where striking and showed that the Japan made were clearly of better quality. However, the UK made Toyotas still easily outperformed the Germans and others!
Porsche is said to have the best quality of non-Japanese cars. Despite the fact that more expensive cars are easier to produce do to bigger profit margins. However, already in the 1990s Porsche's executive admitted that they can never achieve Japanese standard of quality.
He was so right!
Porsche will replace the engines in all of its current model year 911 GT3 sports cars due to poor quality engines, and has told owners to stop driving the cars because they could catch fire, the Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) unit said on Tuesday.
Last month, Porsche said it was recalling all of the model year 2014 911 GT3 cars produced because of oil leaks, fire risk and engine break down.
The action was taken after Porsche said it investigated engine fires in which a loosened fastener caused oil to leak, which then caught fire.
Porsche is allegedly cooperating with U.S. regulators (why isn't Obama suing VW?!) in the recall and engine replacements, and is in touch with each customer who owns one of the affected vehicles.
The GT3 is the sportiest of the 16 variants of the Porsche 911 sold in the U.S. market but the real question is how this poor production quality has affected other Porsches as well - not to mention all VWs with their enormous DSG (gearbox) and other quality problems that makes them stall when you overtake, catch fire, accelerate unintentionally etc. VW's (incl. Audi) severe quality problems have been going on for years. Actually, VW is most possibly the worst road killer ever. It all started with Hitler's revenge on the after world, VW Beetle with an air cooled engine (that consumed like a V8 and never lasted for long) placed in the trunk (compare Porsche) and the gas tank placed behind the tiny front bumper, and the battery inside the car! So, although the front was soft enough, the gas shower you got in your face through the broken windscreen then continued to the battery behind you. But most people didn't bother anymore - with a steering rod penetrating their body.
The two-seat Porsche has a base price of about $131,000 (94,200 euros) in the United States and about 137,000 euros ($191,000) in Europe.
more car safety etc info:
Monday, March 03, 2014
Real quality cars are made by Shinto - crappy overpriced cars are bought by stupid islamofascists - who can't produce anything themselves!
But why is Top Gear's Richard Hammond so stupid. Has he converted to islam*?! Why is he lying? Why isn't he even trying to deliver some relevant consumer info?
* Only in islamofascist places like Abu Dhabi (built by oil money from the West) where it's proposed that only
Klevius (who is extremely* normal - possibly except for his driving skills he got on dark icy roads in Finland with used Japanese cars at maximum speed without a single mishap for decades) has always considered the Top Gear guys lovely insane. However, if pressed Klevius has to admit that before Jeremy saw the light in Nissan GTR and Lexus LFA (and Honda S2000 - not sure about his view), he appeared only marginally more intelligent than his dummy in Madame Tussaud's cabinet. What disqualified Jeremy as a human being was when he long ago, missed to truly recognize the technological wonder under the hood of a Honda Civic Type R. Not a word about the unparalleled high reving engine and quality that made it the world's only small and cheap but fast hatchback that could be used as a normal car on low revs (without a turbo) while turning into a sports car when needed on high revs. And unlike Ferraris and other costly big low quality stupidities, the Honda engine technology, because of its small size, has to stand much more of high revs in use than a four litre Ferrari with hundreds of more horsepower. You can't possibly utilize a big engine at high revs as often as a small one. This was actually the whole idea: Fiat makes small low reving cars and Ferrari makes expensive big ones that no one can use to the max very often and if used on the track warranties are gone. Actually, you don't need a track to destroy a Ferrari it does it quite often just by itself.Very unlike Honda S2000 which already 1999 managed to produce a 9,000 rpm 251 hp 1997cc engine without a turbo that also lasted due to superior production technology.
* Klevius is like most people. Most people are Atheists. Most people have kids. Most people adhere to the thought about Human Rights that everyone should be seen as equal - even women. Most people aren't addicts. Most people aren't violent or bad to other people. Most people don't have extremist political etc. views (adhering to Human Rights isn't extremism). Most people aren't sexual predators. Most people don't have criminal records. Most people are social. Most people like football. Klevius ticks every box - that's why he's extremely normal.
However, rumor tells Jeremy may have participated in a heroic demonstration against stupid and racist Euro 5 emission rules which punish Type R precisely for its technological capacity to pollute less than its turbo charged rivals. If this is true Jeremy has the Human Right to be reassessed as a human being. Don't you think?
Japanese Shinto continues ruling Nurburgring/Germany
Nissan GTR Nismo is the fastest non-hybrid serious production car on Nurburgring
2-seater (Nissan GTR is 4-seater) Porsche 918 is a RWD w 4WD when battery allows it (Nissan is 4WD whenever needed) extremely low, 1,167 mm (Nissan GTR 1,372 mm) plug in hybrid which is just an overweight RWD car easily beaten by a GTR Nismo after the short period the battery lasts. And even w fully charged battery, performance is about the same. The only reason it could creep under 7 min was the electric motor torque (compare the Americans which took their torque from even bigger engines!
Porsche 918 will cost US$845,000 while the better quality and performing
2015 Nissan GTR Nismo will cost from $149,990 with a 3.8l V6, 600hp, 481lb/ft of torque. It currently holds the lap record for a mass production vehicle at Germany’s famous Nordschleife circuit with a time of 7:08.679. It has a top speed just short of 200mph, 0-60 in 2.6 and features technology perfected by the truly Japanese Nissan Nismo factory (i.e. not the same as ordinary Nissans but the one behind Infiniti's Formula One success etc).
Fastest laps reported at Nurburgring
6:57 (this car was built only for repairing Porsche's damaged reputation - it's a stupid heavy monstrosity in all other aspects)
Porsche 918 Spyder 4.6l V8 + Toyota hybrid motors and tech
Marc Lieb
4 September 2013
Equipped w 'Weissach Package' with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres. Observed by Sport Auto.
7:08.69
Nissan GT-R Nismo (2015)
Michael Krumm
September 30, 2013
'Track Pack' with 255/40RF-20 run-flat Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GT 600 DSST tires.
7:12:13
Dodge Viper ACR (2010) with an 8l V8
Dominik Farnbacher
14 September 2011
SRT conducted test. Video and manufacturer confirmed. OEM Michelin Pilot Sport Cup R compound track DOT competition tires. TTAC article.
7:14.64
Lexus LFA Nürburgring Package
Akira Iida
31 August 2011
Lexus conducted test. Video confirmed. Stock LFA with "Nürburgring Package". OEM Bridgestone Potenza RE070 street tires. Additional Roll Cage was equipped
7:19.63
Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1 (2012) 7l V8
Jim Mero
9 June 2011
General Motors conducted test,[24] base specification car with optional track DOT competition tires (Michelin Pilot Sport Cup Zero Pressure), video confirmed.
7:24
Porsche 911 GT2 RS the fastest non-hybrid Porsche
Horst von Saurma
Sport Auto
7:24.22
Nissan GT-R (2011)
Toshio Suzuki
1 October 2010
Nissan conducted test.[29] Semi-wet conditions. Video confirmed. Best Motoring (12/2010).
7:24.3
Maserati MC12
Marc Basseng
August 2008
Evo Magazine conducted test
Best Ferrari comes way down:
7:25.7
Ferrari Enzo
Marc Basseng
August 2008
Evo Magazine conducted test
Car quality study 2014
Do note that Acura and Honda are the same - just like Audi and Volkswagen. Also note that while Mercedes sell expensive cars in US Honda does the opposite. Same with BMW compared to Subaru. With such a reading you'll soon realize that among luxus cars no one is even close to Lexus and that among ordinary cars Honda and Toyota are the by far best brands. And although Toyota may have a lead in selling hybrids Honda has always been ranked the greenest car producer overall in the world.
Compare this to:
2006 Consumer report: "After Lexus, Honda and Toyota, the brands rounding out the top ten for reliability were Mitsubishi, Subaru, Acura, Scion, Mercury, Mazda and Suzuki. The ten lowest-rated brands were Audi, Infiniti, Saturn, Lincoln, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Land Rover, Hummer and Porsche."
Porsche can't even produce a high tech small car and BMW's Mini is a quality disaster! Compare this to the extreme quality and built-in drivability and Honda high tech feeling (also compare Honda Asimo) in a Civic made for ordinary users! Not to mention high tech Honda hybrid and Fuel Cell cars. Honda also makes the cleanest diesel engines.
Honda has the world's best engines followed by Toyota - and Germans are among the worst
German cars 'among worst for engine failures'
Audi, BMW and VW ranked in the bottom 10 of a study into engine reliability
German-made cars are not as reliable as many believe, according to new research (Klevius comment: German cars have never been even close to Japanese best brands - but the myth is still on). Warranty Direct has studied its claims data to compile a list of the manufacturers with the most reliable engines - and Audi, BMW and Volkswagen all finished in the bottom 10 out of a total 36 makers.
In fact, the only firm whose cars had a worse engine failure rate than Audi was MG Rover. MINI wasn’t much better, finishing third from bottom, while its parent company BMW came seventh from bottom. And, despite its reputation for rock-solid reliability, Volkswagen came ninth from bottom.
Honda scooped the gold medal – the study found that just one in every 344 Honda engines failed, compared to one in every 27 Audi engines.
Honda has the world's best engines followed by Toyota - and Germans are among the worst
German cars 'among worst for engine failures'
Audi, BMW and VW ranked in the bottom 10 of a study into engine reliability
German-made cars are not as reliable as many believe, according to new research (Klevius comment: German cars have never been even close to Japanese best brands - but the myth is still on). Warranty Direct has studied its claims data to compile a list of the manufacturers with the most reliable engines - and Audi, BMW and Volkswagen all finished in the bottom 10 out of a total 36 makers.
In fact, the only firm whose cars had a worse engine failure rate than Audi was MG Rover. MINI wasn’t much better, finishing third from bottom, while its parent company BMW came seventh from bottom. Volkswagen came ninth from bottom.
Car safety study
According to Swedish Folksam's insurance statistics on car fires only one out of the 55 most dangerous cars in Sweden was Japanese, whereas 34 out of the 47 least dangerous cars were Japanese (with Toyota and Honda in top)!
Japanese high tech in context
Although Japanese technology, in its "relentless pursuit for perfection", always has created the world's best swords, and the Arabs usually got their inferior ones from others, it seems that the latter ones have been in much more frequent usage for submission throughout history than the former!
Klevius wrote about HAYABUSA’s space mission 2005 (mainly because almost no one else did): To bring back samples from an asteroid and investigate the mysteries of the birth of the solar system. This Japanese ultra technology, and world unique performance, isn't even reported in Sweden, so far (9/2005)!?
Today we know Hayabisa landed not only once but several times on the asteroid and then successfully delivered samples back to Earth. An accomplishment no other nation has succeeded with so far.
The phony Porsche 918 and what Richard Hammond forgot to tell you about it
Porsche 918 Spyder has a big V8 engine coupled to a Toyots hybrid technology similar to that used in a Lexus SUV and, according to the official figures, emits just 70g/km of CO2 while using just 3.0l/100km. So we are to believe it’s faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo, and more economical and emits less carbon than a Prius.
The NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) test on which these fanciful and gravely misleading official emission figures are based, unreasonably favors cars that use plugs as well as petrol, and with no realistic assessment of engine size, real time driving etc.
These official CO2 (and associated fuel usage) figures are used to promote cars. But the figures are deeply flawed.
The official test is done at warm temperatures (between 20 and 30deg C) and cold weather reduces the efficiency of the hybrids’ batteries while you’ll also need to use the electric-powered heater or, when it's hot, air conditioner, increasing electric energy consumption and reducing range.
Moreover, air conditioning, lights and heated windows are all turned off in the test cycle, the test is statistically biased to a high amount of urban driving, where hybrids perform better.
The official test is even less accurate for plug-in hybrids such as the Porsche 918 Spyder, because the CO2 emissions from power stations used to charge their batteries are ignored. On top of this there are numerous assumptions, each of which flatters a plug-in hybrid’s fuel economy. Why? Because European car makers were so much behind the Japanese and now when they finally bought in to the Japanese technology they chose the plug-in variant
The NEDC test assumes a plug-in hybrid starts each journey with a fully charged battery on which it can run electric-only until the charge is depleted. Once the battery is exhausted, it assumes you’ll go no further than 25km on petrol power before charging again. Just a few km more with a near five litre V8 compared to a 1,6 litre Prius makes a huge difference, not to mention that people buying a Porsche don't drive like Prius drivers in the first place.
If you don’t charge up as regularly as the test assumes, or drive longer distances between recharging, fuel consumption (and CO2 emissions) will be much higher.
The normal hybrid Prius officially emits 89g/km of CO2 while the otherwise identical ‘Plug-in’ Prius emits 49g, and consumes 3.9 vs 2.1 (L/100km).
Plug-in hybrid "supercars" (918 Spyder, new ‘Enzo’ Ferrari, McLaren P1 etc) are easily beaten in overall performance by, for example the much cheaper but qualitatively superior, Nissan GTR Nismo and Lexus LF-A/RC1.
Honda engine fun in a lousy old fashioned BMW
Do note that this is already an old story.Here's a funny story abt some crazy Japanese street mechanics enlivening a tired BMW by the help of an old 1999 Honda S2000 STANDARD engine - 250 hp from 2 litre WITHOUT A TURBO more than a decade ago! Kiss my ass Ferrari). Note the BMW's rev meter's redline at 6000 plus, & how the lively Honda engine pushes the needle all the way round to the start position at zero! see the hilarious video!
Here's what Klevius wrote 2005:
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Shinto meets Islam - Civilization vs "killing & raping fields"
Klevius comment: Look at those pathetic males (pathetic if they are racist/sexist pan-Arabic Islamist mosque-building oil-billionaires who trade in Islamic darkness in mosques, schools, universities, youth organizations etc?)! Too busy spending oil-money on technical wonders their own slave & oil-fuelled pan-Arabic/Islamic culture is uncapable of producing? Whereas Shinto (the world's oldest* religion) created the world's best high tech, Islam (the world's youngest "religion") created terror and Koran-brainwashed suicide-killers in the service of fascist and sexist pan-Arabism (i.e. true Islam)! For a better world in Darfur and elsewhere - bury Islam! Islam has caused more suffering than any other ideology (incl. Hitler's & Stalin's socialism/communism), yet it has always been excused (and surprisingly often by its own victims, i.e. the opposite compared to the "black"/"white" situation)!
This (Saud based OIC and its Saudi Sharia Fuhrer Iyad Madani) is islam today - and it's against the most basic Human Rights! No matter how many times you or your informants tell us islam is nice!
Saturday, August 17, 2013
How come that the best tech in the world comes from a non-muslim and non-Christian people?
Who moron bought Steinway?
And why do many churches, concert halls etc keep buying inferior grands?
Klevius has the answer - keep reading!BBC's confused "piano expert" Chris Hopkins, didn't even mention the best brand when he named his favorite piano makers. Instead Chris Hopkins blabbed about Steinway and their top model D. And here comes the truly revealing part. When asked to motivate his opinion Chris Hopkins had nothing logical to say but instead admitted that the Steinway D's quality differed widely between individual pianos. But this devastating fact he then tried to turn positive in the old tiresome babbling about "hand made"* and "individuals", when the fact is that Steinway cannot produce the same quality pianos as Yamaha because of the same reason Ferrari, Porsche etc cannot produce the same quality as Lexus etc Japanese high tech cars.
* Compare extremely over-prized (part of the selling trick) handmade European watches - usually driven by some already outdated Japanese tech.
Kevin Higgins (about Yamaha CFX): I was pleasantly surprised by the warm round tone of each note. It was the best piano I have ever played. The action was easy and the keyboard had a nice textured feel that gave me confidence and security in my play. Much easier to play than the Steinway D. More clarity on the bottom end. This piano achieves real depth but with a better action. It's amazing.
Klevius: Not only that. Yamaha's superior and even production quality guarantees that you really get what you want.
Yamaha talked to hundreds of the world’s most accomplished pianists, including those that did not play Yamaha pianos, and they asked them all what it was they most wanted to see in a concert instrument, and also what they hoped not to see.
Klevius comment: If they'd asked the buyers instead they'd likely got the answer that they hoped not to see the Yamaha brand name on the piano. Btw, have you noticed how TV cameras tend to be allergic to the Yamaha brand name while never missing an opportunity to show the Steinway brand name. Crypto-racism?!
The V10 engine in Lexus LFA is made by Yamaha.
Never buy a camera with a Zeiss lens
I got a cheap Sony bridge camera more than four years ago. I've taken thousands and thousands of pics and I've had it out almost every day in a variety of wet, sandy, dirty, hot and cold environments loose in the car or in some suspicious bags etc without any other protection. It has never failed (the only Japanese camera that has failed for me was a Panasonic with a Zeiss lens - which very soon lacked working both zooming and focusing while the rest of the camera works perfectly). I'm sure I'm not alone. Just check quality lists etc.
This photo was taken hand-held with my soon five year old cheap Sony HX1 recently.
No Audis at the top
It's not just Lexus - it's Japanese world leading quality
Ignorant people don't realize that Japanese quality is older than Germany is as a nation. The pre-history of Japanese quality goes deep into Shinto tradition. No dude, Shinto isn't a stupid "monotheist religion"!
There's a multitude of quality surveys out there from the last half of a century which could vary considerably due to methods etc. However, when summed up the Japanese stand out as overwhelmingly superior. And despite an equally long period of besserwissers telling us it won't last - it still lasts.
Just one example from a safety aspect:
Risk of car fires recorded by Sweden's biggest insurance company Folksam
Japanese brands on average face a far less risk of bursting into flames, than do European cars (see note above)! Especially Volvo and French cars, but also all the German brands, are much often involved in accidental or even spontaneous car fire. Although this is well in line with previous studies on TV-fires, which found that European brands were involved up to 50 times more often than similar Japanese and Korean brands, Volvo and others continue to talk safety! When a Swedish mother left her child for day care, she found her new Volvo X90 in spontanenous flames after having left it for a few minutes. Luckily she took her older child with her inside the day care center! These kinds of stories are very common. So next time you buy a car you may reconsider the safety issue, especially the one that concerns the real life situation where you want to use your car.
The most dangerous brands? BMW, VW & Peugeot plus, of course, perhaps the worst, Volvo
which, apart from burning very easily, has much more than the average of safety problems related to poor build quality.
According to Swedish Folksam's insurance statistics on car fires only one out of the 55 most dangerous cars in Sweden was Japanese, whereas 34 out of the 47 least dangerous cars were Japanese (with Toyota and Honda in top).
Just the tip of the VW/Audi iceberg of quality problems
http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/long-term-quality-the-audi-syndrome-1683110437
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome
77,394
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Steven Lang
2/02/15 10:00am
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome
We all have biases. Sometimes it comes from experience. Other times, it's a psychological trapping whose foundation can range from hard data to soft rumors. In the case of Audi, it's both.
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome
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Audi has the inglorious honor of ranking among the six worst active brands you can buy (click the graph to the left for a closer look). Land Rover, MINI, Jaguar, Volkswagen and Smart are right down there with Audi's overall ranking.
However, that low overall ranking doesn't mean that all Audis deserve to be recycled into low-content Chinese versions of Corollas and Camrys. Far from it. In fact, my brother and my niece now own a late model A6 and an A4 respectively due to my recommendations of both models.
I believe they're going to be perfectly happy with both cars due to three big reasons.
1. They can afford the high maintenance costs that come with owning an Audi.
2. They don't get too bothered by minor electrical issues that tend to gradually creep up on these models as they age.
and the monumental #3 — they will never own any model that has the enduring mechanical ugliness of an old Audi A4.
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome910
The A4 from the late 90's to the late 00's that featured the 1.8 Liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine usually needed a lot of special care to last. Synthetic oil. Specific oil filters (never the cheap stuff). A unique attention to minor issues before they became major ones, and for most buyers of this compact sports sedan, the willingness to pay a garage $$$$ to keep 'em going,
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome11
See the engine issues pointed right towards the red? That will be the eternal legacy of Volkswagen's 1.8 Liter turbocharged four-cylinder that was put into the Audi A4.
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome
That red bulge before the big black peak represents an army of ex-Audi owners trading-in their older A4s well-before the industry average which is to the lower right of it.
Most likely these A4 owners got tired of throwing more money into a middling level of horsepower, or the Audi alums were afraid to see yet another repair bill in the four figures.
Throw in a not so good overall rating for Audi transmissions and it's easy to simply write off Audi altogether. After all, the Audi A4 has been the best selling model in the Audi fleet for nearly 20 years.
But then there's this...
Audi A3
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome
and this...
Audi Q7
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome
The Audi A3 and Audi Q7 are holding up quite well. If you click here and scroll down a bit, you'll find that both models are traded-in before they reach the industry average. But this is because they are far younger models than the eleven and a half year average age of today's car in North America. However, because they also tend to have minimal mechanical issues compared to their competitors, we don't count the early trade-in as a negative, which is why they are rated "Above Average" overall.
The Audi Q7 in particular has an overall reliability rating that, to be frank, would do any Honda or Toyota owner proud.
What happened? Audi dramatically improved the overall quality of their powertrains, gave their dealer networks a far better means to handle early issues, and designed a certified pre-owned program that is among the strongest in the industry. Both of the vehicles my family bought were CPO models with a 6 year /100,000 mile warranty. BMW matches it while Mercedes is now at a 5-years and unlimited mileage.
Everyone has upped their game a bit in the near-luxury market. Will the late model Audis be able to endure past the 100k mark without any major mechanical issues? The 618,000 data samples we have collected so far doesn't support that view quite yet, and let's face it. The current reputation of dual-clutch transmissions and any non-diesel VW with a turbocharger is still fighting the uphill battle of a nasty legacy.
But when the data is out there, we'll get it and show it here at Jalopnik. This information will be available for free, forever, and in the coming weeks, we will also be releasing a comparison tool that will let you evaluate the used cars that interest you by year, make and model.
For right now, here's a compilation of how each Audi model has performed. Want to look at other brands and market segments? Feel free to click away. By the end of 2015, we will have nearly a million data samples to help consumers find those used cars that are worth keeping.
Long-Term Quality: The Audi Syndrome
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drjohannvegas
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Steven Lang
2/01/15 3:30pm
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Might have missed this in a prior post, but what IS your data source?
Edit: I even went to the mainpage of your site and goofed around. Still not clear.
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Iamopenlyjudgingyou
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DrJohannVegas
2/02/15 12:04pm
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I have been a car dealer, an auctioneer, and part-owner of an auto auction over the past 15 years. During that time, I have seen a lot of easily detectable patterns between those brands that have truly stood by their promise, and those that were merely giving lip service.
However, one man's experience can only go so far. That's why over the past year and a half, I have co-developed a long-term reliability study that now has nearly 350,000 sample trade-ins from all over the country.
These vehicles were all independently inspected and appraised by professional car buyers who are trained to detect mechanical and structural issues, which can be overlooked or unreported by the owners in other industry studies, and are recorded by those who have no owner bias.
https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motorami...
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drjohannvegas
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2/02/15 1:43pm
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I understood that Steven has some background with the used car market, but thanks for the more in-depth reminder. My question is perhaps more wonky than originally posed, however.
Full disclosure: I spend a good part of my working days thinking about inference from data, so things like sampling methodology, potential selection problems, data missing at non-random, and the like, matter a lot to me.
I understand that some of this is going to be proprietary/privileged information, but I was mostly interested in how an individual observation ends up in the database? Are those cases systematically different from those which are not in the sample? For me, I can respect the excellent work on data display and cogent explanation of findings from the sample, but for me to evaluate how much I can infer from the sample to the larger population, I need a bit more than "we have a study".
I've seen many studies, from economics, politics, and the sciences, which are perfectly valid internally, but suffer from sampling problems which makes generalization a problem. This is sometimes an artifact of an unscrupulous writer (which is reprehensible), but often the unfortunate consequence of limited research resources or an overlooked complication by a genuinely truth-motivated researcher. So, every time I see work which passes the first sniff test (Are the stats from the sample baked in some way?), I go to the second: Where do the data come from? The generalized inference you can draw is only as good as the sample you select.
Steven, keep up the good work, and great site!
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Iamopenlyjudgingyou
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DrJohannVegas
2/02/15 2:08pm
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Very good questions. Hopefully Stephen can provide additional detail.
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kyree-s-williams
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2/01/15 4:00pm
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I've just been telling people to avoid the 3.2-liter in the longitude-engined models...
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Aero
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2/01/15 4:39pm
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I've never owned an A4, but I did have a 1.8T Passat. Terrible car. Turbo issues, insane timing belt replacement, sludge. It wasn't the worst though, that was the '01 Allroad I bought a year later.
My sister owned a '96 A6 Quattro, which was an amazingly reliable car. Even after 180k miles it only ever needed basic maintenance. So when an Allroad popped up for a decent deal I jumped on it.
Worst. Car. Ever. The transmission reverse drum broke, the air suspension failed, and then the front control arms fell to pieces. I decided at that point that VAG cars weren't for me.
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NJAnon
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Steven Lang
2/01/15 6:04pm
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They are one of the 6 worse brands to buy? Yet articles in other magazines say that men owning an Audi attributes to their attraction to women. See ladies, men having paradoxes they have to deal with to!
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amgtech
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2/01/15 11:12pm
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FYI Mercedes CPO is unlimited mileage now.
Also the 2.7tt is terrible, and one of the newer v6's is terrible as well. But overall I think you're right, they are really stepping up their game.
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mistermic
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2/02/15 11:15am
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I hate it when I spill my chocolate shake in the cylinder head too
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longbowmk2
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2/02/15 11:32am
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that picture horrified me.
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RalphieDC
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2/02/15 12:15pm
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Ummmm.....pudding!
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rauthwilliam
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2/02/15 11:19am
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2. They don't get too bothered by minor electrical issues that tend to gradually creep up on these models as they age.
dealbreaker. shut it down.
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mtdrift
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2/02/15 11:20am
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Gah!
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themanwithsauce
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Steven Lang
2/02/15 11:20am
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Former 200 20v owner.......Mine was at 270k miles on the original engine and transmission. If replacement hoses and wires weren't so expensive I would've saved it. But I couldn't justify driving it when a Fiesta ST was cheaper. And more reliable.
However, my car was not an oddity. The old inline-5 motors were tanks and the original quattro systems were built to last. The Audi legacy has two chapters - "Unintended acceleration" and "Intended obsolescence" The first one was undeserved and those cars are part of why "German quality" was superior to all. The second one IS deserved thanks to VW cost-cutting to move units. But it worked. The first cars died out thanks to 60 minutes while everyone kept buying allroads and A4s that exploded after 50k.
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marend
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Steven Lang
2/02/15 11:22am
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Former owner of a Volkswagen. Current owner of a Lexus and a Toyota. This is the reason.
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trevor-burkett-
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Steven Lang
2/02/15 11:24am
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I have a 2002 Audi A4 with the 3.0 V6 and it's been surprisingly reliable.
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tapzz
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Steven Lang
2/02/15 11:26am
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Hank thought it was dead.
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thejustache
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2/02/15 11:28am
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I had an '02 GTI with I believe more or less the same 1.8T (actually tuned to make a little more power than in the audis). Other then replacing the coil packs (twice) and a scheduled timing belt change I never had a single issue with the engine in the 4 years/100kmi I owned it. Plenty of other mechanical issues, sure - just none with the engine. Sold it at 220kni running smoother than ever and holding stock boost just fine. I guess I'l just consider myself lucky?
Still never buying another VAG product....
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west-coaster
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2/02/15 11:47am
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I have essentially the same car, though it's fairly low miles at this point. Been very reliable, though yes, two sets of coil packs that were done at the VW dealership under recall. (Never had trouble with them, but they did the replacement anyway.)
However, my very trustworthy independent VW/Audi mechanic does have some key points of advice, after seeing hundreds of these engines over the years.
As the article states, full-synthetic oil and OEM filter are a must, about every 5-6K miles.
At timing belt replacement (via time in my case, as I hadn't done the mileage at that point) he insists on replacing the water pump, which is a good idea with any car. But beyond that, he insisted on an all-metal pump imported from a specialist in Europe, instead of the OEM pump, which is made of plastic. On a shelf in his office is a row of failed pumps with impellers that had crumbled into bits, sending shards of plastic through the water jackets and ruining engines in the process.
Keeping an eye on small things and taking care of them promptly.
The first and last points, he noted to me, are often overlooked when Audis and VWs start aging and fall into the hands of second owners who want it to behave just like an old Honda or Toyota. In other words, lasting forever with a minimum of attention and the cheapest fluids and parts available. Daddy's Little Princess, fresh out of singing or acting school and with her car far down on her budget priorities (below hair, nails, clothes, and personal electronics), is bound to be disappointed in the reliability of "that stupid German car."
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thejustache
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west-coaster
2/02/15 12:56pm
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Agreed... as usual maintenance is the best thing you can do for yourself. I always ran full synthetic and changed my oil religiously. I'm sure that helped minimize the sludge issue.
I will say that owning a MKIV VW product was pretty much a crash course in vehicle repair overall though. Driveshafts, suspension components, brakes, wheel bearings and the like I got very good at replacing, and multiple times at that. I'm sure the roads around here didn't help at all, but at the same time I've been driving an '05 impreza for almost a year now and have had NO repairs during that time. I pretty much expected something to go monthly on my GTI....
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