Fanatic
That doesn't sound like an Off button, that sounds like someone's found a way to disable something that wasn't meant to by fiddling and pushing a bunch of buttons till something turned off. In which case they can wear whatever the repairs cost when something goes bang.Programming a 4500rpm stall and making it accessible via a combination of settings,
not just VDC off, does not constitute a device that helps you in a snow bog.
Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death...
– Hunter Thompson
Enthusiast
i think that you should keep in mind that when a performance car first comes out, the automobile magazines are more concerned with performance rather than reliability and the cars are often treated in a "it's not MY car" or "drive it like you stole it" attitude
Fanatic
but this isn't a car previously used by the press...right?Originally Posted by 092326001
KFL Racing Enterprises - Kicking your ass since 2008
*cough* http://theitalianjunkyard.blogspot.com/ *cough*
Fanatic
This
I think this automotive big brother is kind of annoying, thuogh I can't say I really blame car companies. I don't want a car company to know how many gees i'm pulling and how many 0-60 sprints I'm doing. (not that my car's fast enough to do either, but it doesn't have as advanced computer monitoring of the driver)
"Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
"No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"
Super Moderator
You completly missed the point of what hes saying there.
Magazines wont and also dont really have the data to talk about how reliable a vehicle is when its relativly new.
Lifts heavy things and hits hard......also eats as much as 2/3 people and sleeps 10 hours a day!
Enthusiast
It is definitely a mixed bag. I can't the car companies for wanting to protect themselves. Years back GM was sued by the family of a deceased football player. The player had lost control of his Corvette ZR1 and died in the ensuing accident. The family claimed the airbag deployed when the car hit a pothole. The deployment resulted in a lost of control and the wreck. The car at the time didn't have a black box like the current GM cars but the airbag computer did record enough information for GM to show that the airbag didn't deploy until one of the sensors registered a high G deceleration. In short the system proved that the airbag didn't deploy early.
That was likely a double victory for GM. First they won that case. Second it likely discouraged a few similar cases. What lawyer is going to want to bring a similar case if they know the black box will tell a different story.
I do believe car companies and other groups will use the black box data to learn more about crashes and make safer cars. Of course I think protection from lawsuits is the bigger reason for the boxes. Perhaps instead of blaming the companies we should blame the lawyers
Novice
All this just reinforces my love in older cars. No one needs all this techno-crap that's on cars nowadays. I'm not saying its all bad, but most of it you can easily do without.
" Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports ... all others are games."
- Earnest Hemingway
Super Moderator
Some interesting points raised, let me bring experience to the issue
The mainstream press will always talk about how you need to "dump the clutch" to get a good launch. THis is only true if the tyres, clutch and road surface are "appropriate".
If you dump a racing clutch on a high grip tarmax surface with warmed slicks then you will shear a component somewhere. "Dumping a clutch" needs to either have tyres that are willing to reduce the shock loading or have designed in clutch slip to do this. BUT, you do launches with a clutch with safety built in - ie some slip - and the clutch doesn't last long.
All engineering descision are compromises. Make a car capable of handling clutch-dumps from standing starts on a daily basis and you will add significantl;y to the weight and the cost of the materials used to prevent shears/wear! So you end up with a NIssan for a Lamborghini price !! Nissan know the aftermarket tuners will address this
I don't see that Nissan have made a bad choice in their decisions. Clearly there is at least one OWNER who has thoigh ... wanting a cheap suprtcarand having no mechanical sympathy !
Knowledgabel drivers/owners will "benefit" from this choise as they will limit and contorl what they do with it. Like F1 too many drivers have forgotten what it takes to drive and have relied on all the electronic smarts and don't comprehend what "switching it off" means ..... the number of reasonable drivers who I've seen get in trouble in RX-8 with their ego telling them to swtichj off the DSC is pretty much matched with the number of RX-8s that have spun off into ditches
"A woman without curves is like a road without bends, you might get to your destination quicker but the ride is boring as hell'
Furniture
isn't this kinda..par for the course for a high performance AWD vehicle?
ferrari can and does.
Andreas Preuninger, Manager of Porsche High Performance Cars: "Grandmas can use paddles. They aren't challenging."
Fanatic
Of course, even for compact cars or comfortable sedans.
But they could assume a car is going to have some problems if it is so cheap and presumingly fast, like I did or a lot of other people did.
besides, what you missed in my post, is that this car wasn't previously abused by a magazine or something, so it wasn't in bad conditions when the owner got his hands on it and all the suppositions on its reliability were to be demanded to warranty, or a too risky design in this case. Something both magazines and owners could and should do.
Even if I agree with Matra again, you need to use your car correctly and properly if you want it to last longer, Nissan imo hasn't been very fair in this.
The only way to use the launch control, is to turn off the VDC.
what they are blaming isn't just the fact that this guy has used the LC function too much times, but that it turned off the VDC, something that the owner manual consider to right to do only if you have run into trouble while on the snow or mug. at this point, remove the LC function.
as Culver or F6, I think a burned clutch would have been something more usual in this case, not the whole brand-new-super-advanced-dsg-gearbox.
If Nissan really though that this was something right to design and let tuners to fix later the "issue" for those more pretentious, the shouldn't have advertised the car in that way claiming the impossible and declaring their car was the best thing of the world.
I prefer something a bit slower, but a little more reliable. you know, I need to use my car, and sometimes as a sport car too.
Probably the reason why Porsche didn't achieve Nissan's time on the 'Ring is that they didn't destroy some part of the car
KFL Racing Enterprises - Kicking your ass since 2008
*cough* http://theitalianjunkyard.blogspot.com/ *cough*
Furniture
This.
Lack of charisma can be fatal.
Visca Catalunya!
Novice
I find it amusing how some people are so highly anticipated in having their own judgement on some silly comments posted by an anonymous person in the internet world.
Anyone could just say anything and people would adore the comments. A few words here and there on the internet world to claim something that one knows will attract plenty of attention don't just do any justice at all. If there is no proof, then why should one trust the other?
I am a Business Analyst myself and if everyone is as stupid as those who made unjustified comments (believing whatever they read) in this thread as well as the original thread, it would make my job so much easier, since whatever I report can be whatever I wish to say.
What about the stupid dude long time ago who created a dedicated website with compilations of accidents involving Lamborghinis around the world with photo collections of each aftermath. Which then lead him to claim that Lamborghinis have produced a manufacturing defect causing them to lose its front right wheel when driven above 160mph?
What about the forum member in the NAGTROC who cracked the shit about destroying his GT-R transmission after 'some modifications' and that Nissan decided to void his warranty? What sounded more interesting in his post is that he owned a Ferrari F430, sold it and got the Scuderia version. And now? Sold that and got himself the GT-R? Oh wow, what a huge difference in the cars he swapped around, I know I personally wouldn't trade any of my Ferrari (if I ever own one!) with a GT-R.
Accidents can happen any time, so are the damages on one's car. Now I don't own a Ferrari, but I certainly know if I launch the F430 hard enough off every set of lights, will dramatically reduce the lifespan of the transmission itself. Worst of all, I run into a high risk of damaging the gearbox at the same time and not covered by manufacturer's warranty.
Nothing is made to last a lifetime, things do break over time, and they break sooner when care is not taken properly. This is just a classic case of trashing a brand new car, broke something, manufacturer recorded misuse, void warranty, I-am-not-happy-jan.
Or, I hate the GT-R, let me create a hate thread, I am anonymous behind the keyboard anyway.
Use your common sense please. Nissan will issue a press release to re-call all GT-Rs currently sold if it is an actual manufacturing defect. If it is just a case or two, it doesn't sound quite right to call it manufacturing defect, or incapable, or whatever one calls it.
At the end of the day, all of you including myself have only listen and read one side of a story.
Last edited by Tocam; 10-14-2008 at 05:27 AM.
Fanatic
true
but you should consider that someone have his own reasons behind posting, not "I just read something, let's comment!"
the fact that is gearbox is gone (I'm not interested if it's true or not, because I think it's highly possible that it happened or will happen to someone else) is nothing impossible. It's also very probably, if the car has not been used correctly.
that point is, don't feature a function in a car if its usage is going to destroy the car or void the warranty. and this is for any manufacturer.
another point is, if the car you just developed can reach astonishing performance just because it wasn't meant to last like other contenders, you should claim both the performance and the reliability. or none of them. and even this could be good for a lot of car makers.
this story could be completely false, but it fits what I think of the car. hence my posts.
KFL Racing Enterprises - Kicking your ass since 2008
*cough* http://theitalianjunkyard.blogspot.com/ *cough*
Novice
A feature on a car's performance has nothing to do with warranty guidelines. What have been achieved is history, and history are told and are always being referred to anytime in the future. So yes, the GT-R achieved the performance record in the exact same car that is now sold in the market. It was achieved and is now history, so I can't see why it cannot be referenced even when it is archived.
When clearly printed on the warranty conditions upon signing off your new car, you should made yourself aware of what is covered and what is not under the warranty. Or else, don't whinge if you can't read!
So doing anything that is not covered under the warranty agreement between Nissan and its customer is done at own discretion. Failing to comply with the agreements stated under the term shows that the owner clearly understood the responsibility if something were to break in the vicinity of warranty disclosure.
I don't have much hope for Nissan to even consider covering the damage under warranty in this case. If you wreck it, you pay it.
Enthusiast
Tocam, you are completely right in that we don't know the whole story, we only know the story the person who claims to have a damaged car has told us. It certainly wouldn't be the first time someone has posted on the web and later it was shown that they were not exactly being honest.
I can't say for certain that he didn't do something especially bad to damage his transmission. It is quite possible that the GT-R has a very robust box and the damage he did was due to truly above and beyond driving rather than just using launch control.
I believe I said as much in my first post (perhaps I said as much on a different forum and have since confused my self). I still don't like the idea that Nissan would sell a product based in part on capabilities of launch control then void the warranty because the system was used. I also think it is wrong that they include a "snow" function that needs to be used to enable launch control and that system is prominently located on the dash. Why does a "snow" mode need to put the car at risk.
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