alcazar

iTrader: (2)

What IS it with modern car designers?

We have a whole raft of cars where the owner has no chance of being able to even change a blown bulb, we have cars which are MUCH more powerful than ever, yet no quicker, and not really any more frugal, and we have the advent of the b*llox technology.

Take the dual mass flywheel...I mean, WHY for fek's sake?

For years, cars had an ordinary flywheel. It usually lasted the lifetime of the car and, unless misused, gave no problems.

Was that good enough? Nope...modern car designers have come up with something called a "dual mass flywheel" which has God only knows what going for it....but one thing is for certain...it wears out.

Change the clutch in a modern car equipped with one of these beauties, you will almost certainly be stung for another £300 for a NEW dual mass flywheel.

So much so that most of therm get removed and solid (like they used to be) flywheels fitted.

So WHY the **** was it brought in? What benefits did it have, if any?

Then, there's the DPF, or diesel particulate filter. Now most secondary age kids will tell you how a filtyer works...it stops bits going through and collects them on itself. So what part of this did car designers miss? The bit about it getting blocked, that's all. The result? They don't work well, they block and have to be replaced at a large cost, or they **** your engine. Great eh?

I sometimes think car designers just do it to show people how clever they are...except they often aren't.

Rant over.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

seconded. My dual mass bust and took out the gearbox with it....

DYK

Totally agree on the DPF,i know a few people who have paid to have it removed it was causing such a hassle...
Its getting more limited to repair things yourself,and are forced now to either a dealer or garage.

joz8968

iTrader: (13)

Funnily enough my work colleague mentioned only today that his pal has just had to fork out a bag'o'sand to have his DPF replaced! WTF! FFS! Etc!

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

On that bombshell diesels are NOT cheap to run anymore, better off with petrol.

SiPie

Yup, getting my chirping dual mass replaced with a solid next week

Steve_PPP

iTrader: (3)

With you on that one. My scoob is the most reliable car i've ever owned.

My daily driver (2007 Mondeo ST TDCI) has spent the last week pottering around in limp mode cos the sodding EGR valve was knackered. If Ford wanted to design something that recirculates exhaust gases in a sodding diesel, why the **** does it get clogged with soot and break every 20,000 miles?! I mean, its not like diesels have only just started producing soot in the last few years!

ScoobyWon't

Blimey, Alcazar moaning about something. There's a change

daviee

+1 Subaru front head light levelling sensor 290 quid mounted inversely to fill with water and fail. Cash making machine.

Boro

iTrader: (1)

I just sold my Audi A4 2.5 TDi because I could see some big bills around the corner.

Audi quoted me £925 to replace the cambelt and another £600 to replace the clutch.

Both would have needed doing over the next 6-12 months.

You could buy a car for that kind of money lol

davegtt

Thing is, theyve made cars much more nicer to drive with all this technology (for 90% of the population who couldnt give a crap about cars and know nothing about them) Us petrolheads just get fustrated by the extra expense and technology that brings no benefit and if anything takes the character of the car away.

CREWJ

You are totally right. The two main issues are emissions and safety. Without those you would have the car you want.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I agree.

BUT

The DMF is there to allow a lighter gearbox to be used with a more powerful engine. Also allowing lower idle speeds for economy and help smooth out diesel engines. Without it the vibration issues when laboring otherwise would require a balance shaft to sort it out. Anyone who has driven an old LDV pilot/convoy van will have experienced NVH at its worst .

DPFs. I hate to say it, as much as I despise them along with catalysts. They only block up when something is wrong. The car not being driven enough is a bit of a fallacy IMO, as I've had cars successfully regenerate the DPF when just tottering about in the city (after rectifying the underlying engine fault).

Remember diesels without DPFs?...every now and again you'd see one chucking soot all over the place. Nothing has changed...just it all goes into the filter instead! The more soot the engine creates...the quicker the filter fills up. So yeah, if you have a lumpy running diesel with a DPF its probably having to regenerate far more often, and if the driver happens not to do that many miles...well, its game over. Same if the engine burns oil....oil creates ash...ash gets in the DPF and it won't burn off. That's why you should use a low ash C2 or C3 grade oil.

No need to replace DPFs though; I have manually cleaned a few blocked DPFs...its a very environmentally friendly task! (not )

Another bain? EGR. To lower Nox. Good idea? On paper yes. But on a engine with a turbo and a oil breather system mixing oil vapour with soot? Very bad. Very very bad infact. And more often than not its that is what messes up the DPF as the EGR stops working..worse on cars that totter about.

Really the EGR pipe needs its own little DPF...or better still take the EGR gas AFTER the main DPF. That way the engine inlet wouldn't clog up with black gunk. Which needs a dose of oven cleaner to remove.

Ford's electronic EGR is the worst...but then the old Duratorq engine chucks out a **** load of soot. The only time they don't clog up is when they are driven like they are stolen..hence why the same engine in the Transits seems OK.

More stupid stuff?

Electronic turbo vane actuators....good idea? Not on a sooty diesel. It sticks and breaks. And then the poor poncy wannabe with his Range Rover Sport TDv8 now as a huge bill as the garage has to remove the entire body off the chassis to fix the sticky turbos (I have no sympathy...you pay £18K for a Rangie, this is what you expect ).

Electric handbrakes. You know what it does on a Astra? It engages a motor behind the back bumper, which pulls a cable...funnily the exact same type of brake mechanism found on a normal handbrake - whats the point? I suppose its better than VAG that needs a computer/scan-tool to reset the rear calipers to stop them burning out the handbrake motors when the pads are changed.

Self adjusting drums brakes..once they get old they never work right. Except VW/Audi/Skoda; their mechanism is idiot proof (wedge pulled in by a spring). All the other stuff that uses ratchet cogs just sticks or falls apart (that's Ford, Vauxhall, and everything French and Italian).

What else? French dipsticks. Seriously, the French can't make a good dipstick. On the Renault traffic they seemed they have got confused and forgot the oil filler, so you have to use the dipstick tube. At least they give you a little yellow funnel to stop spilling oil everywhere.

Tyre pressure monitors...French again. Peugeot and Renault are class act on these: A little inductive sensor thingy thats part of the tyre valve.They break, they cost a small fortune, and you have to have equipment to code them in....provided you remember the serial number off the new valve you just fitted. The lad at Kwik fit won't know this.

Peugeot also went though phase on the 408 where they thought center holes on their wheels wasn't necessary anymore. Again the lad at Kiwk fit will be stumped...why? Because he won't be able to balance the wheels!

I could go on...but I thinks that's plenty for now

Shaid

Interesting stuff Ali-B

DYK

Its all it ever seems to be about now,has it got several side airbags,how much Co2 does it produce.Then you got all your fancy things in the brochure that the car comes with,ABS,EBV,MSR,ASR,EDS,HBA,DSR,hill hold control,for **** sake its a car,i'm not climbing into the cockpit of a multi million pound fighter jet..Just give me a car with a Proper manual gears and some power that pins me in the seat and gives me a big kick up the **** so i feel alive..
Only thing i like on mine is the xenon lights,must admit they are great visibility at night,everything else i could take it or leave it.

EddScott

I have a A4 TDI and have removed the DPF, EGR and EGR cooler. The cost wipes out the first year fuel saving over petrol.

SouthWalesSam

iTrader: (1)

Very useful info, ALi-B.

Good stuff to bear in mind when buying second-hand.

^Qwerty^

There is, IMO a serious design flaw/safety issue on my current A3.
When driving during the day, the dash dials are illuminated. You know this because if you drive in to a tunnel or it starts to get dark, you can’t see the dials anymore, which in turn prompts you to turn the lights on. Simple.
However, the car has LED DRL’s fitted. If you drive around with those on, the dials in the dash are permanently illuminated. The issue now being that because they are so bright, you can actually drive around with them once it’s dark, but you don’t have any rear lights on.
Thankfully I’m not a fan of DRL’s so I never use them.

dpb

Egr blanking plate off of ebay, 3 quid


,or make your own

Steve Whitehorn

iTrader: (13)

+1 Agree
Ranger Rover sports ....removing the whole body.WTF
I know of a few people that have had to do this!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Even on the car we just scrapped, a '99 plate Xantia, changing a foglight bulb was a front bumper off job

And a dealer wanted £150 plus VAT plus cost of bulb.

Foglights being naff, mine never got changed all the time we had the car

jonc

On the Nissan GTR if you have a slight bump on the front, it activates the Pedestrian Safety gizmo which pops up the bonet which necessitates the replacement of the bumper, rams, bonnet hinges and ECU, total cost for the dealers to repair, £11k. Nice!

DYK

Just as my car went over 3 years old the dreaded ABS sensor went,apparently it was quite a common fault on VAG cars and some BMW mk1,luckily i still got it replaced by the dealer free of charge,otherwise it would of cost me £800.00,i know some have bought these aftermarket units off ebay for like £150.00,those who weren't fortunate enough to get the unit replaced by dealer.
Couple months back i had a letter from VOSA to have my injectors replaced free of charge

Hoping that's all,will get rid end of year anyhow...

richs2891

Easy fix that for the DRL's get someone with vagcom to code the car for Scandinavian mode so rear lights are on with DRL's.

Richard

Ste RB5138

I never knew they were for lighter gearboxes.

I know my dads workmates were always having DPFs fail due to many short journeys pottering around town, crazy costs.

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

LOL, has something gone wrong with your new motor jeff?

All of the above is why I just run old simple motors, bangernomics makes perfect sense to me, I just don't get why people throw thousands of pounds down the toilet to get from A to B unless your running a business and can write it off against tax.

AS for the modern diesel being more economic may be on a day to day basis they are slightly better, but to me they are a bit like BMW's everyone I know that's ever had one gets a huge bill sooner or later.

I'll stick to my cheap petrol runabouts and subarus for fun, I can understand and fix just about everything on them, I've not taken a car to a garage for about 4yrs and that was the only time in about 15yrs and guess what happened.

Robbed blind, never again, i'd sooner torch it.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Not always possible on modern cars Dunc:

Many cars use the MAF sensor to detect if the EGR is open and flowing exhaust gas (as the volume of inlet air will decrease). If it doesn't detect a change in airflow when actuating the EGR, it'll going into limp-home mode (reduced power).

Well, lighter as in lighter duty. Maybe lighter in weight or maybe the same weight but more gears. For example many cars now have six speed gearboxes...yet size-wise they are the same size as a 5speed gearbox: more cogs and shafts in a smaller space, so components are more stressed. Smoothing out the power pulses and torsional shock means a lighter or more compact gearbox can cope with a more powerful engine.

DPFs are bloody fickle. I think sometimes it not just short jorneys, but not simply driving the car hard enough. Before DPFs came about many diesels would fail the MOT on soot emissions; Simply because the engine was never revved hard enough (until the MOT tester boots it to do the smoke test). One Italian tune-up later and the car no longer produces any soot and flies through a MOT smoke test.

My logic is if these same engines (which most are, just with the odd tweek) are now fitted with DPFs and never revved hard, soot will build up everywhere in the exhaust tract until either something stops working or one day someone revs it hard through the gears and then everything goes into the DPF in one large gulp - more than it can cope with, then engine is shut off before it has chance to regenerate the filter.

Even a faulty coolant thermostat that opens too early can cause a DPF to clog. Very rare does a car log a code in the engine ECU telling a mechanic this. And worse still, most temperature guages lie so the driver is unaware...the "normal" range on many car's guages actually can mean anything from 60degrees to 100degrees. The engine temp can vary by 50degrees yet the needle not move a mm....but 60 degrees is too cold for a DPF to renegerate (this is a fairly common issue on BMWs).

Matteeboy

Had our 335d almost five years; totally reliable. I type more but pressed done hateful makeup and lost the whole post. Again.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Gearbox problems, but fixed under warranty.

However, we decided to have the clutch done at the same time as it was about 80% worn, so save £300 in a year or so, and were shocked at having to replace the flywheel too

DYK

Wouldn't mind going back to a good classic scooby to blast a few B roads....