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Comments
And another thing, sorry for showing my stripes here, but where do Republicans like Greenwood and Tauzin get off calling for smaller government and then turn around and criticize gov't agencies for lack of oversight? If you cut funding to regulatory bodies, a favorite past time for this particular party (and I ain't saying the other one doesn't have problems, just talking regulation here), well then those regulatory bodies can't do as good a job.
/rant off
Can anyone shed some light on this potential problem?
My 2000 OB makes a 1-2 second, medium-pitch, groaning sound that I can feel (barely) thru the floorboards. It does this very intermittently, and only when the A/C is on *and* I'm driving slowly (<10mph) *and* it is hotter than 80 or 85 outside...
I'm afraid to take it in because the problem is (so far) very intermittent and will surely disappear when I try to demonstrate to a mechanic.
BTW, changed the cabin air filter after 18 months (okay, little behind schedule) and it was FILTHY! I now would strongly recommend the filter to anyone. Takes about 15 minutes to add or change (obviously designed-in at the last minute).
Dave
Check your air pressure regularly everyone.
Dennis
Dennis - I check my tire psi once a week (overkill).
Bob
bob- see that's just it; it won't ever end. Its getting to the point where people will sue Ace Hardware for the nail they picked up in a tire.. Yeesh.
Scouts motto - "Be Prepared".
I say air 'em up to 30psi and drive with common sense.
My dad's Taurus got a new transmission (despite very low mileage, under 30k IIRC) for over $2 grand, and now the A/C compressor went. That thing is a money pit (though Tauri aren't usually that bad). I had told him to leave it in Belize. With the money he's invested in repairs he could have bought a better used car.
-juice
Greg
Bob
Greg
Tell me Juice, is common sense available as an extra cost add-on? It doesn't seem to be standard equipment and isn't mentioned in my manual. :~)
Ross
-mike
Ross: common sense is priceless! :-)
-juice
PS My Forester came with Bridgestones and though the recommended pressure was 29/26 (f/r, higher rear pressures under load) I've never heard of any problems.
My wife was recently telling me a story about her co-worker's under-inflated tires. Her co-worker was in the elevator saying how her tires need air but her husband is out of town for a week, so she'll just wait. My wife, that has always checked her tires religiously, told her to go to a service station or she would even do it for her with her foot pump. The lady didn't think it was that big of a deal and said not to worry about it. My wife said everyone in the elevator was staring like she was crazy and couldn't believe she was so concerned.
P.S. My OBS's BF Goodrich recommended pressure is about 31/29. I usually put 34/32 in a warm tire.
Dennis
Recalls are only the most visible of service actions, certainly not the best measurement of a vehicle's quality. Voluntary Recalls (as most are)are a proactive way of correcting problems found, whether they are in assembly or in defective components from tier suppliers. GM acted very responsibly on the front arms on the SUV's it recalled. As soon as they found there was a problem, they stepped in to rectify it. They could have put out a service bulletin and instituted "Fix-on-Fail" policies. That would have saved them the PR black eye the recall has given them. Ford could have done the same thing on the Escape and Explorer. Since the average consumer has no idea of how many non-recall service actions are in place on any given vehicle I can understand the fixation on recalls, but they can be a very innacurate picture of a vehicle's quality. Nissan just recalled over 100,000 Sentra's for front suspension defects, does that make the Sentra a piece of junk?
Today they have a reputation that every other manufacturer envies.
-juice
-mike
My point was that GM could have just fixed vehicles as they failed, or waited until the Govt. stepped in and had them do a mandatory recall. There might not have been a high enough failure rate for that to occur. If they had taken that route, and no recall was deemed necessary they would not have had the negative publicity.
I just don't see something like this happening on a subaru or other small company that can't afford to loose any customers.
-mike
Dennis - mornings are the best time to get things done for me. It's nice and quiet and no kids demanding their PC time or Mom time.
Recalls - I really look at them as a positive but my experience is just limited to Subaru. When we start seeing a "trend" we go out of our way to get things going in the right direction. It can be very costly, but the cost of losing customers is a lot worse. Things are going to go wrong and components are going to fail. The problem is when a manufacturer turns the other way and tries to focus on profits. Many will drag their feet waiting for NHTSA to "find" a problem.
We require every customer contact to be logged and coded without exception. This info. is reported so trends can be caught.
I still feel sorry for Firestone because I do not believe that the tires are at fault if inflated properly. Funny how other's are failing. Do you see a common denominator?
We are going with Bridgestone in 2K2 models because the Firestone name is carrying the burden of the bad PR.
Sorry for the rant - Welcome back, Juice!
Patti
-mike
How does SoA determine what's a recall and what's a TSB. My car was affected by one recall. A hood scoop modification because the O2 sensor "might" become corroded due to water entering the engine compartment.
OTOH, I was one of several people complaining for a year or more about severe low-rpm hesitation in 1998. S0A finally issued a TSB for this. My previous dealer simply blamed it on a loose vacuum connection. I still get the hesitation after every oil change. Patience may have been a virtue for me but I kept re-setting the ECM. I didn't want to drive around with a car that doesn't want to go.
IMO, the TSB is more of a safety issue than my recall was. When I pull out into traffic, the car doesn't move if I'm under 3,000 rpm's.
Dennis
It's funny how most of the public probably won't even realize that Bridgestone owns Firestone. It's a good PR move to keep the same supplier while dropping the Firestone name (at least for now).
paisan: Honda recalled 6 or 7 different models a year or so ago because the front suspensions could collapse. It wasn't a bad design, just a bad supply of parts.
-juice
Juice: nice to see you again.
Ken/Juice/other Forester fans: I ordered the Hella Supertones from Susquehanna Motorsports. Should be here by Friday. Problem is I'm on the road most every day starting tomorrow through July 5, so I won't get the chance to install them. Also will likely miss the chats. That's too bad 'cause I had fun on the Friday chat - did well on auto trivia (thanks, Drew).
As for Honda problems: I had a '79 Accord sedan once for about 18 months. Bad car. Times have changed. My wife has a '91 Accord sedan which has had numerous paint problems, specifically it fades badly and the clearcoat has sheeted off in spots. The problem was with a specific dark blue color - we've seen many '91 Accords in this color with this problem. Odds are she will buy another Accord "when the wheels fall off" this one - she has 157K miles on it. She has also had it broken into and/or stolen 7 times, although that's stopped once we moved from NJ to PA. Could not convince her to take the Forester so that I could buy a WRX.
Ed
-juice
The Explorer issue is more complicated. Way more complicated, as the Ford and Firestone companies actually have common *family* ties and histories going back nearly to their beginnings. Leaving all that stuff out and just going with the technical:
1) the tires were (slightly) undersized for the vehicle; 2) the tires were considerably under-spec'd for the vehicle -- max weight carrying capacity of the tires was reached by little more than putting 4 people and full tank of gas in the Explorer, meaning that any extra gear such as roof racks or even just a few pieces of luggage put the load on the tires beyond their rated limits; 3) the recommended inflation pressure was too low; 4) the inherent vehicle design and subsequent very high placement of most of the load combine to place very high side loads on the tires (this is true of all tall utes, not just Explorer); 5) the tires were not of the highest quality -- which is not to say that they were inherently dangerous, only that they may not have had as much of a safety margin as other tires.
As for maintaining proper inflation, it sounds like a fine thing but the reality is that very, very few people actually do it. They might luck out by having it done by the technician when the oil is changed, but most people never check it themselves. That has to be accounted for at the design level, because it isn't going to change.
Regards,
-wdb
Another reason to stay out of NJ - sorry, Dennis.
Ed
I'd heard those VW's were real easy to steal, but I didn't know about the Accords.
-juice
You'll like the Supertones once they're in. I had a chance to blast a guy who ignored a yeild sign onto the freeway on ramp this morning. He didn't even slow down to notice that there were cars getting on the on ramp from a left-turn signal.
The Supertones got his attention.
Ken
-mike
PS: Am I sore? Yeah a bit.
BTW, in the Isuzu suit, the accuracy of the published article itself was not challenged. It was a few statements in later press releases (not even all of those) that were judged wrong.
-juice
IMO, it's another one of those common sense things. Of course SUV's are prone to tip when driven like a car (mike, you don't count since yours has modified suspension).
Ed,
I'm willing to bet you didn't leave near Middlesex County. Where was it? Then again, the Accord is always one of the top stolen cars in the U.S. Recently, Jersey City and Newark were the car theft capitals of the country!
Dennis
From the article:
"It marks only the third SUV model out of 118 vehicles tested over the last 13 years to fail the test. The others were the Suzuki Samurai in 1988 and the Isuzu Trooper along with its twin Acura SLX in 1996."
Now I see why paisan is upset ;-P However I think the legal precedent is well established, and that CU is well aware of it, having been party in the court proceedings that led to its creation; and so your hopes of them losing a lawsuit are for naught.
3 out of 118? I'm surprised that it is so few. I've long considered SUV-style vehicles to be inherently less safe in abrupt maneuvers than vehicles with lower centers of gravity, ever since I nearly rolled a friend's Willys Station Wagon about 30 years ago!
This has not prevented me from owning such vehicles, but I do consider myself to be an educated consumer. Most of the folks buying SUVs don't understand that they're buying top-heavy trucks, built using 40 year-old suspension and drivetrain technology, with minimal braking capacity and iffy handling. I think it's just fine that the message is finally getting through to them; too bad it seems to take sensationalistic journalism to make that happen.
Regards,
-wdb
-mike
Dennis
The previous slogan was indeed "Subaru.What to Drive".
-mike
I was surprised at the Monty because of the suspension. It sure is tall, though. Next to it my Forester looks like a Miata.
-juice
The recent trend towards more sophisticated, more car-like SUVs is a very good thing IMO.
Oh yeah. If the Montero finding really is a crock, CU *will* lose in court. But that isn't likely to happen. I don't agree with CU on a lot of things, but one thing they are is thorough. You can bet they dotted their I's and crossed their T's; from there on out it a matter of their right to publish an opinion, and I don't think you would want your 1st Amendment rights eroded that far.
-wdb
If you believe that CU will lose in court even if it is a crock, you obviously don't know that there is a lot more to judgements than what's right and what's wrong. Namely payoffs, public policy, politics, etc.
-mike
-Frank P.
I'll be interested to see how the view the new Liberty, because it too, feels a bit tippy through the curves. Tall vehicles (relative to their length and width) with high centers of gravity have problems here.
Bob
Have taken to dealer 4 times. Last time (last week), they installed new oxygen monitor and fuel pressure thingie (me stupid 'bout cars, good with public transport.). Great for 4 days. Fifth day, racing revs happened twice before starting. Have it parked at dealer for a couple days, hoping it will do its thing there--hasn't yet, only in my driveway.
Any ideas?
I've heard others with 2000s and 2001s complain of hard starting. I bet it's all emissions related.
-Colin