171–179 of 179 posts
I don't know how we're trusting a company that lied about emissions to create the next generation of electric cars. After the TDI and TSI scandals, I know many people who hope this brand does not survive. I will never buy a VW, Porsche, or Audi if my life depended on it.
What brand do you recommend then, one that does not deceive or lie about their cars' emissions?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've owned many VWs and Audis, and the 2008 Jetta I bought (albeit with a manual transmission) is still going strong. Not a single service issue, to date. It must have almost 200K miles.
Any tips on how to heel toe in this gen jetta? The pedals are so awkwardly placed...
I've since bought newer cars and gave this one to a relative. It's still on the original clutch/transmission, so I guess I didn't do too bad.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is 15 minutes really "not much more than filling up with gas"? You can fill my car up to 100% from empty in 100 seconds. The entire process, including payment, takes less than 2.5 minutes, and usually (I rarely let it run to empty) more like 2 minutes, from switching off the engine at the pump to switching it back on and driving off. My car's fuel tank is 60 litres (15.8 US gallons). 35 miles per Imperial gallon in m…
This is only meaningful if you happen to live at a gas station. My electric car takes me only ten seconds to charge as I plug it in when I get home on my way inside.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Buying a product when told it has X features and specifications then receiving said product with Y features and specifications and then becoming upset over it as a consumer isn't "entitlement".
You are giving people way too much credit here. No-one is going through all of the specifications of their car and buying it for those reasons. Plus, you don't buy a diesel vehicle to be eco-friendly, you buy it to get better gas mileage. Car came with X features, which is high MPG. VW got in trouble for X features so they had to flash the computer with Y features, which is lower MPG. This particular customer didn't…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but what should one do with posts that are just blatantly false?
Citations, not personal attacks. For example, as to the claim it is the safest production car ever made, you could cite NHTSA finding the Tesla Model 3 had the best combined VSS (Vehicle Safety Score) ever tested. [1] Regarding remote maintenance, the latest firmware does add the capability to notify the operator of an issue and pre-orders parts to your home service center. [2] I can't speak to drive train specifical…
Besides, I have no qualms with claims about the drivetrain, Superchargers, and other things that might well make Tesla the best EV out there.
It's the claims that Tesla compares with.. well, with anything, really, in build quality, that it has better interior or ergonomics , or that "Autopilot" is the best driver assistance system that really raise eyebrows. I can't comprehend what kind of thinking makes one say that a touchscreen interface in a moving vehicle could possibly be either more convenient or safer than dedicated buttons. And specifically in TM3, what could possibly make them put all output (mind you, in a car that you still have to drive yourself) off to the side?!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citations, not personal attacks. For example, as to the claim it is the safest production car ever made, you could cite NHTSA finding the Tesla Model 3 had the best combined VSS (Vehicle Safety Score) ever tested. [1] Regarding remote maintenance, the latest firmware does add the capability to notify the operator of an issue and pre-orders parts to your home service center. [2] I can't speak to drive train specifical…
I thought that the claim that Tesla is the safest car has been thoroughly debunked long ago. It's safer than an average car on the road, but not than a car of the same age and price. Not to mention that your average car does not try to actively kill you by driving into large, stationary objects. Besides, I have no qualms with claims about the drivetrain, Superchargers, and other things that might well make Tesla the…
Obviously it's better to avoid an accident entirely. As of last year Tesla drivers had traveled more than 1 billion miles under AutoPilot. Miles driven by AutoPilot continue to be significantly safer than non-AutoPilot miles [2] but the miles are not directly comparable (e.g. highway vs non-highway). An increasing number of my non-highway miles are driven on AutoPilot now though, as the system continues to improve. Tesla recently (as in two weeks ago) introduced additional active safety measures for accident avoidance [3], and there is even a recent video of AutoPilot avoiding a bunny in the road [4].
As far as the screen, maybe it's personal taste. I can tell you I love the touch-screen and I love how it is located in the car. I particularly enjoy that there's no screen right in front of me behind the steering wheel. I commented upthread that the feeling of driving, particular at night, with nothing but the road directly in front of you is almost surreal.
All the most common functions (blinker, wiper, volume, cruise speed, skip track, voice command) are hard-wired, so there's never a need to take your hand off the wheel. To make more fine-grained adjustments (which I find you practically never need to do) the touch screen is so responsive I can do as fast as with a button or dial.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcZkkGL85AI
[2] - https://www.thedrive.com/news/27356/frequency-of-tesla-autop...
[3] - https://www.tesla.com/blog/more-advanced-safety-tesla-owners
[4] - https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-autopilot-saves-rabbit-roadk...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh, yeah people complain about that generation of cars from VAG quite a bit. I had a MK4 Golf with the 1.8T that I raced every month for a few years and also drove to work. It broke a couple times, but wasn't unreliable. I think this was partly because I did preventative maintenance. I think - the motors were fine for the MK4s, but everything around them had one problem or another. The motor is going into my next ca…
Had a B5 Passat 1.8T Two coil packs A/C evaporator unit packed up Some vacuum pipe broke The worst probably was the 1.4 Twincharger engine (one with a turbo supercharger) and wisely they discontinued it after one generation. Total engine replacements before 30,000 km was not uncommon.
The 1.8Ts in the Passats gave the transverse 1.8T a bad name. The one in the Passat is mounted lontudinally, like your classic American v8. To do that with the Passat (for the AWD system) they had to move the engine down and a crossmember was in the way.
So they wisely made the oil pan smaller. On a turbocharged engine. Doh! To add insult to injury lots of dealers used cheap oil. So engine failures happened.
Fun fact - you can take the engine from the Passat - turn it 90 degress - and bolt it in pretty much any VW from 1979-~1999. Even the waterpump housing was unchanged for like 20 years. These engines are commonly used as power upgrades for older cars (which is what I am doing with mine).
The 1.8T that was in the GTIs was a complete redesign and had less problems. Forged internals etc. But VW decided to use a timing belt instead of a chain and when owners forgot to replace the belt at 80k miles and the engines went kablooey it didn't exactly help customer relations. A great engine destroyed by one consumable component. Luckily VW isn't using belts anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought that the claim that Tesla is the safest car has been thoroughly debunked long ago. It's safer than an average car on the road, but not than a car of the same age and price. Not to mention that your average car does not try to actively kill you by driving into large, stationary objects. Besides, I have no qualms with claims about the drivetrain, Superchargers, and other things that might well make Tesla the…
Passenger EVs by nature of their bigger forward crumple zones, should be safer than an ICE passenger vehicle. Tesla Model 3 is particularly safe when it comes to forward collision and rollover. They've also done as good a job as anyone with side-impact and things like partially overlapping front impact [1]. So it adds up to substantiating the "safest" claim in terms of protecting you during an accident. Obviously it'…
Really, looking at the official testing spreadsheet you've linked in your previous comment, TM3 certainly does not look like a safest car on the road. Not terrible, but will pulverize your femurs just fine, and does not get scores significantly higher than much cheaper cars.
Avoiding an accident is, indeed, better. But here Tesla's harping on their "Autopilot" does not come out as good either. There were links posted here from IIHS showing that Tesla on Autopilot does not fare particularly well. Of the 9 models with 0 highway deaths (and those are not some exotic cars of which there just are very few, some are your typical soccer mom minivans) none was a Tesla. [0] does not look very good either.
I am also not aware of any other driver assistance system that actively tries to kill you in not particularly challenging circumstances. Now, I am not going to say that it is necessarily Tesla's technical fault that somne of their customers are... let's say not particularly astute and believe that "Autopilot" will actually autopilot them down the road, but at least their marketing claims are outright evil.
If the screen works for you, great, but I am afraid it is the case where it only works for you until the unfortunate moment when you keep looking at it adjusting A/C while the car accelerates into the nearest fire truck. Sure, you can do wityh it, but no, it cannot possibly even equally safe (or convenient) to a system with a dedicated button that can be operated by touch without looking.
Can you adjust temperature, airflow direction, seat temperature (oh, you can't even cool them, sorry /s ) without even having to look at anything? I can, and it's an 8 years old car (it also doesn't have uneven gaps or rattles, but let's ignore that for now). Sure, nice of them to have kept blinkers in the standard position (I wonder if they would have been even allowed on the road otherwise) but that's not exactly a glowing praise...
[0] https://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/52/4/4