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Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 20:10:23 -0300
From: Dexter J <lamealameadingdongnospamlamelame.org>
Subject: Re: As read in the NY Times....


Salutations: On Tue, 25 May 2004 22:39:40 +0100, Johannes H Andersen <johsnospamfitter_spam_gets_fried.com> wrote: > > The funny thing about that is that the 9000 is a hybrid from a consortium > project, although the 9000 are probably the more durable of its cousins. > The chassis is simpler than the 9-5; when the 9-5 first arrives, it was > hailed as modern advancement, although in truth it felt better to some > because the suspension was softer. The 9000 CSE is fun to drive, and it > can be difficult to contain yourself and drive sensibly. > > There is probably just one mathematically correct shape, just like the > airliners look alike. The car manufacturers try desperately hard hard > to fold their own impressions into the small tolerance gap of plus or > minus a centimeter or so. It makes for some weird and wonderful shapes, > sometimes looking almost like scratches and dents, e.g. Ford Cougar, > BMW Z4, Fiat Coupe. Brother Johannes, I'm afraid we have to agree to disagree on this one. My take is that while it is explained away by 'design math' and 'customer ergonomics feedback' - current automobile builds have much more to do with competitive component suppliers and their marketing drones than anything to do with a paying customer. Indeed - it has been argued that most of the modern automotive brands are much more simple sales chains than true cradle to dealer 'manufacturing' entities as we understood them back when. Advancement in automotive builds now seems to be represented by different things working properly and reliably between years rather than overall improvements. However, the long term ownership cost has risen considerable given that more and more parts are whole integrated components rather than fitted and recoverable assembles. This is offset somewhat by the fact that takes less time to fix things - but not much less. For example - the NG900 (and pretty much any mid-90's car and beyond) requires a complete control arm to replace a sour ball joint. This lowers the cost of manufacture and warrantee considerably as you/they don't have to assemble or repair the lower arm - you/they simply apply or pull the bolts from the entire component. But as a long term owner - you (and in many ways the dealer networks) are boned at the parts counter by pricing policy that far outweighs any real value in terms of component build costs. The 'lego' approach to the biz makes it much less expensive to build and warrantee automobiles - as ir makes it much easier to shop the planet for component suppliers who will run 20,000 throws of their mold with your part number in the slot instead of your competitor's down Michigan Avenue. At the end of the day - if they didn't go out of their way to lock us into that part using bolt pattern trickery and bleached circuit boards - I would be totally in favor of the idea as it would allow me to also shop the planet for parts. Interesting article all round actually - it is very eye-opening to see the crew from Olds running the shop at SAAB. I fear that the brand is going to wound down in the coming years and have aquired a sensible 93 9000 Aero to counter events myself. Yes - they are real and they are spectacular.. :) .. -- J Dexter - webmaster - http://www.dexterdyne.org/ all tunes - no cookies no subscription no weather no ads no news no phone in - RealAudio 8+ Required - all the Time Radio Free Dexterdyne Top Tune o'be-do-da-day Mississippi John Hurt - Frankie http://www.dexterdyne.org/888/197.RAM

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