That still beats the new Mk1 Cortina I had (company car) where the front wings were bubbling on top like crazy after twelve months, and I wasn’t alone! Worse than Lancias at the time.
Lots more activity on this USA tale of woe thread.
It’s an interesting read.
The more I read on that thread the less sympathy I have for the “injured party”
its still rumbling in, but looks like we may have to wait a few days for the next chapter.
I don’t know, for a 20 year old he comes over not too badly, if he has managed to strip a gear by doing something then I’d be very interested to know how, the consensus so far is that ECU flash, driving style as described shouldn’t have caused this. Maybe there’s more been done done to the car than has been suggested in the thread, what though would actually result in that kind of damage to a hardened gear?
Maybe one of the racing Guru’s could comment?
The only thing I can add is that sending metal bits for testing and getting bullet proof remarks back that an expert witness will stand behind in court takes a good few weeks.
If the guy takes it to court, Mazda US at the moment will not have a bullet proof case, therefore I assume they will agree to repair the box in time as the cost of a full lab examination will be more than the cost of the box.
Didn’t DazMaz’s MP62’d NB do something similar back in the day?.
yes, similar, I have photos…
Sectioning the gear, doing some microstructural analysis and writing a report is only half a days work for one person, it wouldn’t cost much or take long. There are labs all over the country and I suspect Mazda US would have their own anyway.
I strongly doubt that this one component would have escaped heath treatment and so if it was a weakness I would expect there to be a whole batch of gearbox failures to start showing up.
Stripping the teeth of the whole gear usually comes with shock loading so trying to flat shift or the favourite of Americans, dropping the clutch in second gear.
Could be selling him short of course and he could be a truthful innocent, but I think the necessity to “fix the car” before giving it to the dealer to diagnose is never going to go down well.
this, broken NB gearbox, caused by a heavy right foot and a supercharger…
I wonder if it’s a combination of up-rated engine, wrong gear selection, high revs, dumped clutch = wrecked gearbox. If it is, I hope Mazda stiff the lying little b’tard.
And I can remember another members car throwing a rod through the side of the block - that was an NB too.
Bollocks Nick,
I speak from experiance of commissioning and seeing the bills for lab work and expert witness reports and the timescales involved.
When was the last one you commissioned.
I rarely like throwing past experiences around as it always seems like “my dad is bigger than yours” but since you asked so nicely. In the 16 years I was Engineering Director of Buehler UK I designed the equipment, wrote the procedures gave industry lectures on and performed the tests that most of the automotive and aviation industry uses. Literally more tests have been performed on “my” equipment than your whole family has had hot dinners and I have been into most of the automotive heat treat facilities in the world.
None of this matters of course as it will not cost anything like $7,000
Ship the gear to the lab, section it, 30 minutes at most from first getting the part in the lab. Mount it and polish, 2 hours tops. Examine under a microscope, all of which have cameras attached and produce documents straight into reports. A simple Rockwell hardness test. Half a day.
If your expert witness charge you more, then they saw you coming.
Potentially another one…
Four - according to that thread.
So how much id that cost and what was the year and how much did expert witnesses cost you per day in court in those days!
Well I would have charged £600 per day to go to court.
Mazda will have their own experts. If they want they could sent the part to Japan and have the results back in 24 hours. They don’t need to employ anyone to do this, it is the plaintiff that needs the expert witness.
However if they did want to go court or if it ends up in court, the microstructural analysis cost is very little, the court costs will be the court costs.
oh dear, its been a fascinating thread, but not sure I can read any more. Wake me up when it ends and post the conclusion!