Here we go - big SBC recall by MB and Botch ...er, Bosch

The spokesman's name (Reifenrath) is somehow appropriate to the subject... (Reifen = tyre)

Maybe Merc will reconsider its race to be first in technology, but I suppose it has to try in this macho competition with BMW et al.

DAS

And to top it RATH is old German for RAT = advice...

Juergen

No kidding.

Isn't "Reifenrath" an approximation of "Reifen-Rat", Rat=advice. Or did "-rath" come from Rad=wheel? Is it more likely the former by tradition?

I suspect the idea was a joint one prompted by Bosch. It's neat technology but it certainly seems to have been rushed to market. MB was probably quicker with its car designs than Bosch with the SBC (6 years!!) and they released it too early.

I hope they get it right because it is otherwise a good product once it becomes mainstream. As it is they may have tried to spread the cost of development over all the available new premium products and inflicted damage to them all in doing so.

Michael

Indeed. And Rath could even mean "adviser", could it not?

:-)) DAS

Yes. No ("Rath" does not come from Rad -- modern spelling is "Rat", as you indicated initially.)

DAS

Yes.

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Dori A Schmetterl>

BTW, according to the said news report, the cost of the recall is supposed to total only $30 million. By my simple calculation this would work out to an average of $44.12 per vehicle.

In Canada and the US, this would barely pay for 30 minutes of dealer service time. It also implies there would be no parts involved. So how is this cost estimate possible? Is the fix a software update? I wonder how the SBC can be reprogrammed to prevent bubbles from entering the system?

Any ideas?

Michael