What nonsense...

"Ret." gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Would that research be done in conjunction with the motor industry, who have a bit of a vested interest in increasing new car sales by promoting such technology?

Care to come up with any pre-ESP examples of cars from reputable "quality" manufacturers which quickly gained a reputation for either falling over or flipping and landing on their roofs in utterly predictable manouvres?

We? *I* clearly was!

You said *many* new cars have access to the engine compartment sealed. How many is many? I'm willing to bet it's much less than 1 in a 100...

The only Ford I've looked at recently that has a belly pan was a Ranger. The belly pan is secured with four 12mm bolts, with 15mm hex heads.

I would suggest that anyone that doesn't have a 15mm spanner of some sort probably doesn't have the correct equipment to do anything on a car...

Chris

Remove "thier" from the above, and your statement will be more accurate.

BTW, the "old" way of doing it also accessed the ECU directly...

Chris

From RoSPA:

There are a large number of ways of studying an active safety system (e.g. simulators, real world trials, statistical analysis post introduction of the system), environments that an experiment can take place in (e.g. rural or urban, different countries road networks) and for measuring the outcomes (e.g. speeds, different types of accident, driver behaviour, casualty reductions). Finally, in some studies, the prior social and situational context in which driving takes place in is not an examined variable.

There is one conclusion that all the papers reach however, no matter what debate may take over the exact percentage of accidents that ESC will prevent, it will be relatively significant, and out of all the technologies discussed in this paper, has the potential to make a measurable impact on the 2010 targets. It is important that the spread of ESC onto all vehicles should be encouraged.

Chris Whelan gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I thought just about anything vaguely recent (early '90s onwards) and diesel had engine bay undertrays, for drive-by noise attenuation as much as anything...

I don't think it's that many. All of those I've seen certainly don't require anything special to remove them ;-)

From the statement by steve robinson of "under belly pans [...] that prevent access", I was thinking more of large, difficult to handle chunks of metal, rather than easily unclipped lightweight pieces of cardboard!

Chris

Chris Whelan gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

You'll note my use of the past tense - I reckon engine bay undertrays are probably more common at the side of motorways than escaped HGV tyre treads are these days...

Heh!

Perhaps they weren't refitted with Mr Robinson's "correct equipment"!

Chris

When I was repping in the '80 in the company Sierra Saffire it was a service every 6 to 8 weeks. Fuel consumption would drop from 32mpg to

Kellerman

Six years ago, we bought a one year old 10k mile Audi from a main dealer that had half of the belly pan fixings missing. Imagine that coming off at autobahn speeds.

David

Another example of the appalling standards at most main dealers.

I've just bought a 9 month old Golf with just 4.8k miles on the clock. I asked for rear parking sensors to be included in the deal and fitted prior to delivery.

When I arrived to pick up the car, the sensors had not been fitted, and when I got the car home I found that: the spare wheel was missing, the cigarette lighter was missing, a tool out of the tool-pack was missing, the handbook for the radio was the wrong one, the sticker in the service schedule booklet was for a completely different model of Golf to mine and so all the details on the sticker relating to chassis number, engine type and number, paint code, etc, was wrong.

The salesman was supposed to have carried out a pre-delivery inspection...

It has taken me nearly three weeks to arrange for the car to go back in to have all these matters put right. Every time I tried to speak to the salesman he was either off sick, on a training day, in a sales meeting, with a customer, on the phone... etc. Every time I was told that he would ring me back - and he never did. Truly abysmal customer service from the main Liverpool VW dealership.

Thankfully, they are not my nearest VW dealer and, once all the above is sorted (the car is with them as I type) I wont have to have anything else to do with them.

Having said that - the sales manager has told me to take my wife out for a meal and then send him the receipt and he will refund it - as a gesture of goodwill!

Don't get me started on main dealers....

Oo-er, something seems fishy to me. The stickers in VAG cars' service books should be the same as the one under the trim in the boot.

Is the service book the correct one for that car, or like one of my previous 75 cars, one that had the service book missing and the dealer had to supply including the history print outs...

Good luck

David

Merc A class.

"Duncan Wood" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

That'd be the A-class which was launched with ESP as an option, and quickly recalled to have it retro-fitted, would it?

Indeed - and it isn't. My car is a 1.4 TSi SE (VW code 'Comfort' trim).

The sticker inside the Service Schedule book is for a 1.2 S (VW code 'Trend' trim).

It's clear that the entire 'manual' pack from my car has been lost - and so they have just taken one out of another car. The 'S' models have an RCD 210 radio and my SE has an RCD 310. The manual in my pack is for the 210 and is useless!

With only 4.8k miles on the clock there is no service history of course - and so that is not an issue - I just want the correct details inside the service schedule - otherwise I'll probably find a mechanic trying to find the manual gearbox in my DSG equipped car!

Cheers! The service manager in Liverpool actually lives in my town and is supposed to be bringing my car home with him tonight and exchanging it for the courtesy car I'm currently using. I'm not holding my breath. It should take no more than a couple of hours to retro-fit parking sensors, so why they needed it overnight from yesterday I don't really know.

Exactly. It's a bit pointless wondering if it would have made the Morris Marina go round corners.

When I first transferred from Sussex Police to Cheshire Police in 1975, Cheshire were using Morris Marina TCs as traffic cars! They were still using them when I first went on to traffic the following year. They were grossly unsuitable for the job - but I never had problems getting them to go around corners. I *did* have trouble catching escaping villains however. By the time you had filled the boot with all the necessary equipment that a traffic car needs - they struggled to achieve any real acceleration or top speed at all!