anyone had one, good or bad, what level of cover did you have?
what are the cons?
what are the cons?
https://www.autoguardwarranties.com
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https://www.autoguardwarranties.com
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A workmate always used a paid for warranty. He said it cost him very little because he had enough claims to make it worthwhile.
It's insurance. Read the small print. What are you actually getting? What do you need to do to ensure they'll pay if something does break?
What is covered? Clutch probably not (wear and tear) but dual mass flywheel maybe yes.
Can belt failure - probably yes if it was replaced by acceptable mechanic within the service intervals. But if you cant prove it was done to their standards, they may walk away.
It's insurance. Read the small print. What are you actually getting? What do you need to do to ensure they'll pay if something does break?
What is covered? Clutch probably not (wear and tear) but dual mass flywheel maybe yes.
Can belt failure - probably yes if it was replaced by acceptable mechanic within the service intervals. But if you cant prove it was done to their standards, they may walk away.
OP
OP
the garage i am looking at a van with say it comes with one of these warranties. its chain driven cam and automatic gearbox
This could mean they add one with every sale, to protect themselves, or they are trying hard to get you to accept one, at your cost, or perhaps the previous owner had one that is transferrable. If it is there at no cost to you, then it can't do any harm. It may restrict you to particular repairers for servicing, so check the small print to be sure it works for you.
A dealer has to give a warranty, 3 months I think, and usually the additional waranties do not kick in until that period is over, to protect the insurance company. Dealers used to be able to sell dodgy cars, and get the necessary repairs done a few weeks later under the warranty.
Need to check the small print, what is or not covered, and any excess payable by you. Then compare with any reliability data you can find for the vehicle you are looking at.
If it is a Mercedes Sprinter, the autobox is very strong, used by most of the supermarkets, with few failures, although if it does fail, it will cost lots. Vito auto is slightly less strong.
OP
OP
it has the [FONT="]G-Tronic+ box are they as good a the older ones?[/FONT]
Sounds like the current Sprinter, with the gear selector on the column. Have been in a few with 100k miles on already, doing home deliveries, store managers not mentioned anything specific to the new vans, so probably as good as the old ones.
Steering is very light, takes a bit of getting used to.
There is no physical steering column. Wheel to rack is 'fly-by-wire'. Slightly worrying.
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I thought the law still required there to be a physical connection between steering wheel and steering rack. It's academic these days because some are so heavily assisted that trying to turn the wheel without help is difficult to say the least.
Shows how much I know -
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...ponent-vehicle-type--geography-300667048.html
OP
OP
this scares the crap out of me, i'd prefer the vibration, its bad enough when your battery gets old and electric pas goes off, whats going to happen when this system goes wrong? big repair bill or scrapping a not very old car i guess.
does the V class have fly by wire?
Originally, power steering systems had to be capable of steering the car when power was lost. They were heavy, but could be done.
With the adoption of electric power steering, that rule sems to have been relaxed, as most cars with electric steerign are way too heavy to steer without the electric power.
This steer-by-wire seems to be the next stage, and again the legislation must have been changed to allow it. Lobbying by manufacturer bodies, towards legislators with lesser knowledge, coupled with assurances of reliability and 'fail-safe' seem to have persuaded.
I think with the Sprinter, if the steering develops a fault, it will not allow the vehicle to move. Great if parked conveniently, embarrassing at a busy set of traffic signals, frightening if already moving.
It frightens me too, but all I've driven so far are well-maintained supermarket vehicles, or nearly new hire vehicles. Training company drivers will probably keep me away from the ancient ones.
I don't know about the Vito, but the last one I drove had lighter steering than the previous one, so it might now have. All I can suggest is grovel under the dash and see if it has a column.
I guess many of the all-electric cars will be steer-by-wire. I do not wish to meet an old Tesla Model S on a bend then, all 2.6 tonnes of it.
OP
OP
I've asked on a W447 facebook page and no one has replied, its been 4 days now
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It's not that much different to the old Citroens with DIRAVI power steering. If the hydraulics failed the steering was almost impossible to turn and the brakes stopped working. At least the hand brake operated on the front wheels.
In reality, the hydraulics were reliable and the cars were fine. Their hydraulics had a reputation for reliability - until the dreaded rust took hold. Then all bets were off.
In reality, the hydraulics were reliable and the cars were fine. Their hydraulics had a reputation for reliability - until the dreaded rust took hold. Then all bets were off.
Scares me too! Interestingly I notice that, well down in the article, they mention the possibility of these systems being "hacked". That sounds even more scary?
So we could follow it with a remote control, like a model car, and steer it into a ditch, onto the grass, into someone's drive, a duck pond.
A vision of teh future is that self-driving cars will talk to each other so they can all convoy safely. They'll also know if another vehicle is in a narrow section, although that'll lead to a lot of delays. Seems only a small step to being hacked. Computer professionals are not immune to hacking, car manufacturers are near the bottom of the learning curve on that.
Better look after the Panda.
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VW has a fields full of ID3 electric cars because they can't get the computers right and nobody though to include over-the-air updates. The stuff laptops and phones have done for decades.
Tesla on the other hand has 3 billion miles of driving data on its computers and image processing hardware they designed when they moved on from Nvidia kit. They'll get self driving working long before Big Auto have even sussed out how to get a reasonable mileage out of the battery.
Waymo and whoever else working with Lidar are not even close. they have huge computing power in the car and it still can't handle traffic islands.
The difference is Tesla are doing it with visual processing and working out what's going on. The others are constructing 3D maps (that will never be good enough to be safe) for the car to blindly follow.
Tesla on the other hand has 3 billion miles of driving data on its computers and image processing hardware they designed when they moved on from Nvidia kit. They'll get self driving working long before Big Auto have even sussed out how to get a reasonable mileage out of the battery.
Waymo and whoever else working with Lidar are not even close. they have huge computing power in the car and it still can't handle traffic islands.
The difference is Tesla are doing it with visual processing and working out what's going on. The others are constructing 3D maps (that will never be good enough to be safe) for the car to blindly follow.
Literally no one else in this thread mentioned anything about what you brought up in a slightly incoherent rant.... ????
As for electric drive by wire systems, we’ve had throttle by wire for over 10 years and largely these things don’t go wrong, yes fiat power steering is known to be a bit rubbish, but that is largely based on the mk2 and grande puntos, you don’t seem newer Fiat’s with the same problems. Then remember almost all manufacturers have now switched to electric power steering and they don’t tend to have the failure rate of 2005 puntos and realise it’s not so much of a problem now.
Almost every plane you get in now is fly by wire with no physical connection between the controls and the control surfaces, therefore do you worry every time you get in a plane about sudden loss of controls.
There are also computer experts who will go on about the ability to hack things but you have to bear in mind they are the experts in their fields so it’s often not something anyone could simply pull off. Also already and annoyingly Fiat and other manufacturers are installing systems that make connecting to the car impossible without the relevant codes from the manufacturers. So hacking becomes less and less of an issue.
Currently your car could be hacked with less security than a bouncy castle. Realistically experts have shown how they can take control of cars or put an errant program in the normal software of a car to randomly apply steering or a single wheel brake at speed to cause an accident. Remember the ABS/stability control on your car controls every brake very precisely and can stop your braking input by use of solenoid if needed.
One of the reasons they have to be so careful with remaping engine software is that false moves could result in catastrophic engine damage by the way they alter the timing. So realistically no car is safe from hacking. Having a connection between the steering wheel and the steering wheels is not a guarantee of safety.
Still trying to work out why DaveMcT is ranting about teslas and Lidar and such
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That's easy. I'm a Brexiteer so you can't resist getting upset.
I mentioned Teslas etc because everything is electric and computerised. I should have mentioned that according to insurance data Tesla "Autopilot" is nearly 9 times safer than human driven cars. Oops I've made an assertion. Lets see how long before Andy finds a way to make an argument about it.
https://electrek.co/2019/10/23/tesla-autopilot-safety-9x-safer-than-average-driving/
The thread is about warranties and what was being discussed was drive by wire steering (which tesla doesn’t have) not sure what being a brexiteer has to do with anything? Just find your posts usually involve ranting about something that no one brought up....
Would it not be right to say that there is massive redundancy built into systems in planes? Lot's of "stuff" has to all fail together before it drops out the sky? Unless, of course, the software isn't configured correctly and makes the darned thing stall like on Boeing's recent 737 MAX!
You couldn't afford to do that on a car?