Which To Buy?

I know what you're saying, but we don't live in an ideal world <g>.
Doing what I did was the logical step towards solving the problem(s), with
Allison's labour rate of $105.00 an hour it doesn't take long to waste a
grand when looking for the answer.

 

I know what you're saying, but we don't live in an ideal world <g>.
Doing what I did was the logical step towards solving the problem(s), with
Allison's labour rate of $105.00 an hour it doesn't take long to waste a
grand when looking for the answer.

 

I know what you're saying, but we don't live in an ideal world <g>.
Doing what I did was the logical step towards solving the problem(s), with
Allison's labour rate of $105.00 an hour it doesn't take long to waste a
grand when looking for the answer.

 

True enough.

I'll agree with you on this partly. I have a friend who purchased his
Nissan within a week of me purchasing my Honda. He does less than 70% of the
preventative maintenance that I do and he's had more problems than I have
experienced with my last three Honda vehicles. On top of that, three years
into our purchases his Nissan has a fair amount of rust on his gas tank and
the floor of the car, as well as a number of mechanical failures.My Honda
had none of these problems. Preventative maintenance is the key.

 

True enough.

I'll agree with you on this partly. I have a friend who purchased his
Nissan within a week of me purchasing my Honda. He does less than 70% of the
preventative maintenance that I do and he's had more problems than I have
experienced with my last three Honda vehicles. On top of that, three years
into our purchases his Nissan has a fair amount of rust on his gas tank and
the floor of the car, as well as a number of mechanical failures.My Honda
had none of these problems. Preventative maintenance is the key.

 

True enough.

I'll agree with you on this partly. I have a friend who purchased his
Nissan within a week of me purchasing my Honda. He does less than 70% of the
preventative maintenance that I do and he's had more problems than I have
experienced with my last three Honda vehicles. On top of that, three years
into our purchases his Nissan has a fair amount of rust on his gas tank and
the floor of the car, as well as a number of mechanical failures.My Honda
had none of these problems. Preventative maintenance is the key.

 

but for stuff like that, i don't think you should be paying - you should
have one of the allison design team down there resolving your problem.
from a manufacturer perspective, they need as much field service
feedback as possible to make sure your stuff works properly. if nobody
bothers to let the design team know [not the service tech] that their
filters clog outside of the lab, they'll never deal with it. here in
san francisco, a number of the taxi companies run fleets sponsored by
auto makers so we have all the latest and greatest of their vehicles in
taxi livery charging up and down the badly pot-holed streets, hills,
etc. they do this so they can install "black box" data recorders in
them and find out how their vehicles perform in "real world" for a hilly
city. they do it in las vegas too for heat. if they have the data,
they can design accordingly. no data, inadequate design.

 

but for stuff like that, i don't think you should be paying - you should
have one of the allison design team down there resolving your problem.
from a manufacturer perspective, they need as much field service
feedback as possible to make sure your stuff works properly. if nobody
bothers to let the design team know [not the service tech] that their
filters clog outside of the lab, they'll never deal with it. here in
san francisco, a number of the taxi companies run fleets sponsored by
auto makers so we have all the latest and greatest of their vehicles in
taxi livery charging up and down the badly pot-holed streets, hills,
etc. they do this so they can install "black box" data recorders in
them and find out how their vehicles perform in "real world" for a hilly
city. they do it in las vegas too for heat. if they have the data,
they can design accordingly. no data, inadequate design.

 

but for stuff like that, i don't think you should be paying - you should
have one of the allison design team down there resolving your problem.
from a manufacturer perspective, they need as much field service
feedback as possible to make sure your stuff works properly. if nobody
bothers to let the design team know [not the service tech] that their
filters clog outside of the lab, they'll never deal with it. here in
san francisco, a number of the taxi companies run fleets sponsored by
auto makers so we have all the latest and greatest of their vehicles in
taxi livery charging up and down the badly pot-holed streets, hills,
etc. they do this so they can install "black box" data recorders in
them and find out how their vehicles perform in "real world" for a hilly
city. they do it in las vegas too for heat. if they have the data,
they can design accordingly. no data, inadequate design.

 

I do understand what you are saying, but a small fleet of trucks doesn't
seem to draw their attention. I would think that one truck having problems
with their product would garner attention, but not yet.

 

I do understand what you are saying, but a small fleet of trucks doesn't
seem to draw their attention. I would think that one truck having problems
with their product would garner attention, but not yet.

 

I do understand what you are saying, but a small fleet of trucks doesn't
seem to draw their attention. I would think that one truck having problems
with their product would garner attention, but not yet.

 

it's also possible, depending on their business model, that they don't
want to resolve the issue - either a local or corporate decision. when
i was a pup at university, one of my professors did some consulting work
with one of the big auto manufacturers to help them limit the life of
their transmissions via metal fatigue. [it's a very hard technical
problem because things tend to either break right away, or last
forever.] but the point is, life limitation is very much on the agenda
in certain situations. i'm not sure it would be for commercial
applications, at least from a corporate standpoint, but you may have
been up against local sales quotas, and failures are a sales opportunity.

 

it's also possible, depending on their business model, that they don't
want to resolve the issue - either a local or corporate decision. when
i was a pup at university, one of my professors did some consulting work
with one of the big auto manufacturers to help them limit the life of
their transmissions via metal fatigue. [it's a very hard technical
problem because things tend to either break right away, or last
forever.] but the point is, life limitation is very much on the agenda
in certain situations. i'm not sure it would be for commercial
applications, at least from a corporate standpoint, but you may have
been up against local sales quotas, and failures are a sales opportunity.

 

it's also possible, depending on their business model, that they don't
want to resolve the issue - either a local or corporate decision. when
i was a pup at university, one of my professors did some consulting work
with one of the big auto manufacturers to help them limit the life of
their transmissions via metal fatigue. [it's a very hard technical
problem because things tend to either break right away, or last
forever.] but the point is, life limitation is very much on the agenda
in certain situations. i'm not sure it would be for commercial
applications, at least from a corporate standpoint, but you may have
been up against local sales quotas, and failures are a sales opportunity.

 

All true.

 

All true.

 

All true.

 

I really haven't seen that result on the ones I've directly experienced.
Given my limited experiences (6 Hondas and 6 Nissans over about 18 years), I
have to say the vote goes in the other direction.

The only non-routine problems I've treated on Nissans have been the
occasional engine compartment electrical connector that needed
cleaning/reseating (plagues the '02 Pathfinder) and periodic throttle body
cleaning ('91 240sx and '96 I30).

With the Hondas, we've had ABS systems fail on two out of two mid 90's cars
('95 Integra & '96 Odyssey) and one transmission failure ('00 TL). These
cars were well maintained with brake fluid changes and transmission fluid
changes according to the published schedules. Clearly design flaws. Honda
made good on the transmission, but they never owned up to the ABS problems
on those cars.

 

I really haven't seen that result on the ones I've directly experienced.
Given my limited experiences (6 Hondas and 6 Nissans over about 18 years), I
have to say the vote goes in the other direction.

The only non-routine problems I've treated on Nissans have been the
occasional engine compartment electrical connector that needed
cleaning/reseating (plagues the '02 Pathfinder) and periodic throttle body
cleaning ('91 240sx and '96 I30).

With the Hondas, we've had ABS systems fail on two out of two mid 90's cars
('95 Integra & '96 Odyssey) and one transmission failure ('00 TL). These
cars were well maintained with brake fluid changes and transmission fluid
changes according to the published schedules. Clearly design flaws. Honda
made good on the transmission, but they never owned up to the ABS problems
on those cars.