scoobycar60

Probably banging my head against a brick wall here but whats all this problem you seem to have over speeding? if you want to sit on the moral high ground and point fingers fair enough,but its not your licence thats at risk, its the test pilot at the garage, and I do have experience of just this sort of thing being a company director with a number of cars and vans in my name.
Hey! 95 isn't exactly on the raggety edge of the performance envelope of an sti8....150 or so would be more like that. If the car has been tested to 93 or 95 without a vibration you should be happy IMHO
Of couse its up to you, but I expect the same sort of figures from your SECS could come from any garage depending on the testers
Never met anyone from the garage fraturnity that wouldn't give a car a bit of stick on a test drive to make sure everything works ok.
By way of comparison by applying your IMHO slightly righteous standards if you did take your case to IM it would seem to me they would have every right to notify IM that you have a non approved electronic box connected to the ecu of your car and to recommmend voiding the warranty on the engine on account of this.....total bull... I agree but by goading the dealer in this way he just might respond in kind.
I'm not trying to open a can of worms here, I am just trying to balance the issue a bit.


[Edited by scoobycar60 - 4/9/2003 11:46:28 PM]

midget1500

i think a lot of people are missing the point...

it's not about speeding, not about revving an engine. what it is about is someone leaving *THEIR* car to have the tyres/wheels balanced and someone then deciding that they will take the car out for a joy-ride. you did NOT pay someone to rake around in your car. so, basically they took your money, and at your expense (petrol + wear (albeit small)) took your car for a spin. this just is not acceptable.

i mean, if you paid someone to decorate your house and left the keys with them would you be happy to come home to find they brought their mates round to drink your beer and watch your TV? i think not.

you spend a LOT of money on your car, you look after it. you place trust and money with someone towork on it for you and they abuse it. just not on.

steven

Paul_M

Exactly - they're taking it out for a spin around without your permission. Fair enough if a quick test drive was justified but I don't think they have a good reason to be doing 90+ MPH just because the wheels were balanced and tracking done. Certainly any time I've ever had this done no garage has taken the car for a test drive even at 20 MPH! Reeks of a quick joyride to me.

I don't think so, you've usually got to pay extra for "telematics" which sends the tracking data to your computer in real-time via GSM or something, plus logs it so you can download the data over a modem for when the computer is off. Although I expect with a normal tracking system you should be able to get them to fax you the details of the car's movements if you give them the date and times required. There might be a small charge though, I dunno.

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

To complete the story, and give the full facts....

Had my new STi8 1st March... drove it out of there, noticed some vibrations over the next couple of days - at about 70-80mph. Took it back to the dealers for its 1000 mile (yes I did 1000 miles in a couple of days )... they told me to go over to the place that they got the OZ 18's balanced in the first place - I decided to take it to the experts - Tyres Northampton. Mark up there couldnt believe the amount of weights that the wheels needed. Anyway, they were re-balanaced.... that weekened a friend drove the car, and noticed some vibes - so it hadnt been fixed, just minimised.

Then there was the tracking, which shifted the car from lane 3 of a motorway to lane 1, in about 100-150 yds. Something needed sorting so, a quick chat to the dealers, had it booked in.

I took an mechanic out in it at about 9:20am, went for about a 10-15mile drive... showed him all the aspects of the problem, vibes, tracking. Even showed him the SECS One aspect of the tracking was that under acceleration, hands off the wheel, it pulled to the left - very badly.

Anyway, that day, got phonecall, tracking all sorted, doesnt pull to the left anymore. Sweet. However, there are still some vibrations I was told. They had swapped wheels front to back etc, but the vibes were still there. However when put on their own 17's no vibes were felt.... had to be the 18" wheels and/or tyres.

So I went, and picked it up.... went to the servicing department, spoke to one of top chaps there (not the mechanic that worked on it)... basic gist of the conversation was that the car goes well with PPP. As I was walking out of the place, I turned and said something like 'yeah, it does, i'll be able to see how it did, with that box of tricks in the dash'.... the same chap responded 'it's unplugged'.

Ok, so I went out to the car, plugged it in... time clock was the only thing that it had lost... peak speeds yada yada were all there.

Anyway, I got back to work, rang the service department, asked to talk to the mechanic directly and he said 'yes, I'll put my hands up, I did about 100mph up the <insert road here>'.... I am like 'Not too bothered about 100mph, just the 7300+ revs and the fact that the SECS was unplugged'..... 'the SECS was unplugged because it was beeping'..... this is complete BS... the thing that was beeping was the change up light on the dash.

So basically, the mechanic and this top chappy had been out in the car. Seemingly both had driven it.

Anyway, talked to _THE_ top chap there, told me someone would call me back. No one did, I rang back... got fobbed off with 'its part of the testing sir, and with PPP the revs whip around so fast'... In my mind, I was thinking, yeah right - this is comming from someone with alot more driving skill than me, and someone that drives these cars all the time.

So yesterday came, when the car went back to have the wheels tyres checked..... seems that 3 of the 4 tyres have grooves/bumps. I got talking another sales guy (the guy that sold me the car in the 1st place) 'we are sorry, and there is not really any excuse for that sort of revs, for just for checking tracking/wheels. All I can say is, it will never happen again.'.

As far as I am concerned, its not so much the revs/speed - as the car can do this no problem. Its the fact that the secs could have been unplugged in an attempt for it to hide the numbers..... and for them to take my car out at my expense without me saying that they could.

I trusted these guys with my car - infact I had alot of trust in these guys... 3 years and 2 cars later from them you build up a relationship/friendship with the folks there. That trust has now gone out of the window, and when the things are fixed with the car, I doubt i'll be trusting them with it again.

Richie.

chiark

Richard,

Sounds to me like you've got buggered wheels.

Personally, I'd reject 'em and ask for a new set. If they need a lot of balancing and are definitely the root of the problem, stick your ground and say they're faulty.

They sound bugggered to me.

Nick.

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

Nick, they say the wheels are fine - spun them up and checked for warps etc... However 3 of the 4 tyres had ridges right across the tread... they are being sent back to Pireli. I'll hopefully get the car back today and all will be good It better had be this time !! or I think I might loose my cool with them.

Richie.

StickyMicky

uve been butt****ed
this reminds me of the "stangman" thread in america and the mustangs when the mechanic posted on a website saying he had thrashed this car and the owner read about it

he lost his job

crusher

If you're really narked...send an e-mail to Subaru Uk directly.You can do this from the official website...at least I did.I think there's a comment window...

Hope you get a result...

scoobycar60

Having read the full story I can see you do have good reason to be annoyed. I retract some of my more dismissive comments
It has been alledged by some..... that although OZ Super leggs are ultra light which is great they are not perhaps the strongest wheel about and they may be suseptable to ovality problems under certain conditions.....
Perhaps someone else should jump in here there may be some thin ice here legally speaking.

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

Picked the car up tonight after the dealer rang to say all was sorted with the vibrations.... to have me drive 10 mins down the road, for it to start again... turned around - took it back.

They changed to pzero neros for a new set of goodyear eagle f1 gsd3's (I had actually asked for these on the 1st march, but they couldnt get hold of them - and this time, the pzeros were out of stock until mid next week). Nice looking tyre btw those gsd3's.

Anyway, the vibes / tracking issues are back - god only knows why. They are going to change the wheels again tomorrow - Nick is probably right about the wheels being duff At 72-73mph (road angel) there are some serious vibes.

Roll on xmas, might be sorted by then.

Richie.

scoobycar60

All this seems like a massive over-reaction to me, the high revs could be due to blipping the throttle by accident who knows! I wouldn't get all excited over that the car does hit the rev limiter with very little provocation in first and second anyway.
As for balancing the wheels do you know for certain that the wheels were in contact with tarmac when this speed was recorded
some wheel balancing is done with the wheels running free, even if not I would be far happier that the car had been tested at 95 as opposed to 60mph, if you took it on the motorway and it vibrated like mad at 71 mph would you then be happy, I doubt it.
Reading some of these posts it seems like many of you should have bought diesels with tachos fitted rather than rally replicas.

If it had been my car.......



[Edited by scoobycar60 - 4/9/2003 6:05:17 PM]

SlowBoy

iTrader: (1)

Do us all a favour and name the dealer. They don't appear to care much for your business, and I doubt it's personal so if they don't value the business of scoob owners then let them carry on...minus a few customers.

[Edited by SlowBoy - 4/9/2003 10:14:50 PM]