[Mpower]

Here's a recall from Singapore.

http://paultan.org/2013/05/02/volksw...all-singapore/

Originally Posted by Hayek

There has been no recall anywhere except in China, and that too after state owned CCTV took up the issue as part of its periodic shakedowns of foreign companies operating there.

Interesting. My hunch is that after years & years of being ridiculed for making cheap and chintzy products, the Chinese were seeking sweet revenge against a Western company that made problematic products.

VW moved swiftly because they sensed that the Chinese government would certainly back the media

[StarScream]

Originally Posted by Mpower

Here's a recall from Singapore.

http://paultan.org/2013/05/02/volksw...all-singapore/

Interesting. My hunch is that after years & years of being ridiculed for making cheap and chintzy products, the Chinese were seeking sweet revenge against a Western company that made problematic products.

VW moved swiftly because they sensed that the Chinese government would certainly back the media

There's another reason, China is to VW what India is to Suzuki. They can't afford to take that market for granted.

[mango_pal]

Originally Posted by Nitrous Power

Am I reading it correctly? India needs VW more than VW needs India. As djpeesh mentioned, VW is not recalling the in-famous DSG and even have guts to launch new car with the same is just because of lack of law enforcement by government.

It's all about feasibility. What costs more money: initiating a total recall of the cars or compensating the customers who face failure of gearboxes.

On one hand you have cost of recall (A)

On the other hand:
Number of cars on the road * Probability of failure * average cost of settlement/replacement. (B)

If A>B, then you don't initiate a recall.

In a country like India where the cost of a settlement or replacement is minimal, why would they choose a recall?
Most people wouldn't even know about these problems. Its only well informed consumers like us who know or care.

Look at Toyota. They just now recalled Toyota Corolla for a faulty airbag mechanism by third party vendor, that too from 2004 manufactured cars. As per Toyota, impacted cars in India are no more than 1000 units.

This is one of the reasons I like Toyota. They are the exception to the rule. They create a phenomenal and reliable brand.
Any issue that they face, no matter how small will be reported and addressed by them.

[Nitrous Power]

Originally Posted by Hayek

There has been no recall anywhere except in China, and that too after state owned CCTV took up the issue as part of its periodic shakedowns of foreign companies operating there.

This is not correct. VW has recalled DSG in USA in past, not once but TWICE in 2009.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by Nitrous Power

This is not correct. VW has recalled DSG in USA in past, not once but TWICE in 2009.

That recall dealt with a specific problem in some lots due to a power spike in manufacturing
But failures have continued in gearboxes made after that, and to my knowledge, China is the first case of general recalls to fix mechatronics

[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by Mpower

Interesting. My hunch is that after years & years of being ridiculed for making cheap and chintzy products, the Chinese were seeking sweet revenge against a Western company that made problematic products.

I can't find that article. And most certainly dont now the degree of spindoctored (mis)information in it. But the gist of was this:-
Despite a well thought out strategy carrot and stick (and outright IPL theft), the Chinese auto industry is nowhere close to challenging the established manufacturers on ability to design. To quote the artcle from memory (so E&OE) they are regarded as component suppliers, and not Tier 1 at that. The heat on the DSG is part pique, part strategic course correction, part waening shot across bows.

VW moved swiftly because they sensed that the Chinese government would certainly back the media

Not the media was 'friendly suggested' what to do by the government.

OT. From time to time there are lawsuits against Google charging it with bias in its search results. (Leaving aside Googles questionable ad related policies) the real intent of these lawsuits was to make reveal the inner workings of its search engine. (My Honour, this is how the search engine works. How can you say we are not being honest). Similarly maybe for VW if it has to prove that it did not delibarately and knowingly dump nonmerchandisable items in China.

Just for the record, in case I come across as an apologist for VW, let me say that I'm highly critical of their attitude in India.

Regards
Sutripta

[vinair]

It cannot get any funnier than this!!!

A VW spokesman has commented on 8 May 2013, saying that the “hot and humid climate mixed with the traffic chaos makes the DSG incompatible” while not revealing the problem that would occur. VW further says that the DSG gearbox would need a fair amount of “cooling by the wind” to work efficiently.

Further read - http://indianautosblog.com/2013/05/v...-climate-75182

[alpha1]

My god, they just wont admit that it is because of POOR ENGINEERING.
I would want a test to facilitate this joker's claim: measure the temperature of transmission fluid in a running car in Europe and compare that to China/India.

And what has humidity got to do with failure??
And Traffic? Because it causes frequent gear shifts?
So what else is a gearbox supposed to do?

[johy]

If that be the case, why on earth sell it here! Unacceptable.

[longhorn]

Originally Posted by vinair

A VW spokesman has commented on 8 May 2013, saying that the “hot and humid climate mixed with the traffic chaos makes the DSG incompatible” while not revealing the problem that would occur. VW further says that the DSG gearbox would need a fair amount of “cooling by the wind” to work efficiently.

Seriously someone needs to knock some sense into that guy. You don't build a market around a gearbox. You build a gearbox to cater to the market. Looks like the DSG is a serious contender towards becoming the achilles heel of the VW Group.

[humyum]

Originally Posted by longhorn

Seriously someone needs to knock some sense into that guy. You don't build a market around a gearbox. You build a gearbox to cater to the market. Looks like the DSG is a serious contender towards becoming the achilles heel of the VW Group.

ROFL. I can't fathom putting 9.5 lakh arounds on a Tsi POLO who's company people say stuff like this. The DSG of that car is going to be working overtime as I ll be mainly a city around. World save the people who buy this without eve waiting for a long term report.

[Shiv_1984]

So what are they waiting for ? Still want people to buy their expensive DSGs and then wait for them to get screwed.
To put it simply, they don't trust their own engineering now.

Amazing !!!

[Hayek]

All I can say is let's appreciate some long overdue candour. It has been fairly obvious based on DSG failure rate statistics that hot and high traffic conditions trigger failures. Which is why failure rates have been much higher in India, china, Australia and Southern Europe than in Germany. Hopefully, this acknowledgment of a design flaw will help folks who need to take action to get the product rectified out of warranty, even if there is no recall. It also suggests why a recall does not make sense in this case - you recall products if you have a solution, which VW evidently does not have. The recalls in China, Singapore and Japan are mere tokenism - to assuage customers but are unlikely to lead to dramatically different failure rates in my view.

[arjun18]

This is the same gearbox that's present on the Polo TSI isn't it?
Even SVP seems to be unaware of the problem. :P

[9thsphinx]

While the 7 speed DQ200 have been a lingering problem for VW, they're already developing a new 10-speed DSG which may work its way for their entire fleet of vehicles in the future. Could that be the future replacement of their faulty 7 speed boxes? Only time will tell.

But as of now, this callous attitude from VW toward this specific problem speaks quite a lot for a company that plans on overtaking GM to be the No.1 Auto company in the world. Unfortunately, for them, this way they won't any sooner.