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Bromide, OK Car Consumer Discussions

Re: 5W-20 [qball1976]

by shipo on Sat Oct 13 10:14:34 PDT 2007

"I happen to know that there is data that says synthetic lubricants can last significantly longer than 20000 miles. I found this as an example mack truck 409,000 on one oil change, I know this is a different animal than your standard vehicle, it is an over the road truck. But with bypass filtration, oil analysis, and regular filter changes it can last quite a bit longer in Internal combustion engines." Nope, sorry, apples to oranges. Diesel engines don't introduce anywhere near the amout of harmful (to both oil and engine) contaminates that diesels do. Another thing to consider is that the big truck diesel engines consume a fair amount of oil and as such many actually have new oil reservoirs that continually feed oil into the engine as it is burned. In that scenario, you may never need to change the oil, simply change the massive filter on a periodic basis and keep adding oil. As for gasoline fueled automobile and light truck engines, please show me UOAs of any engine running on any oil that proves that the oil is good to go well beyond the 20,000 mile mark. I've spent a lot of time browsing the UOA database over on BITOG and have yet to see a single UOA prove that point. That said, the new R18 Honda Civic engine looks like it might be able to perform that feat with very careful driving, however, I have yet to see it done. "I am also an aircraft mechanic, and know the difference between the oil you pour into an Embraer 145, a Cessna 150, and a Ford F250. they are designed for totally different applications. They have totally different additive packages for the type of duty they would expect out of each particular application. but you can see significantly longer OCI with synthetics versus conventionals." Are you advocating using synthetic oils in GA piston engines? If you are then PLEASE stay away from the planes that I fly (and the 170B that I'm shopping for). The truth of the matter is that while synthetic oils may be a lot of things, things that I demand for the oil in the engines of my cars, however, they ARE NOT appropriate for intermittent combustion engines running on 100LL. Why? Because PAO based oils are incapable of holding the TEL that isn't successfully scavenged by the bromide salts in suspension. After a while that TEL has a nasty tendency to collect in large enough quantities (in the form of a gray goo) on piston rings and then airplanes start falling out of the sky. Pass, I'll stick with AeroShell W100 if you please. Best Regards, Shipo

Re: DrFill [designman]

by dewey on Tue Jul 24 14:52:45 PDT 2007

Oh how embarassing. A BMW brother admitting to almost buying a Camry. Well it could be worse I could be a Porsche owner who desires a Camry instead. ;) After pouring bromide over VW these past few weeks I found a very positive article about VW/Porsche/Audi. Wiedeking, who sits on the VW board, is still restless. He believes VW and its luxury brand, Audi, should be able to rival Toyota (and Lexus) in product development, manufacturing productivity, and financial performance. He wants VW to spend more on research and technology, sharpen its brand focus, and develop more products that are price-competitive overseas. But in the 22 months since the mouse asked the elephant to the ball, the match looks like one made in heaven. Porsche's stock has climbed almost 200%, and VW's has more than doubled. Why is it so important to Porsche that this relationship work? For an answer, look under the hood. Only about 20% of what makes a Porsche a Porsche - largely the engine and transmission - is made by Porsche workers. The rest is outsourced, mainly to VW. The Cayenne SUV, for example, was engineered alongside VW's own SUV, the Touareg. The steel structure for both vehicles is welded together on the same VW assembly line in Slovakia. When the much anticipated Panamera, Porsche's first four-door sports car, arrives in 2009, it will sport a body assembled and painted by VW at a plant in Hanover. In effect, though Porsche was financially stronger, it needed VW more than VW needed Porsche. Buying a stake protected Porsche's access to VW factories. Besides, Wiedeking grins, "the share price was cheap." link title

Lincoln & The Final World Order

by douglasr on Sun Sep 03 08:12:10 PDT 2006

In a memo to all Ford Employees, William C. Ford Jr. stated, 09-02-06: "We have aligned Ford-Mercury-Lincoln product development much more closely with Mazda and Volvo to achieve greater efficiency and produce more exciting vehicles. We have achieved similar success with Ford of Europe and P.A.G...." And MR. Ford adds: "Over the past few months I have made it my business to become more passionately involved in the detailed operations of our business..." In his bromide on 'Leadership' he stated: "These should not be days of 'fear', as one headline put it recently...". The memo outlines the strategy emphasizing the 'Way Forward' plan, Global Structure, and Leadership are the key factors that the 'team' is now focused upon. Lincoln sales dropped 2.2% for the year to 82,132, and down 9.5% for August at 8,979. Town Car sales down 16.6% for the year as the model winds down at 26,989; LS crashing 48.8% with its discontinuation at 7,922; Zephyr the only bright spot selling 21,938 cars for the first eight months of 2006. 35,000 cars in its first year is not unrealistic for Zephyr. Jaguar sales continued its precipitous drop, minus 30.4% for the year at 15,350 with only the XK increasing 106.5% for August selling 393 cars, and 69.2% for the year at 3,043. Come the end of this month, Lincoln will have very few cars to talk about at the Paris Show...Mark Z & S being the only thing remaining...as Wixom will close far sooner than next spring. If you don't want a remaindered TC/LS, you have no choice but to pay more for a new "Z", or buy what is left of Zephyr stock. It's getting harder to buy a car called a Lincoln....and MR. Ford seems to have ensured that holds as what is left of Ford Motor automobiles are being merged toghether into a single car line with minor variation between the brands. With the competition moving very fast, and Mr. Nasser putting his chips on the table, one wonders what details will be left for Mr. Ford to "pay attention to" by the time the dust clears. Fear is not the word I think I would use to characterise what is now happening at the Blue Oval. Mustang sales shot upwards 64%---one speculates that people might be getting nervous that Ford will move to bankruptcy and begin to curtail production of cars they want, so they are buying them now rather than later. Mr. Ford pushed Wolfgang Reitzle out the door four years ago July 1, 2002, and he was the last publicly acknowledged Ford Executive that had a plan to invest in Lincoln..."I think the strategy is a convincinvg oneand this principle is independent of the people proposing it...the Lincoln brand is not sharp enough and is not consistent enough..." PAG his bailiwick, and when his Lincoln plan was rejected, and its offices moved back to Detroit, he left going to Lindt AG in Germany, which just merged with BOC to become the largest natural gas supplier in Europe. Landing Mr. Fields his job, from which he as quickly promoted again---bringing him to Detroit to hold sway over Lincoln. Now the whole of PAG may well be gone...and still no plan for Lincoln has been announced, much less hinted at, other than ubuqitious comments about 'luxury for the blue-jeans set., beyond 'merging' platforms together. At the end of the day there will just be different flavors of the same platforms...unique cars at Lincoln will be gone, as is the chance for them seemingly dimming---if we take MR. Ford at his word. DouglasR (Sources: Ford Motor Company; The Car Connection, Mike Davis interview with W. Reitzle, April 12, 2001; WSJ)

Lincoln & The fate of Ford Motor

by douglasr on Tue Jun 27 19:35:48 PDT 2006

The $5 a day wage was worked out on a second floor office chalk board by the Henry Ford, Charles Sorensen, John R. Lee, and Ed Martin---all engineering, production, and accounting men at the Piquette Avenue Plant---and then announced by Ford Motor's Chief Financial Officer James Couzens. Equivalent to $92 an hour today, it was done not only to create customers for the products, but to lower production costs. Ford Motor able to build and sell ever more cars with increased buying power of its workforce, with further spread costs over a greater number of units, allowing the price to drop---creating still yet more customers for the burgeoning auto market. On this same day in 1923, June 27, the statue by F. Derwent Wood of Sir Frederick Henry Royce was unveiled at Derby---in accord with Royce's contribution to the Allied Victory in WWI with the Rolls-Royce aero-engine development and production. If Mr. Ford and MR. Fields fail in their efforts within their new Design Center at Dearborn to revitalise the Ford Empire, no statues to William Clay Ford Jr. will ever be erected. If he fails in his efforts, few will ever call him "Sir". Today, as Ford Motor spends up to $150,000 per worker to 'buy-out' 10,000 workers contracts; GM spending $108,517 per worker to 'buy-out' 35,000 workers---one quarter of its work-force; VWAG buying out 1,000 workers at Wolfsburg in a similar though not as expensive fashion (yet Wolfsburg work-week is 28.8 hrs per week.) Combined the two firms are spening more than $5Bn to eliminate jobs. Equivalent to what Ford Motor spent on Jaguar. Equal to what it could have spent on Lincoln: $1.5bn. Across the ocean, tiny Rolls-Royce leads the industry in labour relations: begining a four-year apprenticeship program for a small cadre of 16-24 year old men and women, each of whom will work in all facets of assembly and manufacture at Goodwood. "We are delighted to launch this program which demonstrates our ongoing commitment to development and training of young people in the U.K. Manufacturing industry...." Rolls-Royce CEO Ian Robertson commented upon the initiation of the program (06-09-06). He added: "Every Rolls-Royce is hand-built to the highest levels of quality and our new apprentices will join a dedicated team of craftsmen and women." A speech not heard on these shores in some time, by any American auto executive. Mr. Robertson's words echo the words of Henry M. Leland when he began the Lincoln Motor Company, and the first Model L chassis rolled out of the Livernois Avenue plant: "Boys...you've been telling us your ideas, and now we are ready to go ahead with them...You know our ideas as to quality, ruggedness, and reliability. You have an opportunity now such as you never had before." HML admonished his workforce, telling them of the superiority of the design they were helping to build. He added in conclusion that day in 1919: "Do the job as you have always been accustomed to doing, only do it better." Since Mr. Ford has chosen to lead his company, appear in advertisements, stump the nation with Mr. Fields as to the causes of the Ford Motor Company, the fate of Lincoln then as important as any other issue within our marketplace today. Given its rank within Ford Motor, it remains the pivotal division within the company with respect to the long term future of Ford Motor's Empire. Lincoln's Hermisilio workers do not make what their Highland Park precedessors once made: no where near the equivalent $92 an hour. And no one will stand within the factory gates in paterinalistic fashion excoriating the workforce to "do your best, only do it better." in terms of Lincoln---the MkZ being just another unit on the line. The only hope remains that the designers and engineers within the Dearborn Center working behind computer screens, will have the same verve and vibe for their work that their predecessors did working at black-boards and hand-finishing wooden and steel patterns for parts never made before decades ago. One day soon, Bill Ford must stand before a new Lincoln, unveiling it to the public. He must not leave that to the minions beneath him. And he will have to speak the words that call not only to the present and the future, but to all the roads and miles past that Lincoln has travelled. For his predecessors both at Ford and Lincoln did not know the meaning of 'impossible'...and that is what Mr. Ford must now do: say that the future of Lincoln is not an impossible one. Nor can he skirt the issue with bromides about safety, fuel economy, or environmental issues---for the product still remains king. Lincoln's fate not falling into the hands of a cold announcement from a union chief across our borders---Mr. Hargrove not becoming the arbiter of Lincoln's future. When F. Derwent Wood's statue of Royce was unveiled, Royce, or 'R' as he was known, stated: "but I am not dead yet." Bill Ford may well find himself very much alive, on the day that Ford Motor finds itself in peril without a viable Lincoln Motor Company---should he not now make the same remarks his predecessors had---one that inspire and lead men and women all in the same moment. Working "Over to Ford's" should mean something again, (as my family often called it), as it does for those who work for Rolls-Royce. It should mean far more than that for those who design, assemble, and manufacture Lincoln. Only then, perhaps, will Bill Ford earn a sobriquet as R is fondly known---though something other perhaps than "F"! As Lincoln goes, So goes the Nation... DouglasR (Sources: Rolls-Royce Motorcars Ltd; 'The Lincoln Motorcar, Sixty Years of Excellence' Thomas E. Bonsall, BookmanPublishing, Baltimore Md, 1981; 'My Forty Years with Ford' Charles E. Sorensen, Collier 1962)

Lincoln vs. The World & Changing the Game

by douglasr on Mon Jun 12 16:13:37 PDT 2006

"...It would have been better if Lincoln had won for the best ergonomic interior..." DouglasR 06-09-06 Zephyr just won "Best Interior of the Year" Award from Ward's Automotive. 06-12-06 "This award emphasizes how we are changing the game at Lincoln, building world class interiors...that Lincoln is known for." Mr. Peter Horbury is quoted by Ward's and Automotive News, and Ford Motor Company. "The Zephyr was up against some very reputable competition and this honor is a telling sign of the levels of details we're pouring into our interiors across the line-up." He added. "You're playing a very dangerous game, Mr. Bond," Auric Goldfinger tells James Bond in the infamous scene in the film "Goldfinger." So is Mr. Horbury...increasing the levels of trim on shared platforms, all a welcome sign, but what is in store for the bigger Lincolns? Raising the ante? We can only hope that his encouraging comments, about 'changing the game' are more telling than they reveal. But no doubt about it: Hat's Off & Score One for Lincoln, and Mr. Horbury's Hopefuls. Let us hope that the next Lincoln show car is painted 'gold'...smuggling under the noses of the prattling executives something bold for Lincoln. We can hear Mr. Horbury's words when he reads the bromides of this public: "What to you expect me to do...?" "Design it" Mr. Horbury: "Design it" DouglasR PS: 365 Days & Counting (Sources: Ford Motor Company; Edmund's Inside Line; Ward's Automotive, Automotive News)

Lincoln vs. World & Mr. Fields

by douglasr on Wed Jun 07 06:56:33 PDT 2006

As NVB warns, Zephyr's are potentially suffering as the late nite lady on the Hermisilio shift. That is what will happen to all of Lincoln, and the E385 chassis if things don't change. Only 32% of the parts comprising Zephyr are unique to the platform to make it a Lincoln vis a vis its Ford and Mercury counterparts. Mr. Field's bromide to his design staff is not unlike what Robert McNamara did for Lincoln: "I'll cancel Lincoln..." he told them; "You wouldn't really do that...? was the retort. McNamara had worked for the Strategic Bombing Survey under Gen. Curtis LeMay during WWII and knew all too well how to pick a target, his threat was very real. As GRB points out the John Oras designed 1961 Lincoln-to-be from the Ford studio was a car NO ONE would have bought... The famous basement 'stiletto-studio', or "E" studio (so named because it was by the elevator!) held room for one car---which at the time was a T-Bird proposal. McNamara's late nite walk-through in June 1958 and subsequent approval turned it into a four-door Continental for preview to executives the week of July 27, 1958. Bob Thomas, Elwood Engle, John Orf, and Gene Bordinat put in a lot of midnight oil to get the car ready for preview. When you look at photos of the full clay, they had been finished only 12 hours before the pictures were taken! The '61 was a smash hit...and made money for Lincoln, achieving what Mr. McNamara set out for the marque. The average age of Lincoln buyers before the LS was somewhere around 62, after it dropped to 52!, and Zephyr might lower it still to 42! But where will buyers go after the Zephyr? Without proper chassis and upscale products at Lincoln...Zephyr will just create customers for GM, BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus, if not Imperial. It is only an entry level car, and is built like it. Mr. Field's tactic may yet well work for Lincoln...in a backhanded manner. By causing consternation and delay between the designers and engineers, he is indeed buying more time to sort out Lincoln, and potentialy reverse his disasterous decision to piggyback Lincoln production at Ford assembly plants. His rejoinder to this might be that Wixom assembled T-Bird's and Lincoln's from 1958-1976 so what is the difference? However, he forgets that the T-Bird was really a mini-Lincoln as a result of that association, in terms of design and quality, far above the average Ford. Wixom built Lincoln exclusively until the return of T-Bird and the addition of GT-40 after 1976. It was only then that Harbour & Associates began to rank Wixom as one of the most efficient and high quality plants in America. Something Mr. Wagoner boasted about yesterday at the GM Annual General Stockholders Meeting in Wilmington...that GM had 5 of the 10 most productive plants in North America according to Harbour awards, and those plants would not close. Wixom was one of the remaining five.... Plant & Product are tied together...something Lincoln drastically needs. Ford Motor has the cash on hand for both, with $25Bn in hand, and another $35Bn credit available. The new plant would cost $300Mn, a heritage museum $65Mn (the two items necessary for PR effect, and to quell rumors of Lincoln's demise), shifting TC production $65Mn to the new plant, and a new platform: $1.2-5Bn---not even 10% of Ford's cash on hand. Mr. Ford and Mr. Fields can argue all day long about plant flexibility, health care and materials costs, but without genuine Lincolns to build in them, they might as well turn out the lights. By piggybacking Lincoln design onto generic Ford chassis as they have done with Zephyr, no matter how good the results might be, they are repeating what Studebaker did with Packard in 1957. The public did not buy that then, nor did they accept the Versailles---the modern equivalent of the same---and they will not now. Not at $45K plus. Surely with the design talent of J. Mays, Freeman Thomas, and Mr. Horbury, somewhere in the Ford Motor Empire between Irvine California, Dearborn, and London, is an "E" studio worthy of the Lincoln name. Nothing wrong with a fresh approach as the '61 proved. Yet the Mark II layed the groundwork for that car... Perhaps that is what the Mk S is supposed to be all about... (Though I don't see that, and think they are copying Cadillac by doing so.) Yet without unique designs to Lincoln, and a factory to build it in, the future for Lincoln looks very grim indeed. "You S-B, you're lucky you don't have to pay for all this overtime." Elwood Engle barked at Bob Thomas when they worked all nite to finish the '61 Lincoln clay model for presentation the next morning. That is what Lincoln needs now...a lot of high grade midnight oil...NO swearing required (I'm doing enough of it for them!). The Aston DBS was done in a month, the four-door in six, from a drawing to a driving car. So it's not impossible to save Lincoln now, ...368 days & counting. DouglasR (Sources: "Confessions of a Car Designer' Robert Thomas, Independently Published 1977; Car Design News; Automotive News; Autoweek; Edmunds-Online; DouglasR interview with Robert McNamara 1978; Strategic Bombing Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1945)