In article <fpad201s66nirfa39mkmd03jusaqt4khuf@4ax.com>,
George Macdonald <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote:

> Go to the discussion forum at www.edmunds.com for VW models - the cars are
> loaded with gadgets... which break and break and break. Some of the basics
> also seem prone to break - ongoing problems with gearboxes, electricals
> like locks, windows etc.

Oh yeah--I forgot to mention the German electrics. They're worse than
anything Lucas ever put out.

Pay attention to German cars with burned-out brake and tail lights, for
example. Then pay attention to Hondas with the same.

VW had what I'm sure someone thought of as a great idea: let's put an
amplified antenna on the roof of the car, mounted in the rear. Oh,
yeah--and then let's put the amplifier electronics OUTSIDE the car, in
the base of the antenna. Guess what happens when that antenna gasket
breaks, as they all do? That's right--the amplifier dies, and you get
no reception. Now we're into a new $100 antenna. And that's just the
part; now we have to pull the headliner just to get to it.

And while we're there, let's sand and scrape the corrosion away from the
mounting nut so that there's a good ground, which is necessary for the
whole thing to work.

Compare that to the 98-02 Accord antenna in the rear glass. Whatever
they've done, it just flat works--and there's nothing exposed to the
weather.

This is just one example of an important electrical detail that VW got
monstrously wrong, which Honda got right.