>What do you think happened with the Golf 3 engine design? They made the camshaft structurally weaker, so the engine will blow up more easily.
Wow, talk about an oversimplification. The Mk3 moved from an 8-valve to a 16-valve engine; yes, this adds more valvetrain failure modes but also brings myriad other benefits, increased power, better fuel economy, reduced emissions…
The idea that a carmaker would purposely engineer flaws into core engine components in order to drive future sales doesn’t make much sense.
> The idea that a carmaker would purposely engineer flaws into core engine components in order to drive future sales doesn’t make much sense.
There is a legend that Mercedes 190D was built like a tank and this caused customers to not buy the next iteration. Mercedes solved this, making cars a bit unreliable.
>The idea that a carmaker would purposely engineer flaws into core engine components in order to drive future sales doesn’t make much sense.
You need to realize modern business revolves not around one-and-done, but around recurring revenue streams. To the "business minded" the only thing that doesn't make sense is leaving money on the table.
Selling people grenading engines is not a great way to build recurring revenue streams. And building performant, efficient, and reliable engines is hard enough without intentional sabotage
Nevertheless, as long as everyone else optimizes to the same metrics (minimized Bill of Materials, and building for assembly, not service), it may not be great, but it undeniably works.
Wow, talk about an oversimplification. The Mk3 moved from an 8-valve to a 16-valve engine; yes, this adds more valvetrain failure modes but also brings myriad other benefits, increased power, better fuel economy, reduced emissions…
The idea that a carmaker would purposely engineer flaws into core engine components in order to drive future sales doesn’t make much sense.