On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:18:31 -0500, Steve > wrote:
> Dave Hinz wrote:
>
>>
>> Can you provide a cite for your 99% figure? It looks to me to be,
>> what's the term? Oh yeah, "pulled out of your ass". A breakdown of the
>> failure modes, since you seem to have the statistics, would be oh ever
>> so welcome.
>
> Yeah, I did pull it out of my ass, but a number on the high side of 80%
> is just about right.

Great, I'd love to see those stats if I could then?

> No one, many dealers included, knew how to diagnose
> the things when they first came out. There are two sensors in it, either
> one of which can trigger "limp mode." VERY often, entire trannies got
> swapped because of that.

So in addition to poor design for the mechanical failures, there are
documentation and/or training problems? It just gets better & better.

> And I'm not denying that the early transverse A-604 (the one that became
> the 41TE) had some real hardware problems- it certainly did. But the
> biggest of those were fixed by the 1993-94 time frame,

Well, my '98 had the two I mentioned. Simultaneously.

> and most of them
> never affected the 42LE version at all. There were a few more upgrades
> through the years, to the point that these days its quite rare to read
> about transmission problems in the rec.autos.makers.chrysler newsgroup-

Well, sure, all those have died already.

> unlike 1995 when upwards of half the posts were about transmission
> problems, mostly in minivans.

....which to me, indicates a widespread problem (shrug)

>> Are you one of the engineers responsible for this abomination,

> No, I don't work in the automotive industry at all. But I am an engineer
> and a car hobbyist. I've got a couple of good friends who used to be
> dealer mechanics (at an exceptional dealership in terms of technical
> expertise) who have explained the whole sequence of events, what was
> really wrong, and what "common practice" was. I've also participated in
> re.autos.tech and rec.autos.makers.chrysler for over 12 years now, and
> I've seen the A-604 problems disappear from the discussions firsthand.

Well, I don't think a sensor problem caused my fluid loss at the
connectors to the cooler, or caused the chunks of aluminum that the
differential pin was happily chewing from the case, but I could be
wrong.

> or why
>> are you defending the heap of **** in question so vehemently, please?

> Because in the first place, it isn't a "heap of ****."

I call 'em like I see 'em, and from here, it sounds like it is.

>And in the second
> place, as a working engineer, I have an understanding of how innovative
> systems (and the A-604 WAS groundbreaking- it was the first production
> fully electronic transmission) develop over time- including cases like
> the A-604 where the management a-holes that run companies pushed the
> engineers to get it in production before it was ready.

I'm not specifically blaming the engineers. I've also been the guy
being pushed to release something not ready. Had a LONG talk with the
boss once after asking "How bad do you want it? Because right now, it's
pretty bad..." when being pushed to release something before it was
done. He didn't like that. I still didn't sign off on it.

> It ****ES me off
> to see ignoramuses who don't know a snap-ring from a bellville spring
> continue to verbally smear crap on a piece of engineering over 10 years
> after the problems have been resolved

Odd then that I asked several times if the problem had been resolved
yet, and you kept snipping that part. Now, you're ****ed off that I
didn't know if it was resolved, even though I asked several times and
you kept not answering it? Interesting rhetorical technique. Not
particularly effective, mind you, but interesting to watch.

> to the point that the CURRENT
> product has an industry-leading (or near it) reliability rate.

Thanks for finally answering my question.

> And it
> ****ES me off to see ignoramuses spew forth in public forums with the
> ASSumption that "new designs" (or worse yet German or Japanese designs)
> are always better.

I don't recall ever saying anything of the sort. (shrug?) maybe you're
transferring your frustration with someone else onto me or something?

> Hell, the A-604 was the "new design" in 1989, and for
> a while it DEFINITELY wasn't better than anything! The new 5-speed
> Daimler transmission may be great (and in fact there haven't been any
> complaints that I've read in r.a.m.c about it) but at the moment, the
> 41TE has become highly proven, and the new one is a relative unknown.

You just contradicted yourself, by the way.

Whatever. I really don't care. Fixed or not, after the way Chrysler
basically said "yeah, we know it's ****, but tough luck on you" rather
than doing the right thing, excluded them from future consideration. I
know two guys who are Chrysler mechanics, and the transmission (and
serpantine belt tensioner cluster****) on these vehicles is pretty much
a running joke from what they tell me.

Poor engineering (I didn't say bad engineers) shouldn't be rewarded by
repeat business.