Looks like the GT-R isn't so great after all...

Yeah... recently a local man reversed out of his driveway and accidentally ran over his daughter because he couldn't be bothered to check behind his car. He sued Nissan because, since he didn't purchase the optional backup camera on his Infiniti SUV, clearly it was Nissan's fault for not including it with the car and therefore it was Nissan's fault that his daughter died. Not his.

Same level of stupidity.

Article: http://www.automotivearticles.com/123/Man_Sues_Nissan_After_Running_Over_Daughter.shtml
 
Black 911 C2S = Sexy

It honestly does not surprise me at all that the buyer is "shocked" after using LC too many times. Gearheads are not the only ones buying these cars. Half-brained idiots with too much money and no common sense probably think the car (trans) is bullet proof.
 
Spectre said:
Yup - and it's not like Ferrari won't do the same thing with the similar gearbox in the 599/612 as well as their other products.

Launch it in the "secret launch mode" disclosed by Clarkson in his Ferrari review ("hold on to your spleen, everybody"), or even with regular launch control a few times and you'll either smoke the clutch or blow the gearbox and Ferrari will NOT replace either one under warranty. I know this because one of my clients' CEO bought a 599, thought it'd be fun to emulate Clarkson and ran it around town for about a week with regular launches under launch control. The gearbox failed, and he got stuck with a $30K bill to replace it.
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Well i recall from the Ep that when JC did that secret LC mode, one thing that popped in my mind was the "tranny failure" warning that came up.


Like most ODBII cars I am going to bet that is being logged, and could be used as a reason to deny warranty work. I remember Passat owers who would remove rev limited would find in their ODBII in the Vag-com errors showing something to the effect "Over Revved -- Warranty Void :)" yes according to some the :) was there.

That being said, i also recall back when people found out about the M3 LC in the SMG II that in Euro if you did it more then 3 times you could lose your warranty but here stateside that ALONE could not a reason to deny warranty. But they can find other reasons I bet but the fact of using LC itself could not void it.
 
ChicagoCub said:
Black 911 C2S = Sexy

It honestly does not surprise me at all that the buyer is "shocked" after using LC too many times. Gearheads are not the only ones buying these cars. Half-brained idiots with too much money and no common sense probably think the car (trans) is bullet proof.
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Yes, a black 911 C2S is VERY sexy. It's the best all-around 911, and I think that's the "reasonable supercar" that might someday be reachable for me rather than something more ostentatious (Gallardo).


It may not shock that the stupid people think that way, but what suprises me is that the American Legal system is so full of stupid people that these imbiciles can WIN legal cases! It's no wonder our economy is completely fucked if these utter pillocks in the legal system have been giving it the same quality of attention. If I was a judge, I would take one look at that case, laugh about it for a bit, and toss it out the window.

Also, I remember one about a man who broke into an old woman's house by stepping on, breaking, and falling through a sunlight. He stole her property, then sued her for having a sunlight that broke when he stepped on it, and fractured his ankle afterwards, and won hugely. Then he couldn't be charged for theft.
 
Well that'll teach him for driving like an arse hat then won't it. Good on Nissan for showing the guts to say no warrenty
 
thedguy said:
BAHAHAHA. Why am I not surprised by this? Oh because I saw it coming, especially after talking to a friends neighbor who trains dealerships to work on these cars and mentions that brake jobs are $7000 because the rotors and pads have to be replaced (and they are those fancy carbon/ceramic or whatever) and all wheels have to be done at the same time.

Hooray for owning a car where standard maintenance costs are 10% the cost of the vehicle and the car isn't designed to handle the power it already has.
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Huh? The GT-R doesn't have carbon ceramic brakes.
Or are they getting info regarding that for when they do introduce them on the V-spec? If they were an option I don't think I would get them, too much money for too little advantage and not the best option for the street (and the ridiculous maintenance cost you mention).
 
Warrantys cover manufacturing faults. Selling the car to a retard who can't drive properly isn't really the Nissan factorys fault, its the Nissan dealers, and the kids parents for letting someone so stupid buy an expensive toy.
 
pretty fail on the drivers part... 20LCs will cook your clutch and/or transmission.

the only thing Nissan can, and probably will do for the next GT-R, is remove the LC option completely....
 
yeah most likely driver's fault. But still, it would be pretty interesting to see the black box data..

Then again, it's hard to judge how many LC starts is enough before you blow the gearbox. Two or three starts seem too few..
 
My car's got 360,00kms on the original 20 year old gearbox. Clutch was replaced once at 220,000kms.

I've done heaps of high rev launchs dumping the clutch (a LOT more than 20) and never had a problem. And once a freind took me out in a Toyota Aurion and after using a secret method to turn the ESP off, we probably did about 20 launches just in the space of a hour, usually loading the engine up on the brakes first. No problems there either.

Anycar that can't handle a few hard launches has serious durability problems.

Besides isn't the clutch in the GTR computer controlled with no input from the driver? How could it be the drivers fault?
 
The thing is this:

When you do a fully-fledged launch in any car, there will obviously be a lot of stress in the components, as high forces are involved. Usually, one of the components gives in in some way. May it be the engine by dropping its revs, the tires by spinning or the clutch by slipping, you seldomly combine all these factors in perfect harmony to create the perfect launch. If you do however, it is logical that all the forces go into the drivetrain, as there is no other part to "vent".

Now, with the GT-R, we have a high-grip AWD system which prevents the wheels from spinning too much and thus eating up the enourmous forces of the 480 bhp engine (obviously, the overall power of the car also plays a role here). Then, there's a launch control (LC) which makes sure that none of the power is lost at the clutch or too-low revs. So in the end, what you do with a GT-R-LC-start is load the absolute maximum of forces you can archieve onto the drivetrain. No wonder that if you do that repeatedly, there will be a part that will finally give in.

That's why Nissan says you shouldn't do this. I'm pretty sure they'll be alright when you have some kind of warranted damage on the car, and they discover that you've done it once or twice. But there's a limit for everything, and if you exceed that limit, your warranty is void. Every manufcturer includes similar things in their handbook, and as the GT-R's manual states that you shouldn't turn VDC off at all and says nothing about the LC, it is obvious that their misuse will void the warranty.
 
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pepitko said:
yeah most likely driver's fault. But still, it would be pretty interesting to see the black box data..

Then again, it's hard to judge how many LC starts is enough before you blow the gearbox. Two or three starts seem too few..
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Don't forget each gearbox is hand built, as they have said many times on TG. So his gearbox could have been slightly weaker than others, or slightly stronger.
 
obviously, the overall power of the car also plays a role here
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It shouldn't. More powerful cars are supposed to have stronger gearboxs.

Then, there's a launch control (LC) which makes sure that none of the power is lost at the clutch or too-low revs. So in the end, what you do with a GT-R-LC-start is load the absolute maximum of forces you can archieve onto the drivetrain. No wonder that if you do that repeatedly, there will be a part that will finally give in.
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If the car can't handle it, the launch control shouldn't have been built into the car. Since it has been, it should have undergone countless months - even years of durability testing - where the car should have been continuously subjected to the harshest possible conditions it is likely to encounter in normal car use. Using a built in feature twenty times over a few months car is hardly abnormal use.


The only things that my car's manual says not to do, is not to drive the car hard during the first 1500km or anytime while the engine is still warming up (which I frequently do anyway as I turn onto a busy road a short distance from my house and often need full power). Some car manuals say not to turn off the stability control (or similar feature) as it's supposed to save lives - not because the car's components can't handle it.
 
High-performance cars have the closest thing to a racing transmission assembly that you'll see on the road. That's the thing: if you over-stress these parts, especially the clutch (LC starts work by means of clutch slip, AFAIK), you can easily burn them out or shatter/seize them altogether. Many F1 drivers have blown a race at the very start of it by being over-zealous with their starts, making lightning getaways by goofing with the clutch instead of inducing wheelspin. Case in point, Michael Schumacher, in his first race at Spa, 1991: started 7th, moved up two places before La Source, but the clutch couldn't stand the excitement, being burned out at the start and failing on the run up to Les Combes on lap 1.

So don't expect transmissions which are used on a high-performance car to last as long as the gearbox in, let's say, your Golf or whatever. And a gazillion LCs in a very short timespan? That's a recipe for complete and utter clutch and drivetrain failure.
 
Flyingphil said:
If the car can't handle it, the launch control shouldn't have been built into the car. Since it has been, it should have undergone countless months - even years of durability testing - where the car should have been continuously subjected to the harshest possible conditions it is likely to encounter in normal car use. Using a built in feature twenty times over a few months car is hardly abnormal use.
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The vital part is that the launch control is not documented in the manual of the GT-R. Furthermore, the manual says that you should only turn off VDC in certain conditions. Since you have to turn off VDC to use the LC, and Nissan can monitor this in the GT-R's black box, it is obvious that a failure of a component that can be linked back to excessive use of the LC will not be warranted by Nissan.

I would bet money that Lamborghini wouldn't replace your gearbox or your clutch either when you wreck it with 20 fully-blown starts. Also, many manuals of cars say that "abusive driving" will void the warranty for parts that are damaged in the process, which leaves the door open to a whole lot of mistakes a driver can make.
 
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So don't expect transmissions which are used on a high-performance car to last as long as the gearbox in, let's say, your Golf or whatever. And a gazillion LCs in a very short timespan? That's a recipe for complete and utter clutch and drivetrain failure.
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Normally high performance cars have beefed up components to handle the extra stress from high performance use. The guy who owned the car said he did about 20 full launches over a few months - hardly a short time span.

When you get your licence, go to a car dealer and test drive some cars (without the dealer on board). Do several full blown launches and you'll find that every car can handle it (except presumably, the car in question here).
 
Sorry, but I seriously doubt that. Once you get into the thinner air of cars beyond 400 hp, I'm sure you'll see a lot of shattered clutches and gearboxes. Also, I am sure that none of the manufacturers would pay any claims in that matter.
 
So your saying that all more powerful cars are built to a lower relative standard than normal cars?
 
No, what I'm saying is that the more power a car has, the harder it gets for the manufacturer to produce every single part to live up to all the abuse it may ever get. That means that a good chunk of said cars will not take all the abuse you apply, including undocumented functions that are not covered by the manufacturer according to the description.
 
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