'Australian Delivered' superior cars. Fact or fiction?

[Hitch78]

Pommygranite said:

Wheres that 'Not sure if serious' meme?...

Like I said at the top - there are places in every major land mass on earth that match or beat Australia's temperatures. There is no need for an Australia specific spec, and this 'tuned for local roads' bit is poppy-cock too...what else do you expect them to say?!

[Pommygranite]

Hitch78 said:

Pommygranite said:

Wheres that 'Not sure if serious' meme?...

Like I said at the top - there are places in every major land mass on earth that match or beat Australia's temperatures. There is no need for an Australia specific spec, and this 'tuned for local roads' bit is poppy-cock too...what else do you expect them to say?!

It's the 2nd hottest continent on earth. It has a large mass of distance with temperatures that are above those found elsewhere and as such needs vehicles that can be run, with occupant comfort, for long distances in higher than average heat and be fit for purpose.

You are right there are other places that match or beat Australia's temperatures but very have the volume of hot areas across the mass of the country and are expected to host European vehicles.

[Jader1973]

Hitch78 said:

There is no need for an Australia specific spec, and this 'tuned for local roads' bit is poppy-cock too...what else do you expect them to say?!

The "need" is driven by the cost of the car. Adding $$ to all RHD cars for a heat absorbant layer in the windscreen is not something manufacturers do - they add cost where they have to.

Therefore they end up with a unique spec for Australia.

As for local suspension tune - some do, some don't. But it does happen.

[Kawasicki]

Hitch78 said:

Pommygranite said:

Wheres that 'Not sure if serious' meme?...

Like I said at the top - there are places in every major land mass on earth that match or beat Australia's temperatures. There is no need for an Australia specific spec, and this 'tuned for local roads' bit is poppy-cock too...what else do you expect them to say?!

Try ABS braking on gravel in a European developed car.
Now try ABS braking on gravel in an Australian developed car.

"poppy-cock?"

You're just guessing, and getting it wrong. You don't really know what you are talking about.

[Ginos]

Kawasicki said:

Hitch78 said:

Pommygranite said:

Wheres that 'Not sure if serious' meme?...

Like I said at the top - there are places in every major land mass on earth that match or beat Australia's temperatures. There is no need for an Australia specific spec, and this 'tuned for local roads' bit is poppy-cock too...what else do you expect them to say?!

Try ABS braking on gravel in a European developed car.
Now try ABS braking on gravel in an Australian developed car.

"poppy-cock?"

You're just guessing, and getting it wrong. You don't really know what you are talking about.

I see from your profile that you probably know a thing or two about suspension tuning. Are all manufacturers tuning their cars for local conditions globally, or is there something quite unique about Australia? Also, on the subject of ABS, why wouldn't the Europeans tune their ABS to cope with dirt roads as well and only do it for Australia? Cheers.

[Kawasicki]

Ginos said:

I see from your profile that you probably know a thing or two about suspension tuning. Are all manufacturers tuning their cars for local conditions globally, or is there something quite unique about Australia? Also, on the subject of ABS, why wouldn't the Europeans tune their ABS to cope with dirt roads as well and only do it for Australia? Cheers.

Are all manufacturers tuning their cars for local conditions globally? Yes and no.

Complexity costs money, so they tend to keep it simple if they can. Depends on where you intend to sell the car. Some growing markets are very different in road surface and customer usage/expectations, so it makes sense to have a special tune for there. Also, if you build a car in a region, you often get the parts made locally, and it's not very easy to get exactly the same performance from the local parts, so some tuning is often required for that reason. Tyres are a good example.

Is there something quite unique about Australia? From a chassis tuning point of view...yes, I think so. Urban areas are broadly the same as Europe. Rural areas have a lot of gravel roads, some of which are quite rough. Also Australia has a lot of coarse chip road surface, so road noise is difficult. People like to tow a lot in Australia too!

Why wouldn't the Europeans tune their ABS to cope with dirt roads as well and only do it for Australia?

Because engineers optimise the capability of a system for the expected usage of that system. How many people drive on gravel daily in Europe? Huge swathes of Australia are covered by gravel (unsealed) roads. When a european developed ABS system detects slip at about 0.6mu in Europe, the first expectation is a wet road. So the slip is optimised for that. In Australian developed cars it is much more likely that the road is gravel, so the ABS system tries to optimise braking performance on gravel, which means deeper slip (to build up a gravel wedge in front of the tyre).

[Hitch78]

But what if they're like 90% of aussies and they live in a city and the road is wet rather than gravel...wouldn't ABS tuned to the most likely use of the system point towards that?

[Steve12NG]

It's utter bks, and we are getting massively ripped off in Oz.

How many people are using their 118D to tow a caravan through the desert?

What do they pay for BMW / Merc etc in the US which has much the same climate variation as ours?
Yet we pay at least 3x the price.
It's a joke, and any attempt to justify it is even more of a joke.

[Ginos]

interesting story in the SMH online today. Now that Toyota are packing up, there is some lobbying to allow direct importing of used cars. Obviously this will bring the prices down.

[Kawasicki]

Hitch78 said:

But what if they're like 90% of aussies and they live in a city and the road is wet rather than gravel...wouldn't ABS tuned to the most likely use of the system point towards that?

Of course a lot of tuning and development goes into wet surface braking, but gravel also has to be part of the balance for Australia. Taking 50 metres to stop from 100km/h in the wet and 200 metres on gravel would not be a good Australian optimised tune.

[Gollum]

Off topic admittedly but my understanding of the best gravel ABS is to turn the the thing off?!?

I know the rally drivers are specialists but I thought this was the one specialist realisation that truly transferred down from race driver to the every day driver...

(and as an aside, why all of a sudden is a UK website, with UK English demanding that I spell 'isation' WRONGLY with a Z...?!?!?!?!) Same with all Microsoft products?!? Is it just me?

[Kawasicki]

Gollum said:

Off topic admittedly but my understanding of the best gravel ABS is to turn the the thing off?!?

I know the rally drivers are specialists but I thought this was the one specialist realisation that truly transferred down from race driver to the every day driver...

(and as an aside, why all of a sudden is a UK website, with UK English demanding that I spell 'isation' WRONGLY with a Z...?!?!?!?!) Same with all Microsoft products?!? Is it just me?

Shortest stopping distance is possibly with a locked wheel (100% slip), but you have no steering!

Gravel ABS aims for a lot of slip (40+%) when the steering wheel is straight ahead, to allow decent braking, the slip target reduces when you turn the steering wheel, so you can steer if you need to.

[Bibbs]

Gollum said:

(and as an aside, why all of a sudden is a UK website, with UK English demanding that I spell 'isation' WRONGLY with a Z...?!?!?!?!) Same with all Microsoft products?!? Is it just me?

It's not the website, but the browser.

And if it's in everything, it's your PC.

Click on the "EN" in the tool bar, or something.

[ezakimak]

kawasiki, you got a name?

Do you know a Tim W - that works out of Toyota on blackburn rd in melbourne?
he is a good friend of mine and another VDE that has worked globally.

regards Ryan

[ezakimak]

For interest sake, you can input VIN numbers (or the last 7 characters) into this and it gives you the print out of the options fitted to the car. You can see what the difference is between the various BMW’s fitouts around the world.

http://www.bmwarchive.org/vin/bmw-vin-decoder.html

I’ve put mine in there and it looks like there is a few things that they option specifically for Australia

L810A Länderausführung Australien National version Auatralia
S823A Heissland-Ausführung Hot-climate version
S825A Radio-Steuerung Ozeanien Radio control Oceania
S864A Händlerverzeichnis Übersee Retailer Directory Overseas
S876A Funkfrequenz 315 MHz Radio frequency 315 MHz
S880A Bordliteratur englisch On-board vehicle literature English
S925A Versandschutzpaket Transport protection package
S9AAA Aussenhautschutz Outer skin protection