Settle an argument, re: 60 Minutes vs Audi in early '80's.
 

A co-worker (who drives a Lexus) tried to subtly call my Audi a POS by expressing concern over my buying a car with so many reliability problems over the years, specifically the massive recalls in the early '80's due to slipping transmissions. Now I don't particularly care what this Bozo thinks (or any other Bozo, for that matter); I love my A6 and that's all that counts. But, I would like to clear up this issue.

The way I remember it, 60 Minutes did a hatchet job on Audi 4000s/5000s suggesting major design flaws were causing transmissions to slip out of Park and the cars to lurch forward. In the end, there was no design flaw, no recalls, and Audi subsequently sued 60 Minutes who settled out of court.

Anyone have the facts ?

Re: Settle an argument, re: 60 Minutes vs Audi in early '80's.
 

If you can find the first issue of Brill's Content magazine, there's an article on this issue. You are correct; there wasn't a case. The A4 saved the marque from going the way of the Peugeot.

Here you go......
 

....<A href="http://members.aol.com/daserde2/libel.html"><b>60 Minutes Lies!!!!</b></a>

Great summary, thanks.

Your coworker worker is just showing his incredible ignorance...
 

Having owned Audis over the last 16 years, I run into this from time to time.

I once saw an interesting video put together by Audi, where a well know race driver took the most powerful, automatic model at the time (5000 turbo), and slammed the brakes on at 80 MPH. He then did again, but this time he held his foot to the floor on the gas pedal while braking. There was a difference of less then 10 feet between the measurements, proving the cars cannot overpower their brakes. In all of the accidents where victims claimed the brakes failed, they found nothing wrong with the brake system. I remember hearing many experts, chocking it up to "pedal error," a common, unconscious response in a panic situation.

I never saw it, but I understand 60 Minutes did a minor retraction of the story. Shame on them!

Chris JB
00 2.7tm

Back in the mid 80s or so, some woman hit the gas instead of the brake and smashed her son
 

through the back of the garage.

Some engineers at a think tank came up with some theoretically possible ways to have Audi transmissions get themselves into Drive. The one I remember involved driving into a zone that had an atmospheric pressure of around three atmospheres on some such nonsense.

60 Minutes rigged a 5000 to dump itself into drive I think, interviewed people that claimed they never hit the gas, blah blah blah and showed all that on their report.

Audi proved the 5000 brakes could hold the car with the gas pedal floored. The NTHSA duplicated drivers hitting the gas and swearing they hit the brakes many times.

The Audi pedels were "close" to each other. Too close for most Americans I guess. We had a woman that sweared her car was exhibiting these symptoms on the forum last winter. Apparently her large boots were touching both pedals on her A6.

Just searching the net a little <a href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cjm_18.htm" target="_top">this article looks pretty good.</a>

The best analysis I heard on that was
 

that a lot of people at that time were moving from big American cars like the Olds 98 and Buick Electra, into the 5000 (I believe it was only the 5000, not the 4000). In the American barges you had the really big brake peddle and on the Audi it was smaller and the peddles were spaced quite differently and more the left or center of the well than in the American cars. In the opinion I heard it concluded that people making this move (Which may have included the lady who hit her son by her garage but I'm not sure) almost certainly hit the gas while fervently believing they were on the brake. If I recall the woman stated that the harder she stepped on the brake the faster the car went, which kind of proves the point.
BTW, I had an '86 5000 and it certainly never had that problem.

Crazy witness
 

I also specifically remember a 'victim' stating on 60 minutes that the harder she pressed the brake, the faster the car went. Dumbass.

Sudden Accel...
 

I consider myself a fairly decent driver. However, I had first hand experience of "sudden acceleration." When I first owned a 1989 Audi 100 I noted the brake and the accelerator pedal were closely spaced and on the same horizontal plane. This could allow one to hit both pedals simultaneously.
If light pressure was applied, the car would definitely move forward because the brakes would not "grab" at that bilateral pedal force. This is of course opposite to the quoted Audi study, but remember this is a light and not heavy force applied to the pedals.
I know this to be true. It happened to me on more than one occasion until I realized the problem and made a conscious effort to avoid its recurrence.
And yes, I wear a size 10 shoe.

My two cents,

Chris

Your situation is what most people experienced. Pedals on the same plane and thus easy to
 

confuse. Notice all VAG cars and most other brands now put pedals on different planes ? You have to lift your leg to use the brake. You previously could just roll side to side on your heel.