by Don Roy on April 26, 2011
It is easy to envy the job of a road test editor for a magazine or web site. After all, when it comes to the world of automotive enthusiasts, you’re pretty much living the dream. Often flown at other’s expense to exotic locations, you’re wined and dined in expensive establishments and given the latest high performance hardware to thrash around in. Other times, you just get really neat stuff to park in your driveway and make your neighbors jealous.
Generally, the only rule is ‘bring it back in one piece’ and given today’s anti-lock braking, electronic stability control, hugely capable tires and other modern developments, it’s pretty hard to break that rule. So, imagine that you are on a quarter-mile track, running some brake tests for which you run up to 70 mph and stand on the brake pedal and mostly let the electronics keep the shiny side up. Say you’ve done this dozens of times on all manner of performance cars, but this time the pedal goes right to the floor just as a metallic ‘snap’ registers in your brain.
Perhaps it is not always such an enviable position to be in because that is just what happened recently to Motor Trend editor, Scott Mortara, while evaluating a Boss 302 Mustang. Fortunately, the experienced tester was able to slow the car by downshifting the manual transmission and get off the track without serious incident. What followed from there, as reported by MT senior editor Angus McKenzie, is both a PR nightmare and a curiously unsatisfying conclusion for all.
An immediate and thorough investigation by Ford, which also involved stopping production temporarily at the Flat Rock, MI, assembly plant, revealed no inherent problem with production cars. The test car, however, appeared to have its brake pedal incorrectly assembled, so that a pivot pin sheared under the extreme load and master cylinder actuation was lost.
No conclusive evidence has been identified as to how this car’s brake pedal got to the state it was in, but once you let these cars out into the hands of others, anything is possible. This is the type of thing that Ford will continue to pursue internally until there is nothing left to investigate. In the meantime, this set of freaky circumstances serves well to remind all of us that bantha poo-doo happens and paying continual attention while driving is highly justified.
I hate to be a conspiracy theroy kind of guy, but there is a unpublished case of a school bus accident back in Massachusets in early 2000 that involved a death of a child at a crosswalk. The brake pedal of the school bus was BENT due to the pressure the driver was applying to stop the bus, but the ABS just pulsated through the crosswalk.
At trial, the ABS manufacturer, Bendix Commerical, was defending it’s system. The Judge asked the Bendix Engineers “is there any situition where the ABS controller handles all the braking and the driver does not”. Their answer was YES, and the bus driver was acquitted and Bendix ended up “settling out of court”.
How do I know this information, you ask? I worked for a company at the time that produced digital cameras for crash test videos. We were ‘indirectly’ involved with the case.
What I do not like about the case was that the media was ‘absent’ from the trial’s judgement.
To further fan the flames here, I worked with a retired Ford Engineer on some crash test videos for an Audi SUV (not sold in the USA). This guy was DEAD AGAINST ABS, and even claimed that there is still NO STATISTICAL evidence that ABS has reduced any accidents. Think about it, ABS has not reduced fender benders, and you still have high speed fatalities on our Interstates.
After hearing that the Chevy Volt is the first car with totally computer controlled steering, I have decided that I will not buy any car newer than 2009. I want controlo ofthe vehicles I drive rather than “make suggestions” to a computer.
I guess I will continue to drive K CAR based Chryslers until someone builds real cars again.
Have a nice day,
Bill
I never thought ABS was going to do much except, keep a car from loosing control due to skid caused by locking up the breaks. They do help with that. But I agree Bill I want control of my car.
Thanks for reading.