Volkswagen fixes seat belt flaw with zip ties that snap apart when braking | Hacker News Reader

Volkswagen fixes seat belt flaw with zip ties that snap apart when braking

metropolitan.fi

53 pointsvelmu48 comments

How is this even possible?

It ties together the two rear seat belt buckles to prevent them being squeezed together and leading the bottom one to be unbuckled by itself while driving.

It should be obvious to anyone who dabbles in physics that the seat belt buckles should be fixed to the vehicle in a way that makes this impossible to happen.

The pictures in the reference linked to Tekniikan Maailma[1] show the obvious absurdity of the design.

1. https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/tm-testasi-uudelleen-volkswagen-...

Sadly this doesn't strike me as unusual.

I am trying to remember the car I was in, an 80s American car for sure, but the two back seat buckles were similar to this but had a rivet driven through the nylon strap to keep them ganged together.

One would hope design would have improved over the last 30 - 40 years....

Recall #2: metal zip ties

In case of accident metal zip tie cuts the seat belt.

Recall #3: ...

Recall #3: Remove rear seats.

That's pretty silly. The overhead of a recall on a cheap fix versus a proper fix is such that risking another recall is simply stupid. Besides the obvious image damage.

Models affected: recent model years Volkswagen polo, Seat Ibiza and Arona.

They don't have time to do it the right way the first time, but they have time to do it twice.

Because any recall done the second time will be done by the dealerships, which will simply bill VW for the time spent on this. The first one was done at factory, which slows down production and results in delays.

What makes you think that it'll happen that way?

Because as I said in another post, I'm literally about to pick up a brand new Polo this Friday - my car was manufactured, was awaiting loading in South Africa, and then had to be returned to factory specifically because of the seatbelt recall - which delayed delivery by about 4 weeks. If VW now issues a second recall, it will be done by my local dealership - how else could it work?

But that's the same as the first recall? Already sold vehicles go back to the dealership, those "in transit" get fixed by the factory?

That's bad, but if software was physical, I suppose this is what it would look like all the time.

Ha, so I'm actually taking delivery of a brand new Polo this Friday, which was delayed 4 weeks in production because they had to rectify the seatbelt issue. I'll be very curious to see how it was fixed on my particular car.

This is very disturbing. From what I’ve read, VW isn’t the kind of company that leaves room for improvisation. So this was probably some sort of process around this decision. How did they end up doing THAT?

> VW isn’t the kind of company that leaves room for improvisation

I would have thought so, but the last few years have sewn the seeds of doubt in my mind. I would have always been a Volkswagen driver but I'd think twice now before splurging on anything from the last few years.

I would bet poor correlation between a static seatbelt pull test and an actual crash.

wow, the reasons not to get a VW just keeps on piling up huh?

After seeing my friend struggle with her Golf, with it spending more time disassembled for various unrelated issues than actually on the road, I am staying very far away from VW cars.

I find the tone odd at the end, like they were trying to elicit some sympathy for VW for still dealing with emissions scandal fallout.

Is this a sign of how things are at VW these days? We are probably going to need a "new for us" car in the not too distant future and I have been suggesting to my spouse that we get another VW since out mechanics who we love only only on VW and Audi Cars.

Maybe it's because I live in Finland, but that's not how I interpret it. On the contrary, I interpreted it as the writer implies that this is another publicity scandal in the wake of the emissions scandal.

Cultural differences?

I agree.

The sentence in question is this one:

Reporters are in discussions with the manufacturer and expect that the company will need to another set of recalls for the automaker still suffering from the emissions cheating scandal.

The tone and context of the sentence indicates this is bad news for VAG as it piles on yet more negative media attention.

VW and AUDI do make good cars.

It depends on your definition of good.

If by good you mean: needs a new turbo at 223,000 kilometers, and removing and replacing the alternator is a 6 hour job, then yes I agree, my 2004 VW T5 Transporter is a great car!

The alternator in the T4 was accessible from underneath the car. I suppose they intend for you to sell the car to someone else before those things need doing. Oh wait, that's me.

I'm suspicious of any claims that "auto manufacture x makes good cars, because the auto manufactures mostly don't make very much of the car at all.

Toyota have a reputation of assembling a reliable set of components. VW not so much.

The trouble with all of this is we can't know what is a good new car* to buy today, because we don't have statistics on maintenance and repair costs for new cars.

I reckon your best bet is to look at those guides that detail maintenance and repair costs of used vehicles, then find one you like in your price range.

So needing some repairs after over 200,000 kilometers is considered unreliable these days?

I'll admit I'm having a bit of a whine. But yes, a turbo diesel engine shouldn't need a new turbo before 500,000k.

It's not uncommon to hear "oh, the turbos a bit tired", but it shouldn't be pumping the entire oil content of the engine out in to the engine bay every three months at 220,000k.

I say I'm having whinge because, of course, I understand how mean time to failure rates work.

My larger point was more about checking the reliability stats though.

there was a time when the diesel fuel pumps of a certain brand were the predetermined braking point of many diesel cars. but the turbo itself...

> It depends on your definition of good.

My '96 Mk 3 Golf still runs beautifully, but I suspect that is was designed and built by a very different organisation to what is there now.

They do have some baffling decent decisions every now and then though. I remember having to change the headlight on a VW transporter in the army (200X model can’t remember exact model). My hands (and all the other guys around) were too big to fit the space/hole left for such a routine operation. Had to take off the whole front mask. Took around 4 hours (never done that before). A 4 hour headlight change...

Cable ties inducted to Botched-repair Hall of Fame, take their place alongside duct tape and baling wire!

Only half sarcastically: I wasn't aware there was a genuine legitimate use for cable ties.

I suppose they could be used to tie cables to things, and I suspect electricians and their ilk probably actually do use them for that. But the general public? I'm willing to bet the general public is not using cable ties for tying cables to things.

Use on humans is discouraged because of nerve damage. Apart from that, I don't care...

My local odds-and-ends shop sells cables ties in bags of 100. As do the 'pound shops' where everything costs 1GBP, even those items not worth that much.

Someone is buying them on the high street.

You'll generally want to not use them on electrical wires either. The plastic bites into the insulation and can wear fully through over time.

There was an defect, they tried to fix it, fix was approved by a regulatory body, it didn't work, so they recalled the cars.

Hanlon's razor: what is the story here that puts it on the front page?

There was a defect, they recalled the cars to fix them, the fixed cars go back to customers and the issue they were recalled for can still happen.

> The remedy is not a valid one, since the TM tested a recall repaired car and found that the zip ties snap apart at during a strong braking. This means after such an event the fatal flaw in Volkswagen seat belts remains in place, rendering the recall useless.

>There was a defect, they recalled the cars to fix them, the fixed cars go back to customers and the issue they were recalled for can still happen.

Right, it has been acknowledged that the fix did not work. Waste of time and money for everyone involved. How would you like a recall process like this to work? Not everything is a scandal.

So because it isn't a "scandal" it's not interesting news that a major company half-assed a fix for safety problem?

The fix was such that it never should have been approved?

The continued decline of standards at a major manufacturer of automobiles, that's pretty interesting to me.

Poor design happens, but when given opportunity to resolve this they attempted to resolve it with zip ties. That's embarrassingly cowboy, especially in the wake of the emissions scandal. It's kind of impressive that the regulatory body permitted it too.

>The continued decline of standards at a major manufacturer of automobiles

Do you have any data to support this? I would argue that standards are increasing, and that cars are safer and better today than at any other point in history.

I'd say that the emissions scandal alone represents a pretty substantial decline in standards

That German regulators are so thoroughly captured by industry that they approve a zip tie for a safety critical fix and apparently didn’t order them to do crash testing again

I was confused by the title at first, but they actually mean braking, not breaking.

"Braking". God damn...

Non-native speaker here. Could you please elaborate?

The title was "breaking", when it should have been "braking". This is fixed now.

braking: the act of stopping motion, generally by means of friction against a moving surface

breaking: the act of rendering something unusable by means of destruction (see 'sabotage' when done wilfully)

The pronunciation of 'braking' and 'breaking' is /ˈbɹeɪkɪŋ/, they are homophones ('same-sounds').

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