Guys,
I love 944's. You love 944's. We all love 944's, which is why we use this forum! [
]
But, brilliant as they may be, they aren't perfect. In fact, they are far from it. Having owned my S2 for the thick end of 7 years now, I have come to realise it is littered with design flaws. Three that come to mind immediately are as follows;
- Brake Calipers, with metals with different electropotentials in close contact with each other in a wet environment. Corrosion is inevitable, and someone should have spotted this before the calipers were put into production. Yes, I know the stainless steel plate is there for a reason but a better solution for restraining the pads could have been thought up - brake pad pins, as on the teves calipers for instance.
- Rubber spoiler on the rear hatch, and those piddly little 10mmx4mm holes that they are meant to drain through. Yes, those holes that get blocked if the car ever ventures within six miles of a tree, causing something akin to lake windermere to develop on the rear spoiler when it rains, which means water runs into the boot when you open the boot lid. I can understand that bigger holes would detract from the aerodynamic efficiency of the spoiler by bleeding air from a high pressure area to a low pressure area, but someone must have spotted this before it went into production, surely?
- The minor controls in the interior. A pet bugbear of mine, but really - it's a mess! There is no way of looking at a switch and knowing how to operate it. Some rock (rear wiper, fog lights), some press in and latch (air recirc), some roll (headlight levelling), some twist (headlights. And, now we've mentioned it, that headlight control knob is damned ugly and far bigger than any other control on the dashboard apart from the steering wheel. Why is it so ... huge?) Were the different bits of the dashboard designed by different teams who had different design philosophies, different temperaments and different numbers of fingers? Why so inconsistent? And while we're talking about minor switchgear, why is it so poorly illuminated? The switches in front of the gearlever are bathed in rich black darkness at night, and an inexperienced owner has to learn which one does what (as well as whether any one switch he is presented with needs to be prodded, flicked or twisted.)
There must be more - there ARE more, but I can't be bothered to type them out as I am a lazy git! Someone help me ... what design flaws have you come across on the 944 (and what can be done to rectify them)? I shall award a prize to the person who comes up with the longest list ...
Oli.
I love 944's. You love 944's. We all love 944's, which is why we use this forum! [
]But, brilliant as they may be, they aren't perfect. In fact, they are far from it. Having owned my S2 for the thick end of 7 years now, I have come to realise it is littered with design flaws. Three that come to mind immediately are as follows;
- Brake Calipers, with metals with different electropotentials in close contact with each other in a wet environment. Corrosion is inevitable, and someone should have spotted this before the calipers were put into production. Yes, I know the stainless steel plate is there for a reason but a better solution for restraining the pads could have been thought up - brake pad pins, as on the teves calipers for instance.
- Rubber spoiler on the rear hatch, and those piddly little 10mmx4mm holes that they are meant to drain through. Yes, those holes that get blocked if the car ever ventures within six miles of a tree, causing something akin to lake windermere to develop on the rear spoiler when it rains, which means water runs into the boot when you open the boot lid. I can understand that bigger holes would detract from the aerodynamic efficiency of the spoiler by bleeding air from a high pressure area to a low pressure area, but someone must have spotted this before it went into production, surely?
- The minor controls in the interior. A pet bugbear of mine, but really - it's a mess! There is no way of looking at a switch and knowing how to operate it. Some rock (rear wiper, fog lights), some press in and latch (air recirc), some roll (headlight levelling), some twist (headlights. And, now we've mentioned it, that headlight control knob is damned ugly and far bigger than any other control on the dashboard apart from the steering wheel. Why is it so ... huge?) Were the different bits of the dashboard designed by different teams who had different design philosophies, different temperaments and different numbers of fingers? Why so inconsistent? And while we're talking about minor switchgear, why is it so poorly illuminated? The switches in front of the gearlever are bathed in rich black darkness at night, and an inexperienced owner has to learn which one does what (as well as whether any one switch he is presented with needs to be prodded, flicked or twisted.)
There must be more - there ARE more, but I can't be bothered to type them out as I am a lazy git! Someone help me ... what design flaws have you come across on the 944 (and what can be done to rectify them)? I shall award a prize to the person who comes up with the longest list ...
Oli.
