Manufacturing Quality

With the news that Piper will produce the Hondajet, I am wondering if
Piper will be able to produce the finished product to meet Honda's
quality standards.
Piper has not built anything bigger than a Malibu for 20 years.
The Cheyenne IV/LS-400 was the biggest aircraft Piper has produced.

john smith wrote:

With the news that Piper will produce the Hondajet, I am wondering if
Piper will be able to produce the finished product to meet Honda's
quality standards.
Piper has not built anything bigger than a Malibu for 20 years.
The Cheyenne IV/LS-400 was the biggest aircraft Piper has produced.

I don't see why not. Americans at the Honda plants in Ohio produce cars
and motorcycles to Honda quality standards. And, based on my experience
with an 84 Honda Accord, purchased new, those standards aren't all that
high. The engine failed at 80,000 miles. Haven't owned a Honda product
since.


Matt

And, based on my experience with an 84 Honda Accord, purchased new, those standards aren't all that high. The engine failed at 80,000 miles.

There were some early Honda engines that required high octane gas, and
would fail when fed a diet of regular. Was this perhaps one of them?

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:
And, based on my experience with an 84 Honda Accord, purchased new,
those standards aren't all that high. The engine failed at 80,000 miles.


There were some early Honda engines that required high octane gas, and
would fail when fed a diet of regular. Was this perhaps one of them?

I don't think so. The failure was of the cam and rocker arms. It
appeared to be either a lubrication failure or a metallurgy failure of
either the cam or rockers, possibly due to improper heat treatment.
Honda showed no interest in finding out what happened and absolutely no
interest in standing behind their product. Yes, it was out of warranty,
however, this certainly wasn't a normal failure mode for an engine,
especially one maintained well. I used Mobil 1 and changed the oil at
5,000 miles. This is the only car I've owned in 30 years that has ever
had a catastrophic engine failure (not counting things like water
pumps). I thought Honda might meet me half way and at least offer to
cover parts. Not only didn't they do that, but there response to my
letter was to accuse me of failing to maintain the car properly. After
I sent them copies of my logbook (20 or so pages as I recall), they
replied back saying they couldn't see any obvious deficiency in the
maintenance, but then stuck their foot in their mouth even deeper and
said that 80,000 miles was within the nominal expected service life of a
Honda engine. Since 80,000 isn't even close to my expectations for a
well maintained engine, I've since bought vehicles from folks with
higher standards.

Matt

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
john smith wrote:

With the news that Piper will produce the Hondajet, I am wondering if
Piper will be able to produce the finished product to meet Honda's
quality standards.
Piper has not built anything bigger than a Malibu for 20 years.
The Cheyenne IV/LS-400 was the biggest aircraft Piper has produced.

I don't see why not. Americans at the Honda plants in Ohio produce cars
and motorcycles to Honda quality standards. And, based on my experience
with an 84 Honda Accord, purchased new, those standards aren't all that
high. The engine failed at 80,000 miles. Haven't owned a Honda product
since.


Matt

That's a rare case. What was the failure? I know of plenty of people who put
many, many miles on 80's vintage Accords with excellent reliability.

My current Accord has 217k miles and has had zero powertrain issues. No
engine work other than replacing the timing belt every 105k miles. No CV
work. No tranny work, and it even has the original clutch.

Since the late 70's, Hondas and Toyotas have been about as reliabile as
hammers.

KB

Kyle Boatright wrote:

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...

john smith wrote:


With the news that Piper will produce the Hondajet, I am wondering if
Piper will be able to produce the finished product to meet Honda's
quality standards.
Piper has not built anything bigger than a Malibu for 20 years.
The Cheyenne IV/LS-400 was the biggest aircraft Piper has produced.

I don't see why not. Americans at the Honda plants in Ohio produce cars
and motorcycles to Honda quality standards. And, based on my experience
with an 84 Honda Accord, purchased new, those standards aren't all that
high. The engine failed at 80,000 miles. Haven't owned a Honda product
since.


Matt


That's a rare case. What was the failure? I know of plenty of people who put
many, many miles on 80's vintage Accords with excellent reliability.

I agree. It problem was a random manufacturing defect. The reason I
won't own a Honda again isn't the failure, it is due to Honda's response
to the failure (see a post I just made). Accusing your customer of
neglect in response to an unreasonable failure of your product, is
simply stupid and I refuse to buy products from a stupid manufacturer.
There are just too many choices today to have to do that.

Matt

Matt Whiting wrote in
:

Kyle Boatright wrote:
Snipola

That's a rare case. What was the failure? I know of plenty of people
who put many, many miles on 80's vintage Accords with excellent
reliability.

I agree. It problem was a random manufacturing defect. The reason I
won't own a Honda again isn't the failure, it is due to Honda's response
to the failure (see a post I just made). Accusing your customer of
neglect in response to an unreasonable failure of your product, is
simply stupid and I refuse to buy products from a stupid manufacturer.
There are just too many choices today to have to do that.

There've been a few business relationships I've terminated
due not to the severity of the problem, but due to the
failure upon the company's customer service folks to even
comprehend the slightest detail of said problem.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

The reason you express for never buying a Honda again is the same as
mine for never buying another Ford product. Ford was in my family for
years and years. I grew up in Michigan (south of Detroit) and my family
was totally immersed in the auto industry. My father was a manager at
Ford for 36 years and we NEVER drove anything but Fords.

My wife however liked Toyota Camry's (much to my chagrin) and couldn't
be talked into buying an American car brand. That is until one day when
her Camry was starting to show some signs of wear at 175,000 miles and I
decided to purchase 2 brand new Ford vehicles. She went along with it
although skeptical. She ended up being right.... Her car (a Mercury
Mystique or Mistake as she called it) broke down several times. It was
in warrantee so Ford fixed it at no charge.

She got tired of dealing with the car so we put it up for sale and she
bought another used Camry. The Mystique's air-conditioning broke down
(just by sitting in our driveway) and the car was only a thousand or two
miles out of warrantee.

I went through the red tape and jumped through the hoops that Ford makes
you go though only to have them deny my claim and not do anything for
me. I paid for the repairs and wrote them a letter stating my
disappointment and how I would never buy one of their products again. Of
course I received no response.

I've since purchased a used Honda Accord and happily put over 120k on it
with nary an issue. When this on goes TU I'll buy another one.

So now my wife and I drive Japanese cars (but they are built here) and
are totally happy with them. The frosting on the cake for me was that I
see where Toyota just took over second place from Ford in US car sales.
What is Fords response? To hire some expensive PR firm to prop their
sagging image. They are clueless that in this day of $3.00 a gallon gas
they need to build a better car and getaway from the sugar-tit that is
the big SUV and pickup truck. Heck, I see that Honda is now making a
better full-size pickup truck than Ford's F-150. Ford though they would
never see the day when that happened.

Oh yea.... to keep this airplane related and avoid the dreaded OT in the
subject.... I drive old Japanese cars so I can own and fly my Mooney!! :-)

Jon Kraus
'79 Mooney 201
4443H @ UMP




Matt Whiting wrote:

Kyle Boatright wrote:

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...

john smith wrote:


With the news that Piper will produce the Hondajet, I am wondering
if Piper will be able to produce the finished product to meet
Honda's quality standards.
Piper has not built anything bigger than a Malibu for 20 years.
The Cheyenne IV/LS-400 was the biggest aircraft Piper has produced.


I don't see why not. Americans at the Honda plants in Ohio produce
cars and motorcycles to Honda quality standards. And, based on my
experience with an 84 Honda Accord, purchased new, those standards
aren't all that high. The engine failed at 80,000 miles. Haven't
owned a Honda product since.


Matt



That's a rare case. What was the failure? I know of plenty of people
who put many, many miles on 80's vintage Accords with excellent
reliability.


I agree. It problem was a random manufacturing defect. The reason I
won't own a Honda again isn't the failure, it is due to Honda's response
to the failure (see a post I just made). Accusing your customer of
neglect in response to an unreasonable failure of your product, is
simply stupid and I refuse to buy products from a stupid manufacturer.
There are just too many choices today to have to do that.

Matt

Jon Kraus wrote:
Heck, I see that Honda is now making a
better full-size pickup truck than Ford's F-150.

Please. I like Honda cars but that thing they build is not a full size
truck.

Kyle Boatright wrote:

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...

john smith wrote:


With the news that Piper will produce the Hondajet, I am wondering if
Piper will be able to produce the finished product to meet Honda's
quality standards.
Piper has not built anything bigger than a Malibu for 20 years.
The Cheyenne IV/LS-400 was the biggest aircraft Piper has produced.

I don't see why not. Americans at the Honda plants in Ohio produce cars
and motorcycles to Honda quality standards. And, based on my experience
with an 84 Honda Accord, purchased new, those standards aren't all that
high. The engine failed at 80,000 miles. Haven't owned a Honda product
since.


Matt


That's a rare case. What was the failure? I know of plenty of people who put
many, many miles on 80's vintage Accords with excellent reliability.

I agree. It probably was a random manufacturing defect. The reason I
won't own a Honda again isn't the failure, it is due to Honda's response
to the failure (see a post I just made). Accusing your customer of
neglect in response to an unreasonable failure of your product, is
simply stupid and I refuse to buy products from a stupid manufacturer.
There are just too many choices today to have to do that.

Matt