I was having a conversation with my two nephews today, and I guess our cars are better off than we though. It turns out that the other Germans make some pretty quirky cars. My younger nephew has a hand-me-down used Audi 80 that he got from his brother when he moved up in the automotive hierarchy. He told me about the other day when it totally died on him on the highway... no power, no steering, no brakes, no lights. The car rolled quite a bit to a stop on the sholder after the handbrake was pulled all the way. It turns out that the stupid battery cable design causes the cable to come loose on certain occasions and this was one of them. According to him, this has happened before but not to this extent. His brother is on his second Porsche. While he wants to buy a 911 eventually, his funds limit him to a used 944S for now. It turns out it spent the past month at the mechanic and only $3200 to repair. It turns out that the Porsche engineers decideded that there was no need to ground the electrical system to the chassis, and only one wire to the battery would do. So, hes driving one day and the ground wire came loose. Total failure. Diagnosis later shows that the cars electrical system was fried do the the fact it had no ground. A month out of commision and a new wiring harness later, and the car was finally back on the road. Oh the joys that come with a finely built German car! :)
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