Audi: Truth in Engineering

Ducati Forum

Help Support Ducati Forum:

VAST

VAST

Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
2,005
Location
Manhattan
Let's hope Audi inspires Ducati to be more honest with their HP figures; to wit:

"At least two publications have dyno-tested their S8 press cars to discover, lo, that the engines produce quite a bit more power and torque than the company claimed. Motor Trend calculated the output to be not 520 hp but a gawdamighty 575 hp, with torque up to 506 (from the official figure of 481).

Of course, Audi would not be the first car company to understate an engine’s output. And this higher set of numbers just makes the EA824 even more astonishing: 575 hp out of 4.0 liters of displacement, while being ULEV-compliant and getting 26 mpg on the highway?

The official explanation is that Audi’s internal testing regime is conservative in order to assure that every last S8 produces at least 520 hp. Audi doesn’t want to deal with owner complaints that the engine is not making the stated horsepower. With the S8, that’s not a problem. Still, the practice is unseemly. How do we know, for example, that it’s not just the press cars that are juiced? It just looks bad for a company with the tagline “Truth in Engineering.”

Audi S8: You won?t hear it, but you?ll feel it - MarketWatch
 
VAST said:
Let's hope Audi inspires Ducati to be more honest with their HP figures; to wit:

"At least two publications have dyno-tested their S8 press cars to discover, lo, that the engines produce quite a bit more power and torque than the company claimed. Motor Trend calculated the output to be not 520 hp but a gawdamighty 575 hp, with torque up to 506 (from the official figure of 481).

Of course, Audi would not be the first car company to understate an engine's output. And this higher set of numbers just makes the EA824 even more astonishing: 575 hp out of 4.0 liters of displacement, while being ULEV-compliant and getting 26 mpg on the highway?

The official explanation is that Audi's internal testing regime is conservative in order to assure that every last S8 produces at least 520 hp. Audi doesn't want to deal with owner complaints that the engine is not making the stated horsepower. With the S8, that's not a problem. Still, the practice is unseemly. How do we know, for example, that it's not just the press cars that are juiced? It just looks bad for a company with the tagline "Truth in Engineering."

Audi S8: You won?t hear it, but you?ll feel it - MarketWatch
Click to expand...

Pretty sure those buying S8's don't run off to a dyno then whinge
back to Audi.
Make me wonder what the real TTV10 the rs6 had then ;)
 
putting a car on a chassis dyno doesn't say what engine power really is.....it says only what wheel hp that car has on that particular dyno. you cannot tell engine power from wheel hp. it's all hypothetical.

when you present a company with such a windfall of good news even if based on misinterpretation do you think they will say anything other than, oh, oh yeah, we did that on purpose! lol.

have the magazine pull the motor and place it on an engine dyno and compare.
 
ducati advertises 195 bhp.....don't most of them put down 175 whp? maybe a bit more? 11% power loss..... is that unreasonable? aren't most cars in the 12-25 range?
 
Let's hope we Ducati owners give a ...., which we don't. This forum is for Pani enthusiasts. What are you doing here again?
 
Higgs Boson said:
putting a car on a chassis dyno doesn't say what engine power really is.....it says only what wheel hp that car has on that particular dyno. you cannot tell engine power from wheel hp. it's all hypothetical.

when you present a company with such a windfall of good news even if based on misinterpretation do you think they will say anything other than, oh, oh yeah, we did that on purpose! lol.

have the magazine pull the motor and place it on an engine dyno and compare.
Click to expand...

I agree. I have been around a fair amount of dyno runs of cars. Motor Trend applied a standard correction factor. I have seen the correction factors vary quite a bit, especially on cars that are rated per the SAE Certified standard. No question that the car is very fast - the guy I ride motorcycles with has an S8 on order so we shall see.
 
jjsC6 said:
I agree. I have been around a fair amount of dyno runs of cars. Motor Trend applied a standard correction factor. I have seen the correction factors vary quite a bit, especially on cars that are rated per the SAE Certified standard. No question that the car is very fast - the guy I ride motorcycles with has an S8 on order so we shall see.
Click to expand...

He's not going to try and verify how much power it makes is he?
Reality is most manufacturers understate a bunch of figures.

The current A8/S8 is a sweet looking ride.
 
XIXCIX said:
He's not going to try and verify how much power it makes is he?
Reality is most manufacturers understate a bunch of figures.

The current A8/S8 is a sweet looking ride.
Click to expand...

No he won't. He trades cars every couple of years. In the eight years I've known him, he has owned a previous generation Jaguar XJR, Maserati Quattroporte, new generation XJR. He was trying to figure out what to buy next and I finally talked him into looking at the S8. The dealer made him a strange (but good) deal to buy an A8 and they will buy it back from him when the S8 comes in. The A8 with the 420 hp TT engine is very impressive as well.

BTW, he also owns three bikes, one of them an 1198S.
 
not strange deal actually -- it's called CHANNEL STUFFING: the dealer sells the car 1x to your friend then buys it back and sells him the other car x1 and then sells the used car 1x = 3 sales = better for gaming the sales numbers. real channel stuffing actually happens when Audi sells to dealer in first place irrespective if dealer sells, bc the co still calls it a sale. but the dealer is doing local stuffing -- not bad in the new normal accounting...

jjsC6 said:
No he won't. He trades cars every couple of years. In the eight years I've known him, he has owned a previous generation Jaguar XJR, Maserati Quattroporte, new generation XJR. He was trying to figure out what to buy next and I finally talked him into looking at the S8. The dealer made him a strange (but good) deal to buy an A8 and they will buy it back from him when the S8 comes in. The A8 with the 420 hp TT engine is very impressive as well.

BTW, he also owns three bikes, one of them an 1198S.
Click to expand...
 
VAST said:
not strange deal actually -- it's called CHANNEL STUFFING: the dealer sells the car 1x to your friend then buys it back and sells him the other car x1 and then sells the used car 1x = 3 sales = better for gaming the sales numbers. real channel stuffing actually happens when Audi sells to dealer in first place irrespective if dealer sells, bc the co still calls it a sale. but the dealer is doing local stuffing -- not bad in the new normal accounting...
Click to expand...

what you call channel stuffing Audi calls wholesaling.....

if audi sent the dealer one car for every car they sold then Audi would never sell an additional incremental car, put as simply as possible.

when the dealer sells a car with the offer to take it back at or near the original selling price with the understanding another more expensive purchase will take place at that time it is not the same thing. what we call that is customer retention......yeah we don't have the car you want right now so drive this until then instead of a Porsche.
 
VAST said:
not strange deal actually -- it's called CHANNEL STUFFING: the dealer sells the car 1x to your friend then buys it back and sells him the other car x1 and then sells the used car 1x = 3 sales = better for gaming the sales numbers. real channel stuffing actually happens when Audi sells to dealer in first place irrespective if dealer sells, bc the co still calls it a sale. but the dealer is doing local stuffing -- not bad in the new normal accounting...
Click to expand...

Yeah. Interesting how much they stuff.
The Audi SQ5 had only just landed in oz.
There are 30 available as "used/demo" cars.

Anyway, the S8 is a sleeper and a half. Good choice for the older gent needing
subtle express transport
 
VAST said:
not strange deal actually -- it's called CHANNEL STUFFING: the dealer sells the car 1x to your friend then buys it back and sells him the other car x1 and then sells the used car 1x = 3 sales = better for gaming the sales numbers. real channel stuffing actually happens when Audi sells to dealer in first place irrespective if dealer sells, bc the co still calls it a sale. but the dealer is doing local stuffing -- not bad in the new normal accounting...
Click to expand...

What made the deal amazing is they sold him the A8 at $15,000 under list, are buying it back at what he paid for it and selling him the S8 at invoice. He has now had the A8 for six months already. I but lots of cars and am very good at it, but this one beats everything I have heard before.
 
because the real numbers and real sales figures are nowhere near as good as corps are reporting. this is just another case in point. thought of another way: why would a premium product with real robust demand be so heavily discounted against another premium top of the line product?

audi needs to game their numbers -- they don't care if they lose on the deal. i too picked up a crazy deal on a new audi at the dealership because they just need to flip cars now. (dealer admitted upon sale that Audi lost money on my deal.)

also, another interesting fact that bolsters this whole channel stuffing game is that there is a "salvage" yard in Germany that takes essentially excellent condition ex lease cars and dealer demos, cars that are more than road worthy and are essentially viable luxury goods that could be resold, and destroys them. why? because it ensures factory output. meanwhile, if you look at new car registrations in countries like France, those numbers have plummeted .

a wasteful world we live in designed to game the ponzi.

jjsC6 said:
What made the deal amazing is they sold him the A8 at $15,000 under list, are buying it back at what he paid for it and selling him the S8 at invoice. He has now had the A8 for six months already. I but lots of cars and am very good at it, but this one beats everything I have heard before.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
VAST I am afraid you do not understand the auto industry, my friend. You are making yourself look silly to those that do understand it.

there are lots of ways a car dealer makes money and it isn't always on a per unit basis. a dealer can sell a car at a small loss vs invoice price and still make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. telling you they "lost money" on your deal is just to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. besides, a dealerships profitability is only loosely correlated to a manufacturer's.

based on this and other posts you make, i can reduce you to a simple conspiracy theorist with no real understanding of the things you post about. you read just enough on the internet to get yourself in trouble.

pretty sad, bro.
 
Higgs Boson said:
VAST I am afraid you do not understand the auto industry, my friend. You are making yourself look silly to those that do understand it.

there are lots of ways a car dealer makes money and it isn't always on a per unit basis. a dealer can sell a car at a small loss vs invoice price and still make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. telling you they "lost money" on your deal is just to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. besides, a dealerships profitability is only loosely correlated to a manufacturer's.

based on this and other posts you make, i can reduce you to a simple conspiracy theorist with no real understanding of the things you post about. you read just enough on the internet to get yourself in trouble.

pretty sad, bro.
Click to expand...

You really could have made your arguiment without dissing Vast at the begining and end, be the bigger person and just provide your expertise here without knocking an OP.
 
do you know how much I paid for the car? do you know which model i purchased? do you have any REAL STATS for what you claim? do you provide actual facts and examples for the below?

so who's the one that looks foolish?


Higgs Boson said:
VAST I am afraid you do not understand the auto industry, my friend. You are making yourself look silly to those that do understand it.

there are lots of ways a car dealer makes money and it isn't always on a per unit basis. a dealer can sell a car at a small loss vs invoice price and still make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. telling you they "lost money" on your deal is just to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. besides, a dealerships profitability is only loosely correlated to a manufacturer's.

based on this and other posts you make, i can reduce you to a simple conspiracy theorist with no real understanding of the things you post about. you read just enough on the internet to get yourself in trouble.

pretty sad, bro.
Click to expand...
 
his "expertise" had not a single example or fact. being a "bigger person" is the least of his problems.

if you don't know what channel stuffing is and how auto manufacturers lose money, then hey everything is a conspiracy...

Trauma said:
You really could have made your arguiment without dissing Vast at the begining and end, be the bigger person and just provide your expertise here without knocking an OP.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
VAST said:
his "expertise" had not a single example or fact. being a "bigger person" is the least of his problems.

if you don't know what channel stuffing is and how auto manufacturers lose money, then hey everything is a conspiracy...
Click to expand...

Maybe so, but he does consider you his friend :)
 

Register CTA

Register on Ducati Forum! This sidebar will go away, and you will see fewer ads.

Recent Discussions

Back
Top