Greg, Your closing paragraph is fairly accurate and reasonable and I am in agreement with much of what you say. My only concern is that your list may be misconstrued by potential new owners or detractors of the DeLorean. Based on that I make the following comments in the defense of the design engineers and technical directors who staffed the company during its active years. 1. You said "waiting to happen". How many documented instances do you know of where the electrical system started a fire. 2. You said "same with fuel system". How many documented instances do you know of where the fuel system started a fire. 3. You said "Escape after rollover can be problematic" do you know of any owners who have had difficulty escaping their DeLorean's in a rollover. 4. The factory became aware of the front frame extension weakness early on and subsequently issued Safety Bulletin SC-03-01/82 which included beefed up doubler plates and hardened fasteners. All other weakness problems are usually related to corrosion and not design. 5. Trailing arm attachment. The design of this system is used in many other vehicles. Virtually all of the problems related to bolt failure was a result of incorrect torque setting of these bolts at the assembly plant. This problem was addressed in several notices issued to service personal and owners. Hardened replacement fasteners have been available from most of the vendors for years. 6. All of the front suspension fastener problems we're corrected by the factory with the following: Safety Campaign's NOS.RA-001 1/21/82 RA-002 SC-01-1/82 SC-04-12/81 SC-04-11/81 SC-03-11/81 SC-02-11/81 SC-01-11/81 7. I somewhat agree with you concerning the lower links but I wouldn't use the term "prone". Failures are rare and usually related to corrosion or collision damage. In closing this week Ford Motor Company recalled 800,000 vehicles for engine fires. Effected vehicles go back to the year 2000. If you go to the Office of Defects Investigation at the NHTSA website you will find thousands of recalls among automobile manufacturers around the world. Many of the recalls involve hundreds of fatalities. Check and see how many recalls indicate : "problem in detachment of steering column........." or "defect in power brake coupling ....." "hood latch defect can cause hood to fly open at highway speed causing ........". What about the SUV roll over problems a couple of years back? The DeLorean design engineers did an outstanding job in addressing safety issues in the design of the car. Lutz Feuerabendt, William Charles, John Patro, Doyle Potter, and Leif Montin, in-turn, did an equally impressive job in staying on top of safety issues irrespective of mounting problems throughout the production years. Why did it take profitable Ford Motor Company 800,000 vehicles and five years to take action on a safety problem while the floundering DeLorean Motor Company made appropriate modifications and notified their customers of all safety issues within three years at 8500 cars. DMC Joe -----Original Message----- From: endotex23 [mailto:endotex23@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 8:27 PM To: dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [DML] Re: Need help --- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Jennifer Moe" <jennymoe4@xxxx> wrote: > I am a very new owner and one of the people I work with is slamming > my D. Uh, the bias here is a bit tough to swallow. I work in an industry that defines safety and the comments here reflect both ignorance and a clear lack of objectivity. "Safe" needs to be defined. Are you refering to crashworthiness or something else? Just so you're aware: 1) Portions of the electrcial system are a fire waiting to happen. 2) Same with the fuel system. 3) Escape after rollover can be problematic. 4) Front crumple zone is flimsy and needs to be re-enforced. 5) Trailing arm attachment design and materials used are an abomination. 6) Broken nuts holding front suspension components are a problem. 7) Control arms are flimsy and prone to cracking and failure. I could could on. The bottom line is the car is reasonably "safe" as long as the poor design and service bulletins are corrected and complied with. The somewhat shoddy design and construction, a less than rigid frame and body coupled with a low design height in today's SUV rich envronment, and a number of other factors such as inadequate crash padding, poor visibility, lack of a SRS, etc, make the car not nearly as "safe" as modern vehicles. A Delorean would likely fail current crashworthiness tests in nearly every category and the quoted lack of fatalities is nothing more than a statistical aberration. I suggest you solicit information from people who have more objectivity than any of the parties currently involved. It's your life you know. Greg To address comments privately to the moderating team, please address: moderators@xxxxxxxxxxx For more info on the list, tech articles, cars for sale see www.dmcnews.com To search the archives or view files, log in at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: dmcnews-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/