(first posted 7/31/2016) I was still traveling to Rikers about twice a week and needed a more inmate proof car to do that in than the Miata, so once again we planned to get a new car for The Irish Princess (TIP) and I would then use the 5 year old 1995 Eagle Vision for work.
TIP wanted a manual transmission car with pizzazz, not unlike the Eagle. That meant a powerful motor and leather seating.
And, there was a big VW dealer in Bernardsville, a short walk from the marital abode in Basking Ridge.
Little did we know we were about to go from the Chrysler frying pan into the VW frying pan.
Does that make sense?
It was now apparent that I had joined Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) at its apex in early 1987. From that point forward it was down hill, at first slowly, and then quickly.
We all thought the initial decline was a result of the October 1987 Black Monday stock market crash. But when other companies started to recover, DEC did not. As noted in earlier COALs, DEC management and its grandfatherly president Ken Olsen did not know how to react to the rapidly changing world of information technology, as well as the very fast movement of personal computers into both corporate cubicles and people’s homes.
At first DEC’s reactions were to develop big mainframe-like systems to compete with IBM and to also develop their own line of “personal computers”. Because DEC had successfully pioneered the use of CRT and keyboard operated systems that served one user, how hard could it be to compete with the woefully underpowered IBM PC, its cobbled together tinker toy operating system MS-DOS, and the even goofier pictogram based Apple?
They found out.
DEC responded to the many threats it faced with new hardware and software designs, but these efforts always ended up being too late, and too technically unique, to compete. DEC had yet to learn that personal computer business and private users were not loyal to any one brand of PC hardware, but once they learned the ins and outs of an operating system, or an application, that’s what they wanted to stay with, even if the OS was as flawed and idiomatic as MS/DOS.
That was the genius of young Bill Gates. His initial operating system wasn’t all that great; it was basically a simple system he purchased on the cheap and then modified. What Bill gates knew, and what IBM management did not, was that the PC OS was the key to almost eternal sales and upgrades with diminishing development costs resulting in big margins. On the other hand, the hardware itself was a commodity that had ongoing manufacturing costs and expenses and minimal margins due to increasing competition.
DEC management was in the same uninformed boat as IBM.
In 1992 Ken Olsen was replaced with the slickly dressed and dentally enhanced Robert Palmer.
While it is very subtle, the more observant reader of this COAL story might note a vague hint of dislike for Mr. Palmer. Let’s just say that 25 years after Mr. Palmer’s ascent to DEC’s two top positions (he was both president and CEO), old timey DEC workers (those there longer than I) become silent and morose if the subject of R Palmer, or his years at DEC, come up.
The most charitable phrase used by these old timers to describe him is “bottom feeder”, defined as: Slang – An opportunist who profits from the misfortunes of others.
Mr.Palmer commissioned new logos:
became:
We were called into a meeting room to see the new logo. A bearded and sandal wearing VMS OS designer sitting next to me leaned over and whispered “no worries now.”
Company cars were taken away, bottled water fountains removed, lunch rooms closed and replaced with vending machines, 401K contributions reduced and later cut altogether, and then, after a few months, layoffs.
The layoffs were followed by more layoffs. We began to notice a pattern. Technical developers, sales staff, and customer facing delivery personnel were the ones being let go.
Very few, if any, managers were on the layoff lists.
DEC management developed detailed organization charts where all lower level employees like me reported to two managers through red and blue reporting lines. Meetings were held and complicated PowerPoint presentations were developed to explain the arcane red-line blue-line org charts and almost everyone found them undecipherable. But questioning these inanities was cause to be labeled “not a team player” and perhaps eligible for the next layoff.
What we all knew was that all the red-line blue-line crap really did was give the appearance of responsibilities and activities to the many remaining members of DEC management over a diminishing cohort of individual contributors.
The term layoffs were changed to RIF (reduction in force) which management didn’t feel right about, so they used the ultimate and popular staff reduction term “right sizing”.
If you got right-sized, that meant you were part of the wrong size.
I apologize for these pedantic details into DEC’s death, but it is relevant to the overall environment in which I was living in vis-à-vis TIP, my son Will, the stresses of home life, and work. As I was 100% in the field, either at 60 Hudson Street (DOC headquarters a few short blocks north of the WTC North Tower) or Rikers Island (off shore next to LaGuardia Airport) it was apparent that when DEC management was choosing the people to go on the next layoff right sizing list, there was a tendency for them to pick people they rarely saw in the offices except during the relatively few all-hands-on-DEC (get it?) meetings.
Robert Palmer sold off many of DEC’s technologies and businesses. When DEC reached the “right size” for being acquirable, it was indeed bought by Compaq for about 9.6 billion dollars.
There were rumors that Robert Palmer had close relationships with Compaq management, that he shrank DEC until it was the size and style Compaq wanted, and that he then profited nicely from this deal.
Of course these were just rumors. Maybe I’m being too rough; perhaps to his credit, Mr. Palmer tried hard to help DEC survive and lamented over all the pain and financial woes inflicted on DEC employees during his tenure.
Perhaps, but probably not. It was only business; nothing personal.
Why was I still at DEC and not laid-off, riff’d or right-sized?
Probably because the DOC was paying DEC a lot of money for my team, my own services, and then doubled that money when Y2K reared its ugly (but profitable) head. And who would want a high stress project management gig for a bureaucratic and red tape bound customer on an island penal colony surrounded by armed guards, miles of razor wire, and being buzzed every 90 seconds by barely aloft jetliners spraying kerosene mist and vapors everywhere as they took off into the prevailing westerlies?
Certainly no one at Compaq was willing to step in. I imagine they said: “Leave Plaut there; he probably likes it (what a weirdo) and we need the revenue. When the revenue ends, get rid of him.”
Just because I may be paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.
It was in this environment that TIP and I bought a 5 speed 2001 Passat GLX V6.
As many of you might know, VW might be many things both good and bad, but they sure knew how to make a car attractive to the eye and to the touch. High end VWs of the year 2000 era were exquisitely designed and built with the best feeling interior materials I had ever touched or looked at.
And the exteriors of their cars were smooth, elegant, and simple, with few if any of the unnecessary automotive styling gimmicks that have popped up over the past 65 years.
The interior was hushed, leathery smelling, and the seats were firm and perfectly finished. Even at full throttle the V6 was a distant moan which contradicted the very rapid rate at which it could accelerate.
The shift lever was a bit vague and soft, and the travel was slightly long, but keep in mind we were comparing it to a 1999 Miata. It was not difficult to find each gear in the VW.
TIP once sat in the Miata with her hand on the short stubby shifter, revved the engine, turned to me and said “Now I know why men like stick shifts.”
My reply: “It seems like some women like them even more.”
Here are some specs. The 2001 front wheel drive Passat GLX had a longitudinal 2.8 liter V6 with 30 valves, 169 cu in., a 3.73 axle, and 15 inch wheels. The engine developed 190 hp at 6,000 rpm and 206 lbs. ft. of torque at 3,200 rpm. It weighed about 3,600 pounds and was 183.8 inches long.
MotorWeek says the 5 speed front wheel drive Passat V6 could do 0-60 in 7.3 sec and the quarter mile in 15.6 seconds at 92 mph.
This was even faster than the Eagle Vision TSi. I wasn’t too worried about TIP; she was a good, if not a tad too fast, driver.
I was worried about the clutch – and the police.
It had a monsoon sound system; there were speakers everywhere. Will and his mom loved that!
When put in reverse, the right side mirror pointed down and out so the curb was visible. I wish I had that feature on all of my vehicles.
It had neatly operating but somewhat complicated trunk hinges outside the sealed area of the trunk along with two holdup pistons. It was a much better and more expensive design than the simple internal hinges on other cars that intruded into the cargo area.
With the rear seat backs folded down it could hold a lot of bulky stuff.
It had a manual rear window shade that did not impede driver visibility too much, but did keep the sun off the necks of rear seat passengers.
It was a beautifully designed and executed car.
While TIP’s Passat was a creamy color called Candy White” with a tan interior, the blue one above shows how nicely VW designed and furnished their top of the line Passats.
I took it back to the dealer twice for the same two complaints, a vibration at 1,750 rpm that was definitely not right, and a clutch with a very high take up point.
On the second visit they replaced a motor mount and that took care of the vibration, but they told me the clutch was “fine”.
When I asked why the rear wheels accumulated brake dust instead of the front wheels, they told me that was the way they were meant to operate. I tried some panic stops when the road was clear and it seemed to work well, so I asked them to note my complaint in the car’s history next to the high clutch take up.
To the VW’s benefit, I must admit the Passat’s vault-like construction and plethora of air bags is the reason TIP is alive today. Very little in life is a clear case of black and white. I may never buy another VW (even before Diesel-gate), but this Passat did that one important thing very well.
The summer of 2001 had some very hot days and we had to fix the Eagle’s A/C a second time. We also had an out of control radio/CD player that I replaced with an aftermarket unit from a local shop. We fixed or monitored everything we could on the Eagle, but I was driving on rough roads in heavy traffic over major NYC squeeze points including the all time favorites: George Washing Bridge, Cross Bronx Expressway, Major Deegan Expressway, Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel, and all of the connecting arteries.
I told TIP I might want to get a newer car sooner than we had planned as I was loosing confidence in the almost seven year old Eagle.
The next night TIP showed me a brochure for a PT Cruiser from the same dealer we got the Eagle. Instead of being Jeep/Eagle, they were now Chrysler/Jeep. No more Eagles. When did that happen?
I told TIP I could be laid off/right sized any day now. Management probably thinks they can replace me with a person who has connections with the new management at (who do I work for now?) Compaq.
TIP said she still thought we should get the PT Cruiser. “… you can get it with 5 speed stick; it has a cue ball shifter, we’d have three 5 speed cars; wouldn’t that be neat?”
I knew what a cue ball shifter was from reading old car magazines and ogling pictures of 1962 409 Biscayne sedans. When did she learn to appreciate such arcane automotive details?
If we were to have three 5 speed cars, thank goodness they would all have the same shift pattern. That would be one less thing to worry about.
We drove down to the dealer but there were no PT Cruisers to drive. This was when they were in such demand that there was a waiting list for them and when one came it, it had a customer’s name on it.
We ordered a Touring Edition in taupe frost metallic with a cue ball 5 speed shifter, roof rack, and CD player. “Should be arriving in a couple of weeks” we were told.
Trade in value on the Eagle? Don’t ask.
About a month later on a Friday afternoon, I was with the team on Rikers when temperatures reached 103 degree F in the sun.
There is no shade on Rikers Island.
We had finished the day’s work and were in the trailer documenting activities for my regular Monday status meeting at 60 Hudson Street when we got a call that a tractor trailer loaded with boxes of cat5 cable was parked at the IT storage area and that no one was there to unload it.
Note: As noted in an earlier COAL cat5 cable contains 4 pairs of copper twisted pair wires and can be used for connecting one terminal to a data network, or it can be used to connect four separate ordinary telephones to a telephone network. Keep this in mind because later that year (2001) NYC would desperately need network and telephone wires and we would have a lot of them in the Rikers IT storage area.
The DEC Compaq team, two correction officer escorts, and I drove over to the storage area in a jail van and formed a bucket chain from the trailer to the storage area and unloaded the trailer. It probably took 90+ minutes for us to complete the work in the 103 degree heat. In the sun.
Back at our air conditioned trailer office, we drank iced tea and water and slowly recovered from the ordeal. Time to go home; it had been a long week. We were all soaked to the skin.
All cars must be securely locked with windows up when parked on Rikers. Even though I let the Eagle’s engine and a/c run a while with the windows cracked to vent the heat, I could not feel any relief. A bottle of water in the cup holder was too hot to touch, let along uncap and drink. I could feel the cold air from the Eagle’s vents but my head was not cooling down. The rest of me was still wet and starting to get chilled. The Eagle’s a/c seemed to be working.
With the a/c on max/recirc, I left the island, went over the Triboro Bridge, up past Yankee Stadium at a crawl (Friday evening traffic, maybe even a Yankees game), up onto the Cross Bronx, and then over the George Washington Bridge.
I kept feeling the vents to be sure it was still blowing cold, and it was, and I still felt the body chills, but I also still felt very hot in the head.
Traffic smoothed out on 80 west and I got into the right most lane after the major merges, set cruise control to the traffic flow and tried to keep a clear head because I did not feel well.
Rumble strips.
Wonderful things.
I do not know if I fell asleep or passed out, but the rumble strips shook the Eagle violently and loudly at about 55 mph and I was suddenly wide awake and alert with a pounding heart, and thankful there were no vehicles on the shoulder. I had drifted slowly to the right and still had only the right wheels on the strips.
I could have killed innocent people.
Alignment on the Eagle was good; I was falling gently off the road’s diminishing crown.
At first I did not tell TIP about the Route 80 west rumble strip event, and much later that evening she got a call from her twin sister who lived in Dublin. Her sister had been vacationing with her husband and three of their children in Spain when her husband Ted died suddenly. Ted had had a kidney transplant 25 years earlier, was still on anti rejection drugs and was not a very healthy man, but still, his death was sudden and unexpected. He was maybe 8 years younger than I.
TIP, who was very close to her twin (not identical) sister and her brother-in-law, was at first in shock, then cried a lot, and then in the early A.M. hours, went into active planning mode. She made reservations to fly to Dublin from JFK the next afternoon.
I wanted to say “Why JFK? That’s a god awful trip, can’t you do it from EWR”, but I realized that would have been seen as callous, self serving, and uncaring considering the unfolding family trauma. I kept my mouth shut.
She packed quickly, and the next day Will and I drove her to JFK.
In the car TIP was silent. To break the awkward silence I mentioned the Route 80 west incident and said that, adjusting for the time difference between NYC and Spain, Ted might have died right around the time I went off the road. I offered up the suggestion that it was “… an odd and weirdly ominous coincidence.”
She said nothing.
At the International departures drop off, she hugged Will, got out of the car, and marched stiffly into the terminal building with a determined posture that was unfamiliar.
She said nothing to me.
I knew she was upset and was grieving, but that struck me as being a really bad omen.
TIP said she would be gone for 3 or 4 days.
She was gone for three weeks.
What am I gonna do now?
Great story! When’s the next installment?
Next week? My guess is we are 2-3 instalments before it ends.
I wonder if you suffered some sort of heat stroke. Those rumble strips are a blessing. Down here, the lines themselves have a rumble feature. Some roads have the corrugations.
Regarding DEC CEO, my wife has a saying: piensa mal y acertaras.
Piech era VW were actually very nice inside.
Guess we can imagine how the other story ended. Hope you’re happy nowadays.
Heat stroke was my impression as well, but I wonder if this was actually a warning sign for a medical condition that was developing.
This generation Passat was a great looking and driving car. And scored well in the crash tests of the day. Suspension bushings, automatic transmissions, 1.8 turbo engine sludge, and various electrical components failed too quickly. These cars did not age well.
My first thought was also heat stroke. It’s nasty.
This story is getting a little ominous.
RLPlaut wrote: “Alignment on the Eagle was good; I was falling gently off the road’s diminishing crown.”
The last car I owned that exhibited that behavior
was my second 1981 Buick Century, over twenty
years ago! Nowadays cars overcompensate for
crown, and combined with electric power steering,
I often find myself drifting toward oncoming
traffic!
“Little did we know we were about to go from the Chrysler frying pan into the VW frying pan.
Does that make sense?”
I’d guess you weren’t an avid reader of Consumer Reports in those days.
Regarding bottom-feeding DEC CEO Robert Palmer, the 1990 film ‘A Shock to the System’ comes to mind.
In this very black comedy, Michael Caine plays a middle-aged executive at the end of his rope. Passed over in favor of a ruthless young hot-shot, he develops his own very special plan to ‘level the corporate playing field’!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Regarding Consumer Reports, wasn’t this generation Passat given a “Recommended” check mark at first before the underlying issues came to light? I think a lot of folks who should have bought an Accord or Camry got lulled into the Passat due to this.
I had a MK IV Jetta TDI at the time(that only had a couple of the common MK IV issues) that I generally liked. I subscribed to CR and followed the Internet forums for the vehicle and knew what I was getting into. Like most VW’s, the basic ergonomics and driving dynamics were excellent.
The trick with VW’s and other cars with less than stellar reliability is to not keep them too long.
IIRC, it got one of the highest road test ratings but couldn’t be recommended due to its poor reliability. The Passat always seemed to make the “Used Cars to Avoid” section.
Examples: http://imgur.com/uPHin and http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2006/11/crreliability2006.jpg
Edit: you said “at first” – perhaps.
LOLROFL! That’d be the same Consumer Reports that lavished effusive praise on the 1990 Jetta, another VW excrescence which, like pretty much all of them, did not fix or stay fixed well. I recall they said it “exuded quality” — which was either a delusional hallucination or perhaps a misprint where they’d meant to say “excluded”.
I saw that one at the store today.
Not sure a manual PT Cruiser makes a lot of sense as a New York City commuter car, I might have gome for an auto S60 for it’s great seats and sensible size. Think TIP might have liked a 525i BMW, as more fiting her self image. Retirement might be in the offing given your age at the time and the early retirement offers likely coming from Compaq during the never ending right sizing.
Not sure it matters now. Given the history of those 2 cars you’ve suggested, I’d say the Passat and PT Cruiser are no worse off.
I have really been enjoying this series, and it’s always nice to hear some Tommy Castro.
Thanks for sharing. Heat related illness sneaks up on you, especially the first time it really gets you.
Women (and I’m sure men too!) and automobiles, the things they get us into!
Love that interior. I wonder if ANY new car today can be had with a factory shifter that has a wooden shift nob?
Heat stroke is no fun. Back in 2008 when G.W. threw his one time stimulus package at folks I used the $1,200 that my first wife and I got to purchase a little tin shed from Sears and put it up in the back yard. It was a 12×8 shed and I built it single-handed during the course of a weekend. Monday morning I was hugging the toilet, drinking sports drinks, and eating chicken soup.
GW stimulus package? Was it coca?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Stimulus_Act_of_2008
That wood does look nice in that blue interior VW.
As far as I’m concerned, all cars are better with wood trim, even plastiwood. It makes the interior more inviting.
It really, really does look good with the blue leather. Blue interiors and wood trim are made for each other, and I hope that the color makes a comeback.
Yes.
Closeup.
Hey RL: Did you select an option for the images not to
enlarge when clicked/tapped on in this particular article?
Works on nearly every other CC item I’ve read.
Fixed.
On the back end of the site, it’s a drop down menu when editing each picture to make it an enlargeable media file. Easy to forget to do especially when there are many pictures being inserted; I’m quite guilty of forgetting it myself.
I don’t understand; mine always do that automatically without selecting any option. This, along with the lack of images being actually/truly centered (they appear centered if they’re 600 pixels wide, but lack the distinctive gray border) occurs to about 50% or more of our posts from various contributors. I’m stumped. I thought that our Writer’s Guide is foolproof.
This has been going on for almost a year, and I don’t understand why the image outcomes are variable. I wouldn’t know how to not make them pop up.
A few months ago, mine were no longer automatically centering the way they had. The flipside is I no longer had to adjust picture size to 600 pixels wide (or deep) as it was being done automatically. I’ve always had to tell it to be a media file.
For whatever reason, I thought perhaps you had updated WordPress and that was simply a result of the upgrade.
Odd. Mine is the same as it has been for some time: it automatically centers images and makes them media files, but I have to reduce them to 600. I don’t understand how it can be different for different users. Maybe different browser? I use Firefox.
Browsers could be a factor. I’m using Safari, with a Yosemite version operating system.
The swap / change happened about three months ago, although my browser has been fairly consistent. Truly odd.
I’m on Firefox with Windows 7 Pro and although I usually import them into WP at 1200 pixels and found that it makes them the correct size and centers them correctly, on occasion I want a pic that is expandable and import it larger but even then it seems to convert it to non-expandable size. I’ve never had to tell it about media files etc that I am aware of.
If the image is already actual size, then clicking on it will not enlarge. The size of the original image will determine how much enlargement is possible, but the image may be reduced in size before/during the downloading process.
I think Jason and Paul got it. It’s a selectable mode.
Possibly, but the photo of the gear shift does enlarge quite a bit. The rest either not at all, or very little.
this is an example of 400×600
my file is 300,000 bytes (original is 30 Megabytes raw)
and this is 800 x 1200
this file is 1.2 megabytes – both are 10 out of 10 quality
Clicking both of the above will enlarge them, but one enlarges 4x more. I did not have any options (or selections) to choose from. they may have been modified at the receiving end, but appear to be what I sent.
“Fixed.
On the back end of the site, it’s a drop down menu when editing each picture to make it an enlargeable media file. Easy to forget to do especially when there are many pictures being inserted; I’m quite guilty of forgetting it myself.”(Jason Shafer)
Sums up what happened perfectly. No sense in muddying up the issue with examples.
OK, whatever – but in RLPLAUT’s first couple of posts (on the Chrysler Windsor) the photos are clickable, but do not enlarge. Some of his other posts do not have clickable pictures.
I don’t know how WordPress works, but my guess is that for the article’s pictures, the Curbside Classic Server has a file, this file is displayed in a standard size. Clicking on a clickable picture will allow the Server’s file to be displayed at actual size (smaller or larger).
What WordPress normally does when you add an image is to create copies (“thumbnails”) at several different preset, smaller sizes. (These are specific to the theme and can be changed, although doing so — or getting it to not create thumbnails at all if you don’t need them — is a PITA.) Generally, it will serve you one size and then load others depending on user behavior. There are various options for how it will deal with that, and some plugins add more.
Since you can override the default behavior, it’s possible that newer versions of WordPress will try to remember a specific user’s last (manual) choice and use that instead of the default. I’m not sure (for Ate Up With Motor, I leave images at actual size because it avoids a lot of potentially dumb nonsense), but that would be plausible given the trend for recent version changes.
That would be 80 west, away from the GW bridge and into the great Garden State.
Way to cliff hang your story! Looking forward to next week…
Fixed. Thank you.
I had a feeling that with her liking for fast cars, TIP would want the VR6 in the Passat. You say a 3.73 rear axle, but you mean front axle, right? I know, picky, picky! 🙂
With your background, you may enjoy this, if you haven’t already heard it:
Lizzie Borden took an axe,
Plunged it deep into the VAX.
Don’t you envy people who
Do the things you’d like to do?
Fixed. Thank you.
Any reason you didn’t get the Passat with AWD? It would have come in handy in your climate.
I don’t think this generation Passat had the VR6. I think it was the 90degree Audi V6 mounted longitudinally.
…”From the Chrysler frying pan into the VW frying pan”…
Here’s some Fusion Cooking, the Dodge Avenger CRD with the VW 2.0 TDI engine.
I remember the days of DR-DOS as Digital tried to compete in the PC market. They were a day late and a dollar short. Back in the 80’s when I was a COBOL programmer my shop bought 3 VAX 11/780 systems with Unix. I invited myself to the project team and learned Unix, TCP/IP, and other useful knowledge I use to this day. So in a strange way I can thank Digital for my long career in information technology.
Thanks for the memories!
DR-DOS was a product of Gary Kildall’s Digital Research (HQ in Pacific Grove, CA), not Digital Equipment (HQ in MA). The Rainbow was DEC’s attempt at the PC market, a sort of chameleon which could run Digital Research’s CP/M-80, CP/M-86, or Microsoft’s DOS, but was not fully PC-compatible.
DEC was the Mercedes of minicomputers; unexotic but robust. I understand VW AG was one of their customers. Their software was usually well-engineered, not only their operating systems but also their compilers; DEC FORTRAN lives on under the Intel brand. How are the mighty fallen!
DEC eventually got into building Intel-based servers and Windows NT, and were very well regarded. They were #3 in that market, behind Compaq and HP, and of course soon they all ended up under HP. (The NT on Alpha stuff never gained any traction though.)
DEC also made a bunch of stuff like disk drives and networking equipment where they were not particularly competitive, so it’s somewhat understandable they were “right-sized”.
When I started working as a student Help Desk technician in college (summer ’00), Engineering Computing Operations still had a few older Alpha machines kicking around here and there, running OSF/1. I actually bought one of the later retired ones, a DEC 3000 workstation, after it had been declared surplus and sold off cheaply by the university. I intended to run Linux on it; however no Linux variant that supported that particular machine ever materialzed.
Neil,
Thanks for the correction on DR-DOS. After nearly 30 years some facts just seem to melt together… Looking up Digital Research I discovered they were also responsible for CP/M, the “first” PC operating system. I used it on our earlier PCs, but being a mainframe shop they were only used as expensive terminals. Only a few years later were we able to utilize the PC as it was intended when Leisure Suit Larry circulated the office!
Your confusion is completely understandable, doubtless many of my old memories are getting garbled.
Where I work we use much more powerful Wintel boxes as Linux terminals, so not much has changed here.
I may consult “Consumers Reports” for washing machine or vacuum cleaner choices; but they would be my LAST choice for automotive referrals.
Regarding “TIP”: Tank Gawd I stayed single!
I wasn’t talking about new car ratings. Every year Consumer Reports publishes their reader’s vehicle reliability experiences going back several years. Some very highly rated or fun to drive new cars fall on their butt after the years and miles start piling up!
Trouble-prone ratings several years in a row can be a pretty good indicator of how a new car will hold up.
Even highly variable reliability from year to year (as with some Audis) would give me pause.
Happy Motoring, Mark
I am with Mark here. If CR was rating itself it would have to give itself an “avoid”. They were moving the measuring stick every time they did not like the results. Recently the multi year data have been rightsized to 3 years? How old is the US car fleet? I think it is 11 years. I bought my current car 9 years old.
I bought a dishwasher (Bosch) based on Consumer Report’s recommended rating. That was the biggest pos ever. It fried two circuit boards. The first breakdown happened exactly a week after the manufacturers’ warranty ended. The second repair happened a month after the warranty from the first repair service ran out. I was so sorry I didn’t take Sears up on their offer for an extended warranty.
I also bought a 2009 Mini Cooper based on CR’s rating. It amazed me how fast the rating flipped from recommended to a car to avoid. This too was a pos, although incredibly fun to drive.
I don’t look at CR anymore before making a major purchase. They have zero credibility in my book. I wish there was a class action lawsuit for everyone burned by their advice.
If bad statistics constituted fraud, then no organization would be safe, for statistics are always fallible, esp. polls dependent on honest & accurate replies.
Our problem with a defective Bosch was amplified by Sears, who kept breaking promises we’d get a refund until we found a manager who actually had integrity. We traded it for a “lower-tech” Whirlpool & had no trouble since.
My Bosch dishwashers have been very good.
“The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain”.
Buy simple appliances. The circuit boards on older programmable gas stoves usually cost more than a new no-frills gas stove and are more often a cause of failure than any other part.
+1
I’ve long mistrusted “’white appliance” electronics. You’re lucky enough if the basic hardware lasts. Now if circuit boards etc. were commodity items, I might change my mind, but that will never happen any more than with car parts.
I wouldn’t want electronics in this stuff. Two things electronics generally hate are liquid and excessive heat; liquid and grease get splashed all over stoves all the time, and as for heat, it is after all an oven!
The DEC Alpha was a great chip, ahead of its time. IIRC Compaq killed it in favor of the Itanium (aka Itanic.)
I’d still like to have A PDP-11 as a display piece, but speaking of marital discord…
Here’s a pic of the only physical DEC ‘souvenir’ I’ve kept all these years, from a decommissioned Canadian government PDP-5.
My first hands-on computer experience was on an original PDP-8 at university in 1971, followed by PDP-11s for the first 7 years of my career.
Louis,
Thanks for the pic! Sadly my only hands-on experience with the PDP series was emulated. My first computer had a 6502.
Apple II?
Commodore VIC-20, but my second computer was a ][.
My first was a MacPlus, but at work we had an Apple II that I wrote some software in assembly to get it to do what I wanted. We used it to send programs to the super computer (CDC 7600 or Cray1)
6502 assembly was always a joy. Probably one of the easiest chips to write assembly in.
I still have a bunch of manuals for PDP-8, PDP-11, and VAX computers, as well as other DEC memorabilia. (How about a DIGITAL kazoo? Yo-yo? Frisbee?)
When Olsen was ousted and Palmer took the reins it was obvious that the company was going down the tubes. I left to take advantage of another opportunity just before things really started to crumble. I watched from afar as DEC continued to decline and ultimately was bought out by Compaq (COMPAQ??!! was the reaction), then Compaq taken over by HP.
As noted, DEC fumbled badly when PCs started becoming popular. Management apparently thought they had enough clout to move the market to offerings like the Rainbow which were not IBM-compatible. They were wrong. An IBM-compatible offering, the VAXmate, was ultimately offered in the mid-1980s but it was too little too late.
Funny thing is now with the swing to so-called “cloud” computing we are going back to DEC’s mainstay – applications and data on centralized servers accessed via terminals, or more often these days, devices acting essentially like terminals.
A lot of DEC’s top technical talent wound up at Microsoft. In fact Windows NT and its descendants in a sense can be considered VMS Mark-II.
For those interested here’s a pretty detailed account of DEC’s demise:
http://www.falvey.org/hot_neg_ch3.shtml
The old joke about Windows NT was that WNT was one letter off from VMS.
Dave Cutler was the chief designer of both operating systems. In fact DEC sued Microsoft because NT incorporated design elements and even code lifted direct from VMS.
If you delve into Windows internals there are still a lot of VMS concepts and terminology used.
http://windowsitpro.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story
(An out of court settlement was reached in the lawsuit, part of which was NT being ported to the DEC Alpha.)
Actually, after making that Itanic comment, it struck me how much today’s Intel resembles GM.
GM had 53% market share, Intel had an even higher market share of around 80%. They were both powerful enough to have their domestic competitors on the ropes (Ford/Chrysler and AMD) and were both being eyed for antitrust concerns. They both knew the market was shifting and had huge programs in the wings to counteract that shift (X-Bodies/Itanium.) Both were huge flops and had the companies retreating to older products while refining the technology into their mainstream efforts (A-Bodies/x86-64.)
In the meantime, smaller competitors appeared from a number of foreign manufacturers (European and Japanese cars/ARM licensee chips.) Both GM and Intel still had the “real market” (large cars/desktops and servers) to themselves. But gradually the market changed (small cars/mobile devices). And today, Intel still makes a lot of chips and GM still makes a lot of cars, but neither are at the forefront of new trends and neither company leads their particular industry like they used to.
I didn’t mind the minutiae about DEC/Compaq at all, it’s fascinating and provides healthy context to the cars themselves.
Also I gained a new appreciation for that era Passat.
Enjoying this COAL!
It’s clear TIP liked to wear pants around the house, I’m just waiting to see if she discards them once they are well worn in…
Plaut’s series is perhaps the best written one I ever read!
+1 Outstanding series.
It helps that he’s had an interesting life, even if sometimes in the sense of “may you live in interesting times.”
Don’t think I would have married her in the first place
Everyone loves a monday morning quarterback…
I am pretty sure that his ending makes every single person reach that same conclusion, lol. The question is: how many of us would have seen it without benefit of this story? I met, fell for and left a similar one, so I don’t pretend to be that guy.
After ruining DEC, all those smart guys must have went to work for the Army. I vividly recall the exact same buzzwords–rif’s, right-sizing, blah, blah, blah–during the 90’s downsizing.
Too funny.
There seem as many euphemisms for getting fired as there are for getting killed. We Anglophones, at least, don’t like being straightforward with bad news.
“Earth bath” – British common slang for what followed the gallows.
Did you offer to accompany her to Dublin? I suspect this could have been the reason for the silent treatment.
It’s possible that even if DEC/Compaq had offered bereavement leave, the death of a spouse’s brother-in-law might have been considered a too-distant relation.
Even if that were the case, this could still be the reason for the silent treatment.
You’re right, we are talking about a woman here. Even when work won’t allow it, my wife would still be upset. They look at things from a totally different angle!
Some, like my wife, are actually rational and reasonable. May be rare, but they exist!
The comment (s) about VWs ability to build cars that had very appealing interiors (and on paper, very appealing mechanical specs?) I imagine has served VW very well, especially as it makes them appealing to women. As someone who occasionally reads CR in order to narrow my choices when car shopping, I can only guess women skip that section when car shopping. How else to explain all the female VW drivers?
Yet, as a previous poster stated, CR, for whatever reason “glossed over” VW’s spotty reliability for years……then repeated their mistakes years later with Toyota.
Had to do a weekly inventory report on a DEC computer and never could figure out how to revise the previous weeks report….so always had to compile a new inventory list every week, very time consuming/time wasting.
I never really read things like Consumer Reports, or at least I don’t take it super serious. Buy what you like and let the chips fall where they may.
Every kind of car can be a lemon even if they were supposed to all be bulletproof and any kind of car can be dead reliable even if they were supposed to be crap. I’ve seen Panthers and 3800 equipped Buicks bite the dust long before the multiple 100k they are supposed to last as well as Northstars going beyond 200k or Ford/Loncoln 3.8L still soldiering on to this day.
I have driven post Y2K VW, Audi and SEAT. Every time I noticed this perfect balance in handling and comfort and fantastic steering response. Then I read the horror stories so I won’t fall in love with them.
i bought a 10 yr old VW rabbit convertible in 1991. 1.6? Jetronic FI, auto, 112k miles at the time and a HEAP of female owned service records.
bout a year later, needed a new engine… $1500, but they did the axles/CV and some other small things.
after that, it was one thing a month. i did everything myself, running in circles. engine and tranny were solid. structure was solid.
thanks to the internet i found (probably) the root cause, and double checked it.
the rubber windshield gasket had cracked and let water drain onto the fusebox which was right there under the dash. being a convertible, i was used to leaks but never thought to check there.
every relay “sloshed” when pulled out. that explains just about everything, including the random stalling.
by that time i didnt even bother doing a new fusebox, even though i had the windshield gasket replaced. i was done. went to a new honda, then a new toyota. never a prob with either, but yes they were both NEW japanese cars.
i learned a lot with that car, though and had it for 7 years. almost miss it and if i got another id replace the windshield gasket ASAP
Afaik every Honda or Toyota goes to the wrecking yard with the windshield gasket still keeping out the rainwater….
A friend and co-worker of mine bought a brand new 2000 VW Jetta. I can describe it with 4 letters. P. I. L. E.
People always talk about those Jettas as if they were total heaps, but I have two relatives who owned that era Jetta for a decade+ without any major issues.
I had the exact Passat show in this COAL, and it was a great car with a fabulous interior, but a little too much body-roll around the sharp corners. Occasionally there would be some wonky electrical thing like the power windows refusing to work, but “rebooting” the car seemed to fix it. However when I sold the thing, I found there are really not many people in the market for a midsized car with a manual transmission and ended up taking in the shorts on resale value.
Not to pile on but it appears that your rumble strip incident was a heat related injury; I’m guessing it was heat exhaustion and not heat stroke. Almost certainly brought on by dehydration, salt loss and over heating; fortunately heat exhaustion is usually not serious if recognized and treated in a timely manner. Heat injuries were always a big concern in my National Guard days, we wore dark green, woodland pattern camo uniforms and few things are hotter than a main battle tank (painted dark green) that has been in the sun all day. I can remember sitting and watching overheated tank crewmen drink two or three liters of water in order to get hydrated.
I’m not going to revisit the VW reliability discussion but I will say that Jettas from that era were good looking cars, especially the interiors. I did have good luck with the ’78 Rabbit I had but for some reason I was never tempted to buy VW again. I was driving my 1988 Mustang GT convertible then and was more than pleased with it.
Years ago I worked in a door factory. Temps during the summer inside the building would hit 105 at 4pm and only cool down to 90-95 at 12:30am. I would drink 3 or 4 gallons of liquids a night and only go to the bathroom once.They had 1,000 tablet salt tablet dispensers all over the plant. Then after work go to the tavern and order three beers to be consumed in less than 2 min. Working in the heat especially doing hard physical labor can cut a man down fast unless he keeps hydrated and salt levels up.
If only VW put as much care into improving reliability as it did into the driving dynamics and interiors of their cars.
In the first picture of the white Passat, it looks like it is leaking fuel from the right rear side of the car.
Bought a VW Cab new in Jan 89. Fuel tank developed a leak by summer 91. (Until reading your comment I’d forgotten about that.).
Car was generally solid aside from a broken rear spring, breaking instrument cluster/panel substrate (part that holds everything from headlamp switch to climate controls), stiff temp selector, 2x carbon deposits on valves (thanks Mobil – was solved with cheap Speedway brand gas), only rust perforations were adjacent to the hood latch …
A couple of years ago when I was looking to replace my ’87 Audi 4000 quattro (parts becoming unobtanium), I asked my mechanic about this generation Passat. He said early ones were trouble, later ones were OK, the ones in the middle were a judgment call. I ended up getting a 2003 Saturn L200. I’d had the 4kq since the end of ’99–can you tell that I don’t believe in disposable cars?
Speaking of Irish princesses, I was briefly dating a woman of Irish ancestry in ’74 named Roisin (“ro-SHEEN,” a real Irish name). 6’1″, great figure, gorgeous face. One of the two most beautiful women I’ve ever dated, and the next one didn’t come along until ’95.
One of the guys at work recently picked up a 2004 Passat wagon auto with a rebuilt tdi and transmission with 240 O00 kms. I think he way overpaid at $6000 Cdn. His last Subaru made it 30 000 kms on a rebuilt engine and clutch which he also paid to much for. We are starting a pool at work to see how long he gets out of the Passat. He likes to drive fast and furious (20 something with more money than brains). I keep thinking of what my old mechanic used to say “speed costs how much ya want to pay”…
Well, the Passat sounds good so far, I don’t hear any sizzling from the pan yet.
Your description of DEC in the 90’s sounds chillingly familiar, we currently have “project adapt” and it’s unfortunate victims are spoken of as “having been adapted”..
I’ve really enjoyed this series. You have a way of writing about people, even when they’re behaving badly, that is non-judgmental and forgiving. And you have a real talent for bringing the history of an era back to life. As for the cars, vivid descriptions of what it’s like to own them are enjoyable as well. Ah, DEC. I well remember the brief period when they dominated our Division at UCLA. Everything you say is spot on.
I’m not looking forward to when you run out of cars, wives, and jobs to write about☺.
About eight years ago, a friend owned a ’99 or ’00 Passat and the automatic tranny suddenly became very erratic.
Turns out these cars have sunroofs and many of them leak, forming a pool in the front passenger floor. Guess where the tranny computer is located!
My friend found a used computer online, and I had to remove the front passenger seat, then slice the carpet (discreetly) to access and replace to unit. I also punched a drain-hole in the lowest part of the floor to help prevent future pool formation. Normal automatic tranny function was thus restored.
Later, there was a class action lawsuit and my friend got a recall letter from VW,
about 6 months after he sold the car!
Happy Motoring, Mark
My parents had one of these (replaced a Dodge Intrepid, an utter piece of crap) and they loved it. Silver, black cloth interior with incredible heated seats, 1.8T/auto. Fantastic car to drive but also became a huge headache eventually. They got it used and cheap with a lot of miles already and it developed the sludge/turbo turd problem right after they had spent a few thousand dollars replacing some other ridiculous thing that I can’t remember.
They really did love the crap out of that car, though, flaws and all. I was always a big fan of this generation Passat too – specifically these early ones which were super clean and really a cut above everything else in the class at the time in many ways. The protruding snout they gained later on wasn’t as attractive to me, although I have to admit that when I’m looking through classifieds I often glance at the W8-powered versions.
Given the timeline here, next week is shaping up to be pretty devastating. I predict that TIP will return to NJ and file the divorce paperwork right around the same time American Airlines Flight 11 is on final approach to the North Tower of the WTC.
?
Haha, wow… I didn’t mean to imply she’d be ON that plane… even though it kinda looks like that. I meant she’d get back and (probably) want a divorce, which is what Rlplaut has been setting up, AND 9/11 would happen right around the same time. The story above leaves us in summer 2001.
and shed been allahuing some achbar for the past couple years 🙁
im about to go through a breakup after a 5 yr relationship. its been a nice long lease, but im not ready to pay the residual… which is apparently a ring and a bebe. we both knew that going in, though. we both thought each other would change, as usual.
that said, just about all my exes married the next thing that came around and seem to be happy.
Paul N: Your thoughts on this?
Me I’m ready to start chewin caster & camber &
curvy dashboards!
On the copious rear brake dust, this seems to be pretty common on cars with four-wheel discs. I believe it’s a function of the rear pads typically being softer than the fronts. This may be a cost thing at least in part (the rear brakes do a lot less work on most cars, especially nose-heavy FWD vehicles), but I think it may also be a way of improving the rear brakes’ effectiveness as an E-brake, which is tricky with rear discs because a caliper disc is not self-energizing like a drum.
On my cars with 4-wheel discs (3 Peugeot 504’s, an Audi 4000 quattro), there was much more dusting on the front wheels. But I got these cars at mileages where the OEM pads had to have been long gone.
Many German cars, and some other nationalities, get around this by installing a separate set of E-brake shoes inside of the rotor-hub.
Happy Motoring, Mark
I personally know of no car which uses the E-brake to actuate the calipers, it’s almost always a small set of shoes built into the rotor hat, which acts as a drum.
I think the first gen Mazda 3 had e brakes which used the caliper.
ive got a yamaha that uses the rear disc with a mechanical brake holder, so im sure there are japanese cars that do it.
Subaru and Saab have at least some models with parking brakes that directly work the calipers. I’m sure there are others.
Honda does too and I’m 90% sure the same is true of my Mazda3, whose rear brakes I think were shared with contemporary Volvos (including the S40, which shared the same body shell). Likewise late ’70s Ford Motor Company products (at least U.S. ones) with rear discs.
I’ve gotten the impression this is a good deal more common on modern cars than the auxiliary drum approach — which would make sense — although determining that would be a major project, since this isn’t a point that’s typically listed in the manufacturer specs.
Citroens use discs as the parking brake but on the front not the rear, but are set up to brake rear axle first in hard use
I have a 2000 Golf, which I’m thinking has similar rear brakes to the 2001 Passat. I also get much more brake dust on my rear wheels than on the front wheels…this despite getting the front/rear pads from the same source (so I’d think the friction material would be same on front/rear?). I thought it might be due to the proportioning valve…though of course you don’t want to have too much brake force on the rear compared to the front (wouldn’t that cause stability issues?). On the Golf, the parking brake does activate the rear caliper, you have the setup where you have to “unwind” the pistons to be able to make room for new (wider) pads in the rear…I think this is common VW setup (and probably used on other manuacturers with 4 wheel disks, as I’m thinking it is less expensive than having a separate parking brake mechanism for the rear brakes.
One of my co-workers bought a 2000 Passat around the time I bought my 2000 Golf…he is the same guy that owned one of those Dodge Minivans with a manual transmission (I’m kind of the same way, as I’ve owned nothing but manual transmission VWs since 1981). He had a hard time finding his, had to go to a different city because he wanted the V6 with the manual, in the base model..and wanted a darker color which he was able to find. I think he still has his (don’t work with him anymore, so not sure)..
I still have my 2000 Golf….guess I’m used to them..I think they require more attention (maintenance) than other makes….and I won’t claim they’re trouble free, I’ve had the front windows drop into the door for the plastic window regulator clip problem, and have yet to fix 2 of my doors where the power locks no longer actuate (probably cold solder joint). I’ve also been stranded (first time in 35 years owning VWs) in it when my ignition switch gave up the ghost (guess I could have tried to hotwire it by removing my steering column plastics, but I didn’t have a long enough screwdriver to do it in the parking lot where it failed)..but the cars are nice to drive, and I’m used to them, but I know I’m hardly a typical driver (can’t get my hatchback/manual transmission combo from too many places these days)….I wish they’d go back to having fabric seats though, I guess you can get them in some of the base models…might have to look at a Mazda 3 hatch next time I go shopping if I can’t find a 4 door manual VW hatchback when I’m done with this one..but it would be with regrets.
Enjoy the stories too…I’m longtime bachelor, so I’m not familiar with the spousal issues, though I can sympathize from afar. I’ve also worked on computers since the 70’s and have worked on quite a few platforms, including Xerox and Harris mainframes, even a Fairchild processor with a volatile hard disk (that had to be loaded up from a mercury-column tape drive before each use)…haven’t been able to get rid of me (yet) have been working on server devlopment for the past 3 decades…but they might succeed eventually.
I always liked this generation of Passat. Liked it even more after the facelift–the detail added to the nose, and those unusual red-white-red lamps really worked for me. I thought about buying one used but (perhaps thankfully) it never worked out. The interiors are pretty amazing though.
As usual, amazing storytelling as well. I’m going to be quite disappointed when this series ends!
In the summer of 1999, I was considering a 2000 Passat GLX V6 around that time. Beautiful interior, solid handling. But the dealer wouldn’t budge on the price. Lucky for me in that I potentially avoided a lot of trips to the shop.
I ended up getting a Nissan Maxima GLE. The V30 engine was sweet. Reliable for the 4 years I drove it (except for a faulty connector that knocked out the power windows and door locks, replaced under warranty) – and sadly, totaled it on I-280.
Is there a plan to catalog this fantastic series in the Coal/Auto-Biographies section? I look forward to the series but believe I may have missed one, and now like watching a television series and missing an episode, I am having anxiety attacks over what I may have missed! Please help an OCD CC Coal following fanatic fill in the gaps. Plus I’m sure anyone new who read this first is saying…”Where can I find the other ones?”
FANATASTIC Series – keep up the good work!!!
Click on the authors name “RLPLAUT” under the title of the article at the top of the page. It will bring up a list of everything he’s written.
No ac was no big deal. My 66 dart GT had no AC and I used it in Florida. The difference is that it really had good vents, all of the side windows rolled down, no stuff in the pass compartment and at 80 mph, a cyclone would start and suck any dirt or sand out the window. Those rumble strips are great. I wish they had them on the Maine turnpike back in 87. My wife and I were on our honeymoon on our way to Prince Edwards Island in our Bronco II, I had screwed up my knee and hadn’t slept in 4 days. I finally fell asleep on the ME tpk and went past the paved shoulder and took out a row of reflectors before waking up. No damage to the Bronco, but our bikes on front were pretty banged up. She still reminds me of that every time we go anywhere.
I worked in the computer industry for over 30 years, 25 of them at the company that became one of the nails in DEC’s coffin, so to speak. That was Sun Microsystems, with the now ubiquitous client-server architecture and Unix. Of course Sun then suffered its own acquisition by Oracle. And lots of RIFfing before and after, though I lasted several years under Oracle before leaving of my own volition. I too bought my wife a white 2001 5 speed VW, though not a Passat. Both wife and car are still doing well, the car now with our daughter. Definitely not as trouble-free as our Japanese cars, or our marriage for that matter, but now that the car is 21 years old I think it’s held up pretty well compared to the way 20 year old cars used to be when I started driving. And the leather interior still has that unique crayon-like VW smell.
DEC coulda become Google. In the mid-late 90s when I was in high school there was no google and outta webcrawler, hotbot, yahoo, ask jeeves, there was 1 that was the status quo, AltaVistia.DIGITAL.com. It was the best search engine bar none back then and Digital owned it. Sadly they couldnt conceve how to monitize search and it remained statnant and died. The guy at DEC who created it went to work for Google in 2000 or 01. Ahh what could have been.
Where I worked, we had constant reductions / RIFs / layoffs, reorgs, cost savings measures/ I think all the CEOs of the day got together and came up with the jargon. Selloffs, closures, The one labelled “Span of Control” review was the one that got me. I used to read about my former workplace on thelayoff.com, but stopped when it became too inflammatory and I didn’t care any more.
If any auto maker could combine all the good points of the Passat, it’s inviting interior and pleasing, gimmick free exterior noted by RLPLAUT ….. and the dependability, reliability and mechanical perfection of my last Toyota Camry I would heavily mortgage my future for the next 6 years to buy one!
RLPLAUT, you are becoming my favorite contributor to this pleasing website.
Anytime I see an entry by you here I get another cuppa cawfee and settle back in my sofa-recliner for an enjoyable read and sip.
Pleased that you are here!
The “Brainstorming” fixing the sinking corporate ship will come to order.
Any ideas for fixing this mess?
Change the LOGO, yea that should fix.
OK, that’s should do it, lets go get something for lunch.
Those people in the field who don’t have enough time to get the work done now because they have been right-sized are now out there scrapping the old logo decals off the vehicles, the same vehicle that they scraped the prior old logo off of about 4 years before. The one change was really stupid, the logo was blue and green on a white background, the new logo was the same logo only the green was removed, exact same logo just remove the green, the blue on white is a “cleaner” look.
My department had decided that the best way to handle the ups and downs of unpredictable work flow was to cut staff and just work overtime to handle the times of high demands. Well they cut so much we were working ten hour days 5 to 6 days a week. After 5 years of this the management team disappeared as in retired. The new team deemed that overtime was verboten. Now the work force is ticked off because there paychecks are decidedly smaller and the work is really piling up.
The interesting thing we discover later was the pension calculations were part of the managements plans. Pension was based on your 5 highest years of total compensation. It wasn’t to long before that was changed to your 5 highest years of base salary, overtime and any additional compensation excluded.
Always wonder who were the people that decide to buy some product or service because they liked the logo or because the logo was changed.