"BMW Takes Heat for Advancing Structural Design and Not Providing a Free Lunch"

http://www.edmunds.com/insidel...09234

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By Tony Assenza Email

Date posted: 02-09-2006

Since BMW introduced the new GRAV 60 body structure technology in 2004 (specifically the front end of 5 and 6 Series cars), the body repair industry and insurers have been acting as if the world as we know it is ending. Metal benders say they're being shut out of BMW body repair work and insurers are calling BMW's new GRAV 60 assembly technology the advent of the "throw-away" car. These sentiments have been echoed in the media, specifically the Los Angeles Times (October 19, 2005) without much examination of historical precedents, the larger issues involved or the ultimate benefits to society.

Briefly, the GRAV 60 system uses an aluminum firewall and aluminum extrusions and castings in the front structural components. These parts are riveted and/or glued together. Even to the uninitiated, the benefits are obvious: lighter weight, better weight distribution, better fuel economy, better handling and better overall performance. What's not to like?

The answer is repair costs. Front-end collision damage can no longer be handled with old-tech bending, heating and stretching with chains and come-alongs. Try putting a come-along or a pulley to a bent aluminum component and you end up with a giant ragged hole. Heat it improperly to bend it back into shape and you could lose 40 percent of its strength. To make the repairs, BMW techs need special training and specialized tools. Independent collision shops claim they need to spend up to $100,000 for the tools and training to handle GRAV 60. While BMW is happy to equip and train independents, it won't give them its official imprimatur as "certified" repair shops. There's a reason for this. There's no way for BMW, or any manufacturer for that matter, to perform quality control on every repair made in an independent shop.

Without that "certified" blessing, the independents are claiming they're shut out of the repair business.

This seems to be more of the hysterical posture some people assume when confronted by new technology. Carmakers are in a constant state of development. On the one hand, the market demands faster, more nimble and more fuel-efficient cars. On the other, the government and the consumer double-team manufacturers with the call to make cars perform better in collisions. The seeming contradiction of better impact protection and lighter weight can only be reconciled by the use of new technology. If that means gluing and riveting aluminum the way the aircraft industry does, then so be it. It may cost more to fix such a structure, but when you tally up all the societal costs such as reduced fuel consumption, the numbers come out as a net gain.

As students of history know, there is no free lunch. And there is no neutral-impact technological progress. Greek scholars despaired that their students were no longer being educated by rote memorization and instead were blasphemously writing down what they learned. No doubt, job security was as much a concern to philosophers as the essence of being.

The trash heap of history is littered with shards of premature fallen skies. As much as we pride ourselves in adopting new technologies, the immediate reaction to the new is often hostility. Ned Ludd smashed weaving machines because they put him and his fellow weavers out of a job. By legal charter, hand weaving was a monopoly geographically restricted to an area inside a 10-league circle around Nottingham, England. If Ludd had gotten his way, you'd have to wait three years for delivery of a pair of cotton socks.

In more recent times, race drivers refused to wear newfangled seatbelts because they were convinced it was safer to be "thrown clear of a wreck." Wood framers and canvas stretchers were probably just as angry as Ludd when the aircraft business switched to aluminum monocoque airframes. And today's aircraft panel benders probably aren't overjoyed at the arrival of carbon-fiber hulls. And it wasn't that long ago that the automotive aftermarket saw itself as a doomed entity with the arrival of government-mandated pollution controls and exotic electronics. So the aftermarket responded with its own high-tech countermeasures. Can anyone argue that the installation of a performance chip doesn't have clear benefits to the hot rodder, and society as a whole, over adding a hundred pounds of go-fast hardware to a stock engine?

In the car repair world, I clearly remember hand-wringing editorials about the death of the local fix-it shop. Good Lord, what will we do with our ignition points file and feeler gauges? And buying advanced electronic diagnostics gear will bankrupt Vinnie's Auto Repair. But the market responded as it always does. That $2,000 diagnostic machine got smaller, cheaper and easier to operate. Vinnie did not go bankrupt. In fact, thanks to diagnostics, he knows exactly what's wrong with your Chevy and can get it fixed and out of his shop a lot sooner than when he used the traditional guessing game. Which means he can fix more cars in a day than he could before. Vinnie's doing well. Technology has made his life easier.

It's dangerous to predict the future. But I'll bet that a few years from now, gluing and riveting aluminum components will become as common in the collision-repair business as ball-peen hammers and Bondo. To paraphrase Mark Twain in response to rumors of his death, "Reports on the arrival of the throw-away car have been greatly exaggerated."

 

link is broken!

And isn't Audi/VW also the first to use aluminum construction as well? Also, Mercedes is switching away from welding on their cars, they now call for rivets to be used in collision repair. And doesn't Jaguar also use a simliar construction technique on the XJ8?

 

Insurance companies totaling out cars are increasing every year, its just too much or complicated to fix. BMW seems to be leading the way here.

 

its gonna cost more on premiums for sure

 

I don't really disagree with this idea. Repair attempts are often made on damaged cars where the estimate is not high enough to total them just because the insurance company wants to save a few bucks....but in many cases you are better off with a new car rather than a repaired one if the damage is really significant. The quality of repairs varies, of course from shop to shop depending on the shop's equipment and compentence level of the technicians working it, but in most cases you cannot restore the damaged area to the condition it originally left the factory in unless you use a great deal of time and cars....and most shops can't do that simply because they don't have time for it....they are running a buisness, with a customer backup. I've been lucky the few times I have needed a shop and have gotten excellent work....I know the manager quite well. in general, the worse the damage, the like likely the car will be restored to its former shape.

 

eventually, they will simply up the premiums for these cars significantly, so manufacturers will be forced to think about their customers when they build the cars...

 

Here is the link to the original discussion about this back in October. Interingsting stuff.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...mw+body+repair

 

I'll take an uber safe BMW any day than those stupid american made pos. Looks like that hummer's fuel tank is located at the passenger side of the car right next to the lower side skirt, if it got hit any harder it would leak and explode right away. Yay for american engineering.

 

I don't want to get too far off-topic, but which Hummer are you talking about? There are three versions.....H1, H2, and H3.....with a possible upcoming H4. The real Hummer....the H1, was developed as a military COMBAT vehicle, for crying out loud. They're not about to put the fuel tank in a vulnerable location...these vehicles have to withstand direct hits from small-bore enemy weapons.

 

Isn't the car in the picture a Land Rover?

 

Yup....Defender

 

im still waiting for smart remarks on the picture o_O

 

We need to look at it from the perspective of the owner. Gene and I (650 and 550 owners respectively) would rather have a new front end put on our car, than the existing one stretched into place and “made do."

My 1995 325i was in a head on collision at about 15MPH up against a 4 Runner. Everything crumpled like it was supposed to - short of my wife hitting her head on the seat belt anchor and wanting to kill the lady who cut in front of us, we were fine.

But the car was never the same again. Never tracked like it did before.

So in short, I love the idea of the front of my car being replaceable so that my car can be made whole again. Even if it costs me more in insurance.

 

I have to give major props to BMW for doing that, if my car was involved in an accident I'd rather have it totalled and get new car all together. There's not a single honest body shop that will go the distance of restoring a car to original condition, and any reparired car is bound to have major problems.

 

Id agree with you if insurance wasnt a. ____ and tried to **** people out of their money. If thats how its going to be then it should be made mandatory that insurance finds you an identical car to the one you wrecked, or given the RETAIL blue book value of the car, not trade in like farmers tried to do with me before I sued them.... bastards.