6 ms·

As someone who's anything but a greasemonkey, how good are Aston Martin from an engineering standpoint compared to the competition?

by kmfrk 14y ago

no-opinion 14y ago
I'm no expert, but I know that they're highly respected in industry.
beat 14y ago
Their direct competitors are Porsche and Ferrari, not Ford and Toyota. They're GOOD.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  "good" is a very murky term here. They are certainly more high-tech, but are they as simple? As reliable? As easy to service? You really need to define "good" in this context.
  - joshu 14y ago
    you're asking if something is as simple as a ferarri?
    - ryanhuff 14y ago
      I think he was trying to argue that "good" is subjective. That Ferrari/Porsche aren't necessarily good, as it depends on what you value. If you value simplicity and reliability, perhaps you would view Toyota/Honda as superior.
      - MrFoof 14y ago
        Actually, Porsche has been #2 in reliability (J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Survey) for two years running (behind Toyota's Lexus brand), #4 in 2011, and was the leader in 2010. However, to be perfectly fair, your average Porsche sees far fewer miles per year than a bread-and-butter mid-size sedan.
        joshu 14y ago
        They're perfectly usable as daily drivers.
        calinet6 14y ago
        Guy on my block parks his 911 Carerra 4S on the street, drives it every day. It makes me happy that he actually uses it, and also makes me feel better about parking my normal car on the street.
        joshu 14y ago
        They're not exactly exotics or anything. If he DD'd a GT3 or something that would be more impressive.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    Reliability has always been a criticism of Aston Martins. Apart from that though, stunning cars to both look at and drive. A friend is a car dealer and he lent me a Vantage V8 for a while. This was the cheapest, most base level Aston Martin, but still a stunning piece of kit in every department. Have to say, despite the reliability criticisms, it didn't fail in any way. One thing that I didnt expect was how easy it was to drive. Im a rubbish driver and one thing I hate is changing cars. I get used to my car and other cars a like aliens to me, until I get used to them. But I was at home in the Vantage with in a mile. So, so easy to drive. Quite what Tesla will get out of it though, Im not sure. Perhaps its a quality / value / production thing. I do think that in context Aston Martins are very good value.
guimarin 14y ago
Aston Martin engineers good cars for their production volume. Since they are more or less in the same production volume as where tesla wants to be in the medium term, I would say his experience will bring a lot to Tesla. It was probably one of the best pick-ups they could have made.
joshu 14y ago
That really depends. They do sound way, way better though. I got to drive a Vantage GT4 on the racetrack recently: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/8368748201/in/set-72157633011530193 http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/8368748201/in/set-7215763...
nlh 14y ago
So here's the thing - they're not actually that good. Let me preface this by saying that a) my perspective isn't a normal consumer one -- my business has put tens of thousands of miles on various Aston Martin models (we rent them) and b) the last model I've dealt with extensively is an '06 DB9, so things may have changed a lot in the past few years. But that being said, despite being IMHO the most gorgeous cars on the road, Astons are not particularly well-engineered. First, we had an '02 Vanquish and an '03 Vanquish, both of which had a very fundamental and deeply expensive flaw in the transmission design. Without getting too deep into it, they used a "auto manual" style transmission, which was basically a 6-speed manual combined with hydrolic actuators to shift automatically. No manual clutchwork required (same design, basically, as BMWs SMG). On just about all similar cars, after a while (i.e. 12k - 15k miles) the clutch needs to be replaced. On Ferraris and Lamborghinis, it's a simple job that costs a few $thousand - drop the transmission, replace clutch and flywheel, and you're good. On both the Vanquishes, the way in which the clutch would fail would literally destroy the entire transmission, and we TWICE had to spend $15,000 to rebuild the entire transmission after a failed clutch (one on each car). I've never seen another car with design like that, and since it happened the exact same way on two different cars, we're pretty sure it's endemic to the design. Move to the later models - we had a bunch of 05 & 06 DB9s, and they just weren't great. The brakes were notoriously bad, the bodyflex was particularly bad on the convertibles, and they suffered repeated electrical gremlins. So from my purely technical perspective as a heavy user of Astons, I'd say I'm not impressed with their engineering. NOW - that all being said, I'm not going to make any judgment about this guy and his work at Tesla and what this means about that. There is far too much that goes into the production of a car to make any real judgment call about things to come -- Astons could have been beautifully engineered and then ruined with bad supplier decisions, that were outside this guy's control. Etc. etc. So them's my $0.02.
- joshu 14y ago
  My neighbor used to have an F430 or F360 (I forget) and told me that he allocated $25k a year for maintenance and clutch replacement. The DCT on the 458 is rated for the life of the car, though. Note that Aston was sold in 2007 and I believe engineering quality changed after that.
- 14y ago
shin_lao 14y ago
The car is brilliant, especially in terms of design and engine, but it's a small scale production and they don't have the means of Porsche, Mercedes, Audi (great but not perfect though) or Ferrari and therefore aren't state of the art when it comes to gearbox, transmission and brakes. The worst part is the gearbox who is notoriously unreliable and many models have issues around 20,000 km. It's really upsetting to put 100 k€ in a car to have the reliability of a 80' Lancia. That being said I love Aston Martin, they make awesome cars. Probably the best car body there is to date. But if you're looking for engineering perfection, get a Porsche 911 Turbo.

As someone who's anything but a greasemonkey, how good are Aston Martin from an engineering standpoint compared to the competition?

by kmfrk 14y ago

As someone who's anything but a greasemonkey, how good are Aston Martin from an engineering standpoint compared to the competition?

no-opinion 14y ago

I'm no expert, but I know that they're highly respected in industry.

beat 14y ago

Their direct competitors are Porsche and Ferrari, not Ford and Toyota. They're GOOD.

sliverstorm 14y ago
"good" is a very murky term here. They are certainly more high-tech, but are they as simple? As reliable? As easy to service? You really need to define "good" in this context.
- joshu 14y ago
  you're asking if something is as simple as a ferarri?
  - ryanhuff 14y ago
    I think he was trying to argue that "good" is subjective. That Ferrari/Porsche aren't necessarily good, as it depends on what you value. If you value simplicity and reliability, perhaps you would view Toyota/Honda as superior.
    - MrFoof 14y ago
      Actually, Porsche has been #2 in reliability (J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Survey) for two years running (behind Toyota's Lexus brand), #4 in 2011, and was the leader in 2010. However, to be perfectly fair, your average Porsche sees far fewer miles per year than a bread-and-butter mid-size sedan.
      - joshu 14y ago
        They're perfectly usable as daily drivers.
        calinet6 14y ago
        Guy on my block parks his 911 Carerra 4S on the street, drives it every day. It makes me happy that he actually uses it, and also makes me feel better about parking my normal car on the street.
        joshu 14y ago
        They're not exactly exotics or anything. If he DD'd a GT3 or something that would be more impressive.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- alan_cx 14y ago
  Reliability has always been a criticism of Aston Martins. Apart from that though, stunning cars to both look at and drive. A friend is a car dealer and he lent me a Vantage V8 for a while. This was the cheapest, most base level Aston Martin, but still a stunning piece of kit in every department. Have to say, despite the reliability criticisms, it didn't fail in any way. One thing that I didnt expect was how easy it was to drive. Im a rubbish driver and one thing I hate is changing cars. I get used to my car and other cars a like aliens to me, until I get used to them. But I was at home in the Vantage with in a mile. So, so easy to drive. Quite what Tesla will get out of it though, Im not sure. Perhaps its a quality / value / production thing. I do think that in context Aston Martins are very good value.

guimarin 14y ago

Aston Martin engineers good cars for their production volume. Since they are more or less in the same production volume as where tesla wants to be in the medium term, I would say his experience will bring a lot to Tesla. It was probably one of the best pick-ups they could have made.

joshu 14y ago

That really depends. They do sound way, way better though. I got to drive a Vantage GT4 on the racetrack recently: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/8368748201/in/set-72157633011530193 http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/8368748201/in/set-7215763...

nlh 14y ago

So here's the thing - they're not actually that good. Let me preface this by saying that a) my perspective isn't a normal consumer one -- my business has put tens of thousands of miles on various Aston Martin models (we rent them) and b) the last model I've dealt with extensively is an '06 DB9, so things may have changed a lot in the past few years. But that being said, despite being IMHO the most gorgeous cars on the road, Astons are not particularly well-engineered. First, we had an '02 Vanquish and an '03 Vanquish, both of which had a very fundamental and deeply expensive flaw in the transmission design. Without getting too deep into it, they used a "auto manual" style transmission, which was basically a 6-speed manual combined with hydrolic actuators to shift automatically. No manual clutchwork required (same design, basically, as BMWs SMG). On just about all similar cars, after a while (i.e. 12k - 15k miles) the clutch needs to be replaced. On Ferraris and Lamborghinis, it's a simple job that costs a few $thousand - drop the transmission, replace clutch and flywheel, and you're good. On both the Vanquishes, the way in which the clutch would fail would literally destroy the entire transmission, and we TWICE had to spend $15,000 to rebuild the entire transmission after a failed clutch (one on each car). I've never seen another car with design like that, and since it happened the exact same way on two different cars, we're pretty sure it's endemic to the design. Move to the later models - we had a bunch of 05 & 06 DB9s, and they just weren't great. The brakes were notoriously bad, the bodyflex was particularly bad on the convertibles, and they suffered repeated electrical gremlins. So from my purely technical perspective as a heavy user of Astons, I'd say I'm not impressed with their engineering. NOW - that all being said, I'm not going to make any judgment about this guy and his work at Tesla and what this means about that. There is far too much that goes into the production of a car to make any real judgment call about things to come -- Astons could have been beautifully engineered and then ruined with bad supplier decisions, that were outside this guy's control. Etc. etc. So them's my $0.02.

joshu 14y ago
My neighbor used to have an F430 or F360 (I forget) and told me that he allocated $25k a year for maintenance and clutch replacement. The DCT on the 458 is rated for the life of the car, though. Note that Aston was sold in 2007 and I believe engineering quality changed after that.
14y ago

shin_lao 14y ago

The car is brilliant, especially in terms of design and engine, but it's a small scale production and they don't have the means of Porsche, Mercedes, Audi (great but not perfect though) or Ferrari and therefore aren't state of the art when it comes to gearbox, transmission and brakes. The worst part is the gearbox who is notoriously unreliable and many models have issues around 20,000 km. It's really upsetting to put 100 k€ in a car to have the reliability of a 80' Lancia. That being said I love Aston Martin, they make awesome cars. Probably the best car body there is to date. But if you're looking for engineering perfection, get a Porsche 911 Turbo.