Well I see the cracking chassis issue topic has been deleted after the company became aware of the forum discussions and the Westfield club was asked
to remove it which they did.
Is this right I wonder even ethical, if their chassis have a dangerous flaw and going by what was written in the posts it seems so, then is could
result in owners safety being a risk, should they be able to hush it up??
Imagine Boeing doing that and people died.
think this will work now 
can't imagine who told the company 
[Edited on 24/10/08 by Mr Whippy]
Linky noty worky 
Certainly seems that they don't want the subject becoming common knowledge.
Makes you want to ring up as a potential
customer and ask questions.
[Edited on 24/10/08 by jabbahutt]
The whole think stinks...
1) Did that chassis simply fail... mmm
2) Westfield have not done themselves any favours. The chap has obviously not been happy with what's happened.
3) The chassis repair at the rear IMHO is not sound.
4) A smear campaign never helps anything.
JC
the repair was mad, why didn't they just cut out the tube and weld in another!!
tack welding some bits to it was as amateurish as could be
Are they trying to cover up this issue and had the club removing the post?
I would like to know things like that could happen if i was about to get a westfield.
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
the repair was mad, why didn't they just cut out the tube and weld in another!!
tack welding some bits to it was as amateurish as could be
I would have expected the club to been more concerned in the safety of their members, rather than any potential embarassment to Westfield.
Surely making Westfield take any neccessary action to sort this obvious manufacturing fault can only do the marque some good.
I for one (had I been considering a possible purchase), would not now consider buying one.
i like that last line
"the postings and other relevant information regarding this matter has been referred to legal authorities"
lol
quote:
Originally posted by woodster
i like that last line
"the postings and other relevant information regarding this matter has been referred to legal authorities"
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
Imagine Boeing doing that and people died.
IMHO there's always more to any story than is conveyed to those reading an internet forum. There will undoubtedly be facts we're not privvy
to which may cast a different light on things.
Again IMHO (and we've all seen it on here with GTS and their customers) trying to resolve a customer/supplier issue in public is very very rarely
a constructive method.
quote:
Originally posted by woodster
i like that last line
"the postings and other relevant information regarding this matter has been referred to legal authorities"
If you read the few Westfield posts, the MD can not spell/use the English language to save his life... Effect/affect - he should google the difference! Not good!
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
quote:
Originally posted by woodster
i like that last line
"the postings and other relevant information regarding this matter has been referred to legal authorities"
I know Westfield threatens their own owners club for bad PR! says it all really
its not the way to run a business
Without knowing all the facts, just looking at the later pictures of the chassis, with what looked like clean breaks all over the place, did not give me great confidence. I owned a 1992 Westfield SE for a year (when it was 10 or so years old) and it was absolutely fine, but the one in the deleted thread was something else!
quote:
Originally posted by l0rd
Are they trying to cover up this issue and had the club removing the post?
I would like to know things like that could happen if i was about to get a westfield.
^^^ you are right.
I don't think the driectors that run businesses appreciate the power of the interweb net majiggy wotsit.
Rather than hush it, they could have turned it around and sorted the problem.
Fair enough, it would have cost them a chassis but the value of the good PR would have much less than any advertising.
Having said that, it is mostly bad stuff that gets reported and you don't many posts saying I ordered x fromy y and it was as expected. You do
on occasional get mention of exceptional service.
to quote a builders web site, obviously a known problem -
quote:
The chosen kit
I decided on a WESTFIELD basic starter kit with V8 bonnet and removable rear wings and slightly lighter lay-up fibreglass body, I also asked for a lightweight chassis made out of 18 gauge metal same as their race car chassis but Westfield told me they wouldn't sell me one if I was going to put the vehicle on the road, they told me that the chassis would crack with road use.
I personally didn't belief that as I thought the bike engined kits all had the lightweight chassis, I couldn't persuade him to sell me one even though he knew I was putting a bike engine in the car, this annoyed me but I just wanted to get on and order the kit.
^^^ That goes totally against what was originally said by Westfield when they examined the damaged chassis doesnt it?? Do i rember wrongly or did they accuse the owner of putting it on the track and said that will have been what caused the damage???
quote:
Originally posted by MikeCapon
quote:
Originally posted by woodster
i like that last line
"the postings and other relevant information regarding this matter has been referred to legal authorities"
I'm a long way from being a member of the grammar police. I make enough spelling and grammatical errors myself. But then I'm not representing a major manufacturer in what is after all a very delicate manner.
If they pay as little attention to the rest of their job???????????
quote:
Originally posted by Hellfire
quote:
Originally posted by MikeCapon
quote:
Originally posted by woodster
i like that last line
"the postings and other relevant information regarding this matter has been referred to legal authorities"
I'm a long way from being a member of the grammar police. I make enough spelling and grammatical errors myself. But then I'm not representing a major manufacturer in what is after all a very delicate manner.
If they pay as little attention to the rest of their job???????????
Never start a new sentence with BUT...
I dont know if anyone here has not seen the photos. But as i commented on the thread before it looks pretty dam scary.
I mean, the bits round the diff, maybe just maybe. Big engine, big power, lots track action, curbs. Whatever.
But the failed front rail members didnt look clever at all. And the repair was indeed a disgrace. Something i would have been proud of if i'd
done it in a pit garage with someone elses welder and some angle iron from the carpark floor. But not factory rectification work standard even for a
wed friday.
Daniel
How conveniant for Westfield an owner has a genuine gripe they treat him like shite, do a dangerous repair then have the owners club remove any trace
of it.
If they had been a company worth trusting they should have treated the guy fairly to start with.
Cheers,
Bob
quote:
Originally posted by splitrivet
How conveniant for Westfield an owner has a genuine gripe they treat him like shite, do a dangerous repair then have the owners club remove any trace of it.
quote:
Originally posted by dhutch
I dont know if anyone here has not seen the photos. But as i commented on the thread before it looks pretty dam scary.
I mean, the bits round the diff, maybe just maybe. Big engine, big power, lots track action, curbs. Whatever.
But the failed front rail members didnt look clever at all. And the repair was indeed a disgrace. Something i would have been proud of if i'd done it in a pit garage with someone elses welder and some angle iron from the carpark floor. But not factory rectification work standard even for a wed friday.
Daniel
quote:
Originally posted by NeilP
For any involved lawyers, this is of course all IMHO and made as a personal statement without bias on a public forum so go stick your heads up your @rses
Come on don't mince your words. Just say it!!
and McDonalds got sued for selling hot cups of coffee which burn when spilt. But its okay to sell a structure that self destructs. Remind me to buy
the coffee and not the structure. Coffee £1.49 potential £1000,000 return,
cost of structure and accessories £10k - £15k return -= potential disaster. Who said caffeinfne is bad for you
I managed to see the pics before the Westfield heavies had them deleted.
The repairs are abominable. Something the local blacksmith wouldn't even do in his forge. Again, who was the 'engineer'who specced the
repairs?I bet he doesn't exist.
The failures...To me, they look like brittle fractures, started out due to haz problems, and exacerbated by stress fatigue, with a dash of dodgy steel
thrown in.
All the cracks are in stress concentration areas, so classic failure situation.
Also, I would surmise that the back end, and the front, have never been analysed for stresses. If they had, those cracks would never have happened.
What makes me say what I just wrote? You can get a bit blase about things, so I ran the numbers on a current project with irs, AFTER I had looked at
the diff carrier design. Silly me. The forces on the diff supports are a lot more than a man would imagine. And when you throw in 'drop the
clutch at 7K' starts, then those forces are multiplied many times instantaneously. Needless to say, a bit more metal was added.
Hard mounted diffs also transmit a lot more vibration and local stresses than compliantly mounted items.
I expect to see a lot more of these types of failures as time goes on, and not just Westfields. Just about everything with a hard mounted diff in a
se7en type car is suspect. I've not seen one, from any maker, that looks sufficient after what my calcs showed up. If it's not the mounts
which the diff bolts to directly, it's the bits that the mounts are attached to. The system needs to be viewed as a whole.
Maybe it's just me though, and got a couple of decimal points in the wrong place.
All I know is that you need as many triangles (proper triangles, not gussets) back there as can be fitted in, and the whole back end needs to be
attached to everything in front of it, above it, sideways, in every and any way possible.
Cheers,
Syd.
HAYNES ROADSTER BUILDERS NOTE THE ABOVE CAREFULLY. YES,SERIOUSLY.
BUYERS OF OTHER KITS MIGHT WANT TO ASK A FEW QUESTIONS OF THE MANUFACTURERS AS WELL.
Edit: I'm away for the weekend now, hiding in a bomb shelter, so don't waste your efforts sreaming me down. I can't hear you. Deaf
anyway!
[Edited on 24/10/08 by Syd Bridge]
quote:
Originally posted by Syd Bridge
I managed to see the pics before the Westfield heavies had them deleted.
The repairs are abominable. Something the local blacksmith wouldn't even do in his forge. Again, who was the 'engineer'who specced the repairs?I bet he doesn't exist.
The failures...To me, they look like brittle fractures, started out due to haz problems, and exacerbated by stress fatigue, with a dash of dodgy steel thrown in.
All the cracks are in stress concentration areas, so classic failure situation.
Also, I would surmise that the back end, and the front, have never been analysed for stresses. If they had, those cracks would never have happened.
What makes me say what I just wrote? You can get a bit blase about things, so I ran the numbers on a current project with irs, AFTER I had looked at the diff carrier design. Silly me. The forces on the diff supports are a lot more than a man would imagine. And when you throw in 'drop the clutch at 7K' starts, then those forces are multiplied many times instantaneously. Needless to say, a bit more metal was added.
Hard mounted diffs also transmit a lot more vibration and local stresses than compliantly mounted items.
I expect to see a lot more of these types of failures as time goes on, and not just Westfields. Just about everything with a hard mounted diff in a se7en type car is suspect. I've not seen one, from any maker, that looks sufficient after what my calcs showed up. If it's not the mounts which the diff bolts to directly, it's the bits that the mounts are attached to. The system needs to be viewed as a whole.
Maybe it's just me though, and got a couple of decimal points in the wrong place.
All I know is that you need as many triangles (proper triangles, not gussets) back there as can be fitted in, and the whole back end needs to be attached to everything in front of it, above it, sideways, in every and any way possible.
Cheers,
Syd.
HAYNES ROADSTER BUILDERS NOTE THE ABOVE CAREFULLY. YES,SERIOUSLY.
BUYERS OF OTHER KITS MIGHT WANT TO ASK A FEW QUESTIONS OF THE MANUFACTURERS AS WELL.
Edit: I'm away for the weekend now, hiding in a bomb shelter, so don't waste your efforts sreaming me down. I can't hear you. Deaf anyway!
[Edited on 24/10/08 by Syd Bridge]
Guys...
As a westfield owner, a member of WSCC and someone has followed the topic on the wscc boardroom from the start.....
there is an update from WSC MD.
http://boardroom.wscc.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=67756
imo- asking wscc to supsend the topic whilst investigations take place was a little foolish in hindsight, but i can understand why this would be the
case..... and this might have been the advice from the legal team at their insurance company.
i feel sorry for the owner in question and i believe that wsc will meet any of their responsiblites, and we will see a resolution for him soon.
A Proud Westie Owner
^^ Link not available to non members. Can you copy the text across??
quote:
Originally posted by an.owner
Guys...
As a westfield owner, a member of WSCC and someone has followed the topic on the wscc boardroom from the start.....
there is an update from WSC MD.
http://boardroom.wscc.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=67756
imo- asking wscc to supsend the topic whilst investigations take place was a little foolish in hindsight, but i can understand why this would be the case..... and this might have been the advice from the legal team at their insurance company.
i feel sorry for the owner in question and i believe that wsc will meet any of their responsiblites, and we will see a resolution for him soon.
A Proud Westie Owner
Better - But still doesn't excuse the, "...has been refered to the relevent legal authorities..." bullshit he wrote the day before...
quote:
Originally posted by NeilP
Better - But still doesn't excuse the, "...has been refered to the relevent legal authorities..." bullshit he wrote the day before...
<quote>
remember:
the grip level is the weakest point...
so in first gear at 7k rpm and leaving the clutch won't do much harm because the rearwheels whill start screaming/spinning...
if you woud let rest an olifant on the rear of the car and re do it... then the ggrip will be higher and the diff will need to withstand more
forces...
</quote>
Surely thats like saying that there is no dynamic stress worries in a chassis at all because the force is transfered to the ground and therefore to
the tires, so you can just trust the tires to slip all the time?
Reality is that the force is seen through all the connecting components, the differential has to create an almost equal and opposite force to that of
the prop shaft (aka engine) otherwise it would just spin in place ( the differential casing wants to spin with its input shaft ).
Anyway, if you looked at the whole process in slow motion you will see that the wheels are actually the last thing to take the force through the
system and the diff will twist on its mounts ( if they are soft, if they are not, the force is still there but its less visual ) as it takes the load
before the wheels even spin in the slightest.
You have to be thinking in tenths of a second, but sometimes thats all it takes.
-Josh
this is part of the reason i was thinking of adding a little more steel around my diff mounts to triangulate the forces forwards & add a separate
pan hard bar triangulation to the non pan hard bar side to take the forces rear-wards.
well i reckon the chassis is only 380ish kg at the moment (no body work, no electics, no roll bar, no brake lines, no fuel lines, no ali panels, no
seats, no belts) so it can take an extra kg or two.
With a Miata drivetrain and IRS, the forces are around 1200lbs at the IRS diff mounting points, and as Syd points out, that's with smooth clutch engagement. Dumping the clutch or any other type of drag race start will make the forces many times larger. Using racing slicks and/or bigger engines makes the situation even worse.