Tell me, Poverty, what exactly did Audi offer people who suffered from unintended acceleration in the late-1980s...Besides a theoretical donut?
In the 1980's, Audi, a car manufacturer from Ingolstadt, Germany came to the USA with the idea of placing all wheel drive on a sports car. Within three years, they extended this revolutionary idea to sedans geared toward the mainstream market. After approximately two years, the idea caught on, fueled by unanimously rave reviews from the automotive press, excellent word of mouth, and prices below those of BMW and Mercedes. Progress occurred and the cars improved. Some of them did not have all wheel drive, instead equipped with a front wheel drive system, and used three speed automatics of a proprietary design. These automobiles, in the series called the Audi 5000 would soon haunt the image that Audi worked so hard building.
In February of 1986, Mrs. Bradosky, a mother with a six year old son pulled her Audi 5000 automatic into her garage; it accelerated out of her control and killed the young boy. Her initial memory of the accident when told to the police for their reports: as she pulled into the garage, she saw her son and attempted to slam on the brakes, but instead hit the gas and killed her young boy. The investigation was closed, at least until the CBS series "60 Minutes" offered the mother an interview. (James, 3)
after her incident broadcast,"60 Minutes" contacted Mrs. Bradosky and paid her a sum of money to appear on the show in a segment devoted to the Audi 5000 and its tendencies to accelerate unintentionally. She immediately changed her story from that which she gave the police, to a story in which she hit the brakes and the car kept accelerating uncontrollably. (James, 3)
On November 22, 1986, 60 Minutes broadcast a segment focusing only on the Audi 5000 and provided approximately 25 minute of misleading and one-sided data intended to sway the belief of the public toward the side that felt that Audi was building killer cars. (Internet source) Throughout the segment, they provided heard wrenching footage of Mrs. Bradosky telling about how her 5000 automatic accelerated beyond her control despite pushing the brake pedal as hard as she could.
Audi of America was contacted and offered an interview for the show. Believing that "60 Minutes" would allow them to broadcast the slanderous nature of these accusations, they readily accepted the invitation and provided an interview. However, on the night of the broadcast, 60 Minutes portrayed the company to be one that did not care about the problem and did not give an equal amount of time to Audi to refute the data provided to the public. (James, 4)
As a demonstration of the potential danger of this car, 60 minutes planned to show a 5000 automatic accelerating out of control to prove that this does occur, and that the driver is not to blame. They were unable however to show that it happened the way that the victims claimed, so they rigged the test car with vacuum pumps and lines to the automatic transmission and filmed the car in this state. They also left out the fact that they were forced to alter the state of the car in their broadcast and the public was left with the view that this was a killer car. (Proven, 12)
Due to this broadcast, the reports of unintended acceleration incidents skyrocketed. They rose from 400 reports in the second half of 1986 to 1800 in the same period of 1987. Also, the sales of Audi's immediately declined, and what was promising to be a series of record sales years became the years that nearly bankrupted the company. (James, 5)
The Sales
Continually since 1980, Audi's sales volume was growing each year, in 1983 it climbed to 47,000 and in 1986, they reached their highest sales volume in history, over 74,000. It looked to be a very good market for this new automobile company in the United States. However, despite this trend, and due to the increased awareness of unintended acceleration, in only two years, 1988, sales had plummeted to only 22,943 cars. (James, 5)
Since 1988, Audi has introduced cars that led the industry in technical advancements and in safety. The press consistently hailed the products as a benchmark in the industry, however, with the aftermath of unintended acceleration, the sales remained dismal.
Only today, in the period from 1996 to 1998, have sales truly been increasing. Much of this is due to a completely new product line fronted by a new entry level sedan. Some sales increase can be attributed to the public forgetting the UA scandal and accepting Audi automobiles as benchmarks for their respective classes.
The Response
Throughout the 1970's, customers logged complaints of UA incidents against every automotive manufacturer. Audi 5000 automatics however had the highest rate of complaints (What People, 5). The largest factor of this high complaint rate apart from the awareness caused by "60 Minutes" is that the pedals are offset two inches toward the left when compared to the typical American car (What People, 7). Immediately questioning the safety of their own cars, Audi engaged in an investigation and searched for any possible mechanical causes for this occurrence. They came to a possible conclusion, and in 1983, issued a voluntary recall regarding the possibility of the front floor mats becoming stuck under the accelerator and inhibiting control of the pedal. They installed screws in the floor that would hold the mats down, however, the complaints kept increasing. Their second recall installed a spacer in the brake pedal assembly to raise the pedal above the plane that the gas pedal existed on. Again, this made no difference. Audi instated third recall that installed another spacer, further raising the brake pedal. A final recall was necessary. They recalled all of the 5000 models equipped with automatic transmissions and installed a device that locked the transmission lever in park unless the brake pedal was engaged. (James, 6)
This reduced the report numbers, however, it did not solve the problem. Consumers still filed reports with their state governments, and following the 60 Minutes broadcast, the National Highway Transportation Association, NHTSA, launched a formal investigation.
Government and Audi Probe the Problem
Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, NHTSA constantly dealt with the issue of unintended acceleration in nearly all auto manufacturers in the world. In the 1980's the problems increased, especially for Audi. This prompted a special investigation into the causes of the UA that seemed to plague the 5000. They investigated for any manufacturing defects or mechanical failures. They purchased from the owners all cars that experienced the problems. On all cars salvaged, there were no problems with the brake systems, or any of the other several possible causes of UA (Proven, 10).
Every situation stumped NHTSA as they found no conclusions that support UA existing the way that the drivers claimed that it did. All drivers claimed to have stepped firmly on the brake pedal, yet the car somehow overcame the power of the brakes and still accelerated out of control.
Tests performed by Road and Track in 1986 repeatedly showed that no matter how much throttle was used, the engine simply was unable to overpower the brakes (Proven, 7). It is a simple fact of automobile production that the brakes have more power capabilities than the engine. This is true of all production cars, and even more so in the higher performance variants. If the drivers of the 5000 truly were holding down the brake pedal, and the engine still could accelerate the car to any degree, nevermind accelerate out of control, then that would suggest massive brake system failure. This however was not found, as mentioned above as all cars were found mechanically functional with no major systems damaged.
Along with NHTSA, Audi performed its own investigation into the cause of UA. Audi throughout history strived to become the safest car manufacturer on the planet, and the possibility that one of its cars could have such an incredible flaw intrigued them and caused them to have a genuine interest in the solution. They began finding the same data that was being found by NHTSA as well. No mechanical faults could be found and only one solution was left. Pedal misapplication was the conclusion of both Audi and NHTSA.
Exoneration
So, with both Audi and NHTSA in agreement over the cause of UA, NHTSA formally exonerated Audi regarding all charges of negligence. The findings said that in nearly all cases of supposed unintended acceleration, the driver mistakenly hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes and subsequently lost control of the car.
Audi immediately launched an advertising campaign announcing these findings. Unfortunately, they did not have much influence over the buying public, and by 1995, Audi sales had dropped below 15,000 cars. Fortunately, with the introduction of a new line of cars, with nothing in common with the older 5000, UA has been all but forgotten in the public collective mind (James, 10).
So while the government found that nothing was wrong with the automobiles produced by Audi, the public refused to believe this finding and continually punished this innocent company for nearly a decade. Today, Audi is enjoying record sales and in Europe, sales of the Audi A4 have surpassed those of the BMW 3 series for the first time in history. Truly, this company has succeeded in saving its name and has cleaned up its image in the public.
