4X4 Magazine - Is this dishonest reporting ?

Forgot to add that I would be pretty bloody cantankerous if I had just seen my $2500 lights go swimming.

Bilbo ,
I'm retired . I had so much trouble seeing the roos on the road at dusk and dawn on my April drive down from the NT , that I retired my 10 year old Cibie Oscars and shelled out the big bucks for something much brighter . Much brighter they are , but they leak like a sieve .
Cheers .

Hey Willie

I have solved the problem of night driving. I don't! LOL

Haven't bothered to swap my Hella Bull Light($60) from the G60 to the GQ

Cheers

4x4 Australia

Ange ,
My two Cibie Oscars went through heaps of water crossings without ever taking in water. These Hellas have a really dumb design - the wiring enters the light halfway up the back . If it entered at the bottom it would form an airlock and no water would enter.
Cheers

Roachie,

I would have bought the Nightforce HID but was scared off by the "unknown" of having to attach a plastic cover over them to change from narrow to spread beam . That did not fill me with confidence - quite honestly I don't know why it bothered me , but it did .

I have heard that they have a Gortex diaphram which stops water coming in , but still allows heated air to expand .

If I had the choice over , I would definitely get them .

Cheers.

Roachie , Re : writing to 4X4 Australia FORUM (page 26 ) Dec.2005 Issue

I just checked out the letters in it . To me they just look like ones they have picked out ( or written themselves ) which allow them to give an answer which plugs one of their advertisers products .

For instance "4WD Warehouse", " Bushranger" , "X Jack" , "Southern Cross Swag" ,"Long Ranger Tanks" - it's really blatant - they can't answer a letter without plugging a brand .

Cheers,

Willie .

Willie, I don't buy the mag for the same reason but am getting pretty cheesed off with Roachie's mag too for reasons stated elsewhere. I wonder if you may put up the address of the editorial pages - both email and snail mail, so people can remind them of their oversight.

Hi John ,

addresses for the " 4X4 Forum" are :

email
4x4australia@acp.com.au

Snail mail
4x4 Australia ,
PO Box 4088 ,
Sydney . NSW . 2001 .

I hope they get inundated .

wILLIE

There has been a lot of criticism of motoring journalists receiving 'soft dollar' benefits over the years. They are unabashed by the criticism - hides like buffalo.

I think too that the journos beat up 'problems' in vehicles to promote aftermarket sales of 'remedies'.

It is ridiculous that a monthly 4X4 magazine regularly alleges suspension, diff and other problems in popular fourbys, thus giving the uninitiated the impression that such vehicles are almost incapable of going off-road. However the truth is that any failures that have occurred have been very few and far between and only encountered through extreme use.

Who is to say that the aftermarket 'improvements' are any better? It is not uncommon to find someone bailed up by a fancy painted aftermarket suspension product that has failed.

Gee Roachie ,
This fella must be crazy . He has no gadgets - what fun can that be .
Willie .

That's right Willie......half the fun of an outback trip is spending half the time under the bloody truck fixing up the broken aftermarket stuff.!!!! (NOT)...hahaha

Things I've had "go wrong" on trips are usually related to aftermarket products which I have installed myself. So, in most cases, I don't believe it is the aftermarket product itself, but the poor installation. The one notable exception to that would have to be the dual battery bracket for the GU which was professionally made and installed by me ACCORDING TO INSTRUCTIONS....The issue with it is not so much the bracket itself, but rather the way it was designed to be mounted. I would urge any GU owners with a dual battery set-up that has the battery mounted just behind the air filter, to check out the mounts. In my case, the bracket is fastened to the vehicle using 5 bolts.....2 of them use the original captive nuts on the inner guard which had been put there to hold the radiator expansion tank. (That tank is bolted to the new bracket first and then the bracket bolted to the inner guard. The other 3 bolts also utilise captive nuts on the horizontal section of the guard. So the bulk of the weight is taken up by the mud guard and the 2 vertical bolts are for stabilisation purposes. After 170,000 klm at least 4 of the captive nuts have broken away from the surrounding metal, which is far too thin to cope with the weight of a battery. A mate of mine has a 4.2GU without ABS and his 2nd battery is situated further back and higher up; he hasn't had the same issues.

Cheers

Roachie

Spade ,

I have already written to Hella and was told by their sales manager that the HID lights would not be covered by warranty if they were submerged in a river crossing . He said the only Hella light that could be submerged ( read "used in any creek crossing" ) was their special waterproof model . NONE of their other models that you see advertised in 4WD magazines are to be used in creek crossings because they leak.

"Oh ", you say , " I see Hella lights in the tests done in 4WD magazines and they never mention this" . Well what do you know . That's incredible !

The sales manager offered to " have a look at my lights ". But it would have cost me money to have them taken off and put on again and I had to freight them to Melbourne on the off chance that they might see me as a pest and replace the lenses .

I asked their sales rep why they were sold in 4WD outlets if they were totally unsuitable for the task . His answer was that 90% of 4WDs never went off road , so it was not a problem .Nowhere on the packaging or on their website is there any mention that these lights cannot be submerged .

I cleaned them , but they will never be as good as new .

I will send an email to 4x4 Australia Magazine , but there is little chance that they will print it . It is the following -
" Dear Sir ,
I have had trouble with my Hella HID lights filling up with water during creek crossings and I could not help but notice that the Hella 1000 lights on the SR5 being tested on page 48 of your Dec.issue , were nearly half full of water . The writer however , failed to advise the readers of this problem , after telling them that he was fitting them to the car for the test run up Cape York . Perhaps you could explain this omission .
Regards "

Cheers ,

Willie

Having a bitch on the 4x4 forums is on thing but sending links back to Hella, that’s a great idea.

Good one Truckster

Truckster and drivesafe ,

I'm an old fart and I don't know how to do all that . Can you ndo it for me ??

It would be good to put a flea in their ear .

Willie .

Willie.

The person at Hella that told you bad luck, gain their email address - call them and ask - or just their name would do so you can attention it to them..

Then just post up on all 4wd forums what exactly they tell you. Keep it to facts.

Open a new email up in outlook,
send it to hella@hella.com.au
Subject line: ATTN: (name of dude who screwed you) Word of mouth sells

Then add what you have done and why at the start of the email in the main(body) section, informing them of what you have done and how many people are on each forum roughly....

Then copy the web address of each thread, paste it into the body of the email. Then send it :)

Let hella know other prospective buyers now know that their lights are fish bowls.

Willie,

Have you got details that I could submit to a few forums?

My email addy is chumpion at hushmail dot com

Cheers,

Chump.

I love this, I can feel a wenzel coming on? Maybe we can have it retitled to you've been hella'd.

Kind regards

"Take almost any recomendation to buy a Weico Fridge from a proud owner for example, no mention of the warped lid or the broken latch yet personally I hear of heaps"

You're a funny guy...........

There has been a recent reference to a comparison of 12 portable fridge/freezer units by one of those popular mags.
Apart from the reported results seemingly very ambiguous, it was noticable that the Trailblaza, locally built and just about the best unit available was not in the test lineup.
Not hard to work out why.

A 4x4 mag doing a test on fridges would normally ask all the major brands to supply a fridge in lieu of advertising or for a loan. Company's that don't want to participate in the trial or pay for the advertising that normally surrounds the pages of the comparison obviously wont be seen. Most fridge manufactures could not possibly afford to hand out a fridge every time a test came up. Trailblazer probably prefered to sell on their great reputation rather than be included in a trial that may be poorly conducted & tainted by bias towards a company with a large advertising space ;-)
Cheers Craig.........

I disagree with you . If he went to the trouble to mention (and plug) the fact that he had installed Hella 1000 Rallye lights , then I believe it has to be part of the test .

What he should have done , is used them , then left them out of the article completely when they failed . He would have written the article when he got back - when he had full knowledge of the failure of the product - and he still gave them a plug .Yes , I think that is dishonest .

Cheers ,

Willie .

GT ,

I also have some close shaves with roos during the day . So according to you , I should stay off the road during the day .

If I drive during the day , the better my glasses , the better view I get of the animal ( read roo ) AS I HIT IT !

That's very profound .

Cheers ,

Willie .

TerraFirma ,

I bought two spread beams because these went out further than the pencil beams on my old Cibie Oscars . I agree , they are fantastic lights , but they should not be used on a 4WD .

Are those model numbers the HID models ??

I cannot afford to ditch them so I will have to carry garbage bags to wrap them in , in the future . It will be very difficult to seal them with a bag because they have the wires coming out halfway up the back of the light . That's what you get for $2500 from Hella .

Did you receive any advice from the installer regarding the fact that they were not suitable for creek crossings ? As I said I checked their website and their adverts and found no warnings about this .

If you want , I am sure you could demand your money back .I have attached my letter to Hella and the answer from their manager , so that you will know what you are up against . I am sure that the ombudsman would rule in your favour if you said you wanted your money back .

My email / letter to Hella dated Sept.20 , 2005

Dear Mr Stevenson ,

I have already written two emails to the email address on your website without an answer. Now , after Max in Melbourne told me that the fellow answering the emails left and nobody has bothered answering them since , I am writing to you .

I bought a pair of Predator HID lights for my Landcruiser in June from Bars-N-Racks at Hornsby .I wanted the best , and my Cybie Oscars after ten years of solid service , were just not bright enough for my failing eyes .

I was caught in the Pilbarra in a 3" downfall in July and had to travel through flooded roads and ford a flooded creek . The next day I noticed that each light had an inch of muddy water in it .I could not figure out how to empty the water , so I left it and they eventually dried out . I fear that the reflectors are now muddy .

I believe that the lights must be faulty as I imagined that , like my previous Cibie lights that went through many many creek crossings , the Preadators are made for this kind of work .

I have checked your website and there is no mention there that they are not suitable for 4WDs and when the installer put the lights on , he gave me no paperwork to say that they were not suitable.In fact they gave me no instructions , warranty card , box or tools and I had to go back to them and ask for the two tools to adjust the lights .

The site hella.co.nz says that Preadator HID lights are "ideal for the roughest conditions in mining,the transport industry and 4WD vehicles"

Everybody would agree that it is a given that 4WDs go through creek crossings with water in them .

What can you do about this please ,

The letter / email received back from Mr Stevenson dated Sep.23 , 2005 :

Dear Mike,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner but I have been away on business.

On the surface I would not say the lights are faulty, but to make a clear determination we would need to have the lights back so the we can inspect them. Would you be able to arrange for the lights to be returned to the NSW office and we will have our quality inspector in Melbourne look at them before determining if it is a warranty issue or not?

Please note that the Predator lights are designed to the highest standard, however they were not designed to be submersed. If you are looking at making river crossings where the lights will be submerged then we do have a light that has been specifically designed for this function called the Hydrolux.

If the lights are still working then they can probably been cleaned so that they before as they did prior to getting the water in them.

I will be away on holidays from today, so if you could have the lights returned to our Sydney office along with a record of purchase, I will have them sent to Melbourne for inspection. If you would like to speak with me regarding the issue, please give me a call on or after the 10th of October.

Kind Regards,

Robert Stevenson
NSW State Manager
Hella Australia Pty Ltd

You go get 'em Willlie !

As an aside, did you know Australians are renowned for NOT COMPLAINING. It is a well-known fact amongst producers and manufacturers' marketing sections that Aussies are hesitant to 'make a scene' or be seen to be acting like a bleep . (I suspect this is why a heap of rubbish gets sold in Oz., but then I havent been to bali ;-) )

But, back to the story. I stopped buying 4x4 australia when I noted they said some rubbish like :"this vehicle was fitted with 10x15x32 BFG Mudgrubbers and they ate up the track like a thirsty pig..." or some such rubbish.
I looked at the accompanying photos and the vehicle was not fitted with these tyres at all !! On further investigation I noted a few items incorrectly indicated in other articles. I came to the same conclusion as yourselves and decided this mag wasnt worth the paper it was printed on for any real honest opinion.

Anyway, stick it up em Willie. I fear you'll be wasting your time as they have already noted numerous times..'we do have a waterproof version'.

At the very least, Hella should be forced to add a sticker or note to thier product:
"NOT SUITABLE FOR WATER CROSSINGS" or simliar.

I would be going the line that if these are sold, or even described anywhere, as an 'off-road' or '4wd' light then it should be expected by the manufacturer that any reasonable use of them in 'off-road' conditions may well include a water crossing. If they are not suitable for these "reasonable", "expected" uses, then there should indeed be a note indicating the limitations of the item.
I think you would have more legal fothold with this approach. Read up on your consumer rights.

Post again, I'd like to know how you go !

cheers
Rich

Willie,

I have'nt read everything posted re this particular saga but as per Richopesto above, surely you have recourse to Consumer Affairs regarding a simple 'fitness for purpose' claim.

Unless your backyard is somewhere in the middle of the Sahara Desert any 4WD activity is bound to include water sports :)))))