78 Miles

[tin-man]

Yep that’s right, I drove 78 miles in my brand new Cobra and then the Roush 511 IRFE engine and Bowler 4R70W automatic transmission package stopped functioning. My dream for the last ten years has decidedly turned in to one of the biggest nightmares and a disappointment of a lifetime.

Event sequence:

Total elapsed time from order placement, December 28, 2009 to receipt of vehicle, June 15, 2011: One year, five months, three weeks and one day. No worries really, I work in China and it was to be a retirement present for myself by end of this year.

June 13th: Drove in from Phoenix, 800 miles, to pick up my car and oversee the transportation back to my home in Sun City West. Great excitement my Cobra was ready. Started the car and the sound effects were all that I had hoped for. Very deep rumble coupled with a very pleasing staccato lope. This Roush big block was all that I had read about on their website. However, just like the Bill Cosby video the car grabbed and wanted its freedom to take off. OK seems reasonable; the engine was linked to Bowler automatic transmission. Drove car for maybe five or six miles and apart from a bumpy ride was all that I had hoped for. Well sort of, I was informed the engine had a higher than normal idle speed of 1000 rpm that was causing the grab effect and the current engine program put the car into overdrive very quickly and Roush was working on a program to fix that but it was still under development.

I was also informed there had been a “surging” effect between gears during previous driving tests that was linked to the Compushift programming and Bowler transmission but Voss Performance and Bowler Transmissions had been in discussions and how to modulate the overall effect. Since I did not experience this phenomenon while test driving the car I did not consider it any further. But it was disconcerting that I would at some time in the future have to send the car back to California for the Roush program fix. But the car was as it was and was ready for release to me.

June 14th, pm, test drove the car once more for about an hour, all seemed well, I was a happy camper and ready to go.

June 15th loaded the car in a commercial car carrier and set off to my home in Arizona. After eight hours of driving arrived safely, unloaded the car and drove it for a couple of blocks around my home. Other than the grabbing effect, it was an awesome experience.

June 16th am, need to get my car registered, got a temporary driving permit from Sun City West DMV and set off for Glendale DMV for vehicle inspection and an Arizona vehicle identification number. This is when my whole world started getting unpleasant. The DMV is eighteen miles from my house, drove on surface streets with moderate traffic flow, not exceeding 40 mph. Transmission started to downshift automatically from what appeared to be fourth to third and then back up again, a real surging effect, car lunged back and forth when this occurred, like a rowing effect. I got a really bad feeling this was not right.

Finally got the car registered and received a Historic Vehicle plate. It was done; I could go home and now legally drive my car.

June 16th pm. driving home experienced a higher frequency rate of downshifting and up shifting. After every stop light it would start this surging phenomenon.

Got on a stretch of road nearby my home to see how the car would open up and took it up to between fifty and sixty MPH, seems ok, no surge, so maybe this bug has gone away with driving on an open road without stop signs.

Pull off the road and start to head home, came to a stop sign and oh-oh the transmission would not go any higher than first gear, so limped along for a mile to the entrance of the community where I live, pulled off the road and decided to stop and restart the car.

Cranked the engine then all hell broke lose, a very loud metallic sounding clunk, car shook, stick shift moved about half an inch and that’s it. Opened hood to see if I could see anything amiss since it really sounded and felt as though the engine had come off its mounts but all seemed to be in order. Decided to try one more time, same effect, but this time there was smoke coming from the engine. OK that’s it, I’m screwed.

Communicated with Voss Performance and attempted to restart the car so the effect could be heard, yep, that don’t sound too good. Nothing we can do at this juncture except send the car back to Voss in California.

The car was pushed onto the same auto transporter that delivered the car the previous day and is now in route back to California.

Total miles put on the car before the engine and transmission package ceased to function correctly: 78

I’m going back to China next week and the car, already paid for, will stay with Voss Performance who will be in communications with Roush, Bowler and Compushift and they will have six month to sort out all the reasons and resolve whatever it was to fix the issues that created the transmission and engine to malfunction and return my car so I can drive it without having a repetition of the events I experienced.

OK hindsight analysis, the car was only road tested for 49 miles, should I have insisted it be driven more, say, 100-200 miles or so, absolutely, the issue was it could not be legally driven in California without registering the vehicle, but if the car had been driven more, even up to 100 miles, the effects I experienced at 78 miles would have been discovered and then remedied.

So in the fog of excitement to get my Cobra after waiting so long for it to be completed I let my better judgment get overruled and as a result my dream and what was to be one of the most memorable events in my life got trashed, and trashed big time.

Voss Performance will start diagnostics on the causal effects just as soon as the car is returned and I guess we will see if the folks who sold me the engine and transmission package will resolve the issues and honor their commitments to provide a reliable product package that will deliver correct shifting and idle programming and Voss has agreed to extended road testing to mitigate any repetition of the events I have described above.

The Superformance roller was and is spectacular, it is without a doubt an awesome looking machine, unfortunately the engine and transmission package do not compliment the machine at this time since they don’t work.

What has happened should never have happened and I am at a loss to understand how anyone can explain how after 78 miles the engine and transmission failed to function and stopped.

For the money I have spent on this car and the extended wait before delivery I am experiencing what can best be described as a complete and utter morale outrage and there needs be some answers from Roush, Bowler, Compushift and Voss as to why this happened and a commitment to get the issues resolved.

tin-man, AKA, John,