Who is Don Willson?

Why am I spending so much time and energy on bringing this poorly designed electronic throttle module to the attention of the world? Primarily, my son owns a 2000 Volvo V70XC that had the ETM replaced November 2004 at 46,000 miles, just out of warranty. In addition to being their road car, two of my granddaughters will be learning to drive in this time bomb.  Second, by nature, I want people and companies to 'do the right thing’, something that Volvo (and Ford) have steadfastly refused to do.  

Now let me introduce myself. I am a 75-year-old retired metallurgical engineer. For 27 years I managed a chemical, metallurgical, physical test and failure analysis laboratory for Collins Radio/Rockwell International in Richardson, Texas.  I was brought into Collins Radio Company to work on a multiplex antenna for the Apollo space program. From 1955 until my retirement in 1989 I was a Registered Professional Engineer in Texas. This curiosity has carried over even to today, if something breaks, I want to know why. You can probably identify with the family and the two girls that will be learning to drive in this car. Patches, my helper is showing me that I have a private message.

In summary, I have the experience and curiosity to determine the cause of failure of this Magneti Marelli built electronic throttle module, though I no longer have the resources to work down at the individual electronic device level. From my experience very few of the failures we examined in my laboratory were caused by the electronic device. If it was the electronic device the problem was related to electro-static discharge or improper application such as overstressing. These failures were screened out by a 48-hour ‘burn in’, thus the term ‘smoke test’. If the electronics lasted 48 hours they should literally last forever. 

The mechanical portion of the devices caused the biggest headaches. Anything that moved and rubbed such as switch contacts, connectors or wipers within variable resistors and tuning capacitors were particularly troublesome.

As for VEXED, I thought we needed an identifier and the word ‘VEXED’ seemed to be a perfect fit as it means, troubled, irritated and p----d off and also an acronym for Volvo Enthusiasts eXposing Egregious Design. As of August 2007 about 2000 Volvo owners in 29 countries have said ‘sign me up’ for the VEXED Group. You are welcome to join us by sending name, state, Volvo model and year, mileage at failure to VEXEDvolvo@comcast.net. I’ll put you on the mailing list. I only send out to the list using Bcc (blind copy) so no one can see your address.