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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 2a02:560:422c:bb00:cc56:14b7:e568:64a1 (talk) at 18:47, 24 April 2020. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Emissions

nine times the hydrocarbons and five times the carbon monoxide emissions of the average European car of 2007

A comparison of a 1957/1962 Card/Engine with a modern 2007 Car really doesn't make much sense. It doesn't really tell us how bad the emissions where at the time. --95.91.202.225 (talk) 19:59, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Brilliant design"?

Regarding this revision as of 19:23, 25 August 2016:

There are widely different views of the merits of the Trabant. One is that it was a brilliant design, well ahead of its time, with a body made largely of recycled materials over an integrated steel structure, with a compact, simple and cheap-to-build engine mounted transversely driving the front wheels, and all-independent suspension, capable of transporting a family or four adults in reasonable comfort at 40-50mph all day. It's two-stroke fuel-oil ratio was 50:1 at a time when British motorcycle engines used 16:1 and from 1960 it even had an all-synchromesh gearbox. Once warmed up, it did not produce visible smoke in normal driving.

Is there a reliable source that supports this material? Issues of undue weight may arise, considering that other reliable sources describe the car in decidedly less glowing terms. —Coconutporkpie (talk) 07:14, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's true except ratio fuel-oil: 50:1 was from 1974. In den 1950th it was 25:1 for Trabant as well. The crazy blue smoke came in general because of incorrect driving (with full activated start choke or too much oil put in the fuel.) --Max schwalbe (talk) 22:30, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Used cars costing more than new?

Due to the long waiting period, used Trabants could fetch higher prices than new ones. People who finally received their own Trabant treated the car gently and were meticulous in maintaining and repairing it.

That's certainly an interesting factoid, but wasn't in any of the sources for this article that I looked at. "People who" is vague as well. Could this be original research? —Coconutporkpie (talk) 19:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Coconutporkpie: What I guess is meant is that in Communist countries the prices in government-run shops were directively kept low, so there was always a shortage of goods. That's why the waiting periods were long. So, a car which was slightly used but which you could receive immediately could cost more than a new car, which you had to wait for long. But this was commonplace for all goods in Communist countries. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii 22:58, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
People who finally received their own Trabant treated the car gently and were meticulous in maintaining and repairing it Sorry this is not true - or to be more exactly, not a phenomen of Trabant - it's the attitude of germans to their cars in general. repair more than necessary - to be sure to be sure to be sure... That's the case until now... the difference is that Trabant was, after reaching it's end of life, not scrapped. It was completely rebuild in a repair shop for the next 20 years of life. This was because of long waiting time for new cars, indeed. --Max schwalbe (talk) 22:27, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with finding reliable sources for that 'phenomenon' is that the overwhelming numbers of used car sales in the GDR were informal transactions with the true details kept between the seller and the buyer for a number of reasons dictated by the political and social realities of the GDR. In other words: everybody in the GDR (and West Germany) knew that a used car could almost triple its official selling price (Lada/VAZ) but nobody talked about it openly. Only the Saporoshez was the only vehicle immediately available but almost never bought despite of the limited availabiliry of automobiles in der GDR (which might give a hint about the quality of that vehicle).2A02:560:422C:BB00:CC56:14B7:E568:64A1 (talk) 18:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Trabant and Motorsport

The introduction should be improved (maybe this could do somebody well english speaking person). It should be mentioned that the Trabant was used for motorsports already since 1960, with some big sucuess. details see here https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant_(Pkw)#Motorsport best, max --Max schwalbe (talk) 10:30, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Notice of Reliable Sources Noticeboard discussion

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is www.team.net. Thank you. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:38, 17 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DeMuro's opinion

We have editors on two sides of including his opinion of the Trabant. I'll argue in favor of inclusion but will seek consensus. I'd like to avoid the edit warring. Lets start with a few questions: is he a reliable source? Yes. He is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. He is an automotive journalist and has reviewed numerous vehicles. His opinion is in line with the others that are in the article. Rick Cotta is a source. He is an auto journalist as well. How is Cotta's inclusion (quoted as "patchy assembly quality") appropriate but Demuro's not? MartinezMD (talk) 22:26, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

These editors who want to delete what Doug said have 2/3 reverts (all on Trabant), nothing else. Had the privilege (it was a privilege to have a car in socialism) to use a Trabant, Doug was pretty accurate. Seems that it ruined some people dream of what socialist "paradise" really is: average worker not only is not free but even when he saves to buy something he needs to wait for a long time and product (if build/designed in said "paradise") is "patchy", at best.--81.101.159.55 (talk) 04:54, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's clearly presented as an opinion. As an opinion of the car, it's one that was widely shared at the time and has been widely shared subsequently. It belongs in the entry. If you actually click on the link you get to an entry with a certain amount of US tub thumping monoculturalism. That may have upset our other contributor. But the man DeMuro still seems to know his cars. Some of us might argue that the car was terrible because of the shortage of appropriate materials and of money in East Germany. Not because it was made by "Communists". And that the shortage of money and materials was more a function of political decisions taken in Moscow and Washington at he end of the second world war, and subsequently, than because the people who lived and made their lives in East Germany were all, defined from Uncle Sam's perspective, "commies": some were ideologically committed Marxists or at least went along with the Soviet version of Marxism that the authorities backed, while some just kept their heads down and concentrated on ... stuff - survival, family etc. But (1) that's part of another much bigger discussion and (2) it does nothing to suggest or even to hint that the poor old Trabi was smooth, fast, reliable and sweet smelling. (It's still pretty iconic IM(H)O). ) Demuro is a journalist who knows about cars and has taken time out to investigate the Trabant. That's good enough for me. Charles01 (talk) 06:52, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair - if you would strike out everything directly related to the Trabant, that 'report' could have been a description of almost every vehicle assembled in the US or the related factories in Mexico and Canada from the 1960s till the 2000s. And that is even more embarassing in the light of the facts for the automotive and certain journalistic parts of the USA. Like, you know, when you sit in the glasshouse... 2A02:560:422C:BB00:CC56:14B7:E568:64A1 (talk) 18:46, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Reliability issue

Some anonymous editor keeps reverting edits but won't discuss the issue on the talk page. So I'll bring it up and hope he will. We have two current sources giving direct opposite positions on reliability - "Reliability was terrible, and the gearshift mechanism is generally agreed upon as one of the worst ever invented."[1] vs "But the Trabant's strongest point was its reliability, based on its simplicity – important when its customers had little money to fix it when it went wrong."[2] I'd like to have a resolution. Maybe another or a few more reviews to clarify the issue? Opinions/input from other editors please. MartinezMD (talk) 23:15, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "The 12 worst cars ever built". The Globe and Mail. May 11, 2018. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
  2. ^ John, Honest (October 19, 2013). "Trabant 601 (1964 - 1991)". Honest John. Retrieved May 11, 2019.


This demonstrates a severe problem with wikipedia. The first source is a tabloid newspaper article, written to entertain people by appealing to their prejudices, often disregarding facts in the process. The second source is an actual car expert.

Lo and behold, if you can cite it without starting an edit war, you can include it in the wiki article. Even if the result is a contradictory page of nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A442:581E:1:81FD:E7F0:F37D:619A (talk) 15:04, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To cut all the nonsense out the article would be a lot smaller and easier to read. A description of the car and it's technical features, product history, manufacturing and the role it played in society, that would be useful and informative. For the most part this is only available on Wikipedia in German. In English we're told nonsense about the gear shifter by some hack who's never seen a citroen DS before either. 2A02:A442:581E:1:81FD:E7F0:F37D:619A (talk) 15:14, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You have to learn about WP:consensus. We discuss it here then make changes in the WP:BRD cycle. MartinezMD (talk) 20:44, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a point of discussion for your ass, let's look at this line:
"The Trabant's build quality was poor,[13] reliability was terrible,[10] closer inspection revealed "patchy assembly quality",[14] with an atrocious maintenance record."
How can the Trabant, a model of car, have "an atrocious maintenance record"? A specific example of a Trabant car might, and it might not. But to say the Trabant categorically has such a thing is ridiculous. A car's maintenance record is when you write down the oil changes and tyre rotations you've done to it, when you've fitted new window wipers, that sort of thing. In other words, a maintenance record isn't a quality imbued by the maker, it's a history of a single example of an object.
It's like saying that the album Abbey Road has a scratch on it. As in, not a specific CD in your glovebox, but the music itself being scratched.
What we have here is an article that not only contradicts itself between paragraphs but also has nonsensical, hallucinatory statements in it. 2A02:A442:581E:1:756A:FBF9:7B17:AF3C (talk) 22:07, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
First you can watch your tone with me. WP:NPA My ass has nothing to do with your comments. Secondly, maintenance record is easily taken as the reliability/typical cost of maintenance or repair across a model line, not an individual unit. Agencies such as JD Power use data like that for their reliability ratings and estimates for TCO (total cost of ownership). I'd like to hear from a neutral editor now. MartinezMD (talk) 22:36, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"Secondly, maintenance record is easily taken as the reliability/typical cost of maintenance or repair across a model line"
No it can't. That's not a convention of human speech or writing. A car's maintenance record is the record of maintenance done on an individual car. That is what it means.
Good luck on your wait for a "neutral" person, whatever that is. 2A02:A442:581E:1:B5E9:C1C3:9348:9F3C (talk) 16:39, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions that we find in sources and other contributors find to be "POV".

Editors deleted a section were a statement was given as to why, for 30 years, the Trabant was produced without significant changes, quote from source - "The now-fallen communist state provided ideal conditions for the creation of a truly awful vehicle: a demoralized labour force, incompetently-run factories, and a iron-fisted political system that crushed innovation." [1]. Another statement was that, production ended with the fall of Communism (1990), quote from source - "[..] Trabant was the only car available [..] went out of production in 1990. The fall of the Berlin Wall removed the Trabant's key feature - a monopoly position."[2] and when East Germans had other cars available they abandoned the Trabant, quote from source - "Thousands of East Germans drove their Trabants over the border when the Wall fell, which made it a kind of automotive liberator. Once across the border, the none-too-sentimental Ostdeutschlanders immediately abandoned their cars. Ich bin Junk!"[3]. What do others think about this?! Thank you.--81.101.159.55 (talk) 07:01, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "The 12 worst cars ever built". The Globe and Mail. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  2. ^ "The 12 worst cars ever built". The Globe and Mail. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  3. ^ "The 50 Worst Cars of All Time". TIME. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
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