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"John Davis" <jcdavis@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Ah yes, but did the military not originally pay AMG for the original
> purchase of the truck? Not unlike the purchase of a civilian model by a
> civilian?
[...]
> It's not like they're losing any money on any of the
> secondary sales anyway.
I think the point that Michael was trying to make is that it's
commonly assumed (thought AMG denies it) that one of their motivations
is that they would rather sell a new, civvie HMMWV to a civilian (and
thus make more money), and not let the civilian have the option of
buying an old, used HMMWV (on which AMG won't make any more money,
other than repair parts). I guess we can't really know whether that's
one of their considerations or not without having a bug in their board
room.
My gut feeling is that their biggest worry is that somebody will get
in a bad accident in a military HMMWV and then sue AMG for damages,
claiming that the truck wasn't made to applicable safety standards.
Now, those standards that it doesn't meet might not legally apply to
it due to the circumstances under which it was made (I think we're
still puzzling through that issue), but maybe AMG is worried that a
jury could still be convinced to return a verdict unfavorable to AMG.
Even if they didn't, AMG still loses money in legal costs. Perhaps
they are also worried about getting in trouble with the NHTSA for
safety regulation violations, too. This is all speculation on my part.
I briefly glanced over some of the information at the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration site:
I'm no lawyer, and I've only just began to skim some of their
information, but it appears to me that AMG might be legally off the
hook as far as NHTSA is concerned for a couple of reasons:
1) If the trucks were originally built under a waiver issued by NHTSA,
then AMG should be OK. (If they weren't, then AMG might be in trouble
just for selling them to the govt. in the first place.)
2) There's a clause which appears to exempt the manufacturer from
notifying vehicle owners of safety problems if the problems are found
over 8 years after the original purchase of the vehicle. That might
clear them for all of the pre-1992 trucks.
Once again, I'm no lawyer, and this is speculation on my part. I only
post these comments in the hope that somebody else will be able to
shed some more light on them. I understand that John from CT is
digging through a stack of safety reg printouts, so maybe he'll be
able to fill us in more soon.
I sure hope this whole issue turns out to be an isolated Stupid Test
(which John appears to have passed), blown out of proportion by the
rumor mill!
Hey, AM General, if you're reading this: Just rest assured that I, for
one, do NOT expect y'all to recall my 1986 M998 and fix it up at your
expense. As far as I'm concerned, you sold it 14 years ago, and have
no reason to expect to continue supporting it (other than selling me
repair parts through your Hummer(TM) parts desks at your regular
retail prices; thank you, and enjoy spending my money). As a military
vehicle collector, I knew exactly what I was getting when I bought it,
I had no expectations of getting any support at all from the original
manufacturer, and I considered myself lucky that I could even buy some
of the repair parts over-the-counter from the original manufacturer's
local parts desk. I'm not going to go slam into a wall and then sue
you for my own error. If you leave me alone, then I'll leave you
alone, and we can both be happy. On the other hand, if you go after me
and try to make my M998 purchase (which I've dreamt about for many,
many years) worthless, then I'll get very, very unpleasant. Folks,
just find the minimally intrusive way to cover your legal asses, and
then leave us nice well-meaning collectors alone! Thank you very much.
-- Mark J. Blair, KE6MYK <mblair1@home.net> PGP 2.6.2 public key available from http://pgp.ai.mit.edu/ Web page: http://www.qsl.net/ke6myk/ DO NOT SEND ANY UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL TO THIS SITE
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