Cheers, tuffy, some interesting views and thoughts. Just one or two things you may have got the wrong impression:
The contributory factor you are seeking here is your 'right foot
I'm not neccessarily searching for a contributory factor. If one pops up from the information people post, then great, that will be useful info. If one doesn't, then it doesn't.
Remapping increases the likely hood of engine wear and tear in general not just the potential to bend a rod... this is just the way it is...
Remapping increases the likelihood of other mechanical parts failing also. Who's to say it doesn't lead to premature failure of gearboxes due to dealing with increased forces? I wouldn't be surprised if there are more gearbox failures on S3's than rods bending.
Following people who advocate replacing rods on stage-1 because "they think" they are running at their limit. I could make the same conclusion about gearboxes. Then suggest the people recondition their gearbox with stronger components, as they may get a failure, which results in other serious consequential damange, and thus leaves them with a large repair bill.
You can't go around replacing every part of your car because you fear it may fail. You need to be able to make a judgement call based on the level of risk. Some people are of the view that rods bending is a substantial risk on on stage-1, as they have stated the rods are running at their limit on stage-1, and thus have suggested people should replace their rods if on stage-1. This thread may give people additional information, and a differing perspective, so that they can make up their own mind.
We all understand the thoughts behind the people who suggest stage-1's are running rods at their limits, and hence suggest replacing rods. Repeating this over and over isn't adding anything new. That is not to say that this view shouldn't be taken seriously. But we already know this view and the thoughts behind it. So unless people who are of this view actually have additional information in relation to the view, for example like the links Welly posted, then they aren't actually providing anything useful - just the same opinion, based on the same thoughts, that we've all heard already.
I personally can't see the point of this poll as there are not enough metrics being captured to give a decent idea of the circumstances behind any one failure... there has been a failure from a car that was not mapped and while the owner at the time may drive like miss daisy there is no way to know if the car hadn't been driven hard before... Welly by his own admission 'spanks' his S3...
I agree,
if this was an exercise to produce statistically sound analysis that would allow us produce a model to predict the probabilty for an individual S3 bending its rods. But, and here's the big but
, that is not the purpose of this thread\poll. So you are knocking down the thread\poll for something that it was never intended to be in the first place.
The purpose of the thread\poll is to give people an idea of the level of failures, and to gather some information about each one. People updating the thread with information about their failures was a method to in some way capture some additional metrics\info.
Some people think this is useful, others don't. People repeatedly saying they don't think it is useful really aren't adding anything further, because it has already been said. That's not to take away peoples opinions. But what is the point to it?