Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

[38P]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

but his job is one. build it with the least amount of parts to stock and part #'s
make it fast to install on the line..
and make it so the dealerships can make money from repairs.

But isn't that looking at the world through blinders?

Making vehicles easier to service in the field would yield dividends to more than just home mechanics and Bangshifters. It would expand the aftermarket (including the OEM portion of it). It would reduce warranty costs because repair times would be shorter. And it would improve an OEM's brand image because second, third and even fourth owner satisfaction would skyrocket. Isn't that worth some consideration? If not, then "HE HATE ME!"

[IRONHEAD]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

but his job is one. build it with the least amount of parts to stock and part #'s
make it fast to install on the line..
and make it so the dealerships can make money from repairs.

But isn't that looking at the world through blinders?

Making vehicles easier to service in the field would yield dividends to more than just home mechanics and Bangshifters. It would expand the aftermarket (including the OEM portion of it). It would reduce warranty costs because repair times would be shorter. And it would improve an OEM's brand image because second, third and even fourth owner satisfaction would skyrocket. Isn't that worth some consideration? If not, then "HE HATE ME!"

all false..
r/r a pump as. takes less time than taking the pump off the sending unit,pick up. and reinstalling it..

[min301]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

The big three have screwed the pooch many times,
and it continues to bite them in the ass, every day.

1995-GM redesigns the rear brake design on their"W"
body vehicles, giving low end Monte Carlo's and Lumina's
a step back in efficient brakes-they installed drum brakes on em.

At the same time, they were introducing a new 4 wheel disc brake system
which worked better, and was easier to repair than the well known
"caliper slider pin" design of 88-94.

In reality, they were better in feel, but did not brake as efficiently,
and seemed to wear much faster. The original design was pretty
well designed, but used an iron caliper, with a steel slider pin.
Without even bringing up educating the customer in the use of
the emergency brake to keep em adjusted, the dissimilar metals in the caliper were a recipe
for problems, especially in areas of the country that have corrosion issues.

I asked a few of the available GM guy's at the 95 autorama,
and all I got was BS, then removal from the Cobo center for wanting
to argue some points about money, design, and engineering.


They build them asthetically pleasing, but designed to crap,
they DO NOT want you working on it, they want their
respective dealer network to install new, but just
as crappy parts for you, at their labor, and at their parts pricing.

If they cared about what we wanted, they'd build it.
They want your money...that's the bottom line.

[38P]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

Aw come on, Bill. There's nothing more fun than sitting in a freezing rain trying to put on drum brake return springs with a pair of Vicegrips (because your brake spring tool is back in the shop and one of the rear adjusters decided to eat itself hundreds of miles away from home on a Sunday night . . . .)

On the other hand, having fought to remove corroded steel pins from Varga-style rear calipers (tip: fire up the torch; lube the replacement pins annually, replace torn boots imediately) rear discs aren't always wine and roses.

[min301]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

Aw come on, Bill. There's nothing more fun than sitting in a freezing rain trying to put on drum brake return springs with a pair of Vicegrips (because your brake spring tool is back in the shop and one of the rear adjusters decided to eat itself hundreds of miles away from home on a Sunday night . . . .)

On the other hand, having fought to remove corroded steel pins from Varga-style rear calipers (tip: fire up the torch; lube the replacement pins annually, replace torn boots imediately) rear discs aren't always wine and roses.

Actually, the fix was to use either stainless steel pins,
or bronze bush the caliper after honing the hole out fr it to fit.

Would have increased the price of each car ...maybe $.05 each.
They just don't give a shit.

[IRONHEAD]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

Aw come on, Bill. There's nothing more fun than sitting in a freezing rain trying to put on drum brake return springs with a pair of Vicegrips (because your brake spring tool is back in the shop and one of the rear adjusters decided to eat itself hundreds of miles away from home on a Sunday night . . . .)

On the other hand, having fought to remove corroded steel pins from Varga-style rear calipers (tip: fire up the torch; lube the replacement pins annually, replace torn boots imediately) rear discs aren't always wine and roses.

Actually, the fix was to use either stainless steel pins,
or bronze bush the caliper after honing the hole out fr it to fit.

Would have increased the price of each car ...maybe $.05 each.
They just don't give a shit.

if all the parts where made in house. you'd have a point..
but they are not. and when the issues show themselves , two+ years later.. the damage is done..
at least the cam's didn't break. ;D

[min301]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

There was a TSB available as early as 1989 concerning this very issue.

I may even have a paper copy of it somewhere...
Don't quote me, but as I was in a GM dealer selling them at the time
I remember having to fix them under warranty, and alot.

I also remember working for aftermarket brake shops
running rackets on these cars.

We could get the calipers(remanned) with SS pins,
and bronze bushings for $30.00 each.

Some places sold em for as much as $299.
I made 20%, and gave customers the break,
plus got my labor. ;D

I'm almost tired of them.

[38P]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

Aw come on, Bill. There's nothing more fun than sitting in a freezing rain trying to put on drum brake return springs with a pair of Vicegrips (because your brake spring tool is back in the shop and one of the rear adjusters decided to eat itself hundreds of miles away from home on a Sunday night . . . .)

On the other hand, having fought to remove corroded steel pins from Varga-style rear calipers (tip: fire up the torch; lube the replacement pins annually, replace torn boots imediately) rear discs aren't always wine and roses.

Actually, the fix was to use either stainless steel pins,
or bronze bush the caliper after honing the hole out fr it to fit.

Would have increased the price of each car ...maybe $.05 each.
They just don't give a shit.

So true. But $.05 x 1,000,000 units is $50,000. Some of those bean counters would go stark raving crazy for that kind of savings.

[if all the parts where made in house. you'd have a point..
but they are not. and when the issues show themselves , two+ years later.. the damage is done..

But who sets the specs for the parts purchased from outside vendors? Buying parts for an OEM isn't exactly like going down to Walmart and picking up whatever cheap imported POS they've got in stock. The supply contracts typically are bid based on detailed specs.

The sorts of design mistakes we're talking about should have been obvious to nearly any reasonably trained engineer who was paying attention. And stuff like burying a heater core a day's journey under the dash or making the fuel pump ridiculously hard to access or putting bolts behind immovable structures can't be pushed off on suppliers.

Bottom line: if it moves, it's going to fail.
If it's electrical, it's going to fail(squared).
If water, saltwater, and or exhaust can get into it, it's going to fail(cubed).
If it's a consumable (i.e. brakes, belts, filters), then it's going to "fail" several times over the life of the vehicle.
If it's designed-to-a-price-point part that restricts performance, somebody's going to want to replace it with an aftermarket upgrade.

In short, it's foreseeable that the the bad parts are going to be taken off out in the field at some point, often by someone other than a $50-$100/hr factory-trained technician. So that should be taken into account in the design. If not, then I've got to agree with Bill.

Hopefully this will get better with savvy integrated teams designing more vehicles instead of the isolated component design bureaucracies typical of the past.

[IRONHEAD]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

sorry the engineers are only concerns are with it working till warrenty is up. and ease of build..
they don't care, and shouldn't care if the tech bitches that it's a pain to change.. if that was the case there wouldn't be any front drive stick shift cars as changing out a clutch sucks in them all, unless it's a u r a bus from the 80's and those it was easier to pull the engine to change the clutch..

[BangShift McT]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

I had to do it...and it probably should merit it's own thread, but it seemed fitting here.

Top Ten Pain-In-My-Ass Repairs by Remy-Z

10: Spindle replacement, '78 LeBaron coupe. Tools required: Sledgehammer. For three days in our sleepy town in southern Illinois, all you heard was the sound of father and son beating the shit out of the front end of this car (and a disproportional amount of swearing should the hammer miss. Which it did. FOUR times.)


9: Engine Removal, '87 Diplomat. What asinine engineer tucked the oil filter between the exhaust manifold and the pre-catalytic converter, in the "U"-shaped well?! Two experienced gearheads (and my ex-wife!) wondered in unision if there was still a good amount of Valium on the table at Chrysler when that beauty was approved.

8: Spark plugs, '73 Mercury Comet GT 302. I'm 6'4". My hand is the size of Richard Simmons' HEAD. No shit..I actually conned my friend's girlfriend to doing this one for me...it was mission, impossible.

7. Electrical diagnosis, '84 Ford LTD (Fox-Body). My autoshop project: Why doesn't the former CSPD detective's car not run? Answer: Nobody has the patience to find out WTF is wrong with it. I troubleshot that car for my entire time in the school district...never did figure out what was wrong with it.

6. CV joints, '84 Nissan Sentra. Nevermind Godzilla working on a Micro-Machine...

5. Starting issue, '78 Dodge Diplomat. God, I hated this car. Passionately. It belonged to an ex-girlfriend, we got this rolling piece of shit for $200 (and we got screwed in the deal!) I cleaned the engine and must've knocked something loose. Her dad worked some kind of miracle on it and jury-rigged it to run. It died in an electrical fire a few months later.

4. Fuel delivery issue, '79 Caprice. Remy + GM product with a carb= volley of burning fuel from the carb going the wrong way. This has since become some sick rite-of-passage for me.

3. Engine troubleshooting, '75 Ford Granada. You could see pistons 4 and 5 through the hole in the block. The damn thing ran. I slammed the hood before the owner could see and said, "Looks fine to me!". Car belonged to my brother.... ;D

2. Starter replacement, '89 Toyota Celica All-Trac Turbo. Only Fox Mustang guys who've had to do the heater core can bitch for the amout of shit that had to be removed. Like the exhaust manifold. Heat shield. Lower valance. And this is the car that enforced the idea in my head that Haynes manuals SUCK for in-depth work on some cars. All for a starter the size of my fist.

1. '87 Chevy K-10. Timmy's truck. Lord, what didn't we do to this poor beast? We tried to do a lift-kit, but the suspension bolts and nuts acted like they were welded on. We replaced the bed due to rust...as a joke, we tried to lift it off without unbolting the bed floor. We SUCCEEDED. Driving it once, I forgot how weak the floor was and ended up stomping onto the transmission, a couple of inches ahead of the U-joint. The taillight fell out and swung by the wire often. "Replace the truck but keep the motor" became the war chant, and was promptly ignored by the owner.

[Scott Liggett]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

LMAO!!!

[horsewidower]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

I just spent the better part of a day trying to get two bolts into the bottom part of the flange for a lower intake manifold of an '86 Mustang SVO. All I could think of was this thread. I was only successful after taking everything off the engine around the part.

It was so bad that my wife, for the first time in our 23 year marriage, offered to give it a try.

[Mr4Speed]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

I have had an engineer hate moment on most every car I ever had or worked on except one-my 85 Toyota pickup. Everything I ever did on it was easy, and everything on it seemed to be over-built for the application. I guess that's why they're the preferred vehicle in third world countries.

[IRONHEAD]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

I have had an engineer hate moment on most every car I ever had or worked on except one-my 85 Toyota pickup. Everything I ever did on it was easy, and everything on it seemed to be over-built for the application. I guess that's why they're the preferred vehicle in third world countries.

you never tried to take the rotted bolts out of the bed.. without the bed falling apart

[38P]

Re: Speedzzter Says: Why Do Automotive Engineers Hate Us?

Top Ten Pain-In-My-Ass Repairs by Remy-Z

Well said! He hate you a lot . . . .

I just spent the better part of a day trying to get two bolts into the bottom part of the flange for a lower intake manifold of an '86 Mustang SVO. All I could think of was this thread. I was only successful after taking everything off the engine around the part.

It was so bad that my wife, for the first time in our 23 year marriage, offered to give it a try.

So did she get 'em started?

I've got a love-hate relationship with the Lima 2.3 turbo 4. Not the easiest mill to work on, for sure.