Thread: Whats the most difficult (stupid,poor engineering,assxxxxx) thing you've run across??

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The heater cores in some rigs seem like they hung the core from a string from the ceiling and built the rest of the car around it.

While working at the Chevy V8 engine plant in Flint, Michigan, I was selected by my boss to attend a “Design for Assembly” seminar at the GM Tech Center in Warren, Mi. This was probably about 1985 or '86. I was just a poor hourly worker, on the assembly line, so I thought it was special for me to be asked to go. At that time we were assembling the TPI engines for Corvette and Camaro. All of the bolts that held the plenum tubes to the intake manifold and plenum had to be started by hand before any bolt could be tightened. A real nightmare on an assembly line. At the seminar there were about 30 people in attendance, of which I was one of about 3 assembly line workers. The rest were engineers of one type or another. When I explained about how difficult assembly of these engines was, all seemed surprised. When asked how many of these engineers had ever been in an assembly plant and watched the parts they had designed being assembled, none raised their hand. If they can’t be bothered to design something easy to assemble in a factory mass production setting, don’t be surprised when it it is even more difficult to repair in your garage.

I worked at V8 in the late 70's, 78-79. I was in the crank departement and ran the grinders for operation 20, both manual and auto. I agree with the "hands on" statement. I wish more of our engineers would be required to have that experience. Of course it is moot when there is just so much you can do to package a component and most of the "engineers" you work with are younger then your kids...

It used to be that when a car hit 100k miles it was pretty well done. Todays cars reach 100k miles and still look new in some cases. It has been my experience that up to 100k miles the cars have needed very little in the way of repairs.

I appreciate the engineer's frustration, and do have some understanding of the demands of modern manufacturing. But it might be prudent to point out that Henry designed the T specifically for the engine and transmission to be removed easily- to allow them to power America's farms. (pumps, wood mills, etc.)
I had thought the auto industry was going to shift to a modular design platform, fly-by-wire. The body shell would lift off easily ( with the proper equipment ) and the drivetrain would be completely exposed to facilitate maintenance.

Instead, cars are evolving the other direction, with the drivetrain and body heavily integrated and therefore more difficult to maintenance.

Originally Posted by firebird77clone

I appreciate the engineer's frustration, and do have some understanding of the demands of modern manufacturing. But it might be prudent to point out that Henry designed the T specifically for the engine and transmission to be removed easily- to allow them to power America's farms. (pumps, wood mills, etc.)
I had thought the auto industry was going to shift to a modular design platform, fly-by-wire. The body shell would lift off easily ( with the proper equipment ) and the drivetrain would be completely exposed to facilitate maintenance.

Instead, cars are evolving the other direction, with the drivetrain and body heavily integrated and therefore more difficult to maintenance.

And that is because, in order to meet all of those federally mandated requirements, EVERYTHING has to be integrated to meet fuel efficency AND crash. You cannot build a light weight vehicle for fuel mileage and have it pass a crash test. Therefore all of the components become "stressed members" to get the car to pass crash. There is no win/win here. Some things have to be compromised to meet the FMVSS goals. If servicability is one of them that is what it needs to be. This is not the direction we want to go, believe me, it is required to sell cars in the US.

Originally Posted by astroracer

And that is because, in order to meet all of those federally mandated requirements, EVERYTHING has to be integrated to meet fuel efficency AND crash. You cannot build a light weight vehicle for fuel mileage and have it pass a crash test. Therefore all of the components become "stressed members" to get the car to pass crash. There is no win/win here. Some things have to be compromised to meet the FMVSS goals. If servicability is one of them that is what it needs to be. This is not the direction we want to go, believe me, it is required to sell cars in the US.

Well said. A new Corvette, designed to have the room for service that they had back in '57 but having all of the features that are mandated today would probably grow by a foot or more in length, width and height and then would not be the sporty vehicle of it's heritage. As you say, there's not a win/win to be had, and look at the improvements in efficiency, reliability, maintenance schedules and overall vehicle life that we enjoy today. Again, you get my applause and admiration for the things you accomplish.

they are longer and wider than 1953------------

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

they are longer and wider than 1953------------

and handle better and go a heck of a lot faster!!!! Amazing how they managed to keep the weight down!!!!!

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

and handle better and go a heck of a lot faster!!!! Amazing how they managed to keep the weight down!!!!!

Aluminum and plastic and a lot of the latter

Probably the worst I've ever had to do was on the wife's 97 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I had to replace the evaporator coil. When I finely got to it there wasn't anything left on the firewall other than paint. Took 2 days and a lot of room for parts taken off. There is a door that controls temp. in the cabin. It has a nylon washer on the bottom to allow it free movement. After changing the evap. and heater core. I put it back together, putting the washer on the bottom of the shaft where I took it from.....BUT I assembled it upside down for ease of assembly which ment I put the washer on top. I did that job twice. I will never work on that car again I sold it and bought another Suburban.

Originally Posted by techinspector1

Several years ago, I bought a brand new '94 Nissan Quest to use in our courier service in the Phoenix area. It was mostly a good vehicle and I did most of the routine maintenance myself. It developed a coolant leak from a hose that was in between the cylinder banks and I didn't feel like fooling with it, so I took it to the dealer. It cost me a little over $1,400 to replace that hose, as the tech had to almost completely disassemble the motor to get to it. Ask me if I wanted to have my hands around the engineer's neck!!!!!

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Ahhhh, The famous rusted out coolant tube under the intake. Dang cheapos, making that tube outa stainless would have cost a bunch of customers and mechanics a heck of less grief.

As much as some things have gotten worse, some have gotten better, heck the computer tells you whats going wrong half the time(although without the computer tech stuff it would be easier to fix!). The one thing that was truely easy to fix was replacing my serpentine belt on the MR2. There is a piston controled tensioner, that you justplace a socket wrench on a it releases the tension while you slip the old belt off, and place the new belt on. I remember dropping off the car at the toyota dealer for an oil change, and being told I needed to replace the serpentine belt. I asked how much and they quoted me something like 225 bucks. I said I'll think about it, went to their parts department and asked how much for the belt, and got the 80.00 dollar figure. Went home and looked it up on the internet, found out how quick and easy it was, printed the pulley flow diagram for the belt, called a few part stores to find the most expensive belt was under 25 bucks, called toyota parts and asked again how much the belt was, talked the guy way down in price, bought the Toyota belt(probably made by gates!) and had it done in less than a few minutes. Mostly my service dept. is pretty good with fair pricing, but in this case they have to charge a full hour for labor, and the marked up value for the part. If you ever owned a sardine can, and opened it looking at the lack of space between the fish, you'd know why I hate the thought of working on the MR2, but I'm also a cheap Bas@$%#^ so some things are worth the pain, difinately not an oil change though!

Originally Posted by HWORRELL

Ahhhh, The famous rusted out coolant tube under the intake. Dang cheapos, making that tube outa stainless would have cost a bunch of customers and mechanics a heck of less grief.

There's one just like it on Fords

Replaced the compressor clutch bearing the other day----$14----------shops want $750-900 to replace the compressor and recharge system------------used a old truck mirror and flash lite-realized why all the stuff is mounted on the left side and lots of room on the other side-drivers side is the corner they do a crash test on and the more stuff there the more to compress /absorb the impact




anyway, nice cold air now and also have picked out the options on the Ford I'll get her when the next thing goes wrong---