What is wrong with design Engineers ?

[New POD]

So, Today the boy wonder and I serviced 2 mk4 astras. Both 1.6 16V's One a W reg and one a 54 Reg.

 

So we did the early car first and there's a nice big 19mm hex sump plug.

 

Then to the later car. The sump plug has some torx fastening, but amazingly, I couldn't find one in the particular size in my extensive tool box.

 

No excuse, I'll buy one when I find out what size it is, and do the oil change next week.

 

But WHY the need to change ? Pointless.

 

[twosmoke300]

Torx 45 , feels like a 40 but is a 45 . Iirc it's only 13nm torque but they always get over tightened by monkeys

[bub2006]

The Vectra has the torx sump. The ex wife's both rounded off on the two we had. I'm going to check the one on the new sump before fitting it.

[Lacquer Peel]

Changes like that can be due to increased automation, that's why late Peugeot 405s have heinous bayonet fittings for the radiator hoses instead of clips.

[seth]

Accountants is what is wrong with design engineers.

[forddeliveryboy]

Accountants is what is wrong with design engineers.

 

I hate it too, but it's why cars are so cheap to buy. Our whole economic system is destroying the world which has nurtured us. Free trade and markets are good, but we don't have them.

[New POD]

Changes like that can be due to increased automation, that's why late Peugeot 405s have heinous bayonet fittings for the radiator hoses instead of clips.

 

No reason why you can't automate a 19mm HEX SOCKET. and I can't see there's more than a few pennies in the cost of manufacture.

[New POD]

Torx 45 , feels like a 40 but is a 45 . Iirc it's only 13nm torque but they always get over tightened by monkeys

 

I may buy a set.

[beko1987]

Just hammer a larger socket over it... Or mole grips squeezed so tight over the edge of the sump plug it deforms the lip nicely, then a smack with a bfo. Thats how I got the fully rounded one out of the meriva for the last time before fitting a new sump plug after 5 oil changes going 'should prob change that soon...'

[Barry Cade]

Bit too early to be the type that pishes oil out in 4 directions before the sump plug is unscrewed completely. You do that once.

 

 

Just wait until you do a new Transit Connect. Plastic sump plug, 1/2 a turn.. I shit you not.

[forddeliveryboy]

Drill and tap. Prolly cheaper. Or remove and find a sensible, old-fashioned fitting. Always possible to suck oil out of the sump, too.

[twosmoke300]

Bit too early to be the type that pishes oil out in 4 directions before the sump plug is unscrewed completely. You do that once.

 

 

Just wait until you do a new Transit Connect. Plastic sump plug, 1/2 a turn.. I shit you not.

Ahh the 1.9d fiat motor with a banjo bolt as a sump plug . What knob thought that was a good idea . Connect sounds nearly as silly as the sprinter axles with a loose rubber grommet as a level plug !

[Barry Cade]

Ahh the 1.9d fiat motor with a banjo bolt as a sump plug . What knob thought that was a good idea . Connect sounds nearly as silly as the sprinter axles with a loose rubber grommet as a level plug !

Nope, the 1.6 TDCi with plastic sump, half turn plastic sump plug with an O ring.

 

 

*Edit*

sorry- sleepy! I see what you mean.

[Bren]

Ahh the 1.9d fiat motor with a banjo bolt as a sump plug . What knob thought that was a good idea . Connect sounds nearly as silly as the sprinter axles with a loose rubber grommet as a level plug !

That bolt is the reason I invested in a pela pump.

[Junkman]

 

What is wrong with design Engineers ?

 

They are either 4 years old, or deliberately pretend to be total retards.

Since 1986.

 

I'd love to meet one and kick his teeth in a little. That would make me feel a lot better.

[Richard]

My Xantia had a Mini sump plug, which worked much better than the one that was supposed to be in there.

 

Plastic sump sounds worrying. I hope that doesn't find its way onto the full size Transit, that's not going to last long in quarries.

[RayMK]

I have always assumed that the design office gives the simple bits to the university intern or an inexperienced new recruit, hence different sump fittings on a new model, non-preferred sizes and non-standard electrical connectors which take an age to find where the latching tab is.  I may have dreamt it, but I'm sure I had a car with a tapered pentagonal socket in the sump plug.  A precision mole wrench solves most sump plug woes.  Does the new Transit sump use recycled plastic from Mondeo bumpers?  Worrying .

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

BMW E36 heater resistor? 8 screws, glovebox assy out, 2 torx, swap part, refit glovebox. Around 30-40 mins, really easy.

 

BMW E46 heater resistor? Same part. But now it's on the drivers side and you have to remove the dash under tray, lie on your back in the most contorted way, remove a small stepper motor and bracket that will probably break as the plastic is so shit, swear profusely. 1-2 hours and an utter bastard of a job. And just about every other task on an E46 is an utter shit as well compared with what it used to be like.

 

E36 - designed by someone with common sense.

E46 - designed by a highly educated idiot.

[doobietoo]

rather than thinking about servicing they only think about putting it together easier and cheaper...it only needs to work three times and then the warranty is out and it is not their problem. I would imagine Kias are slightly better as they need to work seven times...

[garethj]

They are either 4 years old, or deliberately pretend to be total retards.

Since 1986.

 

I'd love to meet one and kick his teeth in a little. That would make me feel a lot better.

That would be me, it's been my job since I graduated in the early '90s so way after the 1986 deadline.

 

I've done a fair bit in the automotive industry, worked for first tier suppliers, aftermarket suppliers and still have lots of friends in the automotive industry so I know a bit about it.  The constraints are many, accountants is a good catch but if anything is to blame it's probably engineers not being good enough.  Not a popular opinion to hold in a room full of engineers, I can tell you.

 

If you can justify making a component or system stronger then it will be done, if you can't stand up to a bloke in a dull suit and matching tie who's "run the numbers" then you'll get walked over.

 

The other problem is there's a huge variety of abilities in the industry, the same as with any other job.  Compare your best schoolteacher with your worst, the best medical care you've experienced with your worst and that's what design engineers are like too.  Throw in the fact that loads of people like to meddle so any manager who can put up a shelf thinks he can tell you if your component is strong enough and it's not a great place to be if you can't fight your corner.

 

There are lots of processes and systems in place too, these are to catch the fuck-ups but (1) they can't catch them all, and (2) they can stifle creativity if you're not careful.

 

A bit of a long post but the truth may be as simple as the factory is already buying in 20 metric tonnes of the other fasteners and they can save a lot of money, money they'll spend in adding Bluetooth to your car horn or Xenon indicators - whatever they hope will sell more cars.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

^

 

But: the simpler, and easier something is to work on, the simpler, easier and cheaper it is to build.....?

 

BMW radiators are a case in point. Up until 1998, the rad was one piece, the expansion bottle built into the side. On the production line you drop it onto the plastic mounts, push the two clips down to locate it, three hoses, job done.

 

After that the expansion bottle was separate. So thee rad has to have a plastic frame fitted with clips. Then an expansion bottle has to be fitted, but only after the rad has been fitted. Autos and manuals have different bottle mounting frames. Clip on hoses (yuk).

 

This must cost more to make, involves more parts, is a twat to work on and offers no improvement - an answer to a question nobody asked. A simple, elegant rad set up replaced with a pile of shit.

[Dick Longbridge]

When I studied Design Technology alongside my teaching degree, our lecturer instilled the theory of KISS - keep it simple, shitface.

I can only assume that car designers have been taking the piss out of this idea for the last 10-15 years. Headlamp bulbs should take a couple of minutes to change, not a couple of fecking hours. Etc.

[garethj]

The radiator is an interesting one, the reasons for changing it could be

1. Tooling cost is lower

2. Scrap rate of new parts is lower

3. The new one is more flexible so you can use some components across other vehicles, lowering the cost and inventory

4. Some performance improvement where there's less volume of water close to the radiator so it warms up quicker

 

I'm guessing at these because I've never seen the old or the new one, but that's just off the top of my head.  Because cars are made in tens or hundreds of thousands, saving a penny or two does funny things to accountants when they multiply it up.  "Ah yes, the saving is only 3p per car but that's a net saving per year of £25,043.39 per year, or £125,762.12 across the lifetime of the vehicle".  That's when you've got to stand your ground and say "but when customers get charged £90 at the dealers to have a bulb changed, they might not be keen to buy another".

 

The other thing to bear in mind is that cars are incredibly complicated.  I've worked as design engineer in lots of industries and automotive is the trickiest.  Telecoms is straightforward, there aren't that many components.  Industrial products, you don't need to worry about how it looks.  Even things like ships which have lots of bits, you have lots of space and it's the last bit which is often a killer.

 

For every bit of design you put things where you want as a rough idea then find out more about the restrictions you've got as the design of your part and the ones next to you develops.  When you've got lots of room any changes are simple, when you've got no space to move the changes are slower, you've got to make more compromises with tooling or joining bits together so it all slows down.  There's the pressure of a deadline and a budget, both dreamed up years ago by someone not related to the design and that means that when the shit is about to hit the fan you have to compromise.  If that compromise is for a component that only needs to be changed every 8 years (at a guess for a headlight bulb) then that's the direction to take.

 

Also for the headlight bulbs, "value engineering" (what everybody does but avoids calling it Project Drive) means that some blokes stand around and talk about the features of each part, we all know that cars are bought and used very differently to how they were 20 or 30 years ago.  The design engineers are just responding to what most customers want and how most customers use their cars, maintenance is often very low down the list.

 

To chip in with something that's very wrong, design engineers have a ceiling to their salary.  Again, most people do and perhaps this is a wider problem, but certainly in engineering your best engineers often get made into managers and actually management is a difficult one to pull off - we know this because we can all count several crap managers we've had.  The skill set for it is often the opposite of what makes a good engineer so as a company develops sometimes you lose your best engineer and gain one of your worst managers.

 

I'd like to see jobs like a "technical specialist" where your best engineers go, they get paid as much as a manager but they do what they're good at.  Dunno if this happens in any other area, but it's a long time from happening in engineering.

[Station]

My mini warms up in minutes - it has taken about 15 minutes at least to even be slightly warm in every other car, how is this done so quickly?

[gordonbennet]

My mini warms up in minutes - it has taken about 15 minutes at least to even be slightly warm in every other car, how is this done so quickly?

 

Do you mean the engine is up to full operating temp, or the heater's putting out warm air.

Hilux was the latter, very fast warm up for a Diesel, apparently an element in the heater to provide warm air before the water would be anywhere near warm enough.

 

My Landcruiser is too old for that (though possible i suppose) but that too puts warm air through in silly quick time, petrol mind, unlike the Subaru which is probably the slowest to warm heater we've had on a car for years but then thats saddled with all this climate control bollocks and you need a degree in electronics to make head or tale of the dash display.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

The radiator is an interesting one, the reasons for changing it could be

1. Tooling cost is lower

2. Scrap rate of new parts is lower

3. The new one is more flexible so you can use some components across other vehicles, lowering the cost and inventory

4. Some performance improvement where there's less volume of water close to the radiator so it warms up quicker

 

 

My thoughts too. They also went to a mapped, ECU controlled thermostat at the same time. The rad design is similar too others, as is the expansion bottle. They run much higher temps, but on acceleration the ECU opens the stat and lowers it a few degrees. The stupid thing is, the (for example) 2002 318Ti has the Valvetronic engine (engine speed dictated by a computer controlled cam system and not a throttle body) with double vanos. It gives 143 bhp from 2.0.....that same as the previous, simple engine managed with 1.9 L. It's no faster or more economical because the car is now heavier. 

 

This is great for brochures, but in the real world, the car and its engine is an engineers wet dream. "LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO!".

 

Yes, you've created a fucking nightmare. You've made something incredibly complex out of cheap materials that requires serious attention after 6 years and 70'000 miles. Congratulations.

[Des]

I wanted to mention marketing as being a Satanic influence forcing the hand of the poor maligned designer, but ECU controlled thermostat? I hope someone jizzes in the designers biscuit barrel.

[Matt]

How long until drain plugs are gone and the only way to change oil is with a special tool that only main dealers have? It can't be far away surely.

 

 

Also what the AS feeling towards drain valves?

 

[cros]

By way of compensation for the oil that pisses out of the pinion bearing on my Morris, checking the level is an absolute pleasure.

Lovely knobbery, way over the top just for an axle, note the clips to stop them jumping out.

Some dipsticks are badly designed in that its hard to see the oil level on them when it is clean. Old cars didn't always get it right either, the Rover P4 has such a huge lump of flat steel to dip with that about half a pint dribbles down the side of the engine every time you dip it.

[cros]

New Jag/Rover engine has electric oil and water pumps, ECU tells them how much flow according to what the engine needs and when its weighing in time.