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What is wrong with design Engineers ?


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The caliper carrier bolts are wedged right up against the rear beam casting, which means to remove the discs the hub must come off. Removing the hub inevitably means the cheap, fragile wheel bearings are destroyed 

 

 

 

Fuck me!  :shock:

 

That's the kind of shit I'm talking about.

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That Panda design will have been due to one Engineer being given the task of using an off-the-shelf caliper, and being told how much space is available, and a completely different Engineer designing the axle and the bearing/hub location.

 

As is so often the case, if it was just one design Engineer designing the entire assembly, working without restrictions or policies, it would all be far better designed.

 

... Like how 1960's / 1970's Mercs were. Designed by Engineers. The accountants simply had to work out how much they had to charge the customer to make a profit.

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Someone who can never be without their McCostafortunestarbucks Coffee, a McBurgerkindonalds Milkshake or a McGiantslurpee6tonnesofsugar Coke.

 

I suspect very much that it might be aimed at the motoring market in the Colonies.

 

 

 

Or St.Albans.

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The new Subaru Ascent...

Is it being praised for being Subarus's biggest car yet?

Maybe everyone is applauding it's brand new 2.4 Boxer engine?

Nope

It's all about the Nineteen cup holders it comes with....!

Who the feck decided it needed 19 cup holders.?

And I thought the Tribeca was shit. My eyes are soiled.

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Xantia clutch pedal, plastic clip breaks and you can't replace the fucker easily as the bolt head is next to the brake pedal, this then needs a fucking prybar taking to it get enough clearance to get the bolt out, on LHD Xantias it's all fucking dreamy though  

 

A bit of consideration in putting the twatting bolt in the opposite way would have been dandy on RHD

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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.

CAD- computer aided dystopia - packaging is a cunt
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Xantia clutch pedal, plastic clip breaks and you can't replace the fucker easily as the bolt head is next to the brake pedal, this then needs a fucking prybar taking to it get enough clearance to get the bolt out, on LHD Xantias it's all fucking dreamy though

 

A bit of consideration in putting the twatting bolt in the opposite way would have been dandy on RHD

To be fair the plastic clip breaks cos the clutch is fucked and bloody heavy

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A bit of consideration in putting the twatting bolt in the opposite way would have been dandy on RHD

 

Been there done that, several times.

 

No one is going to convince me that Fiat don't know exactly what is involved in changing those rear pads on the Panda.

They just hope that by the time it needs them it's out of warranty.

So basically the don't care. 

 

Fiat were always seen as clever in the slick design of their cars, it reality it has always been how cheap can we make this, how can we make it

quicker to assemble on the line.

 

All this is nothing new, lots of late 80's  small Fiats had something that failed on the steering column can't remember what, but it meant a whole new

column to fix but that one part would make the whole car scrap due to it's cost.

Also as it was a common fault they were very unobtainium second hand.

 

I'm loving the idea of ECU controlled oil and coolant pumps, WCPGW there!

Honest mate it was running great till a broken wire totally wrecked the engine.

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To be fair the plastic clip breaks cos the clutch is fucked and bloody heavy

 

 

On that very subject.

1.9 TZD BX with millions of miles on it snapped it's clutch cable.

I used to run a BX so I knew changing this cable was not easy, bad access and clips bolted in hard to reach places.

 

Anyway the cable was changed over two nights after work with much swearing and skint knuckles.

First press of the clutch pedal the new cable snapped, " BRIDGED"

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No one is going to convince me that Fiat don't know exactly what is involved in changing those rear pads on the Panda.

They just hope that by the time it needs them it's out of warranty.

So basically the don't care. 

 

No need to touch that bolt to change the pads, and in my experience, Panda rear discs last forever as the car is so light, just run with the handbrake on a bit for a few hundred yards every now and again to wipe the surface rust off.. Renners used to have discs with built in bearings which cost a bit to change.

 

You know what pisses me off more than anything else? Aluminium and steel being used together. The problems that brings as "modern" cars get older. Just wait until they need a suspension overhaul or wheel bearings, and put your big hammers and oxy away as that is asking for trouble.

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torx has a better mechanical fix / mate than a hex - that;s the entire reason for   'fancy' fittings  since forever  ...  ironically of course hex was an attempt to  improve on  square or  just  flattened heads 

 

I know this to be true. But in the past I have had to find a way to automate both internal and external hex fasteners, and found it was possible if not particularly elegant.

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It's all for commonisation though innit.

 

New POD, would have thought you would know this as its your line of work isn't it?

 

Presumably someone somewhere in Opel has done themselves a 6 sigma project to either commonise all sump plugs, or find the best one and apply to all platforms.

 

Having the tooling, pick bins etc on a station to do more than 1 kind of fastening is a cost, proliferation is bad times for assembly lines.

 

Also, if you manage to get everything using the same sump plug you can probably save $0.005 per vehicle for buying a larger quantity.

 

Someone somewhere has worked this out to be a saving of X million dollars to the company and got a big pat on the back and a chairman's award for it.

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just remembered my old Mk4 strada , it used to like snapping clutch cables ,due to the RHS conversion  the clutch wire would go thro the bulkhead and around a small pulley , then across to the bell housing , the wire would snap at the pulley , so they changed the pulley into a bigger pulley ...... and it still snapped .

so they then come up with a quadrant which worked !!!  , it got to the stage where I could change the cable in half an hour or drive with out a clutch 

 

sold the car with the spare clutch cable in the boot

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" Also, if you manage to get everything using the same sump plug you can probably save $0.005 per vehicle for buying a larger quantity"

 

my last job was the rationalisation of electronic parts , engineers would just raise new part requests for projects  for parts on the market as opposed to looking throu what the company already bought and had coded ,!!!

it paid to try and buy lots of the same or similar part from the same supplier so we got good prices and support , especially if allocation was enforced , and the supplier them selves wanted to get onboard new projects to keep the dosh flowing , it just amazes me how electronic car parts all seem to be custom deigned with one project in mind , whilst the running gear seems to share a lot of parts ..

 

as you say another car , another design of sump plug !

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Someone who can never be without their McCostafortunestarbucks Coffee, a McBurgerkindonalds Milkshake or a McGiantslurpee6tonnesofsugar Coke.

 

I suspect very much that it might be aimed at the motoring market in the Colonies.

 

The big holder for the KFC bucket is probably redundant now. Could be replaced by three smaller holders to up the total count.

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The big holder for the KFC bucket is probably redundant now. Could be replaced by three smaller holders to up the total count.

 

 

"No more chicken corpses, ah ah ah!"

 

"More space for the family to go the obesity clinic, bleh!"

 

"This Picasso is fucked, blame Alucard!"

 

*[stops channelling Transylvanian John F]* 

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Someone somewhere has worked this out to be a saving of X million dollars to the company and got a big pat on the back and a chairman's award for it.

 

Nah, they never get the Chairman's award. His award goes to someone, and American called Brad, Or Buddy, Or Todd, who outsources relief valve poppets to a Chinese shower of shite, which subsequently results in First pass Yeild on the Automated test rigs in the UK going from 98% to 50%, whilst simultaneously blaming the engineer who put the test rigs in, and refusing to accept that just achieving the tolerance clearly isn't good enough, and maybe the actual design drawing isn't good enough, because the tolerances are actually too loose, but was masked by the fact the the UK supplier was making them to a much tighter spec than the tolerance allowed.

Oh yes, you Yanky, gun toting, crimpalean suit wearing Purchasing "Professional*", you saved $Fuckloads on paper, but caused New POD to have a fucking nightmare 5 weeks where all he did was experiment after fucking experiment to find the fucking cause, and even when presented with the facts refused to accept there was actually a problem. FFS we used 1000 of these things a shift and how many did you have measured before changing supplier ? 5 Fucking 5.  

It was at this point I may have had a breakdown and spent some time, lying on the back seat of a Calibre crying. The same Calibre that threw a Rod through the block the day before my summer holiday as if to say "Ah fuck you, you know nothing - twat"

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My younger brother works for JLR, and doesn't drive one.  He tells me that some of the problems in design engineering are caused by:

1) An obsession with weight saving which is unhealthy.  They are given unbelievably tight weight targets for all new designs and that is a key driver in decision making.

2) Very tight time restrictions for the launch of new vehicles which can mean that unsuitable designs from previous products are recycled into new applications.

3) Surprisingly frequent changes in first tier partner suppliers and a relationship which is not always as mutually helpful as it should be.

4) A very clear message in the organisation that the target lifespan of products is a maximum of 7 years or 100,000 miles.  Beyond that, there is no expectation for them to be in use.

These restrictions will almost inevitably lead to problems for owners who want to keep vehicles running or carry out maintenance themselves.

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My younger brother works for JLR,

 

4) A very clear message in the organisation that the target lifespan of products is a maximum of 7 years or 100,000 miles.  Beyond that, there is no expectation for them to be in use.

 

 

Back in the 90's I got talking to the Chief Design Engineer at Lucas Car braking, and he reckoned that "The Japanese" had an obsession with NO defects or failures in the first 3 years whereas USA and Europe had a target of try and achieve a design life of 100K with minimal failures. He said that invariably the Japanese target meant that often life expectancy was higher, because to be sure of no failures in the first 3 years they needed to make sure it was more robust.

 

I guess that in 20 Years Car manufacturers just got more cynical, world wide.

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