Tight-ass manufacturer short cuts and cost saves

[grogee]

What are your favourite manufacturer cost-saves? I'll start the ball rolling with MK1 Panda grille, mounted one way round for air cooled and t'other way up for posh water cooled models. 

Then there's Skoda using a hatchback bootlid on their estates so they don't have to tool up for a separate version. 

[timolloyd]

The first thing that springs to mind is the L/H and R/H drive dash holes in the SD1, with the spare hole filled with a vent.

[New POD]

Garrett (Honeywell engine boosting) 

Rather than drill 2 holes, Mark an aluminium plate, and rivet it to the compressor housing they (we) decided to Percusion Mark the aluminium housing saving £0.17956765498765 per turbo. 

Rather than machine a flat on the housing for washers to sit flat on, they used bolts that had a shoulder which eas serated that cut its own flat.  Saving the cost of machining, and the cost of a washer x 8. Oh no wait. They decided to have slightly bigger bolts  and drill 2 less holes.  Total saving per turbo £1.2345239865

Lucas.  Smart stop start solenoid. Rather than have the plunger during in a brass tube with an o ring at either end (On the outside diameter of it) and a brass washer at the end, (to stop the plunger sticking due to magnetic attraction) replaced with a brass flat ended bullet and one seal. Saving £0.48 per DPC pump x 1 million a year x 7 year product life. 

[New POD]

Citroen: 

3 wheel nuts. 

[Dyslexic Viking]

The T-150K tractor from Kharkiv tractor plant used the same door on both sides, which meant that one side had a suicide door while the other had a regular door.

[Skcat]

39 minutes ago, grogee said:

Then there's Skoda using a hatchback bootlid on their estates so they don't have to tool up for a separate version.

Its even worse then that, if you pull the carpet up on the estate you can see where the estate "extension" is welded onto the hatch body. At least there was on mine! 

What about the volvo 200 estate using saloon doors so only one set of doors would need to be made. It's the same on the 700 and 900 series but the 200 looks odd due to the doors having the odd saloon shape up top. 

[MrBiscuits]

Peugeot 309 & 205 using the same doors (took me years to spot that despite owning a 309 😀)

Ford were good at this too, mk1 & mk2 escort estates had the same panels from the front wings back. 

Also Land-rover Discovery - the first ones had sherpa (freight rover) headlights, Maestro van rear lights and Marina door handles

[MJK 24]

Back to the Panda’s in the OP, I think they had flat glass so that the same glass could be used in the NS and OS.

[MrBiscuits]

No expense was spared on the Favorit van either, I always thought this looked odd:

 

[MJK 24]

The vast majority of manufacturers today…

Remove the spare wheel and tool kit

[Missy Charm]

Morris Marina Coupe: they didn't want to make special doors for it so used the front doors from the saloon.  The coupes were three inches shorter than the saloon, overall, but had the same wheelbase so the proportions were odd.  It's effectively a two door four door, aesthetically speaking, like some old fashioned kustoms with welded up rear doors.  

The saloon looked like this.  I'd wager that with a little bit of bodywork alteration it would be possible to fit saloon rear doors to a coupe, creating a four door variant.  The gap between the rear wheelarch and back of the front door looks very similar on both types.  

[wuvvum]

31 minutes ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

The T-150K tractor from Kharkiv tractor plant used the same door on both sides, which meant that one side had a suicide door while the other had a regular door.

See also: new Citroën Ami.

[sheffcortinacentre]

The MK1/2 escort van was the same from doors back too it also used 105E Anglia rear doors & rear 1/4 bumpers (the MK2 van had square frt bumpers as per car).

The MK3/4/5 cortina EST used the same shell (only the rear doors/ wings, scuttle panel ,frt valance panels,slam panel differed on the mk3).

Same for MK1/2 Granada EST.

[RoverFolkUs]

Left hand drive wiper mechanisms..

Renault & Peugeot being the prime culprits (MK2 Clio, MK2 Grand Scenic, 206 etc) 

Instead of engineering a RHD mechanism like most other manufacturers, they just add in another linkage to the offside arm to increase the sweep

Despite how irrational it is, it irritates me every time I see one - it's like they thought "oh shit, we forgot to make a RHD model, quickly think of as many things we can leave as they are" 

See also - bonnet releases on our passenger side...

[Split_Pin]

Said nobody:

The entire Rover range 2001 to 2005.

Everything from the deletion of the badge on the key fob, removal of plastic caps from the lower seat belt bolts, to the substitution of wood with plastic on the dashboard.

 

[Crusty Sills]

This has always annoyed me.

VAG (various models) on a facelift, moved the side indicators from the wing to the wing mirror.

Adding a stupid little fucking badge in the oval indicator recess!!! 

Also see Ford Focus MK2 face lift for the same 

 

[HMC]

6 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Left hand drive wiper mechanisms..

Renault & Peugeot being the prime culprits (MK2 Clio, MK2 Grand Scenic, 206 etc) 

Instead of engineering a RHD mechanism like most other manufacturers, they just add in another linkage to the offside arm to increase the sweep

Despite how irrational it is, it irritates me every time I see one - it's like they thought "oh shit, we forgot to make a RHD model, quickly think of as many things we can leave as they are" 

See also - bonnet releases on our passenger side...

@dollywobbler ^
 

Rover 45- later models have the passenger front windows lift on the transmission tunnel only - so it doubles as the main passenger switch and in lieu of extra componenty on  the driver’s door. Clever but stingy.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

There seem to be a number of Ford lickers on here so thought I'd ask.

Mk1 Onions had a stubby tailpipe as standard. It was much shorter than the equivalent on the mk3 Escort and tucked quite far in contrast. Father Longbridge replaced his C plate Onion with an E plate Ghia equivalent with a mild facelift. From what I remember, the tailpipe had a short extension piece bolted onto the end from new so it appeared someone in Ford decided to do a cheap fix*. 

Can anyone confirm this? I'm assuming the exhaust was sourced from the Escort and then bodged onto its booted brother to save Ford's design team a few £££ ...

As an aside, Orions have aged very well, haven't they?

[Leyland Worldmaster]

I had a VW Lupo. An early example. When I looked at later ones in the showroom, I noticed quite a lot of cost cutting. 

One that really stood out was replacement of  chromed metal door opening levers with plastic ones... 

At odds with the their perceived quality image... 🤓

[artdjones]

[HMC]

7 minutes ago, Crusty Sills said:

This has always annoyed me.

VAG (various models) on a facelift, moved the side indicators from the wing to the wing mirror.

Adding a stupid little fucking badge in the oval indicator recess!!! 

Also see Ford Focus MK2 face lift for the same 

 

Mercedes of a similar era did this but then also revised the tooling to avoid having the redundant hole. So very thorough- except they then did a short cut and time save on the rust prevention instead.

 

 

[HMC]

Sometimes these little short cuts are beneficial- some manufacturers supply a fairly standard loom to most models so lower spec models are often plug and play with DIY bolt on extras - eg elec/ heated seats.

[Missy Charm]

6 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

There seem to be a number of Ford lickers on here so thought I'd ask.

Mk1 Onions had a stubby tailpipe as standard. It was much shorter than the equivalent on the mk3 Escort and tucked quite far in contrast. Father Longbridge replaced his C plate Onion with an E plate Ghia equivalent with a mild facelift. From what I remember, the tailpipe had a short extension piece bolted onto the end from new so it appeared someone in Ford decided to do a cheap fix*. 

Can anyone confirm this? I'm assuming the exhaust was sourced from the Escort and then bodged onto its booted brother...

As an aside, Orions have aged very well, haven't they?

I had a G reg Orion at one point and don't remember there being anything odd about the exhaust pipe, other than the amount of blue smoke that used to come out of it of course!  Perhaps your one was just an oddity.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

4 minutes ago, Missy Charm said:

I had a G reg Orion at one point and don't remember there being anything odd about the exhaust pipe, other than the amount of blue smoke that used to come out of it of course!  Perhaps your one was just an oddity.

Nope. Standard setup on them as per photos. 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Also, car manufacturers that use nice feeling plastics, etc in the front of the car, and harder; less nice feeling materials in the back... 

Noticed this with VW Golf, Audi A3 and some Ford Focuses... 

[HMC]

Early standard 8- no opening bootlid.

Rock bottom penny pinching; later reconsidered.

[Missy Charm]

4 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Nope. Standard setup on them as per photos. 

I'm still not sure what you mean.  Mine looked like this:

Except in white.

[Zelandeth]

Pug 107 and its variants was a fantastic example of penny pinching...though I don't really feel it's fair to call it that as it wasn't a car that was made cheaply, rather it was a car that was designed to be cheap to make.

[] Instrument pod attached to the steering column rather than dash, minimising the amount of mouldings differing for LHD/RHD cars.

[] Identical ns/os seats.

[] Power window switch on the respective doors only.

[] Interior light switch on the driver's door only (that DID feel like penny pinching).

[] "Frameless" bootlid ala Citroen AX.  Albeit less prone to spontaneously shattering I believe.

Sure there were a dozen other things they'd done to simplify construction too but I can't remember them all now.  Despite that though it never felt cheap or flimsy, and when you realise when it was launched it still was a clever bit of packaging.  Only really started to show its age when VW came out with the Up and started to shove big-car luxury toys into shopping trolleys.

[Zelandeth]

5 minutes ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Also, car manufacturers that use nice feeling plastics, etc in the front of the car, and harder; less nice feeling materials in the back... 

Noticed this with VW Golf, Audi A3 and some Ford Focuses... 

VW do that with the accent lighting in a load of models too - runs all the way across the dash and along both front doors - nothing in the back though!  That just feels so obviously stingy.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

4 minutes ago, Missy Charm said:

I'm still not sure what you mean.  Mine looked like this:

Except in white.

Yes, yours was a facelift, same as my father's E plate Ghia.

I mentioned in my post that the facelift cars had a sleeved extension bolted over the end of the tailpipe to make the exhaust longer. I think you're missing the entire point I'm stating about the pre-facelift Orions which didn't have this...