If you were going to design a car and you wanted to be a complete bastard…

[RustyNuts]

23 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

Anything held in by bolts which are a million different sizes, and invisible from above or underneath 

Or they're all the same size but different lengths - that fucked up a head gasket change for us years ago on a Mégane.

[lisbon_road]

31 minutes ago, RustyNuts said:

Or they're all the same size but different lengths - that fucked up a head gasket change for us years ago on a Mégane.

Having suspension arms with the same basic size bolt at each end but a different thread pitch - thinking older Vauxhalls here, no idea why they did that, doesn't worry me too much but I've had cars where someone else has put them in wrong and it all ends up with thread inserts.

[matt79]

Acceleration, braking and steering controlled by phone app.  (Left turn function disabled unless additional subscription fee is paid)

[Yoss]

10 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

 

also I feel obliged to mention @Yoss and his Routemaster which has not 1, not 2, but 4 fluorescent tubes behind a sealed advertising panel that only work when they feel like it and rarely all together at once  (its like if 1970's British leyland industrial relations was a fluorescent light installation...)

 

Actually 5 tubes, 4x4ft and a 2ft one at the end. And yes usually only three at a time worked but a different combination of three every time. 

[JMotor]

I'd have awkward mounting bolts for the subframe and suspension.

All different head sizes and all slightly too long so they clash straight into most areas of the body.

Or a clutch release bearing that can be only bled with a dealer only tool Said tool will be on  indefinite back order too, so even the dealer can't do it.

[sierraman]

I’d seal the cylinder head cover down with some sort of mastic that means you have to destroy it to remove it. 

[motorpunk]

Great thread! 
 

I’d have a car where you need to unbolt a panel to fill the washer bottle, and where the roof is held in place with plastic sticks. That’ll be my Lotus Elise, then.

[reb]

5 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

microchip implanted in the owners hand

I actually know several people with microchips in their hands. I dare not ask what they are for.

[cort16]

A suspension arm bolt that won't come out without removing the engine. It's important that it comes out pretty much all the way to build up hope then the last 3 mm stops it from being removed. 

[sierraman]

6 minutes ago, cort16 said:

A suspension arm bolt that won't come out without removing the engine. It's important that it comes out pretty much all the way to build up hope then the last 3 mm stops it from being removed. 

A’la Mondeo Mk1 on the gearbox side suspension arm bolt. Doing it proper required sub dropping down a bit. Or as I used to do fit the bolt the other way round and cut the bolt flush. 

[comfortablynumb]

15 minutes ago, cort16 said:

A suspension arm bolt that won't come out without removing the engine. It's important that it comes out pretty much all the way to build up hope then the last 3 mm stops it from being removed. 

Or a starter motor that's the same 

[sierraman]

2 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

Or a starter motor that's the same 

Rivet the starter motor in. Any attempts to remove mean the end of the rivet falls into the bell housing. 

[RoverFolkUs]

17 hours ago, sierraman said:

A thermostat housing that is literally jam packed between the cylinder head and the bulkhead.

Suzuki have already done this with the 1.9 diesel Vitara 😂 (Renault engine)

[goosey]

A v8 or v6 with all ancillary’s in the Vee

[sierraman]

2 minutes ago, goosey said:

A v8 or v6 with all ancillary’s in the Vee

A plastic gear driven centrally mounted plastic electric water pump. Running off the crankshaft but requires both cylinder heads removing to access 4 10mm bolts at the top. 

[MrGTI6]

13 hours ago, Wibble said:

Will admit to being caught out by a dogleg first in a Mercedes hire van 35 years ago.

I was caught out by one in an Isuzu Grafter a few days ago! 🤣

[JeeExEll]

Touchscreen accelerator, brake, and clutch worked from a screen in the centre of the dashboard. The accelerator icon (tiny and looks like a teddy bear, next to the symbol of a squirrel which raises the drivers' seat) also has a menu which works the horn and tailgate/ boot opening facility. The brake menu (symbol of a carrot) has an emergency stop facility, and the clutch menu (symbol of a giraffe) periodically puts all the windows down and shuts off the engine for safety to avoid excessive wear and tear to the clutch. Can only be reset by main dealers.

[JeeExEll]

Having to remove a wheel to change the battery.

Oh, wait, Ferrari invented that.

[Metal Guru]

A rod sticking out of the middle of the floor which you have to touch every few seconds to alter transmission ratios. At the same time you have to activate a switch with your foot to allow said rod to move , all the time steering with just one hand. 
Now that really would be a crazy set up!

[reb]

36 minutes ago, Metal Guru said:

A rod sticking out of the middle of the floor which you have to touch every few seconds to alter transmission ratios. At the same time you have to activate a switch with your foot to allow said rod to move , all the time steering with just one hand. 
Now that really would be a crazy set up!

You could convince people to make it a core part of their identity, might not work here but maybe in some other united place

[eddyramrod]

46 minutes ago, Metal Guru said:

A rod sticking out of the middle of the floor which you have to touch every few seconds to alter transmission ratios. At the same time you have to activate a switch with your foot to allow said rod to move , all the time steering with just one hand. 
Now that really would be a crazy set up!

Nah, that'll never catch on... oh.

[Matty]

49 minutes ago, Metal Guru said:

A rod sticking out of the middle of the floor which you have to touch every few seconds to alter transmission ratios. At the same time you have to activate a switch with your foot to allow said rod to move , all the time steering with just one hand. 
Now that really would be a crazy set up!

Alternately a transmission  that changes by itself, featuring a number of gears that even Schimano would find excessive. It will constantly shift all the time the car is in motion in order to keep the engine operating in a 1000 rpm band because that way it's kinder to nuns and kittens. This will be operated by an electronic brain that nobody alive really understands. It's manufacturer will claim the unit is sealed for life. That life will actually be half the life of the car. The oil within is actually concentrated unicorn spunk and thus changing it will cost eleventy million pounds. 

[Matty]

16 minutes ago, reb said:

You could convince people to make it a core part of their identity, might not work here but maybe in some other united place

Yeah i think I might have bit Reb. Bit of luck no one will notice 🤣

[HMC]

Design features-

The assembly process begins with the heater matrix, which hence is buried under everything else and biodegradable. Because we care.

As part of our drive to be more sustainable* no harmful zinc galvanising processes will be used, and we will use water based paint.

Our high revving 0.6 litre turbo will have the bearing surfaces reduced to an absolute minimum to reduce internal friction. Because we care. 

Advanced multiplexed wiring, made of biodegradable materials. Because we care. Even bulbs need to be coded to the car to allow best operation. Via our dealer network only. Because we care.

 

[RustyNuts]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

Rivet the starter motor in. Any attempts to remove mean the end of the rivet falls into the bell housing. 

Oooh I like that, cruel and costly. We should do business designing the next model together.

1 hour ago, Metal Guru said:

A rod sticking out of the middle of the floor which you have to touch every few seconds to alter transmission ratios. At the same time you have to activate a switch with your foot to allow said rod to move , all the time steering with just one hand. 
Now that really would be a crazy set up!

And to make it even more torture the indicators have to be turned off manually instead of that auto click-off thing.

I'm going to add something to my earlier post.. remember i said about the lifting loops on the engine being weak? Well they're also going to be moulded directly into the engine head rather than a seperate part. The result is that when it snaps and requires you to get another sump, you now have the added curse of replacing the head too... and naturally the head will be held down with counter clockwise torx stretch bolts. Obviously by the time the end user has figured this out they've already snapped one or two and even stripped the thread requiring a new engine... with no returns on the replacement head just purchased.

[RustyNuts]

3 minutes ago, HMC said:

As part of our drive to be more sustainable* no harmful zinc galvanising processes will be used, and we will use water based paint.

I thought I was cruel!!!

[camryv6]

I would make sure all bolts seize into all bushes.

[MrBiscuits]

Complete loss of immobiliser codes if you let the battery go flat. Failure of either the key battery or the cars 12v battery causes the system to go out of sync. Reprogramming by dealer only - but not after 19/01/2038 when the whole system becomes obsolete due to using 32bit signed integer dates

[camryv6]

5 minutes ago, MrBiscuits said:

Complete loss of immobiliser codes if you let the battery go flat. Failure of either the key battery or the cars 12v battery causes the system to go out of sync. Reprogramming by dealer only - but not after 19/01/2038 when the whole system becomes obsolete due to using 32bit signed integer dates

Have you worked for Jaguar ?

[New POD]

1 hour ago, Matty said:

Alternately a transmission  that changes by itself, featuring a number of gears that even Schimano would find excessive. It will constantly shift all the time the car is in motion in order to keep the engine operating in a 1000 rpm band because that way it's kinder to nuns and kittens. This will be operated by an electronic brain that nobody alive really understands. It's manufacturer will claim the unit is sealed for life. That life will actually be half the life of the car. The oil within is actually concentrated unicorn spunk and thus changing it will cost eleventy million pounds. 

I once went to view a second hand CVT merc AMG A200 Turbo.  Then I googled. 85K was the likely life for a 1.4 with 90 bhp.  This had the same gearbox  

Instead we bought a 1.6 Astra J auto excite and the gearbox borked at 50k and cost £3k to repair. Should have bought the merc. It went like shit off a shuvfel.