After 20 yrs. must say,BYE, BYE to Chrysler

There's no such thing as an "American" car, nor a "Japanese" car, any more.

 

When GM hired a former Toyota quality expert, the first thing he told them
was to design components to last 100k miles instead of the warranty
duration. (You think?) So although cars are now "world" cars, until GM and
the other American automakers follow the 100k advice, bread and butter
components will still last longer on Japanese cars.

 

When I was engineering manager at a supplier of some fuel pump
components up to 6 years ago, the design life goal was in fact 100k+.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Were they made for GM? The specific story I read was about GM. And it
could have been more than 6 years ago since they hired the Toyota quality
guy. As you get older, time flies. Everytime I turn around I'm eating
breakfast.

 

Yes - sorry for not saying that - those were parts we jointly designed
with Delphi, then manufactured and sold to Delphi for use in GM cars.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

No, Bill, the design goal was 100k+ AND as CHEAP as POSSIBLE.

Designers know perfectly well how to make something last 100K Any
beginning designer knows this. Just overdesign it. Your calculations call
for a shaft of 1/2 inch, for example, you make it 2 inches. The electrical
power industry does this all day long - they tell you to switch a frigging 2
amp
light circuit with a frigging 15 amp switch! I've got light switches in my
house that are 50 or 60 years old, still working fine!

The trick is knowing how to do it so that it JUST BARELY makes it
to the 100K mark then completely falls apart. Because that is the absolute
cheapest you can make it.

About 6 years ago I bought a Bissel carpet cleaner. I ran about 5 bottles
of
their cleaning solution through it over about 3 years. Then one day it
started
making a funny noise and stopped working. I took it apart in an attempt to
repair it and I discovered the pump inside had cracked. And, what is more,
AS I WAS TAKING IT APART the thing was literally breaking into little
pieces of plastic. And not just the pump, just about -every- component of
it,
you couldn't put any pressure at all on unscrewing any screws in it without
the entire assembly the screw was in breaking in half.
And I have a LOT of experience with doing delicate work!

Of course, I cursed Bissel up one side and down another and swore I
would never buy another one - but at the same time I was awed at how
perfectly it was designed - they knew -exactly- how to design the thing
so that after 3 years of use the plastic would turn brittle and the thing
would
collapse from the inside out. They didn't want ANY chance that some
smartass might come along later with some JB Weld and extend the thing's
life a few more years, they wanted it to break at 3 years, and break
damn well and good so you would go out and buy another one. And
the fact is that 99% of the consumers out there don't know shit from
shinola about product quality, and would go do exactly that.

I just had almost the exact same thing happen the other day with my
Maytag natural gas dryer. The selonoid coils on the gas valve went bad.
One
of them overheated and burned out. When I investigated this I discovered
that just about every model of gas dryer on the market, no matter who
makes it, uses the exact same gas valve and coil set. The coils are
incredibly easy to remove and replace. And every appliance forum I
looked at on the Internet said that these coils break down all the time.

And get this - there is enough space where the coils mount on the
valve that you could go up a couple guages of wire and wind a fatter
selonoid! Your an EE, you know how to calculate current flow through
a constantly energized selonoid, and what wire guage is needed to
carry it without being overloaded. Those fucking SOB's that designed this
assembly back in 1974 (the coil design on these things has been unchanged
for the last 32 years) knew -precisely- what guage to use so that the
selonoid would be just slightly overheated - not enough to make it fail
immediately, or within the warranty, but enough to generate a service
call every 5-6 years, goddammit!!! (and do you think that they bothered
putting a notch in the air pleum the selonoids are next to, to divert a
slight
amount of air over them to cool them? Haw!)


Ted

 

Years ago I was reading one of those coffee table books about Great Cars
of the Good Old Days, you know, the type with lots of photos. It was
written by a guy who grew up in a family with enough money to own
Bugattis and such back in the golden age of Really Cool Stuff. I don't
remember what the name of the car was, because they have all vanished
and normal people don't remember them, but he described a car that was
built of the finest materials. Every component was made of strong
alloys, and the fit and finish were impeccable. The designers intended
the car to last forever, in much the same way that old steam locomotives
were built, except better. Unfortunately, the small number of them that
were sold ended up being scrapped for war production in WWI. They were
just too valuable.

I often wonder what the world would be like if things were built to a
high standard of quality. I've noticed that light bulbs in recent years
burn out after only a few months. When I was a kid back in the 70s a
burned out light bulb was a rare event. Last year for Christmas my
mother gave each of us a smoothie blender. My sisters who didn't use
them very much still have theirs. But we became addicted to frozen
fruit smoothies and destroyed our blender by using it daily for a month.
I guess they didn't think anybody would actually do that... We
replaced it with a restaurant grade blender, which still works great.

 

You have two amp circuits in your house? I think all mine are 15
amp (10 maybe? I'd have to go outside and check, and it's not worth
it for this discussion). Oh, you mean you're only running 2 amps on
the circuit at the moment... I'd really rather have all the
components in my house wiring rated for at least as much current as
the breaker outside, so if I've got a short I don't burn out a light
switch. That isn't over-engineering at all.

Of course. You say it like a 100K design life is supposed to mean a
1M design life. It isn't; a 100K design life is supposed to mean a
100K design life.

 

It probably didn't have a very good 0-60 time. The pressures from the
government and the consumer force minimalized safety factor and
integration so that we can have audio systems, video screens, air bags,
abs, and whatever while doing 0-60 and getting 30 mpg. They're even
starting to put complete worksttation computers in cars from the factory
now.

This is all due to progress in manufacturing techniques where the
dimensional tolerancing and failure bell curves are very narrow
(compared to what they used to be). When the bell curves are very wide
like in the old days, you have to put a huge safety factor in the design
to keep minimum and typical part life anywhere near acceptable. When
you get those curves narrow, then you can start pulling your design
safety factors way down, and the MBA's can start gaming the predictable
life and failure rates with the design parameter tradeoffs, then throw
in the societal pressures to keep performance up and weight down, and
you get the situation you're talking about.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

All I can say with certainty is my own experience. Out of the 13 new
vehicles that I have purchased in my life, there was one Nissan and
one Honda. Also out of the 13, those were the two that had the most
failures. I admit to being harsh on vehicles, I love to drive them
hard. However, I only use the BEST maintenance products and am
insane about doing maintenance regularly.

The Honda had 4 yup FOUR transmission redos in 40,000 miles. The
cheesy "girlieman" synchronizers could not withstand my abuse. At
30,000 miles the engine started using oil. It had to go "Bye-Bye"!

The Nissan's clutch started slipping at about 25,000 miles. The seat
upholstery and the carpet were showing serioius signs of wear at
40,000 miles. It also had to go "Bye-Bye"!

My girlfriend owned one of those "almighty toyotas", a camry when we
met. It was only a year or so old with around 20,000 miles.

The first time I drove it, I asked her what the "clunking sound"
coming from the front was? "What clunking sound?" was her
response. After a trip to the toyota dealer, we returned with new
STRUTS and STRUT BEARINGS. It seems "they all do it" was the excuse
given by the Service Manager, but we don't change them unless the
customer "complains"!

The next trip was for the "Anti-Theft" system. It would not allow
you to REMOVE the ignition key from the switch. They had to change
the ENTIRE system including the door and trunk locks. I saw the
dealer warranty sheet and the parts alone cost almost $700.00.

After the "lock changing festival" we discovered they had broken one
of the inner door panels during the process. Well, it took TWO trys
for them to order the correct part and get that taken care of.

Those Toyotas are really something to be admired!!

By the way, my 1995 Jeep Cherokee 4x4 that I purchased new has 240,000
miles and is the best vehicle I have ever owned.

Good luck, Bruce