Maybe you have a few to add to the list -
Before the engineers "fixed" it:

• I could open my car door in the morning without dumping a bucket full of snow square in the middle of my seat.
• I could drive with my windows rolled down without sounding and feeling like a Blackhawk helicopter was landing on the roof.
• I could put toothpaste on my brush and set it on the counter...now the "ergonomic" round handle makes it tip over and jettison the toothpaste - Bravo!

How about you?

These kinds of threads scream "old person!"

And I am, so...

Remember when electric blankets and heating pads would stay on indefinitely? Now the new ones cycle on and off...or you have to turn them off and back on again ever so often.

Remember when you could actually open medicine bottles without special tools?

Remember when stuff wasn't bad for you? Now, commercials spend 10 seconds on the product, and 50 seconds on what horrible things it will do to you if you use it.

TOP 20 ENGINEERS' TERMINOLOGIES
1. A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES ARE BEING TRIED - We are still pissing in the wind.
2. EXTENSIVE REPORT IS BEING PREPARED ON A FRESH APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM - We just hired three kids fresh out of college.
3. CLOSE PROJECT COORDINATION - We know who to blame.
4. MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH - It works OK, but looks very hi-tech.
5. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS DELIVERED ASSURED - We are so far behind schedule the customer is happy to get it delivered.
6. PRELIMINARY OPERATIONAL TESTS WERE INCONCLUSIVE - The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.
7. TEST RESULTS WERE EXTREMELY GRATIFYING - We are so surprised that the stupid thing works.
8. THE ENTIRE CONCEPT WILL HAVE TO BE ABANDONED - The only person who understood the thing quit.
9. IT IS IN THE PROCESS - It is so wrapped up in red tape that the situation is about hopeless.
10. WE WILL LOOK INTO IT - Forget it! We have enough problems for now.
11. PLEASE NOTE AND INITIAL - Let's spread the responsibility for the screw up.
12. GIVE US THE BENEFIT OF YOUR THINKING - We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we've already done.
13. GIVE US YOUR INTERPRETATION - I can't wait to hear this bull!
14. SEE ME or LET'S DISCUSS - Come into my office, I'm lonely.
15. ALL NEW - Parts not interchangeable with the previous design.
16. RUGGED - Too damn heavy to lift!
17. LIGHTWEIGHT - Lighter than RUGGED.
18. YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT - One finally worked.
19. ENERGY SAVING - Achieved when the power switch is off.
20. LOW MAINTENANCE - Impossible to fix if broken.

I could ride through the pasture with no seatbelt on with no dinging noise

Reminds me of something that happened a few years ago.
Where I work it`s common to get a group of people with different areas of experience together to try to come up with solutions to problems. Generally 2 people each from management, engineering, production, and tooling.
Were working on production fixture. It needed a quick easy method for holding newly molded plastic parts snuggly in the fixture. (freashly molded plastic can change rapidly depending on cooling conditions)
Anyway, it was decided that the easy way was a simple wedge that could be used to fit the part snuggly into the fixture for cutting and trimming regardless of how much cooling time it had had.
One of the Jr. toolroom guys burst into laughter. When he finally got over his laughing fit, he explained himself.

"Think of how many years of experience there are in this group and how many degrees and years of education. You might not be able to find a better group in our industry. And the best solution we can come up with is to jab a stick in it."

The genesis for these features are a result of lawsuits filed against lawn mower makers; and mother government.

I took two classes in commercial law in college. The very first case study we had concerned some shlump who lost his fingers in a lawn mower accident. He was using the mower as a hedge trimmer. Yes, he picked up the mower while it was running, then dropped it on the hedge, lost fingers on both hands; then sued the manufacturer for the loss of his fingers. Yes, he won at trial, then the judgement was upheld on appeal.

The second case involved two companies. One company made a stamping press; the second was the first owner.

It seems the first owner used the press until it was no longer usable. The company sold the press to a scrap agent who was supposed to insure the press was actually scrapped.

The scrap agent, instead of scrapping the press, sold it to another company. The next company allowed an employee to modify the press, defeating the two-hand feature which keeps hands out of the press. You guessed it. Some knuckle dragger got a hand caught in the press and lost it. He sued the current owner, the original owner, and the manufacturer. Mr. Knuckle Dragger won, and his suit was upheld on appeal.

Never, never underestimate the stupidity of the consumer; or jury.

But the good news is, the folks winning the judgements probably got structured settlements which they immediatally sold to JG Wentworth at a major loss...so there is some justice still left in the world.

Engineers "fixin' things" caused me a lot of grief at work for years. I worked in Quality (floor level) at Buick's V-6 Engine Plant, where at the end we were building the 3800 Series II, naturally aspirated & super-charged.

Those of us who had to make these fixes work, at least incorporate them into the manufacturing process, had a term for the mindset that came up with the not so good ideas, we called it the "cubicle mentality." This meant that one Engineer would put something down on paper that looked good to them, then pass it over the wall of their cubicle for the next in line to add their input, who would then pass it on to the next cubicle.

Eventually someone at a very high level in our Plant did the smartest thing I've ever seen GM do. They took many of these Engineers out of their cubicles, who worked upstairs in our plant, and made them Supervisors in some of the Machining & Assembly Dept's. These reassignments weren't just for a few weeks or months, but for well over a year.

When these Engineers did go back upstairs they had a whole different mind-set. After their floor level experience they would generally come down to us "line pogues" before proceeding in order to get our input for any new idea they may have had. Prior to this, very few of these "cubicle dwellers" had little time for us less edumacated folks, those of us who lived & breathed our processes day after day. On top of that, after the Engineer's who had done "their tour" with us and had made it back upstairs there was a lot less fixin' of things that didn't need fixin'.

After the above change in mindset things got a lot easier for me. My job, on a day to day basis was to address any quality issues in my Dept. and because of this when things weren't humming along smoothly I was the main person that had to explain why they weren't.

I've worked with a lot of Engineers (Process, Electrical, Manufacturing, Design etc.) over the years and collectively found them to be the most narrow minded, arrogant, not to mention jealous, group of individuals I've ever had to deal with.

Once in a while one would come along that really listened to what us line pouges had to say. When you took their education and our hands on experience and formed a working team the results usually came easy, which gave us more time to focus on other issues. A good Engineer that keeps an open mind & listens, to anyone, is worth their weight in gold and are very impressive to work with. I learned a lot from the "good Engineers."

Original AR15 (M16) rifle. Started off a featherweight in the mid 5LB range.
Every time it has been "improved" it gets heavier. One or two more "improvments" it'll weigh about the same as the M1 I carried in basic in 1960.

You could buy a revolver without a built in lock.

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Vaya con Dios

Yeah its like anything else you got good ones and bad ones, the bad ones are the ones that disconnected from reality and are causing problems much like alot of the govement, congress and the economists when it comes to taxes and the sopa acts

and then you've got the good ones who actually do their research and dont do stupid **** like that, problem is much like congress right now Im sure its about atleast 60 to 40 with alot of things.



I think that was probably more the clinton era smith and wesson lawyers than anything else.

I just know that cars are becoming more difficult to actually "fix" anything so much as replace parts. When I first learned to drive, you at least had a chance to limp it on in while today if you can't pull a part and replace it then you are likely dead in the water. I'm only in my thirties and yet I have seen some very significant "changes" in my short lifetime already.

I had a 1970 Ford F100 until just a year or so ago. Manual brakes, manual steering. You could open the hood and see the engine. Now I spend a half hour removing plastic junk until I can get to what I need to work on.

I plan on buying an old car and rebuild it from the ground up and driving it till I stop driving...I don't care if I win the lottery, I still wouldn't buy a new car. They catch on fire, the throttles stick, there's always something that is being recalled...I figure if the current crop of engineers are using the public as a testing ground, they can count me out. Give me a 10-20 year old vehicle any day.

This is what happens when engineers get involved.

Attached Images

Tire_Swing.jpg (26.8 KB, 161 views)

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NRA Benefactor/Cert Instructor

Not too far from where I live there used to be a narrow little, bumpy, curvy road that ran up through a coulee. There was a creek that ran down through the coulee. There was a waterfall, and some hollows, not quite caves that had been carved out of the limestone where the kids used to hike and climb and do some of the semi-legal and possibly illegal things that kids do. A narrow bridge crossed the creek; right-angle turns at both ends forced speeds down below 20 mph.

It was a lot of fun to ride or drive. Every so often a car or bike would leave the road, but speeds were low and nobody ever got hurt.

Then the highway engineers "improved" the road. Four sweeping curves replaced half a dozen tight turns. Lanes were 12', shoulders 8', with curb and gutter, wide runoff area in the ROW and high 3:1 back slopes on both sides of the road. The creek now runs through a culvert, and the waterfall is gone. The hollows in the rock have been dynamited out, and the bluffs covered or replaced with graded embankments.

The speed limit is posted at 30 mph, but it is possible to run the turns at 80 or more. A few times a year, somebody tries to run the coulee faster then they can ride or drive. They hit the curb, and high-side their bike or roll their car. I don't think there have been any fatalities yet, but the meat wagon hauls a lot of broken bodies to the emergency room. So much for safety improvements.

Remember when revolvers didn't have locks? Back when common sense kept a gun secure?

Excellent ! ! !

Once there was a gunsmith, a lawyer and a mechanical engineer on vacation in France. They were wrongly accused of some hideous crime a sentenced to die by the guillotine. First up was the gunsmith. The executioner pulled the trigger and the guillotine fell about halfway down and stopped. They had to let him go because they couldn't try it twice by law. Same story with the lawyer. It stopped halfway down and they had to let him go free as well. Then when the ME approached the platform he pointed and said, "I can see the problem right there".
I'm 61 and what bothers me the most is the "improvements" like I used to be able to replace a fuel pump by removing 3 bolts and 2 lines and a gasket. On my 02 S-10 the book shows removing the gas tank which is impossible under the old oak tree, but eight bolts and 2 or 3 wiring connectors and the bed comes right off. The old pumps were about 17 to 20 bucks at Western Auto. My new pump which included the fuel gauge and improved wiring kit was 400 bucks.
peace,
gordon

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better have that checked

When I was 13 years old ( you could get a drivers license at age 12 in ND ) I could go to the junk yard and buy a transmission for my 1953 Plymouth for $3. if I took it out of the junker myself. The junk yard had no legal liability concern about a kid messing around with their old cars. I would then haul the transmission to my grandmother's farm and put it in myself in the shade using wood ramps to elevate the front end. I had never seen this done before but a kid with a half a brain could figure it out himself. Now I look under the hood of my Jeep and assume I am looking at the engine but am not really sure.

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I like Ike.

Easy.... get someone else to hold the tomato while you do the slicing !!!

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A closed mouth gathers no foot

Marketing tells the engineers what to design.

Technical writers describe it.

Salesmen spread the manure.

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The chief joy in an engineer's life is to design something that actually works within the constraints of time, cost, weight, style, packaging, and assembleability. It's the small, private victories that we savor.

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VIVERE MILITARE EST

The engineers don't understand the KISS factor in design...KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!

Recently took me 8 hours to change out the alternator on a 1996 Olds Aurora.
I have pulled the 4 speed tranny in a 69 El Camino, replaced all the synchronizers,replaced the clutch/pressure plate assy. in 5 hours flat. Whats wrong with this picture?

I used to be able to start a cold vehicle in the morning with one press of the gas pedal to set "fast idle" and it was warm in no time. Now that is "fixed" and the new vehicles will idle slowly for twenty minutes without producing any warm air.

Exactly. When I got my first vehicle (a nice little '53 Chevy pickup) the fuel pump was leaking. I wasn't all that handy in those days, and so took the job to a local mechanic. I was so embarassed at my incompetence that I eventually got pretty proficient at auto repair.

Now I'm right back where I started--can't identify a thing and probably couldn't get it off if I had to. Full circle.

The new plastic gas cans.



...the prosecution rests...



Len

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Qui me amat, amet et canem meum

I pulled the alternator off my wife's Mercedes ML320, took it down to be rebuilt, and replaced it. The dealer had said three hours labor and $400 for a new alternator, IIRC. I thought that was poppycock. Turns out, their labor estimate was on the low side. Two and a half hours to get it out, and you have to remove the right front wheel and inner fender to do it. I did save $340 on the alternator, though.

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Insert short witty words here

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


And, of course, the "water-saving" toilet that requires 3 flushes to get the job done....

Despite the best efforts of the GM management, they still ended up with a motor that blew inlet manifold gaskets at an alarming rate. Well, at least they do down here in NV. Maybe the gaskets don't like the hot weather.

Steve, on many of these issues GM management got just what they wanted. They had been trying to kill off the 3800 for many years, which all went back to when the Buick Grand National blew the doors off the Corvette during FBI testing back in the 80's. The FBI was looking for a car that would blend in and be able to run with the drug dealers cars in places like Miami. The top dogs at GM at the time, and for years since, had risen through the ranks of Chevrolet so they took it personal. A Buick beating a Vette was heresy, that's why the 3.8 Turbo was discontinued.

Because it was their plan to do away with the 3800 many issues didn't get dealt with the way we would have liked. The 3800 would have been gone 10 years sooner than it was if the 3.5 V6, which they put in the Aurora, had worked out as planned.

When the 3.5 hit the streets it was obvious that the design needed some tweaking, a lot of tweaking. Top management went to Engineering and asked, "How much to fix it?" The amount was mind-boggling, so much so that the engine was simply done away with right then & there. At our Plant we went from getting ready to close up, to running overtime because of this turn of events.

Here's another example of Engineering doing their job. When we went to the Series II the back-end of the engine was closed up by what's called a "Rear Seal Plate", which also holds the Rear Lip Seal around the Crank on the Flyweel end.

We put the Rear Seal Plate on in our Dept. as well as the Rear Lip Seal & Flywheel, plus a number of other major components. Because of this I was involved in the switch over to the Rear Seal Plate.

Way before production began on the Series II, myself & Dave, our SPC guy (Statistical Process Control,) had concerns about using a paper gasket at this joint due to the block being cast iron & the plate being aluminum. The different rates of expansion & contraction between the two types of metal while thermal-cycling (hot & cold cycle) had been known to destroy paper gaskets in the past.
Engineering told us that this wasn't a concern........

Fast forward to over a year later.......
I got to work one day with the windchill down to -30 f and made it to "The Sniper's Nest," which is what others called my office because it was on a raised platform along the backwall overlooking our Dept. I clipped my radio to my belt, turned it on and before I could even get the mic clipped to my collar I was being paged.

I was told to meet Dave in the back aisle and he would tell me where we had to go, now!

To get to the "Rooftop Conference Room" we had to walk across the roof (outdoors) which once again drove home how cold it was outside. When we get in there we found more Engineers in one place that I imagined possible, all waiting on us.

They got right to the point, the gaskets on the Rear Seal Plates are cracking causing leaks, any suggestions?

Dave immediately asked what their results had been during cold weather testing on this joint? Dead silence. Dave figured it out real quick so he asked, "Don't tell me you didn't do any?" They hadn't. When I heard that I couldn't help myself so I blurted out, "Well, you can bet there is a lot of cold weather testing going on right now, being done by our customers!" Generally, no matter how you feel, you try to refrain from such outbursts and just deal with the facts. That day was the only time I ever did that.

We first recommended switching to a metal gasket. They shot that down saying that the metal ends would cut the oil pan gaskets when the pan was torqued down. We quickly reminded them that we use a metal gasket on the Front Cover (Timing Chain Cover), which we also installed in our Dept. as well as the Oil Pans and never had an issue on that end of the Engine with cut gaskets. They stuttered a bunch of non-sensical gibberish trying to explain away that fact.

Because they were adamant about using a paper gasket we recommended that instead of glueing the gasket on totally, that they could add some tabs to the inside of the gasket, away from the mating surfaces of the joint, and just spot glue them on under the tabs. This might prevent the gasket from moving so much during thermal cycling and reduce breakage. This is what they ended up doing and they could have saved our customers a lot of headaches if they would have only listened to us over a year before. The recommendations we gave them that day were the same ones we gave them over a year before, but, us line pogues couldn't know about such things so they were ignored.

Personally I think they should have used a metal gasket.

How about a lot of the roads in Philly USED to be 2 lanes each way untill they 'improved them' now they are all single lanes each way. Which makes traffic heavier because only half the amount of cars make it through the light. Not to mention all the cross streets get blocked, now those people creep out into the road and get clobbered by the cars that are trying to bypass everybody else by driving on the shoulder.