Cars, Man

[Monocrom]

Huh. So the Maybach has gone a bit down the cost-shaving path. That's depressing. One would think a company's top-end flagship model would be uncompromising to the last.

It's 2025.... Almost all brand new cars are built like $#&%.
The ones that aren't, lots of cost cutting measures in place.

 

[dc38]

Can any currently practicing engineers, WITHOUT looking it up, tell me what the number one oath is in the engineer's creed?

 

[Chauncey Gardener]

Can any currently practicing engineers, WITHOUT looking it up, tell me what the number one oath is in the engineer's creed?

Regrettably, their supervisors, the Board of Directors, and the shareholders do not share the same oath.

 

[dc38]

Regrettably, their supervisors, the Board of Directors, and the shareholders do not share the same oath.

That's okay, if it's in the interest of public safety or wellbeing which the shareholders or directors REFUSED to address repeatedly, then the engineer (theoretically) should be risking his or her employment to be bringing that to public attention, or at the very least documenting it. What I've seen, though, is that some engineers will just past the buck and say "what do you think of this?", turning an unwitting, otherwise uninvolved (and unethically) party into a patsy who CANNOT defend themselves because it just looks like professional negligence.

Morality and ethics aside, I say this from the bottom of my dark heart, **** human legalism. Sorry, Chaunce, I've got nothing eloquent to cover or express that level of anger.

If this is too much, I would appreciate @Admin or @Mister Ed to apply an appropriate censor to a non-P/R/C post.

 

[TPA]

Huh. So the Maybach has gone a bit down the cost-shaving path. That's depressing. One would think a company's top-end flagship model would be uncompromising to the last.

Don't forget German over-engineering followed up by beancounters "value engineering" the probably once-brilliant design. Case in point: The trunk on the Maybach is 100% motorised and the trunk latch itself is motorised itself. There is NO way to manually close and latch the trunk, as I found out the hard way.

Apparently whatever lubricant they used in this latch thickens substantially at cooler temperatures. One night I drove to a hotel, got in around 11pm, opened the trunk to get my luggage out, hit the Close button and the trunk came all the way down successfully, but the motorised latch failed to operate, so the trunk lid motor opened it fully back up. No matter of pushing and shoving on it could get it to close. As Murphy would have it, heavy rain was predicted for the next two days.

Thankfully it was a convention hotel and the convention center staff were still there at 11:30pm so I begged them to let me drive the car inside the building to warm it up. They did me one better, letting me drive the car inside the building, then threw a space heater in the trunk and a tarp over the trunk. After it warmed up it closed properly and I left it alone.

It took THREE trips to the dealership to get it fixed. 3(!). "Unable to duplicate problem." I had plenty of video, there were error codes galore. Finally, they replaced the latch.

 

[dc38]

Don't forget German over-engineering followed up by beancounters "value engineering" the probably once-brilliant design. Case in point: The trunk on the Maybach is 100% motorised and the trunk latch itself is motorised itself. There is NO way to manually close and latch the trunk, as I found out the hard way.

Apparently whatever lubricant they used in this latch thickens substantially at cooler temperatures. One night I drove to a hotel, got in around 11pm, opened the trunk to get my luggage out, hit the Close button and the trunk came all the way down successfully, but the motorised latch failed to operate, so the trunk lid motor opened it fully back up. No matter of pushing and shoving on it could get it to close. As Murphy would have it, heavy rain was predicted for the next two days.

Thankfully it was a convention hotel and the convention center staff were still there at 11:30pm so I begged them to let me drive the car inside the building to warm it up. They did me one better, letting me drive the car inside the building, then threw a space heater in the trunk and a tarp over the trunk. After it warmed up it closed properly and I left it alone.

It took THREE trips to the dealership to get it fixed. 3(!). "Unable to duplicate problem." I had plenty of video, there were error codes galore. Finally, they replaced the latch.

Zezz nussing hrong viss chehrmin enchineerkhing, obviously...

 

[TPA]

That's okay, if it's in the interest of public safety or wellbeing which the shareholders or directors REFUSED to address repeatedly, then the engineer (theoretically) should be risking his or her employment to be bringing that to public attention, or at the very least documenting it. What I've seen, though, is that some engineers will just past the buck and say "what do you think of this?", turning an unwitting, otherwise uninvolved (and unethically) party into a patsy who CANNOT defend themselves because it just looks like professional negligence.

Engineers aren't always the sharpest lot either.

About 20 years ago I was invited to see a prototype for an airliner economy passenger seat. The focus was primarily on weight reduction, as that's key to profitability. They were so proud. I was looking over the wiring harness going to the seat and noticed it was substantially smaller and lighter than I was expecting. I poked around some more and figured out they were planning on using RF to control lights and such from the seat controls. I pondered the idea for a bit and immediately wondered how they were going to certify that in multiple countries. I guessed they were going to use the ISM bands. For grins, I turned my phone's Bluetooth and WiFi on and set it on top of the switch panel, which contained the RF section as well. As guessed, the buttons didn't work or would work intermittently. The engineers who designed it never thought about how people use airline seats. OOPS. and this was reasonably far into development.

Not that I don't have plenty of, "you dumba**" moments myself where I've designed something overly complicated only to realise after I've built it, I could have done it much simpler.

 

[aznsx]

It would be great if more members posted pictures of their own autos.

 

[Chauncey Gardener]

@aznsx: "I'm too sexy for my car."

Chance: "No, you're not."

 

[AZPops]

 

[Galane]

Engineers aren't always the sharpest lot either.

About 20 years ago I was invited to see a prototype for an airliner economy passenger seat. The focus was primarily on weight reduction, as that's key to profitability. They were so proud. I was looking over the wiring harness going to the seat and noticed it was substantially smaller and lighter than I was expecting. I poked around some more and figured out they were planning on using RF to control lights and such from the seat controls. I pondered the idea for a bit and immediately wondered how they were going to certify that in multiple countries. I guessed they were going to use the ISM bands. For grins, I turned my phone's Bluetooth and WiFi on and set it on top of the switch panel, which contained the RF section as well. As guessed, the buttons didn't work or would work intermittently. The engineers who designed it never thought about how people use airline seats. OOPS. and this was reasonably far into development.

Not that I don't have plenty of, "you dumba**" moments myself where I've designed something overly complicated only to realise after I've built it, I could have done it much simpler.

Like the original AT&T only iPhone 4. The engineers placed the antenna gap precisely where most people would naturally rest the tip of their right little finger while holding it, or where the ball of a left thumb would rest for southpaws. But you can bet that during every test, the engineers who designed that made certain they only held it in their right hand and were careful to not bridge the gap. Thus "You're holding it wrong.".

The simplest solution would have been to put the gap on the bottom beside the connector port.

Consumer market equipment needs to have examples handed to people who have had nothing at all to do with the product until they lay eyes and hands on it for the first time. Don't provide any instructions to start, see how many, if any, can figure out anything about it. If the ones who do figure out how to get the thing going then proceed to operate it in a way that makes it not work correctly, they aren't wrong, your design has issues. Either change it to make what the testers are trying to do work, or change it to make it obvious that it cant/won't do what they're attempting, and (hidden from the user) that attempting it won't make it fail. Ie, make it *do nothing* if the user manages to press all five buttons simultaneously, instead of locking up or deleting files...

One I just learned about from Aging Wheels is a design flaw in the Think City electric car. The battery has a severely undersized soft start resistor. But the engineers knew it was too small, so they set it up so that if the cabin heater is on when the vehicle is started, it delays the power to the heater. Solved! Uhhh, no. After startup, if the vehicle is turned off, then back on soon enough, the system will send power to everything, including the heater, all at once. That overheats that resistor. After a few times the resistor can explode and fry the battery control board. The heater delay should have been an *always* function, not a thing that was done under some conditions but not others. But the super simple solution would have been a chonky big resistor inside a heat sink, connected to the battery control board with wires. That's exactly the fix people do to their Think batteries. Warranty claims were a lot costlier than a couple $ more for a better resistor + connector and a bit more assembly time driving in 2 screws and plugging in a connector.

 

[dc38]

Warranty claims were a lot costlier than a couple $ more for a better resistor + connector and a bit more assembly time driving in 2 screws and plugging in a connector.

Not in the short term/production cost it wasn't...built to last, but only long enough that the warranty expires. Legalism is one of the scummiest ways to scam someone. It's how some those Texas developers get away with laying a foundation and nothing else, but keeping all the money. Same with shoddy "new construction" that isn't up to code, but it's found outside the "start of build" window (which is why some, not all, drag their feet) then they're off the hook legally. But who am I to judge? I've been selfish and hateful too, so we're all in the same boat.

One of the things I cannot abide by, however, is when someone justifies evil with: "someone was gonna do it, might as well have been me."

 

[bluflaam777]

"someone was gonna do it, might as well have been me."

Laws/regulations can be changed. Changing someone's horribly unethical attitude is much harder.

"but it's legal" can still be bad. I've argued both for and against certain tax breaks for non profits.

 

[dc38]

Laws/regulations can be changed. Changing someone's horribly unethical attitude is much harder.

"but it's legal" can still be bad. I've argued both for and against certain tax breaks for non profits.

Yeah...to prove any kind of criminality you'd have to establish intent. And we know what they say about "good intentions".

 

[bluflaam777]

 

[dc38]

Only in georgia

 

[orbital]

+

Not advocating electrics, but this gets a full WOW!

if you're wondering what he's doing in the beginning,, he's putting heat/energy into the tires.

 

[knucklegary]

Yes, getting the rubber hot and gripping..
Insane!! I'd bring extra pair undies;-)

 

[Galane]

Not in the short term/production cost it wasn't...built to last, but only long enough that the warranty expires.

But the problem was those were popping off well before the warranty expired, due to the "using it wrong" 'feature'. As long as a Think City owner made sure to always turn the heater switch to off before starting, then the soft start resistor would most likely last for quite a while. It's still right at the ragged edge.

That's long been a problem when things are designed to minimal specifications for the intended operation parameters. But in a lot of cases, there's going to be something that comes along that pushes it past those boundaries, and stuff starts failing, sometimes catastrophically, costly, and/or deadly.

Airbus learned that all three ways back when they had their fly by wire airliners programmed to use the minimum thrust for takeoff, not allowing pilots to override the computer for maximum thrust. Airbus was 'saving fuel', 'reducing noise', 'protecting the environment'. They forgot about having the engines already at full power in case of any emergency that could be helped by full thrust *right now*. Then there's increasing airport throughput by getting planes off the ground and away faster.

 

[pnwoutdoors]

+

Not advocating electrics, but this gets a full WOW!

Nearly 500kph. And that acceleration from 300kph to 400kph. Of course, it's all on a dedicated test track, but still. Pretty zippy, for a ~$240K vehicle. I wonder what John Stapp (of NASA 'sled' testing fame) would have thought.

John Stapp: "Meh." I'm assuming.

Me: "Does it come with a 'Chiropractor On Board' sign for the window?" Yeah, no kidding.

And here I am tooling about town in my lovely, sedate crossover/SUV, a "gutless wonder" by comparison. Probably a good thing. :)