The purpose of this thread is to list engineering mistakes with no regard to nameplate. I'll start. I have seen vacuum tanks made out of thin plastic and mounted on the bottom side of car. No...that will never get broke. How about oil filters mounted in the wheel well. Wheels tend to pick up sharp rocks and hurl them at the filter. One of my favorites.. batteries mounted in the wheel well. They do use liners to protect the batteries, but as for testing and or replacing the battery you are required to remove the wheel. How convenient!:toilet:
how about dodge's long-running issue with the neons and head gaskets? lol and the fact that part of a stratus's 30k mile tuneup was bars leak tablets you drop in the radiator.. pretty big engineering fail on both counts, for not fixing the problems ahead of time..
On the headgasket note, how about gm's 3.1 - 3.4 intake gasket issue that eventually takes the headgaskets out
And lets not forget dodges tranny issue's. I think it was discovered the passages were not big enough and over heated the trannys
took them way too long to figure out their trans issues..
and to add to the stupid battery locations.. how about buick with the battery under the back seat? pretty friggin stupid idea in my book, even if they are 'sealed, special batteries'
F-ing TV cable bushings!!!
I got a few:
Ford's infamous ign switches.
3.8 Esshag headgaskets.
Ford probe
Yugo
Jeep (AMC) model 20 rear ends (2 piece splined hubs on the axle shafts=weak as hell)
A4LD trans in the TC
10" brakes on a Fox CatBird stock
1989 and up Tbird (not really, but I do NOT care for 'em)
I can add more...but too tired and drunk to think of more.
The 2.0 head gasket issues were not limited to Neons. Stratus, PT Cruiser (Part Time Cruiser), and Avenger had same issue. Their fix was a multi-layer steel head gasket. PT Cruisers are the worst to fix. Their weird shape makes repair difficult. Motor mount that attaches to front cover can not be removed with the head on engine. Can not remove head without removing front cover. Have to wedge motor mount into the fender.
What about chevy putting the battery by the spare tire in the HHR, because they didnt leave enough room under the hood. If that battery explodes the trim back there is pretty much ruined
lets just sum it up in 1 word.. or name..
DODGE
Didn't know about battery location on HHR. I don't like that at all. I have had a battery explosion twice. I felt lucky because both times the hood was closed and I was inside the car.
Neons period. Figured a more economical newer car would be worthwhile. Got worse then my bird freeway snd close to the same city. I married into it, I didn't buy it. With the money I put into to it in two years, I could have had a pretty nice cougar/bird. I actually put more money into that car then I have into everyone before, and after over about 8 years.
2nd gear in the GM 700R4
Overdrive in the AOD
The A4LD
The trans in '90s Tauruses.
The stereo in '88-'94 Chevy trucks
Only reason I know is Im in college for Auto Tech and one of the biulders is an HHR. Thinks have small windows and very little room for a guy my size 6'5"
The engineers don't get the final say, the bean counters do. They're forced to design "good enough" or "that'll do".
^^^^^ Mankind is plenty capable of building...THINGS that are very robust. Cost is always the governing factor.....and then people blame the guy that built it, not the one that told him to build it. Such is life :giggle:
Hmmm that 3rd starter bolt on the modular motors. The Front oil pan drain plug that drains right on the sway bar on the fox's. I'm sure there are others I am not remembering
how bout making a car with no drink holder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2003 explorer 4.0, no trans. dipstick.
Not meaning to step on any toes here. I understand engineers are having to deal with constraints. They have to do what accountants want. They have to engineer around cost limits, and emmissions standards. The new diesels engineers have had hell trying to reduce emmissions and make these things work without sulfer. Some design flaws like bad head gaskets nobody would have known about an issue until several thousand cars have hit the road and got some miles on them. However, some things can be blamed on the engineers. Many engineers(not all) design this stuff with no regard to what will happen in the real world. 4wds with CV joints look good on paper. They have agility that can't be obtiained any other way, but off road obsticles such as short trees, brush, and other sticks and stuff cause the CV boots to get damaged. I was meaning to highlight the things that leave you thinking "what were they thinking?". I have seen on multiple occasions where electronics was put in a wet location without anything to protect them from the water. Just want to point out the oops factor that happens because the engineers are human like the rest of us.
Water neck bolts on a 5.0. Wow...five minutes alone with that engineer.
Oh ya I forgot about that one. You also pray that the bolts aren't corroded in or your gonna be pulling the whole intake.
The body engineer who designed the rockers and lower doors on the MN-12 cars. The things rot out way to easy. I should know, I had a MN-12 with shot rear rockers and a floppy passenger door because the lower door frame rotted away. The rockers from the doors back were made of bondo :hick:.
Be
The IRS subframe area is a joke as well. Both '89 cars I was involved with were terribly crusty there too.
Here's the best one:
NO 5.0HO in the '86-'88 Tbirds. It's Ford though....let's have a bunch of redundancy and needless costs, because the Mustang is sacred and all else is shiznit.
How about Renault Alliance and Encore. "1984 Motor Trend Car of the Year." You could always count on them needing something at state inspection time. Trans were junk. They blew head gaskets regularly. Steering racks wore out. E-brake cables broke. On and on. I worked at a Toyota/Chrysler/Jeep dealer in the early 90s. Chrysler took over AMC, I believe in the late 80s, and they were the Renault franchises. What junk. I will agree with TOM Renzo though it kept me in work.
With
i surprised no one mentions the 4.0l sohc in explorer, mountaineer, and sport trac. has a rear timing chain. when the guides wear out you have to pull the engine to change the guide and chains. i love doing them since i have the tool to do them. but customers hate them!
ever do a trans in a contour new gen cougar? pull the entire subframe.. hell the contour/new gen cougar were a disaster completely. the early contours would have wire insulation crumble apart. lots of shorted wires...
windstar/f150 3.8/4.2 with intake plenum bolts that leak vacuum and cause lean codes.
The worst thing I have found on the MN-12s was the door panels. After a while they just start falling apart. Never did find a way to keep them together. Some engineering blunders have put food on my table, but I had a few that were just a pain. I was working in a Dodge dealership in Amarillo when the 03 Dodge pickups were new. Constantly had them coming in for wind noise around the doors. Chrysler's fix was new weatherstrip. They would revise the weatherstrip every couple of months. Just replacing the weatherstrip never did fix the problem. I found that the doors were sticking out from the body line slightly with the doors fully closed. If they were to be adjusted so that they were ever so slightly in from the body line that the wind noise went away. After a while of doing that repair, Chrysler stopped paying for door adjustment because we were doing more than any dealership in the country. Had to continue doing adjustments at no charge to prevent come backs and keep the customers happy. If I didn't do the door adjustments than the trucks would come back and waste my time when I could be doing something that could really make me money. So glad not to be in the business anymore, warranty pay sucks!
Got to love warranty work. NOT! I remember doing warranty cats on a 3.0L Duratec in a Contour. They were part of the exhaust manifolds. What a pain! I think it payed 2.6 hours. It sounds like alot for warranty work but it took every bit of that and then some. Those engines were crammed in those cars.
Ch
Tom, most of my automotive career was spent in Chrysler dealerships which pay the lowest warranty times in the industry. And, to make it worse, I am not exactly a quick worker. My comeback rate was always low though. I don't know if it is different in other parts of the country, but here they want techs to specialize. I am more of a jack of all trades. Due to my lack of speed and inability to specialize, I was given some of the worst jobs there was to have. I rarely got much customer pay jobs, and now the companies are putting bigger warranties on the cars, which makes it even worse. Now I install wireless internet, and I am advancing in this career rather quickly. I now love my job, but I still love working on cars in my free time. Having to learn new things though, because now I get to modify instead of keeping it all factory.
Chrome that was exactly my position in the dealership too. I was more of a jack of all trades type too. That left you open to all kinds of work but it also left you open for more warranty work that others, who specialized, would shun. I have worked in my share of dealerships (Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chrysler, Jeep). The jobs in dealerships are quite limited anymore unless you are a foreman/group leader. At least that's how the landscape looks in my area. I made the decision to change careers several years ago and started taking college courses part time towards a civil engineering degree. I now work for a civil engineering company doing computer drafting and design work for roadway projects. I did not loose one cent making the career transition. I spent 28 years in the car business and learned alot and will always love working on and tinkering with cars.
Ditto what Tom said: Engineering idiocy = money in my pocket. Even though I make a quite commfortable living turning wrenches, though, I've always said it's unfair that engineers get paid what they do, and assembly line workers get paid what they do, to make stupid mistakes that I have to fix at a fraction of the wage. I was always the electrical guy at the dealerships. I enjoy doing electrical work, but it always pissed me off that while I was wracking my brains on an electrical issue and only getting paid straight time for diagnosis plus .2 for the actual repair, some other guy who was too "stupid" to do electrical work was making 16 hours a day doing nothing but brakes & suspension. I got tired of it and got out of the flat rate game, and will never again work in a flat rate shop. Now, working salary, I don't feel like I'm being punished for being smart.
Some examples of engineering stupidity? Here are a few:
Ford modular engine spark plug issues. The PI-headed modulars would blow the plugs right out (and the threads with them), making necessary an expensive repair with dubious longevity. Then Ford comes out with the 3-valve head which solved the blowing out problem by using more threaded area to retain the plugs, but replaced it with another: They used two-piece spark plugs and the things would separate when you try to remove them, causing a difficult (and expensive) repair to extract the broken plug(s). And the beauty of it: The spark plug replacement requirement happens after the warranty has expired, meaning that Ford doesn't have to pay for their fvck-up. Note to any 3-valve engine owners: Unless you are experiencing problems, leave your plugs alone.
Cadillac Northstar engines: Basically that whole engine was an engineering mess. Even replacing the starter requires removing the intake manifold, and I pity anyone who has to replace an alternator in one. Two-piece engine block, which the seal between the two pieces fails frequently. Bad head gasket design. Notorious oil burners. And almost any repairs on these engines require removing the whole drivetrain, which comes out from underneath the car.
GM 6.5 Diesel: Another toilet, with problems too numerous to list. Honorary mention: The old Oldsmobile 4.3 and 5.7 diesels
Any engine that requires intake manifold removal to replace spark plugs. Ford Duratec 3.0 and Dodge 3.5, I'm looking at you, though there are numerous other offenders - I just have more experience with these two.
Chrysler 2.7 V6 - like the Toyota engines that Tom mentioned, only worse. In a way that only Chrysler could do.
Dodge Caliber/Jeep Patriot/Jeep Compass: The whole vehicle family is just plain horrible. Everything about them is horrible, and I'm not just talking about their horrible interiors or driving dynamics - they simply fall apart. Chrysler should be ashamed of this vehicle, and Chrysler's new owner, Fiat, certainly is (Fiat's CEO, Sergio Marachionne or something like that, recently said that to call the Caliber a retail vehilce is an abomination. This from a Fiat guy.)
Parking-brake-drum-in-a-rotor: Another really stupid idea that has been embraced industry wide. Thanks in part to an archaic motor vehicle safety standard that requires a mechanical braking system in case the hydraulic one fails (a standard that was rendered obsolete way back in the mid 60's when dual-circuit brakes were mandated) and thanks in part to the automotive press's creating the entirely unnecessary expectation that all cars have rear disc brakes, even economy cars, we now have two seperate braking systems for each rear wheel. Unfortunately, the secondary braking system is never used (unless the car is a standard, which of course most cars aren't) and it atrophies into a seized up rusted hulk in no time. Then, eventually, somebody tries to use it, usually a mechanic at safety inspection time, and it will not work (and usually sticks on just enough to cause the mechanic no end of fun when trying to remove the rotor/drum), causing repair bills in the hundreds of dollars for a component that will not be used again until the next inspection time, which will cause the same results as before.
I have many, many more, but the laptop battery is dying...
Yes, it always pissed me off that I got boned on diagnosis while some person got paid $25 or more an hour to screw it up. My last position as a technician was at an independent shop getting paid hourly. That is pretty funny, what the CEO of Fiat said about Chrysler's vehicles. I remember seeing a Cadillac Northstar engine that would fill the valley in the block with oil because of an oil leak. It would eventually short the starter as it was placed in the valley.
Thunder Chicken, that's funny that u mentioned spark plugs on modular engines. I had to throw a fit at work convincing them not to change spark plugs on are 08 F250 with 5.4. and true for those that flat rate these engineer screw ups are money makers, but for those of us who own these things after warranty is up, its not so great. Anyhow, I just started the thread because I thought it makes good conversation.
really? i guess it's because i'm huge on S10's and have had my hands deep into more than i can count on 2 hands, but i can knock them out on my own in 2-1/2 hours
as for the MN-12's.. i have yet to see 1 rusting away around here.. maybe it's pure luck or maybe i'm just far enough away from the worst part of the rust belt lol
It's funny..sometimes you can't see the rust, only thing hiding it is some paint...get it on a lift though, or get down on the ground under one, and unless it's been parked during Wet White shiznit, I can assure there's gonna be SOME rust on there, lol
The mn-12's around here rust out bad on the underside. Sometimes all that is holding the rockers together is the paint.
my SC was solid as hell, my buddy's cougar was even more solid and all the cars in my old car club were solid.. maybe SJ is just an MN-12 sweet spot for a slower rotting process lol
well, I had a solution for that but our crafty resident fabricator (Chuck) may not remember.
Up hear the rockers are GONE on most of the 89-93 MN-12s. The 94-97 cars seem to just have the rear rockers rot out. I think Ford may have rust-proofed the later cars a bit better. It didn't stop the lower passenger door frame from rotting out on my 95 T-bird.
ff
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i know, you said 'late model' which are the second gens.. i've had my hands in literally 20 or more 1st gens, but there was no heater core.. or blower motor.. or any HVAC stuff for that matter, for obvious minitruck reasons ;)
Sorry chris, i agree with you on a lot of things tbird related, but living about 10 mins from you i disagree,
all the MN12's ive been around have had rust, Bob Kinee's tbird (both 93 5.0's) have rust on the rockers... and its not just from the sun roof. my brother in laws 93 had lots of rust too. Brian Kleins 89 has rusty floors.. have to figure a way to prevent it so we can finish building it. Kevin's SC was rusting away when nate bought it.
a few guys from MAMN12 commented about my car being fairly rust free. and me on the other hand think mine is rusting inside out. just only underneath.
but yes the MN12 are rust pr0ne. non-sunroof car are a shock as they rust in the same place as the sunroof drain would be
really? bob's cars are rusting? wait.. since when does he have 2?!
I have had a million cars in my life. I could go on and on, but here are a few highlights:
Geo Metro control arm mounts- They rust and separate, and the metal is too thin to weld. You basically have to engineer some hackery or junk it.
Olds Aurora with the battery under the back seat
How about our cars with the cruise hidden in the wheel well? And the junk brittle clips that break on the ends...
Then we have:
Ford truck mod motor exhaust manifold bolts (rust and the heads pop off)
Any FWD vehicle that you can't get to the rear plugs. C'mon nerds, this is a regular maintenance issue, end users should be able to handle spark plugs. This one there is no excuse for. They should see this right away.
The ever-cracking exhaust manifolds on ford 2.3t cars.
VW Automatic transmissions (jetta, golf, etc)
VW Jetta cable-driven plastic window regulators (I have a 4-door, and they all broke)
Fox body seat backs that break and make me do the Detroit Lean
Aluminum rims that seize onto drums (Chevy astro)
Eagle Premier / Dodge Monaco. Everything about that car. The trans, the goofy way you have to bleed the coolant system with a bleeder that breaks off in the water neck... Worst car I ever owned
Some fords with the plastic timing gears... Really?
Gearboxes on our window motors and the disappearing bushings
Overheating ford TFI modules
Ford Full Size Bronco rear window- It's a power window, that you have to roll down to be able to open the tailgate... The tailgates rust like crazy too
Man, I could go on and on..
hondas are the same friggin way.. makes a simple job a PITFA when the bleeder is seized and stripped
CoogarXR you hit on a good one. Eagle Premier and Dodge Monaco. I had to work on a few of them at the dealership. What .
This talk about rust reminded me about the rear strut towers on Escorts.
Or the strut towers on our cars.. Mine were pretty well shot.. Had one fixed when the engine was out.
thanks for reminding me.. both of mine are shot.. :(
My uncle rebuilt one of these back in the 80's, his friend then turned the engine over backwards which was a big nono! Timing belt had to be replaced all over again
L99/LT1 water pumps directly above the Optispark (distributor).
When the water pump fails, it almost always ruins the O/S. And whoever/whatever entity manufactures those water pumps....I'm on the third one, with not more than 1500 miles between the changes...every ed time it was the bearing and seal going bad and leaking coolant. (they're shaft driven through the front of the engine, off of the cam, via a small splined coupler)
I also won't go into detail about the coolant bleeding issue with regards to said LT1 engines...
Really? You can f*ck up and put a rather important electrical device directly under a source of liquid, but you can't out a goded radiator cap ON the radiator to add coolant!? (Caprice/Impala -96 and older)
C'mon GM...did your engine designers for the LT1 series smoke a fat bag before coming in to work that day..???
One more...whichever brain-deficient jack-hole who thought it would be a good idea to put locking lugs on Ford vehicles...I've never seen any that didn't ultimately need a socket pounded on them to be removed, or else cut off in some manner. Which isn't recommended for wheels you wish to keep in a nice state..)
i 2nd the 'locking lugs'.. stupid stupid stupid
Try working at a used car dealership that handles mostly 3-year-old lease returns that have been through auction. You get an all new hate on for locking wheel nuts when 90% of the vehicles you're working on are missing the key...