Vehicle engineers that don't work on their own designs

[Toliver]

Why in the world would you design a truck so that debris that gets in between the cab and the bed can't escape? I noticed leaves, sticks, pollen pods and pinestraw accumulating but I couldn't get it out. I tried a power washer and a leaf blower. This stuff holds water and I figured would eventually start causing a rust issue. Looking under the truck I couldn't figure out how to get to it from the bottom. I finally found something I thought might work. A Dressage Whip. Thin and flexible but strong. It got the stuff moving but not a lot. I finally got it down through the stuff and looked underneath. I finally realized there was a rigid rubber strip covering the gap at the bottom of the bed. Without the whip poking through it just looked like a solid piece across there blocking access to the gap. Once I realized it was a little flexible and I could get my fingers in there, I worked it for about an hour to finally get the debris out of there. I could have filled at least a gallon bucket with all that wet rotting mess that's been stuck in there. So why would they design something so stupid? The rant's over but this will be an ongoing issue.

 

[Batjack]

Why in the world would you design a truck so that debris that gets in between the cab and the bed can't escape? I noticed leaves, sticks, pollen pods and pinestraw accumulating but I couldn't get it out. I tried a power washer and a leaf blower. This stuff holds water and I figured would eventually start causing a rust issue. Looking under the truck I couldn't figure out how to get to it from the bottom. I finally found something I thought might work. A Dressage Whip. Thin and flexible but strong. It got the stuff moving but not a lot. I finally got it down through the stuff and looked underneath. I finally realized there was a rigid rubber strip covering the gap at the bottom of the bed. Without the whip poking through it just looked like a solid piece across there blocking access to the gap. Once I realized it was a little flexible and I could get my fingers in there, I worked it for about an hour to finally get the debris out of there. I could have filled at least a gallon bucket with all that wet rotting mess that's been stuck in there. So why would they design something so stupid? The rant's over but this will be an ongoing issue.

See, you wasn't spossed to notice all that. They want in to rust out, that way you'll have to buy a new one every few years.

 

[Toliver]

See, you wasn't spossed to notice all that. They want in to rust out, that way you'll have to buy a new one every few years.

That's exactly the thought that was going through my mind as that stuff was falling out all over me.

 

[cowhornedspike]

Recently did the exact same thing with my Dakota. Pine straw build up. Made a long steel rod with a hook bent at the end and drug most of it out to each side. Stupid.

 

[Batjack]

If asked, they'd prob. tell you it's for aerodynamics. You know, keep some low pressure area from forming under the truck due to the gap.

 

[Redbow]

Them automotive design engineers are smarter than we think. They design stuff to fail over time. To them its not stupid at all they get more of our money that way.. This kind of engineering has been going on for a long time.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Yeah planned obsolescence and all that.

Vehicle engineers have been designing vehicles for either MPG or less pollution at the expense of everything else for around 4 decades now. Some of this led to some wonderful results with engines being more powerful and using less gas. Once they peaked on that in the mid 2000s they started focusing more heavily on pollution controls and then MPG actually went backwards for a bit.

This doesn’t leave much confidence in me that they are actually good vehicles.

As a fleet diesel meckanik for a bit more than a decade now, trust and believe I am right there with you.

It’s in all mechanical objects now too. Tractors, construction equipment, building materials, etc all have an EPA twist that generally makes them inferior to items of only a few decades ago.

 

[Meriwether Mike]

If you have ever changes a heater core on an air conditioned vehicle you hate vehicle engineers.

 

[elfiii]

Well, look at what's coming out of college these days. There's your answer.

 

[RamblinWreck88]

I didn't know the Big Three was hiring UGA engineering grads these days.

In all seriousness, you'd be surprised how little of a say engineers often have in things. That being said, taking an elevated, common-sense view of a system is not something that can be taught in schools.

 

[transfixer]

pretty sure engineers are having to work within the constraints that those in charge of development put on them, everything in as small a size as possible for instance, and minimum cost outlay of course, and the majority of R&D is done in a controlled environment, sometimes using computer simulations, very little R&D actually takes place in real world situations or conditions, I was actually told by a GM engineer who used to work in the transmission development department that all R&D on transmissions were done on a dyno, not on the road with payloads or different road conditions or temperatures

Design considerations are less weight as possible, maximizing fuel economy, cost, and life expectancy a little past factory warranty , that is about it actually

But just because an engineer has an extensive education does not mean they have any common sense though !

 

[Doug B.]

If you have ever changes a heater core on an air conditioned vehicle you hate vehicle engineers.

Try changing the front turn signal bulb on a Ford Escape! After you take the front wheel off then you can take the inner fender most of the way off. Then you can get to various other bolts and parts to get them out of the way. THEN, you can almost see where the bulb is only to find out that you must have an arm the size of a 10 year old female to be able to squeeze it in to where the bulb is! Not to mention that it is really hard to turn the bulb out with just a quarter of an inch of your finger tips being all you can reach it with!!!!!!

 

[Nicodemus]

I used to know an electrical engineer who was off the scale smart. He could quote quantum physics, electrical theory, mathematics, all kinds of book learning. But he could get lost as a he-haint in a peanut field and stand there in a pouring rain and get soaked. He didn`t have enough walking around sense to walk in tall grass.

 

[Qazaq15]

pretty sure engineers are having to work within the constraints that those in charge of development put on them, everything in as small a size as possible for instance, and minimum cost outlay of course, and the majority of R&D is done in a controlled environment, sometimes using computer simulations, very little R&D actually takes place in real world situations or conditions, I was actually told by a GM engineer who used to work in the transmission development department that all R&D on transmissions were done on a dyno, not on the road with payloads or different road conditions or temperatures

Design considerations are less weight as possible, maximizing fuel economy, cost, and life expectancy a little past factory warranty , that is about it actually

But just because an engineer has an extensive education does not mean they have any common sense though !

You'd be surprised, there is still a lot of testing in the real world. The problem is they are fixated on quality issues that surface in the first 10K miles more than anything else. Long term reliability takes a back seat.

 

[Stob]

Agile Engineering is what you are mostly seeing today in all sectors of manufacturing. The engineer that designs the fuel injection system probably never speaks with the engineer that is in charge of the manifold or crankshaft. Think about it in its simplest form, a builder. When I was a kid, I had an uncle that built houses from start to finish- He poured the footers, framed it and finished it himself. That doesn't happen anymore, each individual piece of the project is sub-contracted.

 

[RamblinWreck88]

pretty sure engineers are having to work within the constraints that those in charge of development put on them, everything in as small a size as possible for instance, and minimum cost outlay of course, and the majority of R&D is done in a controlled environment, sometimes using computer simulations, very little R&D actually takes place in real world situations or conditions, I was actually told by a GM engineer who used to work in the transmission development department that all R&D on transmissions were done on a dyno, not on the road with payloads or different road conditions or temperatures

Design considerations are less weight as possible, maximizing fuel economy, cost, and life expectancy a little past factory warranty , that is about it actually

But just because an engineer has an extensive education does not mean they have any common sense though !

We had a guy from Cummins tell us about a turbocharger that was rattling to pieces. Turns out that the installed turbocharger was experiencing a vibration profile that they hadn't accounted for during design.

 

[elfiii]

I didn't know the Big Three was hiring UGA engineering grads these days.

They aren't. Those are all North Avenue Trade School boys but without a Varsity hat.

 

[earlthegoat2]

I’m somewhat positive that John Deere equipment has several different design and r&d depts and they are all in different countries with different educational backgrounds and different teams with different skill sets all working on similar things.

For instance, a TX Gator has lug screws in a normal 5 lug pattern and a 590e has super odd ball 15mm lug nuts in an off the wall 4 lug pattern. Then a Pro Gator has normal lug nuts in a normal 5 lug pattern. Just a small example anyone can understand.

Being a fleet manager for a variety of JD equipment is terrible. There is very little common parts overlap.

Of course, I am also fairly certain a 590 is 100% made in China and assembled here. It shares a lot of characteristics with those weird VanGo vehicles that aren’t road legal. The things even smell like Harbor Freight.

 

[gobbleinwoods]

I hung a ceiling fan a month ago and I know for a fact the e engineer has never install one from the way all the dome and bells get attached with screws.

 

[ddgarcia]

That is called an "engineered defect". It is an item that designed to fail so you will spend more money and they make more. There's no avoiding it these days cause they all do it.