warp2diesel wrote:
I deal with Engineering Snaffoos on a regular basis. The CRD forum of L.O.S.T. has discovered, exposed, and documented these Snaffoos very well. IN my job, I am fixing a misconfiguration problem by using a bucket and pouring water onto the trash. We adjust the PLC timers and other functions based upon the obvious observation of what the trash in the bucket looks like.
Vacuum leaks, loose connectors, leaving out essential components to cut costs, hanging on unneeded components because some engineer though that is what the Governments wanted, elected officials basing some laws on fact and others on junk science with no pear review system set up, not holding outside vendors to quality standards have resulted in the problems members have had. We should all be glad to have this forum to share out findings and solve our performance problems.
Good luck, may your diagnosis be quick and the fix cheap.
When employed, that sounds very close to what I do as a manufacturing engineer specializing in Lean Manufacturing. I've also been a quality manager at a nuclear technology company as well as a designer for consumer products. I've even designed and built equipment, programmed PLCs...all of it. But most of the time, I was cleaning up other people's messes due to basic design-for-manufacturability issues and poor quality programs.
The last company I worked for was a major supplier of controls and switches for Boeing, Airbus and the military. If people only knew the cr@p that went on in that factory...geeezz. I examined field failures on tanks and armored vehicles that were due directly to our design and quality defects and on some of them, probably contributed to loss of life. On several occasions I pulled product off the shop floor that was purposely being manufactured waaaay out of tolerance because the designs were so poor they could not be made to tolerance. (Title blocks on drawings were actually defaulted to .001 - even on rubber gaskets - and "just to be safe" it was rarely challenged by design engineers.) In other cases, we could make product to tolerance but often skipped critical quality checks because the people on the floor were pushed to hurry things up due to over-booked orders. This not-so-gentle persuasion was usually conducted by management behind my back because they knew I had the legal requirement and thus authority to stop it. As quality manager in the nuclear technology company (the most stressful job of my life) I was interviewed by the CIA, the FBI as well as the Navy and told I would be potentially jailed if I knowingly allowed defective product to leave the factory. Even with that, on several occasions, I actually got into trouble by upper management for pulling product. They had late orders to fill and by golly that was that.
Sometimes the fault lay with the military or airplane companies asking for things that could not be made, but most of the time it was due to our sales staff doing whatever was necessary to secure contracts. Down the line, our designers often worked without seriously questioning anything - afraid of losing their jobs if they did. The shop was inevitably left with the mess and blamed if it didn't turn out well. However, ultimately, the mess starts at the top and comes down to corporate culture and the short-sighted focus on quarterly reports to shareholders. I even got laid off once where the reasoning from the president was that he had promised 18% that quarter and it was only going to be 12% so he had to get rid of a bunch of staff to help make up for it. This guy was the worlds biggest weasel, but I gave him credit for at least being honest.
I have no doubt the CRD was caught up in one of these tangled webs of mismanagement and because I'm so familiar with what goes on behind the curtains, I probably get more pisssed off than most.
(BTW: Yes, examining the scrap bin can certainly tell you a lot about what is going on and I would bet the scrap bin on the CRD line was piled high. Oh, wait, maybe not! It appears the scrap bin was bolted onto the frame of my car.)
Nonetheless, I like the car: It handles fairly well for what it is, the rattly diesel is kind of fun, it has a lot of pull power for a small SUV, it gets OK mileage, it has higher than average (car) 4X4 capabilities, it is unique, and once I get my home brew system perfected, can burn home made fuel. But the quality problems are unacceptably numerous - and far, far worse than any car I've owned before. I have often wondered what it must be like for someone who does not know how to wrench on cars to own one of these. It has been difficult enough for me even with this (lifesaver) forum. But if I had no tools and diligently took it to the shop each time the CEL flashed on, I would be in the shop constantly and once the worthless warranty ran out, it would cost me a fortune to keep these things on the road.
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BTW; Bosch + DCX= RIPOFF
I never though my knowledge of gelling, cloud points, and transfat would ever apply to my job, but it is and this knowledge is saving our butts and the butts of the company who buys our machines and puts their name on them.