I could choke a GM engineer!

[Galane]

The C7 Corvette has a but of WTF under its hood. At the right rear there's a box with easy open latches. No idea what's in the box. But running along the side next to the engine, then across the back edge, is an insulated hard line that sure looks like it would have to be removed to get the "easy open" lid off that box. There's plenty of room for that line to have been run over to the side, in front of the box, then to the back, still not over the top of the box. Googling 2015 corvette engine bay does turn up some pics without that line run across the top of that box. Perhaps someone at GM came to their senses sometime between 2014 and 2019, or perhaps there's an aftermarket stupidity correction kit?

 

[AuroraGirl]

sometimes problems in engineeering are also not-able to be accounted for or were not obvious based on what they knew at the time.

Like, copper in brake pads or that brake pressure valve on big squares that changed the amount of brake in the rear proportional to load that got stuck a lot and caused dangerous lockups a lot

 

[The88]

Engineers are fun to work with in the oilfield. A lot of times we would look at their procedures, get a laugh and do our thing. That was done for years until we then had to follow procedure. That only lasted so long and they then mandated MOC for the procedure. At that point it turned into the guys in the field reading the procedures, rewriting them entirely and then doing the job.

Fun jobs were ones they would send their young "smart" engineers on the boat with us. We would hear from them how perfect their prints were and how we are gonna do this, this and this. We get to location and their eyes bug out of their heads because their procedures and drawings were not even good enough as toilet paper. Good times.

 

[AuroraGirl]

Kinda like part store employees who never even opened a hood let alone fix a fuse(God forbid It be UNDER the hood!?) and also think they are hot **** when they can tell you that there is no aftermarket or OE replacement part for your vehicle and youre still trying to tell them to trya different year because.. well its useless to explain how something benign was changed randomly in the cycle of a car numerous times without a clear or obvious reason and all versions are interchangeable yada yada yada..

Im here typing this and he is still asking me if its 2 door or 4 door

 

[MikeB]

Kinda like part store employees who never even opened a hood let alone fix a fuse(God forbid It be UNDER the hood!?) and also think they are hot **** when they can tell you that there is no aftermarket or OE replacement part for your vehicle and youre still trying to tell them to trya different year because.. well its useless to explain how something benign was changed randomly in the cycle of a car numerous times without a clear or obvious reason and all versions are interchangeable yada yada yada..

I'm here typing this and he is still asking me if its 2 door or 4 door

My 15 year old granddaughter could do that job!

I have found that the better parts stores usually have one employee per shift who has some experience working on cars, or at least knows one part from another. There's an O'Reilly Auto Parts in Allen, TX that used to have woman manager who must have had >200 of the more common part numbers in her head! She would speed things up on busy days by going from counter to counter, helping out the guys who were asking all the dumb, menu-prompted questions. Not quite like the stores in the 60s-70s, but pretty close. I think she moved on to bigger and better things, but the company should have offered her 50% more pay to stay!


There's a newer O'Reilly's where they brought a guy back from retirement to do the same sort of thing. He's not manager material, just more like tech support for the young counter guys. I have seen this guy at 3 different O'Reilly's over the years. That's good use of their people by management.

But still, there are too many stores with people who in their former jobs asked, "Do you want fries with that?"

 

[vintovka]

Just wait. California is mandating that everyone is to be given a passing grade in school and degrees are unnecessary to be an engineer, lawyer or anything. Then there's the 12 mechanics fired from the local auto repair shop over last two years for flunking drug tests due to legal pot. Most spent big bucks getting certified in tech schools and now are unemployable due to workmans comp issues. Crosschecking "flunkers" against gun records adding to the fun. Remember that pesky form 4473?

Just wait till you have to have someone else work on your car and crap engineers will be the least of your problems.

 

[AuroraGirl]

Just wait. California is mandating that everyone is to be given a passing grade in school and degrees are unnecessary to be an engineer, lawyer or anything. Then there's the 12 mechanics fired from the local auto repair shop over last two years for flunking drug tests due to legal pot. Most spent big bucks getting certified in tech schools and now are unemployable due to workmans comp issues. Crosschecking "flunkers" against gun records adding to the fun. Remember that pesky form 4473?

Just wait till you have to have someone else work on your car and crap engineers will be the least of your problems.

They can pry my rusted **** from my cold, tetanus inducing, mold carrying, lead poisoning, asbestos containing, distillate smelling, hard wrought iron pile

 

[Raider L]

trukman1,
Japanese have always done that, it's cross training. We did it in the Army when I was training in S.F. It's so if a man is wounded it didn't affect the affectiveness of the team because everyone on the team knew how to do his job so the team still functions even if there's only one man left - the mission is accomplished. The Japanese do it so that no one thinks they are special and understands the purpose of being humble and thankful. Something that has been long lost on American manufacturers. They used to be back when things were made to last for ever. Look at antiques.

vintovka,
"...make it cheaper..." Really? So what happened to that cost by the time it got to us? It must not be what they are telling the engineers these days. They must be like the young engineer was trying to do and management is now telling him... "good, that ought to cost a fortune. And they won't be able to fix that. They'll just have to buy another new one, again and again, ha, ha, ha I can see me laughing my way to bank already."

 

[AuroraGirl]

trukman1,
Japanese have always done that, it's cross training. We did it in the Army when I was training in S.F. It's so if a man is wounded it didn't affect the affectiveness of the team because everyone on the team knew how to do his job so the team still functions even if there's only one man left - the mission is accomplished. The Japanese do it so that no one thinks they are special and understands the purpose of being humble and thankful. Something that has been long lost on American manufacturers. They used to be back when things were made to last for ever. Look at antiques.

vintovka,
"...make it cheaper..." Really? So what happened to that cost by the time it got to us? It must not be what they are telling the engineers these days. They must be like the young engineer was trying to do and management is now telling him... "good, that ought to cost a fortune. And they won't be able to fix that. They'll just have to buy another new one, again and again, ha, ha, ha I can see me laughing my way to bank already."

TO BE FAIR, most of the cost of a new vehicle is going to the dealer.
GM is selling truck A to dealer B for 10,000 when it cost gm 3,000 to produce truck A. Consumer buys truck A for dealer MSRP of 60,000 at the steal of a deal of 10,000 off with a sale and credits and trade in!
Just happens GM produces parts and accessories which it sells at full value and also gets government monies and has a very diverse portfolio in many industries that it can make a large chunk of its cash elsewhere as to make it all worth it.

Looking at you, AC Delco