Spectrum. We had a problem with the cable running from the pole across the street to our house. The Spectrum tech replaced it and it was hanging really low. He insisted it was ok so he left. 30 minutes later an ambulance going down the street snagged it. The police showed up to block the street and the utility company came ti investigate, found it wasn't power so the cut it off of the house and the pole. They contacted Spectrum and a new tech came out and put the new line about 20 ft higher.
calteg said:Dodge Stratus
Everybody rants about that but how often do you change the battery? Every 5 years? Big deal. Honestly that's no worse battery location than my E46 and the BMW battery weighed about 60 pounds.
There are charge / jump points under the hood of the Stratus.
Most modern electrical pin snap together plastic connector thingies.
Design pefection: VW logo
Design fail: Volkswagens
barefootcyborg5000 said:Bad design? The Fender Stratocaster:
It's that DAMNED VOLUME KNOB!
It's funny... as I originally played Les Pauls a lot, I now play my Strat most of the time... and now I want to try a Les Paul with a similar control layout (Les Paul Studio M-III, if I can find one).
You eventually get used to the Vol knob being there and start to want it there.
ProDarwin said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Haha yes the wipers in Saturns are always one wipe too many. I do really like the 96+ cluster. It's just correct. I don't know that it's inherently better or worse than other similar clusters. Z32 I liked a lot as well. It's really good for something you find in a E36 M3box though.
There was one thing about the cluster in my 97 SL2 that I really hated and couldn't get past: instead of being lit from the back, it had lights mounted up under the shade. It didn't bother me until I realized you can see those lights from outside the car when you're driving past it. I hated that people could see my cheap-ass ghetto gauge cluster lights.
The NC Miata has a huge flaw. Mazda put a HVAC outlet under the dash pointing right at the drivers knee. Whenever I drove it my right knee was either roasted or frozen. There was no way to turn it off.
Our 2003 Ford esploder has the 'floor / foot' vent pointed at my ankles when driving, so when it's a brisk -40*C outside my feet are frozen but my right ankle is sweating.
Also, it seems like the highest fan speed is too fast and actually reduces the temperature of the air blowing in the cabin, so its good for getting warm air onto the windows to defrost, but need to turn it down a notch for actually making a comfortable interior to sit in.
Things I hate:
- cars that require you to pull the engine to change the clutch
- cars that locate vital parts where you can't get at them - putting starter motors under intake manifolds or inside the bell housing and such
- cars with several seat position presets - I set one of my cars so my wife could drive it if she ever had to. I got in it and hit the wrong preset and it went into wife setting which pinned me to the steering wheel, in a position where I couldn't reach those controls. Adding insult to injury, my wife laughed at me when I called her over to release me!
- instruments located down long dashboard tunnels where you have zero chance of seeing them when driving in bright sunlight (even if you turn the headlights on in some cases)
I was in Germany for a few weeks earlier this year and two things stood out:
1) The shower design was such that there were two knobs: temp, and flow. berkeleying perfect. Thats exactly what I want to control as a user. No trying to balance a knob for hot and cold each, or worse, just having one knob and no adjustment for flow period.
2) The doors in my hotel had "pull" handles on both sides. Its immediately apparent when you use them that its a poor design and the typical "handle to pull, bar to push" type design is superior. It definitely violates any "Consistency and standards" heuristic.
Plastic rivets, there must be a better way
ProDarwin said:1) The shower design was such that there were two knobs: temp, and flow. berkeleying perfect. Thats exactly what I want to control as a user. No trying to balance a knob for hot and cold each, or worse, just having one knob and no adjustment for flow period.
Mono-knob faucet controls are the absolute worst. Too bad interior designers and other aesthetics-focused people love them so damn much.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
TRoglodyte said:Most modern electrical pin snap together plastic connector thingies.
And for some reason they have different types to figure out on the same car' not to mention different brands of cars.
Is there a tool for these things? Half the time I end up cracking the latch that didn't really need to be there because the friction holds it anyway.
jharry3 said:TRoglodyte said:Most modern electrical pin snap together plastic connector thingies.
And for some reason they have different types to figure out on the same car'
I'd file that under good design. Ever see the mess that happens on older cars that used the EV1 for everything? Even if they are color coded folks will still get them crossed up every time.
NISSAN
barefootcyborg5000 said:NISSAN
"What specifically?"
"Yes."
At least they stopped using the slide lock electrical connectors that you would peel the skin away from your thumbnail trying to PUSH unlock through years of underhood dirt.
The VQ engine is a particular nightmare if you have to do internal engine work because it is really a VG engine designed around timing belts, but they converted it to run on chains, so it has separate outer and inner timing covers and all of the potential for leaks that this entails.
Ford went from this....
to this....
Decent room in the engine bay to work on things, which is good because you're gonna need it.
2022 Bronco dash screen. Ford, either keep it all analog, or go full digital - the round speedometer looks like a cheap, last minute, add-on.
Trent said:jharry3 said:TRoglodyte said:Most modern electrical pin snap together plastic connector thingies.
And for some reason they have different types to figure out on the same car'
I'd file that under good design. Ever see the mess that happens on older cars that used the EV1 for everything? Even if they are color coded folks will still get them crossed up every time.
I would argue that a better design would be plugs that were shape-incompatible with the other plugs in the general area yet used the same basic motion to separate. When this one has a little slide lock, and that one just presses down, and this other one has two tabs on the sides, and so on, you wind up spending way too much time trying to figure out if you just need to squeeze harder or if you're just not doing THAT one correctly. It's even more important for those connectors that you can't really see and have to attack by feel only.
In reply to wae :
That is at odds with mass production, though. Then you may have 14 different versions of the same part despite having the same function.
A lot of it is supplier based. "american car, german car, all made by bosch!" They're not going to make 14 different throttle bodies dependent on who it is going to. Heck, I have a bunch of throttle bodies from Ford, Chrysler, and some other, and they are all identical in bolt pattern and connector, to where I could not tell you what came from where.
So you get things like, say, a Volvo that has Bosch connectors for some things, including an honest to Bob EV1 connector on the PCV heater, and Ford connectors for some things on the suspension, and Chrysler connectors on the evap parts because for some damn reason they bought the evap stuff from them.
BTW - Ford horn connectors are EV14! Or is it EV6... dang it
Lower fuel filter housing on 2017+ Ford diesel pickup chassis. As a guy who gets to change them laying on my back in the yard... I curse the engineers every time.
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