[Vwdiesel] Sick, illiterate design

[Arkady Mirvis]

Loren,
Your post had proved to me once more the serious inferiority of american 
mechanics both in philosophy, knowledge and working habbits.
I, busy like hell managing a manufacturing engineering department, decided 
to get first hand knowledge about lerning to be a mechanic and  enrolled in 
night school at Newton, NJ. That was a significant my time and money 
investment. For an entire year, 4 hours per a week I was patient to bear 
frustrations on a verge to be totally disappointed and drop out.
Even the primitive equipment was totally absolete. All teachers were 
sel-taught, trained by self-taught, lacking not only technical but 
elementary, from my point of view, professional and teaching experience. I 
was bold enough to contradict many statements and did my best not humiliate.
My experience of over 40 years included maimtenance, design and super 
precision prodiction, significant part of time in aircraft industry.
It was simply sickening to see mistakes and totally unacceptable practices 
being passed to young and mid - aged.
I witnessed practices and work habbits which if used in Germany, Austria 
even small shops and in Portuguese dealership, would lead to immediate 
dismissal. There you can see posters prohibiting use of hammers, pliers, any 
tool which will leave mark on the part.
Name me a dealership in USA where the car is coming into the service area 
steam, special detergent cleaned to the point that mechanic's white gloves 
stay white and spotless? You see in USA mostly dirty cars, parts and tools 
on the floor, etc.
I took 2 week course at Bosch Service school and remember Newton school as a 
nightmare.
What is wrong with idiot-proof design? Nothing! It is a design to make the 
assembler and serviceman more productive and living easier.
Take a look at 120 volts electric plug. It is double-proof! Nothing wrong 
with the use of same pump on different engines. But it shall be adopted not 
with extra parts! Nothing wrong with having one bolt off-set by 1 mm for 
idiot-proofing, etc.
I do suggest not to defend dilettantism, but get high quality modern 
education which prepares to deal right with modern technology.
Ark.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <LBaird119 at aol.com>
To: <vwdiesel at vwfans.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 9:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Vwdiesel] Sick, illiterate design


> In a message dated 8/30/2010 11:47:04 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> arkadymirvis at gmail.com writes:
>
>> Behind the steering pump pulley there was a
>> spacer. Why? What prevented moving the pump, or the flange on pump on its
>> shaft, or have a 1 mm longer shaft? Sick mind.
>> More. Socket head cap screws looking same length. You install a wrong
>> length
>> screw and steering pump pulley is jammed!
>
>  Wow, not sure which one is sick here.  ;-)
>  Part of what I considered learning to work on mechanical things was to
> keep in mind what fits where.  On my motorcycles, one engine side cover
> might use 3 or 4 different lengths of bolts.  I considered it a necessity
> of
> design rather than poor design.
>  If VW/Audi can use the same PS pump on 5 different models of cars by
> simply using a spacer behind the pulley, that's great!  It means I only
> need
> one pump to work on several different cars!  It's YOUR responsibility when
> working on something to be sure you put the right grade, thread, length 
> and
>
> head design fastener in the correct hole.  It's not a fault of design to
> not make
> mechanics an idiot proof profession.
>  Next you'll want warning lables on cars about mixing up pulleys and
> bolts!  ;-)
>     Loren
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