Mechanic Reacts to Car Engineering Fails

We asked real mechanics to break down some of the worst engineering choices made on cars.

Huge thanks to our experts for sharing their knowledge and expertise with us!

Real Mechanic Stuff is a channel from your pals at Donut! We feature all kinds of automotive experts, every week.

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[guyfawkes]

I'm an engineer with a major OEM. Typically about ~80% of these issues will be identified by the engineering team before the product ships, but management doesn't want to spend the time or money to fix it. The other 20%, well we're human.

[TehNoobiness]

Sandro gets it. All the problems really just boil down to "management heard what it'd cost to do it right, pitched a fit, and they burned reputation instead of money"

[CrimsonAnjel]

My dad is an engineer and a mechanic. He constantly complains about the higher ups in his company. He speaks from experience when he explains to them why a design won't work, and they just don't care. They have the "thats the next guy's problem" attitude.

[noControl]

90% of things blamed on engineers were things engineers knew about but were told by the accountants that it wasn't worth fixing. Also for a lot of these odd things, there is a special tool that only dealerships can get ahold of that cost hundreds of dollars for an oddly shaped wrench.

[atevalve]

Fun fact, Canadian Kias have that immobilizer stuff in them because it's been mandated by law for years here. That isn't engineers, this is worse. Accountants

[leonardolucchetti]

Real mechanical engineer here and I have a funny story. So my grandpa was a mechanic his whole life (repairing tractors) and he would go off on engineers for this exact reason. I remember one time he actually had to drop a transmission to get to the top pan to fix a misaligned leaver. We (my father is also an engineer) never got to hear the end of it, he actually delayed the delivery to the customer just so he could show us the dismantled transmission and what he had to for that little fix. Good days, miss my grandfather.

[johnjr]

I had a trusted mechanic my family used for over 30 years and I personally used for about 20 years before he unfortunately passed away on the job from a heart attack. I'm not a car guy so before I would buy a new vehicle i always asked him his opinion of it. A couple of times he let me know to stay away from certain vehicles because of things like this. He never steered me wrong. I really miss him.

[LorenzoSpag]

I’m an engineer at one of the big three. A lot of times we’re not given a choice to fix stuff like this. I do all my own mechanic work so I definitely know the pain. But it’s mostly just these companies not caring, not the people that actually designed them. Would be fun to be on this show as an engineer with the mechanics …

[squidikka]

"I don't blame covid, I blame us."
Sandro with the based af takes as usual. My dude kills it every single time.

[somethingsochill]

Man, when Sandro said ‘honestly, anything you buy nowadays is gunna be crap’ I felt that. I’m a mechanic by trade and I would take a 20 year old car that’s been garage kept over ANYTHING new

[alexlemus]

I’m a simple man. I see Sandro I hit the like button 🤷🏽‍♂️

[brianburnside]

I have designed hundreds if not thousands of automotive components. Every single component I designed had to go through a manufacturability and serviceability review. If there is a serviceability issue, I can almost guarantee that the engineers knew about it and were likely told not to worry about it by management.

[HazenMire]

Would be really cool if Donut could get some industry engineer's in to talk their perspective and why/how these design choices get made. Nobody engineers a POS on purpose. Some constraint somewhere had to force a trade-off if they were aware ahead of time.

[Leightr]

A few years back Jamie Hyneman, of Mythbusters fame, wrote an article for Popular Mechanics where he ranted about this very issue and blamed too much dependence on using CAD to design things with too few engineers ever having to bark their knuckles on actual machinery.

[eternalphoenix]

Sadly, it's often not the engineer's fault. It's called the engineer's paradox. Doesn't matter how much you scream until you're blue in the face, some pencil-pushing corporate shill is gonna require things get done in a way that engineer specifically says "you can't do that because [insert reason]".

As an engineer, I've had to walk off a job because I was being told to do something that would be unsafe for the operators (industrial setting) and refused to do it. Told them that if they did it, I wouldn't continue on the project. They acted like they were backing down and I came in the next day and they'd done exactly what I told them not to do during the night shift. I don't play around with safety and I wasn't going to let my name be attached to someone's death. I walked off the job that instant.

[KayoMichiels]

You're gonna love this! A modern Porsche requires you to remove the entire engine to.... replace the spark plugs.

[hi_tech_reptiles]

Keep in mind engineers often say "hey, problems will arise if you cost cut" and the paper pushers say "itll be fine we need better marigins" and voila

[erikgranqvist]

As an accountant, I can say this: people with an economic degree get way to much power in lots of companies. A lot of them also think they know everything there is to know, so why should they not push their ideas thru?

[dirkmohrmann]

A lot of those bad engineering decisions are really made by the accountants, not the engineers. If a manufacturer can save $2 per car by simplifying a mold or a stamping, they will, even if it reduces serviceability

[shanesteele]

6:34
Speaking as a production operator at TNAP (Toledo North Assembly Plant) where the Jeep Wrangler is built, the electrical problems on the wranglers are a supplier issue. But for other issues it’s definitely the workers lol