Just looked at a brand new vehicle over the weekend .The salesman said one of the new features was that now not only does it indicate low tire pressure it shows which tire is going flat . I said really !! If a light comes on indicating low tire pressure people should be able to figure out which tire is low pretty quickly . If not how do they handle the actual driving of it . The dumbing down of people while convincing them to pay for things that they do not want !!!

My number 1 pet peeve is a vehicle beeping at you if you don't take the keys out of the ignition after you park it and open the door. I solved that on my truck by super glueing nickels over the little button sensor on the doors. Keys stay in the ignition and doors unlocked at all times, no need for that nonsense.

To be honest, most of you guys are barking up the wrong tree. Blame the Sales folks and the bean counters for most of that crap in your cars. Its about sales numbers. So they want more " features" that set them apart from the rest of the pack. Us enginerds are only the ones who turn their dreams into reality. The only thing that you can blame us for is the fact that we don't like to hear the phrase " thats impossible " sort of gives us a twitch and sometimes a sleepless night or two, but then we make it happen in the end and those pencil pushers know it. Sometimes it gets a little crazy.
A buddy of mine worked for VW and was the acoustic enginerd for new model development. An example was the sporty Audi Quattro coupe that had the same engine as the Passat had to sound totally different to the public and to the driver. The Passat was supposed to be quiet with a soft purring when you put your foot down. Same engine in the quarto Coupe as supposed to sound sporty and have an aggressive tone when the right pedal got pushed to the floor. Millions went into the development of making that difference so the advertising guys had something to rave about with both cars.
I just kept yanking his chain as ty why they built a 5 cylinder 4 stroke engine in the first place that always sounds to the trained ear as if piston number five never got along with the other four and did his own thing.

My son is a manufacturing enginerd, he claims 99.8 percent of the time, any issues are caused by salesmen selling something that doesn't exist, and higher ups that say they can use old designs to save money, " just figure it out"
So they end up re designing an old product, and try to figure out how to cram all the new crap in it, instead of starting from scratch and doing it right.

He hates salesmen....

GCS been there and done it. I rather fix boats then go back into that crazy world.

I worked in maintenance. I repaired machines, mainly printing presses, and we built a few machines from scratch. I worked with two different engineers in the 23 years I worked at my last job. Both were very knowledgeable. I was amazed at the way they could design whole machines, and parts for machines. They would draw very elaborate prints, the machinist would make the parts, and I would put them together. I designed all the electrical for the machines, but it always amazed that the engineers could design these machines, and parts, and they always fit together. Electricity seemed pretty easy compared to what they did. I have remained friends with both engineers since I retired and when ever I have a problem, that I don't understand, I go to them. We go to the beer joint, drink a couple of beers, and they are always able help me. I have great respect for the engineers I worker with.

Have you replaced a heater core in a newer vehicle (or had one done)? My 87 F250 took me, in my driveway, an hour, my 97 F150 took an experienced mechanic 6.5 hours. Engineering marvel!!

With all the modern conveniences in vehicles you have to design all the stuff to fit in a finite area, Vehicles have soooooooo much more stuff in them then they did 30 years ago. I believe if I could buy a vehicle designed in 1949, or a vehicle built-in 2019, I wold take the 1949 model. I had a 1949 Chevy and talk about easy to work on!!!!! Open the hood on a 1949 Chevy pick up and open the hood on a 2019 Chevy pick up. Cruise control, air conditioning, cd player, power everything, seat belts----- the list goes on and on. I don't blame the people who design the cars, it's what people want and what has been required by the government. You have to make everything fit and put everything together. This ain't "your fathers Buick."

I love engineers, without them we'd still be waiting on ferries, plus my youngest is going to school to be one. lol

Noooo Hobbie you are talking civil engineers again...... they dig holes and move dirt around. Proper enginerds build Planes , ships , helicopters , tanks and submarines. Civil engineers build targets.

You all should've see the instructions to replace a bathtub mix valve I just recently installed. So many redundant steps it was like the hokey pokey. I landed up just tossing them to the side.

You have no idea how many times I could've used that in the past, but will in the future.

"If mechanics designed cars instead of engineers they wouldn't fit on the road." lol

I don't think they dig or move any dirt. They do numbers and put it on paper so somebody else knows where to dig holes and move dirt to, just like "proper enginerds."

I'd love to have that feature on my wife's car. All 4 tires always look flat when ya look at them. Stupid low profile tires.

Jeez Louise, SOMEBODY woke up on the wrong side of the flooded bear den.

Osky

Well Hobbie. There ya have it. The difference between a mechanic and an engineer is that the mechanic washes his hands before he goes for a pee.

The lights staying on in the truck bug me especially when I'm checking traps at night and don't care to be seen.

Cars ,trucks tractors and other heavy equipment are designed to assemble not to disassemble they're for making working on it problematic

I had the displeasure of working on the nieghbors newer scandic the other day. I think there were seven or eight panal peices to remove held on with rotted rubber straps,broken plastic tabs, twist and locks, and finally velcro.
Takes two people to remove the cdi/coil unit because it is mounted in the space between two frame pieces and the steering column that pass just above the spark plugs. You kind of have to be on both sides of the machine to remove the cdi mounting bolts and nylocks.