Ridiculous number of fasteners!

[Alan Reynolds]

OK, But if you own a supercar you'd sort of expect a certain level of specialist (Read "Expensive") maintenance was going to be the norm........... But a Volvo V70 !?!?

I agree. One of my co workers used to have a Saab turbo and I used to have to change his headlamp bulbs as I had slim fingers. It was normally a garage job.

 

[WorkshopChris]

How long until they invent a new fastener???

It's not just fastenings on cars its everywhere. Take a typical electrical fitting.
At onetime something either had a Slotted screw or Philips head, then they came up with the idea of elongating the 4 points of a Philips screw so that you could still use a flat screwdriver.
Problem is now neither a flat head or Philips hear driver works, and they now make a special-purpose +- driver.

 

[Robbie260]

If you look at mechanical fasteners and the common sizes before 10 years ago before everyone started really using 18,16,15,14 mm and other odd sizes you could quite easily argued that the metric system didnt exist except in a way to read dimensions for mechanical engineering as all the fasteners used were just metric equivalents of the imperial fasteners that were commonly used before.

 

[Reman]

Some car manufacturers now even program stuff to fail after a certian number of hours

Not strictly correct there, But close.

If the manufacturers are designing an engine, And that engine has a component that'll last a maximum of 200,000 miles there's no point overspecing anything else to last beyond that. 200k is a reasonably respectable mileage for a car these days, and if stuff started falling to bits around that point people wouldn't see it as strange. The problem is that manufacturers have got bloody good at estimating the life expectancy of components. You used to have an alternator go at around the 80 to 100k mark, Swap that and you might get another 20 to 50k before the next thing goes. The mileage you get between necessary repairs drops until the car falls into "Banger" territory and it's not worth spending the money to fix it anymore...... The end. Off to the scrap yard you go.

Now what we get is a car that's built with every component computer evaluated and optimised to get to it's 150/200k miles or 15 year for the minimum production cost posible. Most of the components get's the same level of care or abuse from the driver so their lives are either shortened or extended by the same sort of level. Then at 15 years or 150/200k miles EVERYTHING starts to wear out at the same time. Suddenly your car needs several sensors, A starter motor, valve seals, Water pump, Alternator, Duel mass flywheel and a dozen other things doing all within a 12 month/15k mile period !

When that happens it's easy to think the manufacturers have "Programed" their cars to give up at a certain point......... And in a very real way they have, Just not exactly as people think they do.

 

[Robbie260]

Not strictly correct there, But close.

If the manufacturers are designing an engine, And that engine has a component that'll last a maximum of 200,000 miles there's no point overspecing anything else to last beyond that. 200k is a reasonably respectable mileage for a car these days, and if stuff started falling to bits around that point people wouldn't see it as strange. The problem is that manufacturers have got bloody good at estimating the life expectancy of components. You used to have an alternator go at around the 80 to 100k mark, Swap that and you might get another 20 to 50k before the next thing goes. The mileage you get between necessary repairs drops until the car falls into "Banger" territory and it's not worth spending the money to fix it anymore...... The end. Off to the scrap yard you go.

Now what we get is a car that's built with every component computer evaluated and optimised to get to it's 150/200k miles or 15 year for the minimum production cost posible. Most of the components get's the same level of care or abuse from the driver so their lives are either shortened or extended by the same sort of level. Then at 15 years or 150/200k miles EVERYTHING starts to wear out at the same time. Suddenly your car needs several sensors, A starter motor, valve seals, Water pump, Alternator, Duel mass flywheel and a dozen other things doing all within a 12 month/15k mile period !

When that happens it's easy to think the manufacturers have "Programed" their cars to give up at a certain point......... And in a very real way they have, Just not exactly as people think they do.

Thanks that is more what i was trying to explain it as. Only snag is they seem to be desiging them to fail earlier and earlier i havent seen a modern car get past 80000 miles before major major problems all crop up at ounce, which is a shame as material and paint technology is so good these days the bodys last far longer that they ever previously would have done.

 

[RWD3M]

Torx, spline, Allen, security torx. The thing is these appear in internal and external. You need to buy them in the various drive sizes, impact short / deep/ chrome. Spanners long short flex ratchet. You need everything because there's no space.

There is another way of looking at this. Surely a good excuse to buy more tools, and who doesn't want, sorry, need more tools!

I'm joking of course and I do concur with the OP, it is all a bit much. I had quite a surprise the first time I did the rear brakes on something from the VW stable, 15 years ago maybe, it had spline bolts holding the calipers on. But didn't Ford start all this back in the 70's with the Pinto engine? IIRC it had spline drive headed cylinder head bolts.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Even my little 2005 Smart Car can be a PIA to select the right tool. Our Skoda is the same - "is that dirty / rusty / etc socket head a Torq, Allen spline or whatever ?"

 

[J.F]

Looking online it's almost impossible to buy spline bolts. And using a hex bolt there's no space to get the socket in to tighten them up. But Allen bolts are readily available from fastener shops, might have a few stocked up and could be useful if a spline or torx is stripped out just as an emergency fix or for non structural parts.

 

[Ruffian]

Peugeot citroen 5 sided bolts,
Need I say any more

Yep got loads of tools and some even made tools to make life easier.
Go to a mechanic and ask how much his tool kit is worth and sit down for an answer.

I know mine is at least

 

[bricol]

As a designer who uses CAD, I am amused to see CAD designers branded the root of all evil. There was crap design pre-CAD, pre-drawing board, pre-chalk and slate . . . CAD is just a tool . . . Now if you have people using the tool who don't have practical experience, who don't have an idea of how to work on things, then they can use the tool correctly, be it pencil and paper, or CAD, and come up with something that might not be ideal.

And "allen" bolts. Really? Are you really using Allen bolts from a company in America who trademarked the name? Or do you really mean socket head cap bolt/screw?

I had a different take on using 18mm spanners etc - my Lancia front strut brace is held in place by a nut and bolt at each end - the bolt is 19mm and the nut 18mm. Which means I could use my 19 and 18 spanners from my set - rather than going out to buy another 19 . . . Obviously now, 25 years late, I have more than one 19mm spanner - you can never have enough tools

As a designer who has to accomodate quick changeover on machines, I'll deliberately use the same fastener size on all things that need changing - that means some parts have fixings way over capacity for what they are doing, and some are a little more fragile looking that you might want - even if they are okay for the task. Now because you won't pay more than £2.50 for the lasted motor vehicle in all it's modern technicolour glory it needs to be built in double quick time, using the least amount of money to do so - so now you have fixings designed for speed and machine application, costing the least amount of money, using the barest amount of material that can be got away with.

If only you'd all ignored those cheap Japanese, Korean etc cars and kept buying British cars with proper British fasteners . . . we'd still have a British owned motor industry - and you could still fix it with two sizes of King Dick adjustables . . .

ps Have you seen a modern car that still uses proper bulbs?

 

[Wedg1e]

Apple use a Pentalobe screw, like a five-leafed flower, to hold iPhones (or is it iPads, or iPods... iForget) together. One of the guys at work just had to buy a set of the keys (from China, arrived within a week despite the current flap).

Fiat... ah, good old Fiat. My mother has a Stilo, bought 3 days before my father died. So he never got to see what a pile of poo it has turned out to be (although he probably guessed, which is why he left ). Leaving aside the actually-poor electrical connectors on the rear lights, the gimmicky and totally unnecessary 'occupancy classification sensor' in the passenger seat, virtually-inaccessible tailgate release, throttle plate driven by a motor - among others - the slightest hint of a poor connection or a bit of damp has the car reporting faulty components that aren't actually faulty. Plug-in a laptop and miraculously the faults disappear, only to reappear at the next full moon or whenever there's a Y in the day. Of course you'd be glad to pay the dealers £50 a pop to be told there's nothing wrong with it
The rear lights, incidentally - all the wiring has the same cross-section and the multiplug connectors the same size terminals. Unfortunately, since you could have side, stop, fog, indicator and tail lamps (some of which are dualled) all lit at the same time, the piddling EARTH has to handle the sum of all the currents that each have their own supply wire. Genius

My dad had a Renault Megane (the fat-ar53d version) that would randomly open the windows after you'd locked it. It also needed the front bumper removing to change lamps, which always broke the fixings, costing stupid money for no good reason to replace them. It was also ludicrously difficult to change the cambelt with the engine in-situ. As well as the car being hideous

I started driving in '81, so I had the pick of the junk output of the 60s/70s British motor industry to choose from. That said, my first car was a Simca 1100 van - it was free, so I didn't complain. Not at first, anyway. As if the subsequent Mini, the Spitfire or the Chevette were such great alternatives
As said by others, you could fix most British cars with the same half-dozen tools, even by torchlight at the side of the road. And one balljoint or track rod end would fit a hundred different models, whereas now every model has its own specific part. Classic example of maker's arrogance. We'll make it different just to make it difficult. Surely to god it would be more cost-effective to use the same part across myriad models? How about, and this is really going out on a limb, ALL the makers using the SAME parts?

 

[Robbie260]

As a designer who uses CAD, I am amused to see CAD designers branded the root of all evil. There was crap design pre-CAD, pre-drawing board, pre-chalk and slate . . . CAD is just a tool . . . Now if you have people using the tool who don't have practical experience, who don't have an idea of how to work on things, then they can use the tool correctly, be it pencil and paper, or CAD, and come up with something that might not be ideal.

And "allen" bolts. Really? Are you really using Allen bolts from a company in America who trademarked the name? Or do you really mean socket head cap bolt/screw?

I had a different take on using 18mm spanners etc - my Lancia front strut brace is held in place by a nut and bolt at each end - the bolt is 19mm and the nut 18mm. Which means I could use my 19 and 18 spanners from my set - rather than going out to buy another 19 . . . Obviously now, 25 years late, I have more than one 19mm spanner - you can never have enough tools

As a designer who has to accomodate quick changeover on machines, I'll deliberately use the same fastener size on all things that need changing - that means some parts have fixings way over capacity for what they are doing, and some are a little more fragile looking that you might want - even if they are okay for the task. Now because you won't pay more than £2.50 for the lasted motor vehicle in all it's modern technicolour glory it needs to be built in double quick time, using the least amount of money to do so - so now you have fixings designed for speed and machine application, costing the least amount of money, using the barest amount of material that can be got away with.

If only you'd all ignored those cheap Japanese, Korean etc cars and kept buying British cars with proper British fasteners . . . we'd still have a British owned motor industry - and you could still fix it with two sizes of King Dick adjustables . . .

ps Have you seen a modern car that still uses proper bulbs?

That is intelligent design by lancia i will admit in some respects and it is rare thing too come across. But they have also just made that a pitta for anyone who works on the car in an enviroment that uses salt on the roads and its a possibility the nut will have to be cut off because its seized on, meaning having too find an un common fastener to replace it 18mm head is the iso and anis standard for m12 (i dont know of any regular industrial or auto supplies place that stocks iso bolts, so its a special order from a car dealer parts department which takes time, time you dont have as the customer wants his car back yesterday), luckly din uses a 19mm head bolt for a m12 bolt and jis uses a 17mm head for a m12 bolt so now the most common is din standard you so you get your m12 din standard nut and it dosent fit not because the threads are different but because a point where two of the flats meet is now intefering with some other part of the strut so you cant tighten it down not too mention defeating your need for only one set of spanners, by sheer chance you have a jis 17mm head m12 bolt lying in the shop and you fit that it gose on and all is well with the world (you have even regained your need for only one spanner set) except now we have a problem a 17mm head nut or bolt dosent have as much metal restraining it as a 18mm head or 19mm head size bolt so you now by the decision to use that bolt are liable if it fails prematurely causing an accident, now it is unlikely that it will but remember you have shrunk the fastener head meaning you are reducing the surface area of the bolt meaning a greater more concentrated stress load than intended is now being transmitted through that nut or bolt head and the area around which the fastener has passed through you have just increased its probablity of failure by quite a reasonable margin. So we see the problem design where its is possible for the use of multiple fastener sizes which all vary in strength while appearing too be the same is bad design as you have too make things idot proof as joe blogs mechanic just fixes cars and probably dosent even know there is a difference between Anis/iso, jis and din spec bolts, the biggest rule of mechanical or any other engineering discipline is this: Keep It Simple and Stupid (KISS). Ie dont make anything anymore complicated that it has too be as someone will mess it up.

In relation to cad designers/design engineers being the root of all evil. My Grandfather was a tool maker during the 2nd world war making spitfire gauges in the singers factory in glasgow, then was a mechanic in the army for his national service, then a pipe line engineer, a professional drafts man and basically one of the fairly senior guys for what was Amec when they were a smaller company. His advice to me was never ever under any circumstances become a design engineer unless you are willing to accept that you will be dammed from here too eternity as you will always manage to design something that is bad in many respects for the guy having to build it, operate it and work on it.

 

[8ob]

As a designer who uses CAD, I am amused to see CAD designers branded the root of all evil. There was crap design pre-CAD, pre-drawing board, pre-chalk and slate . . . CAD is just a tool . . . Now if you have people using the tool who don't have practical experience, who don't have an idea of how to work on things, then they can use the tool correctly, be it pencil and paper, or CAD, and come up with something that might not be ideal.

And that unfortunately is the problem, I can think of many instances where machines and vehicles have been designed with little to no consideration to serviceability making them a pig to work on, in many if not all cases it’s completely avoidable. Dressed engines that are shoved into vehicles/machines are a classic, pipes and wiring harnesses wrapped around or masking just about all the bolts etc on service items making them impossible get at without a major strip down, gearboxes which only need a minuscule amount more body clearance and they could be changed without dropping subframes is another, some of theses numpties should be put on the shop floor long before they are let loose with cad.

Bob

 

[northwest]

gearboxes which only need a minuscule amount more body clearance and they could be changed without dropping subframes is another

Amen.

This is probably what did me for motor vehicles. Totally impossible access. I now check the oil, put water in the washers and give it to someone else to fix.

Though I am guilty of "modifying" a centre tunnel/bulkhead with hammer and prybar.

 

[Reman]

About 10 years back one of my mates got hold of a cheap diesel mercedes A class that needed a starter motor replacing. After trying to do it himself, then going to several garages and being told "Engine out job, Mate" by all of them, He asked me to have a look. We did it on my drive in a leisurely 5 or so hours (without removing the engine).
Without going into details, If anyone here's asked to do a starter motor on a silver 1999 A class, Before removing the engine, check to see if it has a rather unusual (But MOTer pacifyingly OEM looking) black bolt-on inspection panel let into it's bulkhead.

 

[earthman]

And that unfortunately is the problem, I can think of many instances where machines and vehicles have been designed with little to no consideration to serviceability making them a pig to work on, in many if not all cases it’s completely avoidable. Dressed engines that are shoved into vehicles/machines are a classic, pipes and wiring harnesses wrapped around or masking just about all the bolts etc on service items making them impossible get at without a major strip down, gearboxes which only need a minuscule amount more body clearance and they could be changed without dropping subframes is another, some of theses numpties should be put on the shop floor long before they are let loose with cad.

Bob

I agree, it seems that it's not just with motor vehicle related stuff either, I've seen some what flawed designs whilst servicing/repairing floor cleaning machines for example. Maybe it is all down to youngsters being fast tracked into the CAD/keyboard aspect rather than the real world, most don't seem to want to get their hands dirty anyhow.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

It's all partly our fault(s). Encouraged by a combination of subtle advertising and 'affordable' buying/financing price points, we demand more and more exotic/'sexy' styled vehicles, into which designers have to squeeze all manner of 'creature comforts/conveniences' [no toilet jokes, please ].

As a result, everything's built on top of everything else using a unitary construction method for ease and maximum profitability on the assembly line. When it comes to fixing something, it's logical that the process has to be reversed until the knackered unit/part can be got at.

Who wouldn't like one of these in their Christmas stocking.....

Back when cars looked like this, you could access every bit of them and carry out repairs with very basic tools, but these days are gone [thankfully]

As for different fasteners, well they call it progress.....

 

[Seadog]

we demand more and more exotic/'sexy' styled vehicles

Now there's the clever bit, we were manipulated into thinking that that is what we wanted and now it's become the norm. It all started in the 1930s in America, surprise, surprise.

 

[Alan Reynolds]

And that unfortunately is the problem, I can think of many instances where machines and vehicles have been designed with little to no consideration to serviceability making them a pig to work on, in many if not all cases it’s completely avoidable. Dressed engines that are shoved into vehicles/machines are a classic, pipes and wiring harnesses wrapped around or masking just about all the bolts etc on service items making them impossible get at without a major strip down, gearboxes which only need a minuscule amount more body clearance and they could be changed without dropping subframes is another, some of theses numpties should be put on the shop floor long before they are let loose with cad.

Bob

That's it! NO experience on the shop floor and fresh out of Uni. I see it with the young lads who pass through the workshop, they design things and bring them in, full of enthusiasm, then you have to point out that although it works on their screen, it ain't gonna work for what we need. Why do car manufacturers bother to design a whole car when nearly everyone who buys a car, just buys it for the looks. They couldn't give a to$$ about what's under the bonnet most of the time. People now don't even know where the bonnet catch is. Present company very much excepted. On the subject of Allen bolts, it's easier to say that in my shop than cap head hex bolt, even when we reorder from the supplier they use the term Allen, just because it's quicker and we all know what we mean, a bit like it's easier to say Hoover rather than vacuum cleaner. Ah the Simca. I had an 1100, 1974 and sold it a few years ago, it is still taxed and on the road. Wonderful car and quite innovative in design. Also had Lancias. Nice but appallingly flimsy design on some parts and was made of iron oxide from the off. I had to laugh the other day when a lad decided to use a ratchet spanner because they're quicker, when I told him specifically to use an open ended spanner. He backed the bolt out so far then realised he was stuck because he couldn't get the spanner over the bolt head. I still say don't design it unless you know what it 's like to fit it and remove it and service it. Don't get me started on flimsy plastic battery compartments on devices. There is an art to good design and Tracy Emin ain't it.

 

[Reman]

Now there's the clever bit, we were manipulated into thinking that that is what we wanted and now it's become the norm. It all started in the 1930s in America, surprise, surprise.

If you want manipulation, How about phones? Did you ask for a smart phone that needs to go back to the manufacturer when you need to have the battery replaced? I sure as hell didn't ! They say "We need to seal them for waterproofing and to give the customers the thin designs they demand". I didn't demand thin waterproof phones. I wanted to be able to do a 30 second battery swap if my old battery gave up the ghost. Waterproof? No, we don't need that. I see people having to buy a new phone when they drunkenly drop their old one in the bog as a sort of tax on idiots.