What is some of your Pet Peeve's

[garry1p]

That does not apply to NGO's

 

[JasperFrank]

I have this device called a "Cool Living." Its obviously an LG product. Got it for the upstairs, as a cooling and heating system. Is one of those single vent out side types of A/C. Costed me $375 dollars. Worked well for four years. Then it didn't stop with high water, and flooded the upstairs over carpet. Difficult to dry out. But saved in time. Moved it down stairs, this year to make heat and the floor could take a bit of flooding. Took it apart, found the issue with the float switch, and replaced that. It stops now when its pan is full. It acts like a dehumidifier and heater. I have to drain this damn thing twice a day, of a gallon or more. And its very hard to drain this thing as the bung to drain is at floor level. I built a stand, that makes a bit easier. Still the design of this thing annoys me, if I have to attend to it twice a day, even if it has both functions as a dehumidifier and a heater.

 

[Oaktree]

And its very hard to drain this thing as the bung to drain is at floor level. I built a stand, that makes a bit easier. Still the design of this thing annoys me, if I have to attend to it twice a day, even if it has both functions as a dehumidifier and a heater.

Clearly, ease of regular maintenance is a low priority in the design of many products. Don't think I can name any automaker that doesn't make at least one bulb, filter, etc. difficult to get at. Never mind plugs...
The owner's manual for my truck says to bring it to the dealer if you need to replace a bulb in the passenger's side headlight (I haven't needed to so can't speak for the amount of disassembly required).

 

[WinterDeere]

Clearly, ease of regular maintenance is a low priority in the design of many products. Don't think I can name any automaker that doesn't make at least one bulb, filter, etc. difficult to get at. Never mind plugs...

Most always try to make things as serviceable as possible, but sometimes serviceability must be sacrificed for performance, size, or even cost. Just as often, an engineer or designer will spot a serviceability issue way in advance of production, and want to correct it, only to be told by some manager that there's no budget or time for the hours required to resolve the issue.

Engineering managers have a saying, "sometimes you have to kill the engineer." It refers to the problem that most engineers will want to continue to improve and refine every design nearly forever, to resolve every such issue, before releasing it to production. But the bean counters never allow time or money for that to really happen, and so most things are released to production when they're just barely "good enough".

 

[kenmbz]

In order to change the power module for one of my headlights on my jeep. I had to disassemble the whole front fascia of the truck. Even though the 2 screws to remove the headlight assembly are accessible.
The power unit is on the bottom and slides out the back, but you must slide the whole headlight assembly out to get to it.

The heater door is stuck on the drivers side, seems they designed the duct with a rubber coating which was glued on, after a time it slips down and stops the control door from moving.

There is no way to fix this without taking the whole heater core out, taking many, many hours of work.
Can't even side drill it as too much structure around the duct, and it's welded.

These are both common problems on the Jeep/Dodge trucks.

 

[JasperFrank]

Vehicles are such a pain to work on now, that I don't even want to ever get a new one. My 1974, Ford Econoline Van was a joy to work on. A home mechanic could fix anything on it. It was designed to be survivable/serviceable as a fleet vehicle. Put 500,000 miles on it and drove cross country four times. Never had a care about the mechanics of it. Though it didn't have a tow package, I had a shop put a sturdy hitch on it. The shop said it was easy to do as there were hard points that seemed to have been designed for a future hitch. It was so overbuilt it didn't need anything else to tow my boat around. Everything was inexpensive and this Van paid for itself many times over when I used it for delivery service. It was how ever a manual, and my knees were giving out. So I figured I'd "UPDATE," to an automatic 1997 GMC G30 with a factory tow pak. What a disaster that was! I incorrectly thought this was a fleet vehicle also. So its gotta be easy to maintain, right? Nope. Everything was difficult and expensive to fix. And the ABS was a horror show, especially when towing. You never knew when it was going to kick in. So it had two different braking methods: Yours and what it wanted to do if it went over a slight rise. Its the shortest time I've ever kept a vehicle. And fortunately for me, every system in this thing failed almost at once. And I sold it to a scrap yard. I don't think I'll ever look at another Truck/Van made after 1992.

 

[scootr]

Disclosure of Social Security Numbers

www.justice.gov

“(a)(1) It shall be unlawful for any Federal, State or local government agency to deny to any individual any right, benefit, or privilege provided by law because of such individual’s refusal to disclose his social security account number.

Bruce

CA will refuse to issue or maintain a drivers license without a SS number on your file.

 

[WinterDeere]

My 1974, Ford Econoline Van was a joy to work on. A home mechanic could fix anything on it.

Good thing! Because they need it... frequently!

I never owned a '74, but I did own other Ford trucks of the era. While I could fix anything on them, I never considered any of them a "joy" to work on.

 

[bcp]

CA will refuse to issue or maintain a drivers license without a SS number on your file.

California can ignore laws it doesn't like.

Californians can not ignore laws they don't like.

Bruce

 

[bcp]

All of the non-religious, "popular" Christmas songs that started playing everywhere about 10 days ago.

For a nice change, one store was playing classic instrumental Christmas music.

Bruce