3 ms·
A mechanic is well-positioned to notice that a particular car engine has an unusually high rate of a certain type of failure, and very often to identify the roo
by Zak 5y ago
A mechanic is well-positioned to notice that a particular car engine has an unusually high rate of a certain type of failure, and very often to identify the root cause of said failure. If Subaru head gaskets fail because they're bathed in fluids when the engine isn't running, and Ford Tritons spit out spark plugs because they only used 3.5 threads in an aluminum head, mechanics who work on them will notice. Rossmann is in an equivalent position.
Of course there may be good explanations for design decisions that negatively impact reliability, but it's reasonable for owners to be grumpy about it. It also wouldn't completely shock me if there's a former Ford engineer out there somewhere collecting a paycheck from Helicoil, a manufacturer of threaded inserts used to repair stripped spark plug holes, with no current job duties.
- mokus 5y agoA mechanic is in a good position to notice that when a car fails, it tends to fail in certain ways. Far too often, though, they then generalize to claims that the car is likely to fail in that way, but that is not necessarily the case. It may be that they fail 1% as often as competitors and due to a relatively fewer number of causes. Without being in a position to see the absolute failure rate, a mechanic may incorrectly conclude that those parts they see failing are especially badly designed even if they are more reliable than the industry average.