Assembly/Assemblé/Montage
I have worked in many branches of engineering.
Engineering as in making things.
Trains/busses/trucks/boats/tanks.
Not cars though,
although I have worked for truck companies who also make cars,
If you are of a high enough level you are allowed a 'company car'.
You can choose the model (depending on managerial status),
pick the colour. decide if you want the hatch-back or the saloon, etc.
Sure...all those are fine, however, what the general public don't know:
You want a 'Wednesday car'.
One that was built on Wednesday.
Why?
Because the guy who fits the water pumps, for example,
let's call him Sir Billy for argument's sake.
He stops fitting them correctly by Friday lunch time.
Any old shit will do and he hasn't even bolted it on properly.
He's already thinking about the weekend.
Wine women and song.
...and you certainly don't want a car that Sir Billy worked on the following Monday!
The water pumps from Sir Billy's Wednesday shift are fine.
If everyone could find out when they were assembled they'd never sell a Mon/Fri car again.
This is why your mate bought an X and loves it
but you bought one and "it's been nothing but trouble".
Let's hope the guy who fitted your brakes
was having one of his "I'm done with crack!" moments.
regards
Titus
You can stream the full series on IPlayer. The guy in the picture has just realised someone has stolen his engine and replaced it with a rubber dolphin. It's true...honestly.
ReplyDelete...Just when you're on a cross county lines drugs run yer mota breaks down...innit?
DeleteToo much gluhwein I fear, Titus.
ReplyDeleteWell it is nearly Xmas!
DeleteIndeed it is mate, so I will take this opportunity to wish you and your dynasty in the Valley of The Kings (somewhere off the M6 NW) a very happy Xmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year.
ReplyDeleteThank you Sir Billy...and a cool Yule to you & yours
DeleteI might grab the opportunity to second the merry xmas/happy new year greeting and say thanks a lot for all the fine posts this year, making it a whole lot easier to bear with the distraction of good music and adding to our archives. Also, thank you for the conversations in the comment fields giving food for thought.
ReplyDeleteOn that note, this post reminds me of my own stint with the since long defunct Saab car maker that could be seen as a small case study. This was back in the eighties, half a year in the initial heyday of the then brand new 9000 series (developed in a joint venture with Fiat, it was the step brother of Fiat Chroma/Lancia Thema and to some extent the Alfa-Romeo 164) and the aim was to sky rocket the brand into the premium car market, that being at the expence of the loyal buyers at the lower end of the market that had kept this quirky car brand up and running through thick and thin. Well, that being the 80´s every industrialist was of course trying to reach the moon at any cost, but we all know the outcome in this case as the brand by this point pulled off one big PR triumph after another (remember the endurance run at Talladega Raceway for example). This broadened the interest stateside and more importantly the core mindset of the technicians always thinking out of the box to make the most of the meager means handed to them kept the business going for a while more until things started to finally dissolve when the share holders decided to let it all go to GM and for what i know that clashed with the company culture before them throwing in the towel and it all going... err, into a spin that went haywire. I wouldn´t say that the americans was to blame here even if they tried to introduce a re-designed Subaru and a Chevy/GMC SUV as Saab cars with only a slight visual resemblance (the RWD SUV was a stretch too far at least outside the US) but the first 9-5 (loosely based on the Opel Vectra) became their biggest seller ever, many still around as daily drivers, and the second 9-3 (sharing the GM/Fiat platform used for the Fiat Brava and some Buick) i believe it´s still being built in China under a different name. In this case, it wasn´t bad craftsmanship that killed the brand but more the lack of good leadership and constantly threatening to close plants if the monthly ever-rising production level goals weren´t met and that stress makes for sloppy quality control even if that´s no excuse. Having experienced it first hand for a while along with the ”just-in-time” way of running an operation that has been proven a bad idea (a former plant section leader agreed in hindsight) especially in the last years, i´d say there´s more than one way to ruin a car brand but totally agree that friday afternoons and monday mornings are not the best times to build a car.
Interesting backgound info...I seem to recall the Rover brand was sold to a Chinese company and may still be in production there
DeleteThat would be correct, although i don´t know if the last Rover models are still being built there. I had to check it up and found some info in the swedish Wikipedia edition. Seems the stately owned SAIC (who also owns the MG brand) runs what´s left of the former Rover line-up but the brand name is now Roewe (it´s been said that that´s a transcription of how the original name is pronounced in chinese, kinda smart) as Ford kept the Rover name plate that they aquired with the purchase of the Land-Rover division and let it go along when that was sold to Tata Motors, so now the brand name is dormant in their ownership. As a gearhead, i´m a bit fascinated of how many old european cars remain in prolonged production for decades in far away locations, it has to say something about the quality of the construction even though they would never pass later-day regulations of automotive safety and environmental aspects.
ReplyDeleteMaybe someone else here tinkers with old junk ;-) so i should add the tip to check out your cars pedigree if you have difficulties finding replacement parts. Myself, i have had good use of the web for finding odd pieces for the Ford Taunus/Cortina range starting back in 1970 and while ending in 1981 for Europe (last model year 1982) but the final assemblies was done in Turkey in1994 or so. However, this was built with tools handed over from the argentinian production it seems, and there was also regular updates made so one has to dig into the model history to know what to buy online. Another source would be the Hyundai Stellar range, should be well known to you brits as a taxicab ;-), bits and pieces interchange as it´s roughly a re-shelled Cortina mk V with a Mitsubishi engine and trans. About the same goes with the Vauxhall/Opel Astra that seems to have been built all around the globe, even Azerbadjan, with various badges (i´ve stumbled upon one with some dubious facelift and LV plates, i recall the name on it was Pontiac LeMans but surely not a US made car), just to name a couple of exiles. The same goes for some Hyundais/Kias and the 1 gen Volvo S/V40 which all owe some to 90´s Mitsubishis to mention a couple more. It just goes on and on...
ReplyDeleteYou're much more into cars than I am. I would be happy to have never driven one! :)
DeleteHaha...:-D Around here, unless you´re an avid bicyclist it is almost inevitable that you learn to drive a car and at best do your own maintenance, not so much a sociocultural thing (at least not anymore) but because public transportation outside the main cities has been in recession for long since the past 50 years or so has seen people moving from the rural areas to the urban areas. Hopefully a change is cotming with the re-industrialisation of Northern Sweden which to a large extent is related to the development of biofuels, batteries and carbon free steel. A win-win situation to be, i hope. Still not reason for me to give up my youngtimer classic cars, but i look forward to be able to run them on carbon neutral (or at least close to) fuel. I got wind just the other week of yet another project aiming for that and in the region there´s plans to build a plant for making carbon neutral biofuel for airplanes, the future might be bright if all the turmoil of the present time calms down. Oh, am i still on topic? Correct me if not :-).
ReplyDeleteLOL there is no such thing as off-topic here
DeleteI suspected that :-D. Public education on a peer-to-peer level is a good thing, even though there´s always the risk of information overflow when one gets into the feeling for the subject ;-).
ReplyDelete