----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Waller" Subject: Re: Ford claims ownership of images
> Believe what you want. > I worked as a Mechanical Engineer in the design analysis group @ Ford for > over 18 years. My function was to investigate vehicles involved in product > litigation, assist in technical defense, attend depositions & trials > (expert > witness). It scares me a bit that they would need thay type of engineering expertise, I suppose it is inevitable though. > > While I only handled a few of the Explorer rollovers cases, it was obvious > that most of the events were due to operator inexperience/operator error > like improper maintained (tire inflation)/lack of driving instruction > (controlling a vehicle with a blowout). Operator error is unavoidable, manufacuterers need to take this into account, especially when peoples lives depend on their error not killing them. Most 4x4s fail miserably in this regard. In construction, we have a term called variance. This is what could be termed the margin of error. For example, when installing roof trusses, the ideal situation is to have the truss completely covering the top plate of the wall. On a 2x4 construction, you can have perhaps an inch of top plate showing on the outside of the truss. Any more than that, and the structure is compromised, since the wall can now only shift another inch or so under the truss before there is a very real risk of failure of the truss system. My understanding with the tire thing is that Ford took away almost all the variance by recommending tire pressures that were very close to underinflation. Tire failure is inevitable at highway speeds with a loaded vehicle and soft tires. > > ABTW, my parents did own a 61 Corvair Monza, a great vehicle that GM > killed > prematurely IMHO. It probably could have been a great vehicle, had it actually been reliable. My dad's Corvair spent almost all of it's short life (he only kept it for a year before he tired of it's reliability issues) in the shop, and when he went to trade it, discovered that it had almost no residual value at the GM dealership. The thing was so bad that GM didn't want it back on a trade-in. This was a fairly common fate with the Corvair in this part of the world. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
