Very good and learned points LT1 Z51.
Also good to see reliability and durability injected in this ZERV thread otherwise we are all going to stop at "looks" and feel sorry in the long run..

Reliability, Durability, Usability, and so on.. are system engineering disciplines that often get lost in the aesthetics (how good it looks) discussion BUT are completely divorced from it.
Since Daimler has been mentioned..it turns out, the word I got via professional exchanges is that the Daimler-Chrysler marriage failed because beyond the top level political niceties, at the engineering level they were operating like ships in the night…and the engineers really could not understand each other…Chrysler designing for best tolerances for the buck to withstand X reliability on test machines and Mercedes bent on the proverbial “zero tolerances” because it “looks good” and therefore it is good even if failure data says otherwise.

No offense, but I still believe the “Germans” and EU manufactures in general are a bit behind on the whole system engineering and reliability discipline. To their credit, they are probably ahead in the style projection and aesthetic design. Renault, Peugeot, Citroen..Excellent examples of very nice “cute” futuristic cues.. but EVERYBODY knows they are “three year cars”..

It is true they design their cars with mobility criteria’s far below that of the US. Truth is both Europeans and Japanese still drive far less distances than the US counterparts..
The other thing to consider is that, at least in the EU, the manufactures are pushing very hard on the leasing versus owning model..and reliability is not that important at that point..

I think the Corvette brand stands as a very good example of pursuing both..
maybe still not as "pretty" (so called subjective experience) as a Ferrari but certainly more usable and durable
In the end, sales data at hand shows me that Corvette still understands "Americans" better that anybody else..

My2C

 

Where are you Zerv?

 

FCA US LLC is the American subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V., an Italian-American automobile manufacturer registered in the Netherlands with headquarters in London, U.K., for tax purposes. Fiat owns and controls Chrysler. Read all about it. A huge con job by the mafia and the US government, nearly as bad as the GM deal.

 

No that was not it.

I was there then.

The first issue became a separation of Mercedes and Chrysler in product. The initial thoughts of bringing Chrysler products up scale using some Mercedes techniques did not sit well with the Germans.

There were constant arguments over what could go in a Chrysler branded product. The WK Grand Cherokee and M Class of the time were on a semi-shared platform. There were constant arguments over if this part could be steel or aluminum on a Jeep product. Could this feature be exclusive to Mercedes, etc.

They were given last gen hand me downs and eventually devolved into protection of all things Mercedes. Then once the company had for the For Sale sign out it got much worse.

The GC turned out great for its time period given the hassle the entire process was.

Then it got worse with Bob the Builder who's only idea was to suck every single last dime out of every product and completely ignore what was really wrong.

I remember he did not like how loud the door locks were in the Nitro. That became the priority. Forget the fact the car shook violently at speed, would rear steer if it had more than 500lbs in the rear of the vehicle, had an interior so cheap to put Fisher Price to shame, but it was the door locks that were priority.

How Mercedes did warranty costs also were different from anyone else. They just assigned a number to a car and if the warranty costs for that car were less than that number they just keep building them.

I've since left but from what I've been told by friends still there Fiat is much better all around.

 

This has been my experience from working for a global automotive supplier. While we have internal engineering design standards, all of our parts have to be designed to meet a particular OEMs specification.

So the fact that GM and Honda buy the same part type from a particular supplier has little bearing on how each of the parts will perform. It all comes down to the design standard and how well the testing mirrors real world conditions.

I also agree for the most part the US manufacturers standards are more stringent than the Asian and European manufacturers. I was very involved with electrical and electronic systems for many years. The US manufacturers had inferior systems for many years. The US OEMs formed an across company group within USCAR to create a common performance standard for electrical system components. The result has been much improved electrical systems on US designed cars.

The designs are so good, that many of the non US customers are requesting components designed to the USCAR standard.

 

I think Dieter Zetsche was even on record saying something along the lines of "We will not dilute the Star". They weren't going to soil the Mercedes brand by sharing components with a mere Chrysler. Arrogance and poor decisions like that were a big factor in what trashed that merger.

 

He was better than most. There was a lot of platform commonality with the GC/M class.

The bigger problem was the places Chrysler really needed improvement they were super protective of. Mostly in power train. They actually pulled the WA580 out of the LX cars to put in a Chrysler trans which was terrible in comparison. It was like driving a different car.

The few Germans who did seem interested in making the best of it were squashed by the masses that did not.

It is interesting what some said about Electrical and US cars. Right after the merger they sent over 1 loan Mercedes executive to replace an American executive and that was the head of the Electrical group. As far as I know he was the only one ever sent here as a direct one to one replacement.

It happened almost immediately and I was the one who had to get him acclimated and setup. Very few in management stood up to what was going on and worse were the ones who saw this as an opportunity to become Yes Men to the Germans and were moved up irregardless of their lack of ability.

So the people who knew what they were doing were marginalized and the ones who didn't were given more power simply because they did what the Germans wanted.

 

One specifc example of Corvette durability testing...

The initial results of just one component not meeting a GM durability standard, specifically the Watkins Glen Gray Collector Edition Tension Blue material, was that its initial durability failure resulted in that model being for-sale delayed for three months.

The durability standard for non-color-fade on the “top of the dash material” is being subjected to Arizona direct sun exposure for 100,000 hours (in GM’s accelerated weather testing lab). While the Tension Blue color held perfectly to 90,000 hours in the first test, a tiny amount of fade was experienced between that and the 100,000 hour standard. Back to the drawing boards for material re-do, until it passed the 100,000 hour test without fade.

100,000 hours is, BTW, having your dash being assulated by the direct Arizona sun for 15 hours per day, every day, for 18+ years.

 

This thread was great when it was on topic.

 

While the dialogue is very good, I wish it was in another thread.

 

I owned 2 WKs: an SRT8 and a 5.7L.

The SRT was a gigantic kick in the butt to drive.
It had an AMG transmission with a 6.1L Hemi that howled like a wounded banshee...good times.

The current WK2 (2011-present) is a BIG step up.
I had a 2011 Laredo the stunned me in its sophistication over the previous gen.
It drove like a luxury car.

Recently added a 2018 Overland.
Very similar to the 2011, but a little more refined, quieter.

GCs have been my DDs since the mid 90s.
They have never let me down.
Grand Cherokees are the only true Sports Utility Vehicle.

 

CAD drawings only show so much. However the durability topic draws back to the CAD as all the decisions you see are to meet these requirements.

This car will probably be very well engineered. The questions is can they build it to the design intent.

 

Great points!

I.
You say one, it has to be a primary engineering center. Ok, so now we're talking about a building in which R&D is carried out. Fine, what if there is no primary R&D center and it's spread out all over the world? What if you have someone else develop the chassis outside of US. Oh, I don't know, the way Ford GT was developed by Multimatic. Is it a Ford? Is the R&D primarily based in US? I would say no.

"'When Ford phones me and says, 'Would you make this car for us?' and they're your largest customer … you don't hang up,' said Holt, vice-president of engineering for Multimatic, a Markham, Ont.-based manufacturer of auto-industry components."

In a world where businesses open up empty buildings in foreign countries in an effort to evade tax I'm just not willing to base my core definition on a building. Sorry.

II. What if we just have Indian and Chinese engineers hired in the primary R&D building and none have citizenship?

III. What if most of the stock of a "US firm" is owned by foreigners?

As for durability:
I. No I still don't think what you describe as quality and durability should be broken apart, they work as a system. If this is how the industry works, then I don't see the benefit in it. Say you choose a dry sump system over a wet one. The quality variance will matter little if by design the dry sump is substantially better than a wet design. You could afford a lot of manufacturing variance with a design that over delivers.

II. do you have a test for everything?

III. can you shirk your responsibilities in a test?

Practically speaking I've owned American (GM and Ford), Japanese, British, French, Korean, and German cars by now. The American ones did not stand out positively in quality and durability wise by the items you listed. I buy American because it's powerful, desirable, and practical, not because it's durable or high quality.

As for the CAD, I've extinguished what I can see in them, perhaps others can carry the baton forward. Or.. more CADs!!

 

Questions for those who know better than me.

I have tried to enhance the CAD drawing of the rear so we can see more details.

Could the highlighted areas be part of an active Aero system? I can't tell what the parts are or where they go. Maybe some of you guys can shed some light?

It the "piston" part of the suspension or wing activation?

Why are there such big holes or ports in the top edge of the "spoiler" area? Aren't they too big for bolts?

Maybe you can see more details now on the highlighted side.?

 

Nice catch. That very well could be a spoiler actuator.

 

In my mind the Ford GT isn't a Ford. No one at Ford really did engineering on it at Ford. Except write deviations because its a street legal racecar and not a "regular Ford."

However all OEMs have a primary engineering center, someone who "owns" the core. Typically this is where the country was founded, and it's hard to move 100 years of history.

Chrysler is probably the best example of a true multi-national being that it is a combined entity which has over a 100 year history on two continents. I still in my mind separate FIAT from Chrysler in terms of engineering (and to a lesser extent design). But maybe they will integrate them. Then you'd have to go by where the "lead" development on a platform is.

One can argue that B and C car Fords are European, and that the rest minus the Ranger are US cars and trucks (the Ranger would be Australian) as that is where the core work for each product line takes place.

Durability comes before quality. You can make a durable design which is impossibly to manufacture and therefore will have bad quality. You can design a part which has no durability and make it perfect every time (thereby having quality). IF you want to bridge the two you have to talk about manufacturability.

 

The thing to know about CAD is they can "turn on/off" individual parts. So those holes might not be holes (just parts not checked on in the display).

 

I suppose actually we are saying the same thing...it was an engineering philosophy (way of looking at things) "thing".. at least that is how it was related by Chrysler folks on the Stuttgart side..

By way of engineering experiences in Germany I could go on..but it would not be fair to generalize either..
"They" have their approach...most of the time is "take something not borne there" (I don't think engineering ideas/innovation is their forte..) make it "better" and sell it up market. In a sense the opposite of the "Chinese" model.. (take something..make it cheaper) and sell it down market..

BTW - you mentioned Mercedes warranty... in Germany there is no such a thing..(really).. They are renown for passing costs to customers..

 

A lot of this is over my head. I am a simple Corvette person. I wish this would go back to the original subject. The pending C8 or what ever GM decides to call it.

 

I agree CAD drawings only show so much.

I agree the car will probably be well engineered. I believe GM "can" build it to the design intent. The question is will they?