maxwell48098

Remember the first square side pickup brought out by MPC was in late 1977 as Kit# 7814 - 1978 Chevrolet Step Side 2 wheel drive pickup which also used a bench seat instead of bucket seats. I've not copied the front suspension parts, but have made resin copies of the bench seat for use in other builds of these kits. Too bad that tooling was lost decades ago. A.J.

"Yeah, people who know zip about how reality works or have even the foggiest notion of basic engineering principles being consulted as to what should be in cars. Makes perfect sense." I guess you've never participated in any sort of focus group? The focus group discussion is a research methodology that brings together a small (usually 20 or less), diverse group of individuals to dig into their thoughts, attitudes, and perceptions about specific products/features/concepts, sometimes even including marketing campaigns, or wild ideas. They help the manufacturer or provider to understand consumer behaviors which serve multiple purposes of showing potential future customers ideas/features being consider, ideas/features being developed, feed back of likes/dislike in existing products/systems/vehicles, and then features that they want to see/ don't want, along with determining the financial feasibility. Better to determine whether to invest the time and money on something new or improved before bringing it to market rather than afterwards. Unfortunately, 98% of the population doesn't understand basic engineering principles, and if left up to us engineers, the product would never get done, much less affordable. Remember it is the customer who decides what is normal and acceptable not an engineer or designer. A.J.

"Our local Chevy dealer has had a new Hummer truck on the floor for a long time. I looked at it out of curiosity and it wieghs over 9,000 pounds. To me that is way past ridiculous. They should have named it the Canyonero." Now take out the 3,000 pounds of battery, and it brings it down to a more normal, premium large SUV weight. All of that battery weight is why EVs tend to ride smoother. A.J.

Did you look at the video and all of Toyota engines involved in the massive failures?

Look at the size of the full size passenger cars of the '50's-'90's and you'll understand that today's vehicles are considerably smaller, with higher fuel economy, nearly zero emissions, and dramatically safer. Full size pickups have pretty much stayed the same size with fuel economy dramatically higher, emissions 95% less, and outstanding safety abilities. The nice things is that Americans have the wide array of choices to purchase the vehicle that they want, and not limited by government control of the vehicle market. A.J.

Actually those modules SAVE weight by incorporating functions that reduces the weight of things like switches, relays, wiring and connectors. As for features included in the vehicles today, they still have hundreds of focus groups with actual/potential customers, magazine writers, on-line influencers , and competitive. And today's microprocessors have the capability to replace dozens smaller components, thus saving weight while increasing the features that the majority of consumers desire and lower the cost to provide those features. When's the last time you saw a new vehicle with manual door locks or windows? I have a '78 Dodge Magnum GT in my garage equipped that way right now. My grand kids loving those gadgets!

I think I've built 12 pickups, 7 tow trucks, 4 race car haulers (2 using the '65/'66 cabs on the later '67-'72 LWB chassis) and used cab & chassis to build another couple of fire trucks, flat beds and small dumps. What I really like is the ability to swap engines and transmissions among them so you can build things like a 6 cylinder long box F100, or a big block, stick shift short box or step side. I'm really waiting for the '67 Chevy pickup to arrive aswell. A.J.

One thing overlooked when it comes to OEM repair parts sold at the dealerships is that before they came to the dealerships, they were mostly stored inside a warehouse several football fields in size with floor to 25' ceiling racks filled with thousands of replacement parts that had to be purchased from suppliers that had the tooling to manufacture, assemble, and warehousing capability waiting the OEMs order. Now multiply that by dozens or hundreds to times and think of the overhead that had to be covered before the dealers could get it, then store it on his shelves until the customer buys it. And not a penny of profit is made by the dealership until it gets sold. When it comes to new vehicle sales, outside of the US and somewhat in Canada, dealerships elsewhere don't have storage lots with vehicles that the dealership purchased from the factory to hopefully satisfy the "got to have it right away" customer mentality of the US. Waiting 4 -12 weeks for your new vehicle to be built, shipped, and delivered to the dealership, then to the customer, is considered normal. My colleagues from Europe and Japan were always amazed by US automobile dealerships, facility-wise, as well as on-hand inventory understanding the cost that is involved daily to have an unsold vehicle that they ordered just sit there accruing floor-plan loan interest costs. FYI - The LEAST profitable department in a dealership is new vehicle sales. The most profitable are used vehicles and financing, followed by dealership-leasing, service, parts, then body shop. It's been like that for decades, and only when leasing instead of buying became big business did it move up for being only slightly more profitable than retail vehicle sales. A.J.

Yep, the wife was starting to bake Christmas cookies last Friday when the baking oven quit working. It took a $185.00 visit from a local appliance technician Saturday, with his $1800 digital tester, to tell us that a resistor in the circuit board had failed. Being the oven, which is a combined micro wave and conventional baking oven, is 12 years old, a replacement circuit board was $1620.00 installed, or roughly 60% of the cost for the new oven we ended up buying instead later in the afternoon. The tech as an funny old guy (60-65) and he said years ago, he could have just plugged in a replacement resistor for $35 bucks, but incorporating it into the circuit board increased its reliability. He said he was sure about the "increased reliability" point though. We both laughed. A.J.

I'll start by giving a thumbnail of my experience in the automotive service industry, which also included a sabbatical into corporate quality, as well as several years in vehicle serviceabilty. I spent a 45 year career in the automotive industry from a dealership technician up to to working for a domestic manufacturer. I've been a member in SAE since 1972 when I was in college working on service related issues there as well. By the time I retired nearly two decades ago, I ran the organization of over 200 people dedicated solely for the development of all diagnostics, service tool development, testing, technician training, and repair information. I have BSME, BBA, and MBA degrees to go along with my life experiences that included restoring antique cars and fire trucks to now maintaining my own vehicle "fleet", as my wife calls them. "Right to repair" has been an issue that I was involved with beginning in the very early '90's with state and federal investigations into the automotive repair practice. At first, the issue was to allow independent/ aftermarket repair facilities the right to provide warranty repairs on new model vehicles. Next it was giving the aftermarket access to the proprietary software in engine controllers, but it was so that aftermarket companies could counterfeit them in foreign countries. Then it switched to scan tools, again mainly for the proprietary software in the tool itself and well as using it to go back and produce counterfeit modules and scan tools. Then they wanted in all of the manufacturer specific diagnostic software for non-emission systems and components, then adding in emission and safety systems, just as I was retiring. Again, it was for access to all of the service information which was produced and distributed to dealers digitally directly from databases in corporate controlled data center servers. In the world of intellectual property theft, the OEMs were still skeptical of the aftermarket, along with their substantial funding sources from outside groups for the amount of lobbying that was going on inside the state and federal bureaucracies. I also won lawsuits against aftermarket repair manual and flat rate time schedules where they took our copyrighted materials and copied it directly, or nearly directly into their publications without purchasing a copyright license here in the US, or sharing a portion of their profits received from stealing and selling it. Every time, the initial major stumbling blocks were foreign car companies refusing to even consider the demand of the aftermarket unless aftermarket technicians unless they were first trained by them and ASE certified. Then it got down to the money involved, and most bureaucrats felt that the OEMs were entitled to recover a portion of their annual, and ongoing, expenses to develop and maintain the information, as well as the cost of electronic tools or interfaces. The feeling was that the amounts each OEM charged should charge at a minimum, the same charge that dealerships had to pay for their information. At the time, not a single US OEM was recovering more than 40% of their costs to develop, produce, and distribute the diagnostic and service information to their dealer body. And this software was already being pirated, and then sold, in other parts of the world making its way back to North America. That's when I retired in 2006. At the time of my retirement, my annual budget for developing, software coding, validation and testing for our service and diagnostic data was a average $2.9 million annually over 5 years, after dealership subscription revenues were subtracted. I can only imagine what it is today. It took at staff of 210 people, plus outside six vendor companies, to complete involved tasks to make it filed ready. (This cost for digital service and diagnostic support is one of the driving factors in the past 10 years behind dealership consolidations around the country where the sharing of these overhead costs can be spread out over more dealership service facility customers where multiple brands are being serviced in the same service facility.) The bottom line BACK then, and today is still that It always comes down to the dollars and cents involved, with everyone wanting access, but no one wanting to pay their share of what it costs to develop and update the data, then the maintenance of the databases, servers, and networks to disseminate it. Paying those costs would most likely result in independent/aftermarket facilities to charge their customers more for the service provided. Of course, that would take away the financial advantage most independents have over dealership service facilites. And never forget the liability factor that the service facility takes on when doing service on vehicle emission and safety systems. Federal standards require the software in the OEM parts to be tamper proof, or programmable (flash reprogramming of engine controllers at the dealership level was one of my industry-first accomplishments during my career) unless the repair is done by a franchised dealership service facility, or certified service facility. ( I testified in several lawsuits where someone other than a dealership service facility did a repair resulting is disastrous results which the plaintiffs then claimed my OEM employer was responsible for. Crazy but true in today's litigious US society ) I'm not sure that I know the answer, but the issue is much larger than most people understand. The one outcome that may occur would be the licensing of ALL repair facilities and technicians, whether employed by a dealership or someone else. As far as the DIY guy, just like points and condensers, the days of working on your own vehicle may be number as DIYers become even fewer every day. Thanks for taking the time to read this. A.J.

I understood everything this guy was saying about the demands that EPA regulation have had on engine durability. I too subscribe to Automotive News and have for 55 years. But then he got to the dooms day prediction about increased engine failures because the Trump administration is lower fuel economy standards in 2031 that probably would allow auto companies to go back to improving durability without fear of hurting fuel economy resulting in fines for not meeting the radical standards. The 2031 standards 50.4 MPG would have required nearly all vehicles sold to be battery electric even though the public remains skeptical of them as their sole vehicle. Lowering the standard to a more reasonable 34.5 mpg, the US industry claims will save at least $35 billion (which includes warranty costs) through 2031 and the average upfront vehicle costs would decline by about $930/vehicle. The revised stand will also eliminate the stop/start cycle the video claimed was a major contributor to the engine failures, and is actually despised by nearly 80%of current ICE powered vehicle per AN articles. owners.The best thing is for the industry to provide vehicle choices for the customers base3d on their wants and needs, and not government regulation limiting vehicle power train choices. I spent 45 years of my life with a career in the auto industry in all aspects from vehicle/component design to quality to repair, and I'm still a student of the industry today. FYI - Since EPA fuel economy standards affect nearly all aspects of vehicle design as anything that saves even a couple of ounces can result in fuel savings when spread over a 1,000,000 vehicle fleet.

The diagnostic tool available at the dealership is far more sophisticated and comprehensive than what you get at an auto parts store or the OBD scanners available in the aftermarket. Aftermarket standardized OBD2 scanners come with a variety of features, and it’s important that the operator is familiar with them and the vehicle to get the most out of the scanner. The aftermarket scanners have limited functionality and may not be compatible with all vehicle systems or failure modes. Also remember that the OBD scanners are limited to systems related to vehicle emissions, and their diagnosis only identified the portion of the system where the problem is located and not the specific component or things like wiring, connectors, etc. The dealership level tool also does far more than just OBD-related systems or components. A.J.

So this guy is talking about replacing the rear brake pads on a Hyundai Ionic 5 electric vehicle. I've worked in the automotive service retail and OEM business for 45 years, before retiring back 20 years. The vehicle mentioned is an Ionic 5,all electric vehicle going for somewhere between $50-$60,000. My question, who/why replaces just the rear brake pads on any vehicles any more after spending that much money on the car to begin with? What percentage of those buyers are DIY any more? Has anyone considered the cost that the dealership service departments are required to spend on specialized diagnostic and repair tools, software and regular updates, as well as training every year to keep up with technology advances? A.J.

I've Tamiya white pearl paint for covering chromed headlights for probably 10 years. There's just enough white in it to allow some of the chrome to show through as silvery background. And it dries glossy.

None of the local Walmarts in my area have sold models since they were dropped from the toy section years ago. Asked two of the store managers why, and they both said that they don't sell well of generate enough profit of other products that they can sell in the same space. And it's only about profitability that they can generate in their stores that matters to the higher ups.