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Old 06-08-2012, 05:11 AM   #41
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It's all about money....PROFIT.....the cheaper they are made the shorter the life span the sooner you will go out and buy another. Regulations on RV's are slim to none. Take the simplest thing on an RV, "the tail lights" do you think for one minute that these type of lights would pass on an a car, but if you buy a utility trailer the tail lights have to meet codes, they ahe a rubber seal to keep water out of them just like an auto.

If the RV manufactures built high end products you will pay a high end price, so how far are you willing to go on price? It might be a good idea to go back to basics...Sleeping under the stars....that's Quality and Priceless.
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Old 06-08-2012, 06:10 AM   #42
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My CO/Gas detection unit was screwed onto the wall at a 56% angle. First thing one noticed coming in the door at eye level. Sometimes its not the products used in final assembly but the detail in workmanship. Oushing them out faster to make a bigger buck with work like this is the 7 P's and 1 H.
Pi$$ poor planning produces poor performance P. Head
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Old 06-08-2012, 09:39 AM   #43
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Another thread gone so far off-topic it is pointless.
Maybe we should talk about soft floors instead?
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Old 06-08-2012, 09:46 AM   #44
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Another thread gone so far off-topic it is pointless.
the average conversation lasts 20 minutes, then there's a lull and/or topic change.
Human nature.
Why should forums be any different?
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Old 06-08-2012, 09:47 AM   #45
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My CO/Gas detection unit was screwed onto the wall at a 56% angle. First thing one noticed coming in the door at eye level. Sometimes its not the products used in final assembly but the detail in workmanship. Oushing them out faster to make a bigger buck with work like this is the 7 P's and 1 H.
Pi$$ poor planning produces poor performance P. Head
This is also true and it is hard to get a good craftsman to work for low wages and care about his job.....Lower pay = lower skills, this is just one way they make money, lower labor cost, lower overhead = more money in there pockets....Lets face it, the pride is gone overall.....
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Old 06-08-2012, 12:51 PM   #46
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This is also true and it is hard to get a good craftsman to work for low wages and care about his job.....Lower pay = lower skills, this is just one way they make money, lower labor cost, lower overhead = more money in there pockets....Lets face it, the pride is gone overall.....

Everyone thinks it's because of corporate greed. I doubt that has much to do with anything really.

"help wanted" and either you get a line of applicants or you don't. If you do then there's no need to pay more, is there? When you need workers and none want to work then you raise wages.
If the job requires minimal training then you don't need to pay for skilled labor. You as a company often have an incentive to make jobs as simple as possible for many reasons, only one being the ability to use entry level type workers. If McDonalds needed a chef at every restaurant you'd not get $1 hamburgers. Would they be better burgers? Would you pay $7 for them? Since no fast food place exists like that I suspect not - I'm sure somebody tried it and failed.

If you live in your camper then yes, go find and buy the best. We'll be lucky to use ours 30 days a year - so for the 10 years we're likely to own it that's perhaps 10 months of real use. We might pull it 8000 miles in those 10 years (and possibly only half that). It will probably hold up just fine for that amount of use.

A key to successful engineering is 'just enough' - just enough strength and longevity is efficient. More is wasteful.

As for the sloppy assembly...yeah, FR and the others should have to answer for that. Even with minimally trained workers management is responsible for training and QC.
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Old 06-08-2012, 12:59 PM   #47
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If McDonalds needed a chef at every restaurant you'd not get $1 hamburgers. Would they be better burgers? Would you pay $7 for them? Since no fast food place exists like that I suspect not - I'm sure somebody tried it and failed.
Burgers at MacDonalds are already 5$ and more for soy and lettuce.
But I do agree that if you built an item to last way past the warranty you would sell less of them.

Cars and trucks are not built to last for more than an average of 6 to 7 years without major repairs.

Ford in the late 1980 offered lifetime warrantied parts and labor on parts installed at dealerships and then found it too costly to maintain the program
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Old 06-08-2012, 01:33 PM   #48
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Depends on the burger. Here a McDouble is $1. .2lb meet on a bun. Red Robin has better burgers, $9+ for a burger. And no discount for 'to go' orders so ambiance and service are not extra cost items, at least in that transaction.

All new cars come with what, 3 years and some 10 year warranty. FR? 1 year. That's it. You can buy a second year if you want.

Warranty is factored into the price - hey, the buyer pays one way or another, either up front, in repairs or in replacement, plus the hassle of getting it repaired.

Most all cars these days will go 120k without major anything - gas, oil, brakes, drive. You can expect a repair or two of somekind, but not like in the old day - in the 70s and 80s by 50k miles you'd have replaced the battery, starter, alternator, probably belts and you'd need hoses soon, like when you did the water pump at 60k miles. If you lived where there was snow you'd have probably replaced your muffler too. Shocks lasted 40k miles, if that in many cases.

Today? My car (04 taurus) has 120k on it. Factory exhaust, alternator, shocks. Did do a starter at 105k miles. My 03 windstar has 103k on it - just did back brakes for the first time and a wheel cylinder. Factory starter, alternator, belt even! Never had anything on the body replaced (as in locks or window regulators, etc). Did a heater flapper door a couple of years back.

My 86 Chevy truck was in the shop numerous times over the 3 years I had it - key buzzer went nuts, head bolt broke, ignition coil died, seat belt failed to retract, one wiper stopped working, radio died (a few times). My 89 jeep needed a trans, cat converter, rear diff, radio (factory radios sucked back then), shift knob fell off every 10k miles, interior looked old as the truck aged, squirters would plug up, and at 12 years it needed a radiator.
Had a couple of chrysler minivans..they dont' age well at all.

In the 70s/80s a car with 100k plus miles was junk. Today? There's a guy selling a 99 ranger with 193k miles on it, he's asking $1800. Looks good in and out. My expy with 235k on it looks perfect except for the driver's seat is worn on the corner. No rattles, no leaks, everything works. I see cars for sale all the time with 150k or more on them. Before my 04 tauraus I had a 93 bought used - traded it in at 190k miles. Unreal IMO. Traded it do to body rust. By windstar is showing some...wife wants a pickup...I can use the expy for work when I need to (the taurus won't work for work).
Total spent to buy all three vehicles? $26,400. (taurus -$9500, windstar $12500, expy $4400) (bought the taurus/windstar 2 years young with 27/32k miles respectively). Sticker on a the windstar new was $27,500.

You can probably do this with TT too - what's a 5 year old one go for? And are they any good? Or do they hold up? We looked at a couple and didn't see any issues, but i didn't get indepth with them.

Have to start a thread on that...


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Originally Posted by MilCop4523 View Post
Burgers at MacDonalds are already 5$ and more for soy and lettuce.
But I do agree that if you built an item to last way past the warranty you would sell less of them.

Cars and trucks are not built to last for more than an average of 6 to 7 years without major repairs.

Ford in the late 1980 offered lifetime warrantied parts and labor on parts installed at dealerships and then found it too costly to maintain the program
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Old 06-08-2012, 08:31 PM   #49
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Angry

I am writing from a different perspective. Before retirement, I was a Director of Quality Assurance in the medical device industry. Let me start with a little history.

Around 1950, the label "made in Japan" meant cheap junk. Their cars were a joke. Then the Japanese government decided that something needed to change. They brought in Edward Deming, an American quality control expert who was being completely ignored here. By the mid '60s, the quality level at Honda, Toyota, and others was the best in the world.

Guess what else? Even with the improvements in quality, they remained price competitive with American cars. It is a maxim of quality control practice that QUALITY CONTROL IS FREE. The problem is that management has trouble understanding that concept. The bean counters have a record of every cent spent on quality control. They have no record of the money saved from problems that didn’t happen. Any money spent on quality control (including design control) is more than offset by reduced scrap in the production process and reduced warrantee costs.

Eventually, Detroit found themselves in the position of producing cars that cost as much or more than Japanese cars, and were vastly inferior in quality. At first, it was fashionable to blame the American worker. They were lazy. They didn’t care. Eventually, management woke up. They began to adopt Japanese quality systems and by now, the quality coming out of Detroit is as good as anything in the world. It is ironic that these were the very same quality systems that they wouldn’t even look at years earlier.

Today, Elkhart is in the state that Detroit was in 50 years ago. The concept of quality control has absolutely no meaning to them. Some day, one RV manufacturer will wake up and discover that they can cut costs and produce a superior product by implementing what are now well established quality control procedures. When that happens, some of the others will follow. The rest will vanish. Until then, we will continue to suffer with junk out of Elkhart.
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Old 06-08-2012, 08:50 PM   #50
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Originally Posted by Great Horned Owl View Post
I am writing from a different perspective. Before retirement, I was a Director of Quality Assurance in the medical device industry. Let me start with a little history.

Around 1950, the label "made in Japan" meant cheap junk. Their cars were a joke. Then the Japanese government decided that something needed to change. They brought in Edward Deming, an American quality control expert who was being completely ignored here. By the mid '60s, the quality level at Honda, Toyota, and others was the best in the world.

Guess what else? Even with the improvements in quality, they remained price competitive with American cars. It is a maxim of quality control practice that QUALITY CONTROL IS FREE. The problem is that management has trouble understanding that concept. The bean counters have a record of every cent spent on quality control. They have no record of the money saved from problems that didn’t happen. Any money spent on quality control (including design control) is more than offset by reduced scrap in the production process and reduced warrantee costs.

Eventually, Detroit found themselves in the position of producing cars that cost as much or more than Japanese cars, and were vastly inferior in quality. At first, it was fashionable to blame the American worker. They were lazy. They didn’t care. Eventually, management woke up. They began to adopt Japanese quality systems and by now, the quality coming out of Detroit is as good as anything in the world. It is ironic that these were the very same quality systems that they wouldn’t even look at years earlier.

Today, Elkhart is in the state that Detroit was in 50 years ago. The concept of quality control has absolutely no meaning to them. Some day, one RV manufacturer will wake up and discover that they can cut costs and produce a superior product by implementing what are now well established quality control procedures. When that happens, some of the others will follow. The rest will vanish. Until then, we will continue to suffer with junk out of Elkhart.
Very well put, heard that years ago and have seen it work at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control and their suppliers. Suppliers were reluctant to change, but LM insisted and the results were astounding and costs went down and quality went up. We even instituted a Zero Defects Group that required zero defects for 12 months and had over 100 suppliers qualify and our source inspectors never had to inspect parts at their plants before shipment. LM saved $ and so did the suppliers by being able to ship immediately.

Eventually the RV industy will get on board just as soon as one or more take the first step.

BTW, the LM MLRS was the first system the US Army has ever fielded that has never had a field failure from when it was introduce in the 1980's to date.
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Old 06-08-2012, 08:57 PM   #51
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Very well put, heard that years ago and have seen it work at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control and their suppliers. Suppliers were reluctant to change, but LM insisted and the results were astounding and costs went down and quality went up. We even instituted a Zero Defects Group that required zero defects for 12 months and had over 100 suppliers qualify and our source inspectors never had to inspect parts at their plants before shipment. LM saved $ and so did the suppliers by being able to ship immediately.

Eventually the RV industy will get on board just as soon as one or more take the first step.

BTW, the LM MLRS was the first system the US Army has ever fielded that has never had a field failure from when it was introduce in the 1980's to date.
Of course you didn't need inspectors. Inspection is a total waste of money. It simply doesn't work. It is well understood that "Quality can not be inspected in."
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Old 06-08-2012, 09:05 PM   #52
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Of course you didn't need inspectors. Inspection is a total waste of money. It simply doesn't work. It is well understood that "Quality can not be inspected in."
Evidently, "It is well understood that "Quality can not be inspected in." is not understood or we would not have the problems we have with rvs these days.
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Old 06-08-2012, 09:21 PM   #53
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Evidently, "It is well understood that "Quality can not be inspected in." is not understood or we would not have the problems we have with rvs these days.
It is indeed well understood by quality control professionals. Unfortunately, the RV industry hasn't seen fit to hire any.

On the other hand, I don't think they have hired many inspectors either.
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Old 06-09-2012, 09:27 AM   #54
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it is all pretty simple

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Originally Posted by Great Horned Owl View Post
Of course you didn't need inspectors. Inspection is a total waste of money. It simply doesn't work. It is well understood that "Quality can not be inspected in."
just can not agree with that
if a company holds to certain standards
and hires inspectors to up hold them
it is all pretty simple
the inspector notices sloppy work done
calls for a re-do
informs said employee
"that don't cut it"
too many don't cut it's
the person is suspended without pay
if repeated
fired

what happened to the American way ??



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Old 06-09-2012, 09:49 AM   #55
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"what happened to the American way ?"

It disappeared along with most of the manufacturing base.
Consumers were not willing to pay for quality, so everything comes from China now.
And now that the economy is about to get much worse, the consumer won't even be able to afford the cheap junk.
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Old 06-09-2012, 10:00 AM   #56
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just can not agree with that
if a company holds to certain standards
and hires inspectors to up hold them
it is all pretty simple
the inspector notices sloppy work done
calls for a re-do
informs said employee
"that don't cut it"
too many don't cut it's
the person is suspended without pay
if repeated
fired

what happened to the American way ??



Mountainman
OK, I guess all the QC/QA professionals who spent a career studying the subject must be wrong.

The simple fact is that there are far too many possible defects that no inspector can be expected to notice. As a typical example, a worker absent mindedly grabs some 1/4" screws to mount a cabinet, where he should have used 3/4" screws. The defect is completely invisible, but on the first trip, the cabinet will fall off of the wall.

Established quality assurance methods dictate that the assembly process be set up such that wrong parts that might go unnoticed should not be available. Defect prevention works. Defect detection does not.
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Old 06-09-2012, 10:13 AM   #57
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"what happened to the American way ?"

It disappeared along with most of the manufacturing base.
Consumers were not willing to pay for quality, so everything comes from China now.
And now that the economy is about to get much worse, the consumer won't even be able to afford the cheap junk.
Don, go back and read my posts from yesterday. When good quality assurance processes are implemented, products not only get better, but they also get cheaper.

There is no net cost for QA. The reductions in scrap and in warrantee costs will more than pay for the expense of a QA system.
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