Why Does My Car Not Have A...Hood?
[Ed. note: The following is an extended comment relating to an article on The Car Connection, "Why Does My New Car Have No Temp Gauge"]
In the 1950s, when a bunch of engineers were sitting around for coffee and donuts, sometimes we asked ourselves, "What would it take for us (our industry) to make a car with a sealed hood for 100,000 miles?" Now the bogey would be 150,000 miles.
First, we agreed that there must be small portal to replenish the windshield washer fluid. It could be under the passenger side of the instrument panel along with the cabin air filter.
Lifetime battery? Easy. Lifetime brake linings and fluid - ditto. Air cleaner/filter would need to be self-dumping. We could program that to happen only after the car is running at 40 mph on the highway so that the flying debris would not be so obvious.
Lifetime radiator juice - sure, but synthetic hose materials would need to be upgraded. Ditto for multiple-grooved steel-belted fan belt. Fancy lifetime rotating seals were on the market. We knew a closed crankcase was doable if there was a large finned lube reservoir for couple of gallons.
Then, "Oh, who would get the benefit of that?" In those days most new cars were traded by the third year - with around 50,000 miles. During that era, a GM Vice President told us that when we succeeded in defeating the ruin of pitted chrome (bumpers were shiny metal then), car sales would improve.
"But, would people hang onto their cars longer then?"
"No", he said, "Getting more money for a nice looking trade-in would improve sales of our cars with more features."
Planned obsolescence was the program for continued sales of new cars.
No comments:
Post a Comment