Product Development Horror Stories

That reminds me of the Bonneville my boss used to own. One morning, out of the blue, the rear window exploded.

We had the trunk completely disassembled three times as we searched for water leaks after the window was replaced. We pulled the trunk and interior apart to vacuum all of the glass when it was replaced. Even after three times, we were still finding glass in the car under the carpeting.

Those M-Bs will have broken glass in them forever.

The restoration parts industry can be a pain in the ass.

I have about 50 "show chrome" acorn nuts that I ordered for the Packard at $3.00 each sitting on the shelf because whatever they're plated with isn't chrome.

I ordered another 50 from another supplier at roughly the same price, spoke to them on the phone and was assured that their "show chrome" was better quality.

They arrived and guess what? Probably all from the same supplier.

So, the $3.00 each tall chrome acorn nuts went to my chromer to be plated PROPERLY and become $7.00 each acorn nuts.

Have you ever paid $300.00 for radiator hoses? I have.. And they need to be cleaned up because there is rubber casting flash on them.

Everything we buy needs extra work even if it's new. It all adds cost to the parts and sometimes the customers don't understand.

I want to win a trophy dammit. The car has to be right.

There's only a couple places to get all this stuff and you take what you can get because the car won't work without it.

So far may favourite is having manifolds porcelainised for about $1500.00 and getting them back warped.

Now we get to try to have them trued up without the grinder chipping the porcelain. YAY!

Trans_Maro wrote: The restoration parts industry can be a pain in the ass. I have about 50 "show chrome" acorn nuts that I ordered for the Packard at $3.00 each sitting on the shelf because whatever they're plated with isn't chrome. I ordered another 50 from another supplier at roughly the same price, spoke to them on the phone and was assured that their "show chrome" was better quality. They arrived and guess what? Probably all from the same supplier. So, the $3.00 each tall chrome acorn nuts went to my chromer to be plated PROPERLY and become $7.00 each acorn nuts. Have you ever paid $300.00 for radiator hoses? I have.. And they need to be cleaned up because there is rubber casting flash on them. Everything we buy needs extra work even if it's new. It all adds cost to the parts and sometimes the customers don't understand. I want to win a trophy dammit. The car has to be right. There's only a couple places to get all this stuff and you take what you can get because the car won't work without it. So far may favourite is having manifolds porcelainised for about $1500.00 and getting them back warped. Now we get to try to have them trued up without the grinder chipping the porcelain. YAY!

ARGHH!!! Nothing worse than sending a perfectly fine part to a vendor and getting back something wrong.

I completely understand the hardware finish thing. We'd pour over hardware catalogs looking for stuff that matched what we needed for restorations.

I was once tasked with creating complete engine hardware kits for Ford small blocks. The owner wanted to cover all possible variations and just order what he needed on demand. I pretty much determined it was an impossible task after working out all the permutations and then seeing how many catalog pages would be eaten up with nothing but bolts.

We had a run of cast iron Chrylser Hemi exhaust manifolds made. Expensive as hell for the tooling, but the company owners wanted them. I think we sold two sets, the rest only move when they are counted for inventory each year. Heavy as hell too.