Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[LrdSatyr8]

Use Malwarebytes.... you my friend have a virus! http://www.malwarebtyes.com

 

[Riceball]

When I think of some of the stuff I used in the Army - all of which was made by the lowest bidder- I'm not as bothered by this concept. Think of the early M-16 rifles, which would jam up in the jungle, meaning you had to take it apart to work. That of course didn't go over well when you were under fire.
I know plenty of railroad equipment that had odd things that could go easily wrong that were impossible to fix on the move, too.
History is filled with stuff like that.

To be honest though, the jamming issue with the early M16s wasn't an engineering flaw, it was a self induced problem created by the Army when they first switched the powder type of the ammo for them, then they compounded by not issuing cleaning kits and at least suggesting that they didn't need to be cleaned because they were self cleaning. Had they stuck to the correct powder and issued cleaning kits and instructed the troops on how to clean the M16 the problems experienced early on wouldn't have occurred.

Your point is correct though, a friend of mine was an LAV mechanic in the Corps and he told me all kinds of stories about how difficult even routine maintenance could be because of where certain parts were located. There were basic component, like oil filters and such, that while technically accessible from the engine access hatch were in reality near impossible to get at and the only way to readily get at them was to pull the engine out.

Watching Ant Man again last night I just remembered something that I see fairly often and find bothersome, it's when people (usually the hero) punches other people (usually a member of the goon squad) in the face when they're wearing a full faced helmet. They not only manage to hurt the guy in the helmet, but at the same time they somehow manage to not hurt their hand in the process. I'm pretty certain that if I were to punch somebody wearing something like a full faced motorcycle helmet with nothing more than my bar hands or, at best, basic leather gloves, I'm not only going to hurt my hand but the guy in the helmet isn't going to be feeling all that much; sure the helmet might get knocked askew and their head might ring a little but nothing like if they were hit without the helmet on.

 

[DMTDeadpool]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but this really really bugs me....

Picture a car driving fairly regularly, maybe a few miles over the limit. When the brake is pressed... Nothing happens! From this moment on the car travels at the exact same speed (or faster) while the driver is honking his (or her) horn insistently, yelling at others to get out of the way...

Now, I am no physicist, but simply taking your FOOT OFF THE ACCELERATOR will cause the car to lose momentum. Exceptions of course if going down hill. But I see all too often, car breaks fail and the car ploughs through other cars as it careens out-of-control down some freeway, completely unhindered by the laws of physics.... Or the drivers inability to use simple common sense.

Also

Excessive gun cocking

Big firey explosions ALL THE TIME!!!!!! (also Michael Bay's first words... and pretty much every word he has ever said.)

From TV... Celebrities. especially Sports people doing adverts for things they have no business endorsing... razors, deodorant, cars.... the list is endless. Oh and the worst, top celebrities using cheap hair products.... Sure, these people pay $5,000 for a trim and they are really gonna be shampooing with a bottle of $2.59 crap.... No they are using beaver placenta at like $1,800 a bottle....

Epileptic editing

Excessive gun cocking

Excessively "goofy" characters getting incredibly hot girls.... You know the Jim Carey types acting like complete tw@s in public. If I tried some of the stuff those guys do in movies I would be locked up, or at the very least thought of as "special"

 

[p51]

Your point is correct though, a friend of mine was an LAV mechanic in the Corps and he told me all kinds of stories about how difficult even routine maintenance could be because of where certain parts were located. There were basic component, like oil filters and such, that while technically accessible from the engine access hatch were in reality near impossible to get at and the only way to readily get at them was to pull the engine out.

Did you know that the master cylinder on a WW2 Jeep can only be accessed from a bolted panel in the body, well below the gas/clutch/brake pedals? It's stuck between two frame channels. I shudder at what I'd have to do to replace the thing if God forbid someday I gotta swap it out. I think I'd have to remove the body tub first. It's that inaccessible. The oil pump placement requires you to remove the driver's side panel between the grille and the body tub to work on it. Not nearly as bad as the brake cylinder, but it'd be a pain to work on it. Other parts are incredibly easy to get to (the fuel pump, for example, which is good as they often fail) but others seem to have bene put in as an afterthought. Filling up the tranny/transfer case is a nightmare. I removed the skid plate on my 1944 Willys MB permanently as they often leak between the two and you need to top them off with gear oil every now and then.
But as for modern military vehicles? I ran a maintenance section in the Army and did PMCS on my own issued vehicles with the drivers. Humvees weren't too bad but the LMTVs were a nightmare for some things. Even my wheeled vehicle mechanics weren't rated to work on the HET transporter trailers.

 

[batguy]

If you guys think military hardware is difficult to service then don't even touch modern consumer vehicles.

These days you can end up removing an entire exhaust system & raising the engine off its mounts in order to reach the oil pan. Or jacking up the car & removing a wheel just to reach the battery. Or needing 10 hours of labor to replace a heater core in the dashboard, etc. It's insane.

 

[LrdSatyr8]

Watching Ant Man again last night I just remembered something that I see fairly often and find bothersome, it's when people (usually the hero) punches other people (usually a member of the goon squad) in the face when they're wearing a full faced helmet. They not only manage to hurt the guy in the helmet, but at the same time they somehow manage to not hurt their hand in the process. I'm pretty certain that if I were to punch somebody wearing something like a full faced motorcycle helmet with nothing more than my bar hands or, at best, basic leather gloves, I'm not only going to hurt my hand but the guy in the helmet isn't going to be feeling all that much; sure the helmet might get knocked askew and their head might ring a little but nothing like if they were hit without the helmet on.

I was watching Hellboy last night and when he hit the guy with the mask on with his big stone hand several times in the face and the guy laughs at him after the mask is like bent and mangled on his head comes to mind!

 

[Riceball]

I personally feel that all engineers need to be required to work on the things they design before they go into production, because once they realize that disassembling half a vehicle or machine just to get at one simple part is no fun then maybe they'll start designing things with maintenance and repair in mind. As it is, they seem to just stick things wherever they fit, sometimes seemingly as an afterthought, all because they're not the ones who are going to have to work on it so they don't really care or at the least don't think about those kinds of things.

 

[p51]

If you guys think military hardware is difficult to service then don't even touch modern consumer vehicles.

These days you can end up removing an entire exhaust system & raising the engine off its mounts in order to reach the oil pan. Or jacking up the car & removing a wheel just to reach the battery. Or needing 10 hours of labor to replace a heater core in the dashboard, etc. It's insane.

A guy I used to work with had a Corvette and he once told me you had to partially remove the engine and lift it up some distance to get to the spark plugs. I have no idea if that's true (as I've never even ridden in a 'Vette) but if it is, that's insane!

 

[Axlotl]

I personally feel that all engineers need to be required to work on the things they design before they go into production, because once they realize that disassembling half a vehicle or machine just to get at one simple part is no fun then maybe they'll start designing things with maintenance and repair in mind. As it is, they seem to just stick things wherever they fit, sometimes seemingly as an afterthought, all because they're not the ones who are going to have to work on it so they don't really care or at the least don't think about those kinds of things.

That's not the fault of engineers and designers - that's company policy.
The auto companies don't want us working on our own cars, like we did back in the good old days -
they want us to have to take the car back to the dealership and pay obscene prices to replace or repair simple things.

 

[Riceball]

That's not the fault of engineers and designers - that's company policy.
The auto companies don't want us working on our own cars, like we did back in the good old days -
they want us to have to take the car back to the dealership and pay obscene prices to replace or repair simple things.

That could be, but I doubt it for the simple reason that the dealership would not likely want to crowd their service bays with lots of cars that take hours to do even a simple oil change or tune up, even if it would net more money. While more time does equal more money, at the same time it means a longer wait time for servicing, meaning they can service fewer cars and it runs the risk of pissing off customers who get tired of long waits and big service/repair bills.

It also doesn't explain why this is the case for a lot of military vehicles. They don't have to go back to the dealer for repairs and maintenance, they get worked on in house, about the only time a military vehicle goes back to the "dealer" is when they need either a major overhaul or an upgrade to the newer model letter like from an F-15A to an F-15C, M-1 to M-1A, etc.

 

[LrdSatyr8]

Yanno... all this talk about how hard/easy it is to work on a vehicle... I think it should be manditory for everyone to know a few basic things before they are allowed or issued a drivers license... Like changing a tire, changing your oil, replace a fan belt, change a spark plug, replace a headlight/tailight.... the basic stuff that everyone should know. They should also know the year make and model of their vehicle and where to find the vin number on a car.

 

[glunark]

When its pitch black inside a room, yet the curtains are open, and its daytime.

 

[p51]

When its pitch black inside a room, yet the curtains are open, and its daytime.

Yeah, how about when the blinds are drawn and it's dark as heck inside in the middle of the day? The only time most people really do that is if they're doing something they don't want to be seen, they're trying to sleep, or they are sick and don't like the bright light.
It's funny how bad/dark the lighting is in buildings and houses in movies.

 

[LrdSatyr8]

Or they are using flashlights in what's suppose to be a dark room which is fully lit and you can see everything anyway! That drives me nuts!

 

[Treadwell]

That's not the fault of engineers and designers - that's company policy.
The auto companies don't want us working on our own cars, like we did back in the good old days -
they want us to have to take the car back to the dealership and pay obscene prices to replace or repair simple things.

AFAIK the car manufacturer doesn't make a dime off a dealership's maintenance department. Well, in some cases they get to sell a part, but they'd make that sale anyway, no matter how hard it is to replace.

 

[p51]

Or they are using flashlights in what's suppose to be a dark room which is fully lit and you can see everything anyway!

Or the places you can clearly see have electricity but they use flashlights instead of just flipping the switch on the wall for the interior lights? That's one thing about "Seven" that drove me nuts.

 

[dbuck]

A guy I used to work with had a Corvette and he once told me you had to partially remove the engine and lift it up some distance to get to the spark plugs. I have no idea if that's true (as I've never even ridden in a 'Vette) but if it is, that's insane!

I wouldn't be surprised. I had a friend who bought a twenty year old used 68 cougar with a 390 in it, when he pulled the engine to rebuild it he found one original plug in it, you couldn't replace it without unbolting the engine from the motor mounts and jacking the engine up.

 

[batguy]

Modern cars aren't impossible to work on for any conspiratorial reason. It's just what happens when fuel efficiency, emissions, and human labor all become too important to the bottom line.

Aerodynamics forces them to wrap the front bodywork tightly around the engine/structure so there's no room to work. They use cheap materials everywhere because it's lighter in weight. They make everything snap together (read: PITA to open up) to reduce the vehicle assembly time.

I wouldn't be surprised. I had a friend who bought a twenty year old used 68 cougar with a 390 in it, when he pulled the engine to rebuild it he found one original plug in it, you couldn't replace it without unbolting the engine from the motor mounts and jacking the engine up.

'68 Cougars had no business getting 390s from the factory. The shock towers were too close together for that. The 390 wasn't a great motor for its size anyway.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Or needing 10 hours of labor to replace a heater core in the dashboard, etc. It's insane.

Several years ago it became necessary to have the heater core replaced on whichever car I was driving at the time. When I picked it up after that was done, the mechanic told me to never bring another car to him for that kind of repair. :lol

 

[p51]

The sad thing is that low-tech cars can't be worked on by some shops. I took my WW2 Jeep to three places to install a new exhaust pipe past the manifold because I didn't have the stuff to bend the last section of pipe. They had no idea of basic shop work.
I should get some brake work done and nobody will touch it.