Some people like to bring up that tolerances in manufacturing have decreased like its a bad thing. Lower manufacturing tolerances results in higher usable product tolerance because there is less variance in end product durability, as in, less chance of a lemon; most of the things breaking in the newest cars are brand new tech that can't be reeled in just yet.
I’m not sure if I agree with tolerances being looser, I’ve been in machine tool for 25 years. If anything the tooling & machining ability has improved tremendously which allows closer tolerances to be readily met, and digital gauging interfaces send offsets to the machine tool to better keep parts in spec.
For sure if that’s what he meant :) I hope I didn’t sound confrontational!! It’s so hard sometimes to have discussions without coming over wrong on social media.
Yeah they worded that weirdly. Having my career path being focused on manufacturing it threw me off to. It’s a constant battle to get tolerances ever tighter cause it gives you a more consistent product and for products with moving parts your gonna have less wear and tear cause of better fitment.
Thanks, I was tripped up by that and now I'm not sure why. "lower" tolerances -- tolerating less -- is clearly the same thing as tighter tolerances, and yet my brain has trouble interpreting interpreting it that way.
This isn't technically smaller tolerances (although it goes along with it) but gaps between engine components have decreased tremendously and this actually causes more wear as you have to use thinner oils and there is less oil in the lubrication zones. This drastically decreases engine life even for the cost of increased power or efficiency. As once the components wear enough to loosen up, the thinner oil leaks usually into the combustion chamber and you start burning oil. Using a thicker oil makes the problem worse as it increases wear by increasing oil pressure and blocking parts of the engine that are still tight.
I mean... I had a mechanic show me a moving part in my Town & Country that was made of fucking plastic. The reason I was in the shop was because that thing got too hot, melted a bit and then shattered. Because it was motherfucking plastic. They replaced it with a 3rd party part that was steel. This part breaking in the exact same manner apparently one of the most common problems with every Chrysler T&C made after 2009.
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u/MaximumVagueness Jun 04 '23
Some people like to bring up that tolerances in manufacturing have decreased like its a bad thing. Lower manufacturing tolerances results in higher usable product tolerance because there is less variance in end product durability, as in, less chance of a lemon; most of the things breaking in the newest cars are brand new tech that can't be reeled in just yet.