Re: Build Quality
Upvoted, because I find that fascinating and eminently believable.
In the "believe it if you will" category, two related anecdotes come to mind.
The first is something I read about Ford's takeover of Land Rover in 2000. As they toured the Discovery production line, one of the QA practices that horrified the Ford men was the process for testing the completed vehicles for water ingress. A tech would walk round the car with a high-pressure hose; if water was found inside, the car would be sent back up the line to have that particular leak remedied, then shipped to the customer. The obvious issue of "what happens if there's more than one leak" had apparently never occurred to them.
And the second is that old probably-an-urban legend about the Mercedes engineers at a conference in the 70s, describing their testing process for door seals. "We lock a cat in the car and leave it there overnight," they said, "and if it's dead by the morning, we know the seals are good & airtight."
"We have something similar," said the men from British Leyland, "We lock a cat in the car, and if it's not escaped by the morning we know the seals are good enough..."
