AT Tires R Pod 171

Who ever said engineers, or anyone else, is infallible?

Didn't I just point out that you can usually tell an engineering dominated company because the products will tend to be complex and relatively expensive with lots of obscure features. Not particularly good things.

Nor did I say that lawyers and accountants don't add value. Quite the opposite.

What I said was that lawyers and accountants arent where the core value resides in a company that builds products. They aren't what makes that company great. They are there to preserve value created by others. So absolutely they have value to add but they shouldnt run the place, any more than an engineer or manufacturing manager should run a law firm. If that's not obvious I don't know what else to say.

The very best manufacturing companies understand that their core value is in design, manufacturing, or customer service, and are excellent there, but are also very very good at the other two. And they also have proper checks and balances on the legal and finance sides. And importantly the corporate leaders demonstrate due respect for all the above.

Sadly, FR seems to be almost entirely sales dominated, with seemingly little thought left over for design excellence, quality, reliability, or, based on some of their claims, perhaps for legal considerations either. Not sure where they are on the accounting and finance end of things, but I'll bet they're pretty good there or ol' Warren wouldn't have invested.

Dang, jon, you gotta read those warning labels.  

Ironically, a fully restored Pinto will command $8K to $15K these days. About 3-4 times of what they cost new.

Some companies try to push design while some try to maximize profit and some try to do both. From my time in the motorcycle industry, mechanics loved to work on Hondas because they were easy. We hated to ride Hondas because it was like kissing your sister. The design by committee approach Honda used refined all of the character out of the bikes. On the other hand, mechanics did not like working on Yamahas because they were hard, but we loved riding them because they were exciting.

Come on now. Pintos did not spontaneously explode. I had one. I even had a rear-end collision of a sort. I stopped for a red light because the signal was changing and I hit the brakes instead of trying to get through the yellow light. A Volkswagen Beetle behind me did not stop quite so quickly. His bumper hit my tailpipe. It broke the muffler hanger and I could see where the exhaust pipe hit the brake line. I think it wasn't flattened because of the pressure it was under. He had a bent bumper to show for it. I took a piece of an old tire to make a replacement muffler hanger and drove it until the exhaust system needed replacing when the muffler rusted out.