How MB Tested the C class

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I presume testing of this nature is on every single car Mercedes release...

Then why in Gods name are so many of the new e class coupes dying on the side of the road...

Did they forget the testing part lol..

I feel alot of the testing is done on CAD and CAM systems, and some of the more lucrative tests are bypassed from real testing ..

Budget constraints are important and ofcourse play a part, but really, i think once the modelling is complete, they should still test the specific components aswell...

ie - injectors in the engine or rattle tests, where my neighbour has rattles in his new eclass already!!
 
I presume testing of this nature is on every single car Mercedes release...

Then why in Gods name are so many of the new e class coupes dying on the side of the road...

Did they forget the testing part lol..

I feel alot of the testing is done on CAD and CAM systems, and some of the more lucrative tests are bypassed from real testing ..

Budget constraints are important and ofcourse play a part, but really, i think once the modelling is complete, they should still test the specific components aswell...

ie - injectors in the engine or rattle tests, where my neighbour has rattles in his new eclass already!!

Because after testing MB changed suppliers and failed to repeat the tests to ensure continuation of quality :doh:
 
^ As above. There was a change in materials in the production runs.
 
I feel alot of the testing is done on CAD and CAM systems, and some of the more lucrative tests are bypassed from real testing .....

Yes that’s pretty much as it happens these days. Even before the first prototype part has been made 1000s of simulations will have been run. Many aspects from virtual crash testing to ride and comfort and aerodynamics are quantified. But the software is only as good as the information fed into it.

Budget constraints are important and ofcourse play a part, but really, i think once the modelling is complete, they should still test the specific components aswell...

I’m not aware of any major OEM who has gone down the zero-prototype path yet. Certainly few prototypes are being built year on year. But it’s a brave engineer who doesn’t want to see the parts physically tested first.

There was a change in materials in the production runs.

I heard this was also the reason for the multi million £ delay in the Airbus A380: changing wiring looms to a less dense material (copper to aluminium?)to save weight but forgetting to change the minimum bend radii. When they fed the wires through the plane they were too short.

Back to my first point. The software is only as good as the information you feed it.
 
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A friend of mine used to be a BT test engineer and his job was to test the standard BT phone socket / plugs we all have in our homes. So he would basically sit there and plug / unplug hour after hour, day after day till it broke. I asked why they didn't have a robot to do this and he said that a computer controlled robot can't truly replicate human behaviour and clumsyness. Apply that to cars and you just can't beat real world testing. It does amaze me when you read about how much effort goes into designing a new car, just how they can get simple stuff so wrong.
 
A friend of mine used to be a BT test engineer and his job was to test the standard BT phone socket / plugs we all have in our homes. So he would basically sit there and plug / unplug hour after hour, day after day till it broke. I asked why they didn't have a robot to do this and he said that a computer controlled robot can't truly replicate human behaviour and clumsyness. Apply that to cars and you just can't beat real world testing. It does amaze me when you read about how much effort goes into designing a new car, just how they can get simple stuff so wrong.

Lol
When you design cars for a living it is damn easy to see how 'simple' stuff can go wrong.

You have to design over 10,000 components within two years and get them to work and fit with the other 9,999.

It is a minefield, speaking from experience!!
 
vincesz. It is a minefield, speaking from experience!!

What I like about your post #8 is you have car design experience it would appear. Best bit, you drive a 124 and a very nice one at that.
Says a lot for the 124 methinks:thumb:
 
I’m not aware of any major OEM who has gone down the zero-prototype path yet.

Ford did with one of their into cars some years back, the fiesta/focus/puma... cant recall.. and now its total norm practice

totally designed and tested by computer and then they made a full scale mock up i think
 
Ford did with one of their into cars some years back, the fiesta/focus/puma... cant recall.. and now its total norm practice

That's clever marketing sadly. I worked for the Tier 1 suplier to the B3 Fiesta front bumper beam. I'd estimate that that over 100 simulations and 10 physical tests were done on that part, for the low speed tests alone. Sub-component testing isn't so expensive. But full vehicle testing is another matter and I suspect very few of those were done on B3.

totally designed and tested by computer and then they made a full scale mock up i think

In the automotive companies I've worked in (OEM & Tier 1) testing is still a standard part of the design process. All that has changed over the years is the % of simulations vs. physical tests.
 
vincesz. It is a minefield, speaking from experience!!

What I like about your post #8 is you have car design experience it would appear. Best bit, you drive a 124 and a very nice one at that.
Says a lot for the 124 methinks:thumb:

Excuse my long / wax lyrical post about the W124, but....

In my organisation i've only been there 18 months so i'm a couple of grades away form a company car (my company makes you contribute part of your wages against a new model, the higher your grade the less the contribution is).

I'm also at the point in my life (just of uni.) where a house is more important to me when it comes to disposable income, however I did want a nice car within a £2/3k budget.

I started with a W202 but I think I had a bad example as it was quite problematic although it looked fantastic (for what it was), I went looking at a W124 in Oct '08 and after driving it 2 miles I was sold, the quality of the materials and the feel of the drive, even though it was 15 years old blew me away. I could not believe that a company could make a car this good, sell it for what they did and still make money.

When I got it home and began fitting things like a stereo, regular maintenance jobs it struck me that this was a seriouslly well engineered car. Take the heater matrix / control assembly for example when I changed one of the bulbs on it (I mean come on it did only last 15 years the bulb) it was as simple to work on and to fix yet incredibly intuitive to re-assemble with interference fit parts and loads of screws, mechanical bliss.

I shortly sold it at the beginning of last year as a house came up for sale ahead of when i'd planned to get a deposit but I promised myself i'd get another before the end of the year (see my other posts).

IMO the W124 wrote the book on how to make a volume luxury car and it was a time before the customer expected electrical everything, its when mechanical devices were reliable and built to last.

I know we've all written here about how Merc's aren't made the way they used to, but its not rose tinted glasses they just aren't, and theres a magnitude of reasons (someone summed it up on here very well about the consumer not want to pay for quality anymore as people change their cars alot more frequently) but I think theres a bigger factor in the form of environmental reasons.
You can no longer make paints with cyanide in it which gives the w107 its mirror like finish, you have to make engines in particular tax brands on their emissions (so no heavy mechanical systems, choose lightweight actuators / electronics). Vehicles have to be disposed of at the end of their life and by something like 90pc recyclable and then there is evolution in materials, some materials are much more lightweight and may outlive a W124 but they don't have the 'perceived quality' of heavyweight materials that compliment a Benz of old so well.

Cars are also designed to look older quicker with silly changes like LED lights making halogen / xenons look old hat as manufacturers can't restyle too much without loosing their brand face / identity.

I have often driven into work and thought why aren't we making cars as well as the W124! I can only imagine being a manufacturing engineer in 1996 at MB changing from W124 to W210, i'd be fricking kicking myself (no offence W210 owners!)

Just relating back to the original post only today I sat in a meeting where we had realised that an electrical gearbox we were planning for 2012 could not fit in the existing floorpan of a vehicle, it wasn't the gearbox manufacturers fault it was the team who had designed the rear floor pan in '04 (when e gearboxes were just not mainstream at all), the trade off will be the gearbox as its massively expensive to re-tool for a rear floor pan (new die sets, new assembly methods, different mass to resonate).

Seemingly simple oversights at one stage can give you massive headaches in the future (so i'll spec. mine petrol!)

Thanks for reading!
 
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