Just Because You Can - Doesn’t Mean You Should
As an electrical engineer by education I find over engineering to be one of the major sins of our age. Hence, I rail against it. Below is my most recent encounter with over engineering. Please, feel free to pass along your experiences with engineers who make things because they can, not because they should.
I love Toyota automobiles. I’ve had five and I try to keep them for at least 10 years. The best thing about them is their service. Outside of scheduled maintenance, I’ve never had to go to their service department. That’s the best kind of service.
That being said, I’m in the market for a new car, particularly a small SUV. Naturally, I looked very seriously at the Toyota RAV4. Almost everything about it was exactly what I expected and I was prepared to buy one on the spot. But, I believe in test drives for me and my wife. I once had a buddy who bought a car without having his wife test drive it. She couldn’t reach the pedals. So, I took a test drive.
For my comfort I like the driver’s seat all the way up and back. I sat in the driver’s seat and tried to adjusted it to my needs. It wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. When I moved the seat up, it moved forward jamming my legs into the seat-well. I could not over-ride the way the seat adjust mechanism worked.
I asked the salesman what the deal was. He said that the seat adjustment was designed that way as a convenience to the driver. I said it wasn’t convenient for me. As a matter of fact the seat did exactly what I did not want.
I know that some engineer and marketing analyst thought that this method of seat adjustment would be easier for people of generally smaller stature to operate. (Women, ya think.) Unfortunately, they cut out guys like me and probably taller women. Personally, I am of the opinion that if you cannot adjust a driver’s seat to a proper driving position with the up-down and front-to-back seat adjustments maybe you don’t have the physical or mental acuity to operate a 3,500 pound piece of machinery at 65 mph. Or, maybe it’s just me.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Just Because You Can
0 opinions for Just Because You Can - Doesn’t Mean You Should
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: