When design goes bad
October 7th, 2007 Posted in Uncategorized
Photo by Yellow Laguna
I’m quite pleased with my ten year old Renault station wagon (not the one on the picture, but similar), but in order to get it through the yearly inspection, I had to repair the front brakes. Turns out that the discs are bad and needs to be replaced. They are mounted with two screws, one was possible to remove, the second I had to drill away. Then the real issue is to get the discs loose. I think I have changed them before, or perhaps the previous owner, but the disc had not been loosened for at least 6 years. Enough time for the rust to form a tight seal between the disc and the holder. It took me 30 minutes each to remove the damn things and it gave me a massive headache.
The designer must know that iron rust, and that, hmm…maybe the disc will be stuck. Or perhaps they don’t drive their cars 10 years in France. In fact last year when we went to Disneyland in Paris I thought I would see lots of cars like ours (it a french car), a ‘98 Renault Laguna. In the small town were I live in Sweden their are at least 5 identical cars from 1998, but at the 7 day long trip to France I saw only one similar car. Strange.