Stupid snap together cars

I'm gonna skip the long back ground rant about the things I hate about new cars and just vent on the latest reason: brake light switches and is a lock nut really too much to ask??

My girl picked up a brand spanking new 2020 Jeep Renegade Trail Hawk and yes, it is pretty much a Fiat 500 (L?) but she's happy and this should end me having to go pick her up at work when it snows. Youtube the overland test drive videos for yerself. All things considered, I'd probably be happier with a AMC Eagle but like I said, skipping that part of the rant.

She decided she wanted the metal pedal dress up kit and why not. Ordered it, opened the box, instructions by ikea but pretty simple. Slip new gas pedal over the old one and snap it in place. Unsnap original brake pedal pad and snap the new one in place. The big rubber nipple on the pad that goes in the hole on the plastic pedal doesn't unsnap that easily. Instead of just grabbing a utility knife and cutting the thing, I worked on yanking it off and finally got it. In the process I pulled the brake pedal up far enough to unsnap the plastic clip that holds the pedal to the power booster push rod. Fairly stupid design, fairly idiotic of me, didn't take that long to get it snapped back together - the first time.

Gave it a test, figured out that the car thought I had my foot on the brake. Not just brake lights on but shift out of park and push to start working without touching the brakes. Still 1/2 way in idiot mode I fiddled around with the brake booster clip until I decided I had it right the first time and the problem was the brake light switch got misaligned. I mean it doesn't happen on old cars but hey, not a complete idiot. Yes, I did spend entirely too long asking google where the @%@#$ thing was but it turned out to be time well spent because I learned a new thing to hate about snap together cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo3G2XKxkbs

In the light of day, follow the plastic brake pedal until ya come to the plastic switch, twist it to unlock it, snap it out of the mount. Toss it over the pedals to get slack in the wire harness and unsnap the connector. Exact part different than the video but same idea except no convenient button top to pull out - ya gotta grab it with pliers and give it a tug and ya can feel it snapping to different lengths. Cork screw it back in and snap it in place and dang, didn't pull the plunger far enough out. Snap it apart, pull the plunger out some more, now it won't go back in because pulled it out too far. Back to google bookmarks and take note of what the default setting is - 17mm from tip of plunger to body of switch. Snap the plunger to that length, snap the switch back, working like new.

It "only" took like 8 hours to over think the whole thing and do what turns out to be a legit 5 minute job - if ya know what yer doing. My main aggravation here is that I shouldn't have had to if the @%#$ thing wasn't snap together in the first place. I mean what's so hard about loosen the lock nut, move the switch, tighten it back down that it had to be re-engineered?? On a side note, apparently I wasn't that stupid for screwing it up in the first place. Found a lot of forum posts about people getting their foot stuck under the brake pedal and doing the same thing trying to pull it out.

unreal .

Hey, if you can save a buck on the cost of a car times a million cars. That's a chunk of change in some execs pocket.

Side note its a shared vehicle with the 500 X

Reminds me of the time I got stuck somewhere with my '06 Charger SRT8 because of what is now known as "the pink thingy". The stupid plastic shift interlock piece. Don't get me wrong. LOVED that car, but anything they could do to lessen weight and lower cost to be competitive.

I get the economics of save a few seconds of assembly time x some number of parts x a few hundred thousand vehicles + less spent on small hardware. I also get the realities of designed to be easily recycled. I still find it freaking annoying.

If you want to see cost savings in action, look at the light duty 1997 F250 pickup. Some bean counter figured out that you could get sufficient clamping force on the rim with only SEVEN lugs instead of 8. Cost savings: 4 studs, 4 lug nuts, 1 less hole in 5 wheels, 4 hubs, 4 rotors, etc. I was a Service Writer at a Ford dealer back then, and I had a couple of customers come in VERY irate because they went to buy aftermarket wheels. One DEMANDED that we swap it over to 8-lug axles... We told him it wasn't possible and sent him to see his salesman.

Those stupid MOPAR nylon wiper transmission pivot bushings introduced in the mid 70's come to mind. I've gotten real good at scraping the skin off my hands contorting around under the dash replacing those. The aftermarket replacements barely last 2 - 3 years in any place with warm temps... i'd like to the bean counter who came up with that exquisite annoyance, especially when they fail in a rain storm and you lose your wipers...

Mopar still sells OEM wiper bushings.

Got an 08 Jeep Wrangler with a radio that has a loose connection. Can’t figure out how to get the radio out to fix it. No visible fasters. Has to be snap together 😡

[quote=redraptor
Hey, if you can save a buck on the cost of a car times a million cars. That's a chunk of change in some execs pocket.



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i remember working on K cars and L bodies when they were new.
when they first were built the bumper energy absorbers, similar to suspension shocks, had 4 bolts holding them on each end. after a couple of years it was changed to 3. at the end of their life there was only 2 bolts holding them on.
later i read that removing 1 bolt saved Chrysler $200,000.

No doubt as it's been a thing for a long time. Dad had a mid 90s Shadow with a crap radio and I recall spending at least an hour looking for the screws holding any part of the dash bezel on. Found one in a boneyard and decided to just break it apart to find them. Grabbed a piece, yanked it like I was trying to break it, stupid thing just popped off. Oddly enough the radio was actually bolted to the console frame.

I always figured some of it has to do with weight savings too. Every little bit of weight saved helps with CAFE.

Recently removed headlight molding, grill, and headlights from my '79 Power Wagon. Not one single piece of plastic involved. Just a bunch of metal screws and metal pieces. What a pleasant experience. Same goes for removing the door panels to grease up some internal parts. Metal clips, screws, bolt for handle and window crank. So nice.

Had one of them fall apart today and of course it was raining. Don't think I've had one give up while randomly washing the wind shield. Didn't really bother me that much a) wasn't raining that hard b) got a drawer full of spares c) I'm used to it.

There is plastic nuts where the headlight bezel attaches to the grille but how often do ya ever take that apart and not like it falls apart when ya do. It's the plastic nut in the head light adjusters that make me wanna kill. Pretty much identical to the M body ones and ya may have noticed how the cheap aftermarket replacements break while yer installing them. Dunno where I picked up this trick but nylon licence plate nuts make great replacements.

I do have some NOS headlight adjusters that I'm going to replace soon on my Power Wagon. I should have done it when I had the grill off to clean, but time ran out. The low beams are dead on so I'm not in a hurry, but they do need replacing, and high beams are off adjustment. The originals seem to last a very long time. I have NOS wiper bushings too. Hopefully they aren't brittle. I had some that were. I have also found some aftermarket stuff to be crap (two years) so maybe I need some new ones if they are still in production.

Yo larryLOVEit... how does that M body front fascia and bumper SNAP TOGETHER?

I’m looking at this ONE PARTICULAR m booby and me thimks it’s the plan to st least consider taking that weight off

I can run sh*t down without hurting anything

Yup, had same issue with my 06 Magnum. . . glad it happened when it was actually parked in garage at home !!! . . . in pic you can see the little white spot on the pink plastic - thats where it supposed to have a little hook to hold a spring . . . over time, spring (even though it seemed not that much pressure) causes the plastic to break and stuck in park, shifter won't move !!

Dorman replacement part is made from aluminum !!! Not gonna break again - and it was only $40 ! One hour of time . . . crazy !

I went back inside, logged in Charger forum, and five minutes later I was on the road. Thank goodness for forums. I bought an aluminum one and changed it myself, despite dealership offering to change for free. I didn't want them tearing up my console

So back to the snap together car in question: 2020 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk 1.3L turbo.

With like 25 miles on it, we 4 wheeled around my 3 acre back yard including several times up and down the steep side of the septic mound. It didn't notice or care so I liked that part of it. The small steering wheel and seats make it comfy and cozy to wheel around. Drove it 20 miles back road, liked it, drove it 70 miles on the highway, not terrible. Rode shot gun on the way back and kinda hated it at highway speed. It's tight to the point of being twitchy. U-connect is nicely done un-req'd screen and she figured out what apple play does. Oddly sells apple phones for a living. Slick but ya know, FM works. Back up cam is nice, can I get big brothers forward cam? Maybe this was part of the twitchy problem: she's doing 70ish at night on a 4 lane talking to the radio to go thru work emails. The blue tooth phone mic in the headliner is crap.

I haven't tried it, not sure I want her to see it, and ya know it wouldn't surprise me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8uMyW2A_5E

Try this: was over at the shop doing rust and accident repair on my 79 RC. Shootin [censored] about cars. Told them about my snap together brake pedal fiasco. They looked at me like I had 3 heads. I clearly picked the right shop.

Put my drunk nephew in that same rig on the same course and it will go out on a flatbed, he got some nice built older steel jeeps that rock. These should stay on front lawns.

Start pricing all these lil snap together parts on these news rigs and you will pamper them.

Wooden 8 foot step ladder at about 70 in my 75 Doba - because no where else to go in traffic. I saw a few splinters in the mirror as the next guy got it. Just another pot hole.

So back to the snap together toaster that started this: have since road tripped it a few hundred miles and it's functional but small. Liveable and I think would be happier on rougher roads. I'd rather have my RC back from paint.

So a couple months ago when the weather started getting cold, her dumb little thing would go stupid in the morning. Click remote start, it beeps back then does nothing. Get in, starts fine. Rev it up a few times, sounds fine. Put it in gear, put your foot to the floor, it won't go above 1500 rpm. No lights, bells, whistles or nasty emails from the u-connect. Let it warm up, drives like a new car, remote works. Some routine every morning and any time ya let the thing sit in the cold. I bugged her once a week to make an appointment at the dealer. Her idea was just start it up 10 minutes early. Finally dragged it in there and would ya believe a bad brake light switch?

Sure I can because I probably broke the stupid thing. It's the way it was broke that annoys me. Said dumb snap adjustable, snap installing, snap connecting switch has multiple sets of contacts. Dealer says one set was telling the PCM that somebody's foot was on the brake so it wouldn't let the thing rev in gear. The set for the tail lights was just fine. Same with the set for the shift release and I don't want to know how many other sets for what.

What most annoys me about all this is not my usual hate of nanny ware and ai-ish cars - it's doing a thing badly. What are you doing if you need at least 3 sets of switches on the freaking brake pedal?? Everything else on a CAN bus car has one connection to the car - windows, locks, stereo, nav, gauges, roof, tires, etc, ad nauseum. They all sit there gleefully broadcasting their status messages on one set of wires. I mean, that was one of the design points right?

Bought a barely used 1985 Shelby Charger 2.2 Turbo 5-speed for the wife in 1986. Great little car and pretty quick until the first set of shift linkages went out. Who the he!! was the idiot who decided to use plastic sockets on both ends of the linkage going into metal balls? Just how long did you think they would last bean counter? After several trips to snap the linkage back on and burn my wrists on the exhaust I finally bought the last of the stock of these linkages, then someone comes out with a fix. Still have that car, but it is lowly rusting away...

So, as an engineer at Chrysler, I can tell you that we would not put more sets of contacts in a switch than what you need. The brake switch has two sets of contacts (has for many many years) for a number of reasons. One set normally open, one set normally closed. The reason for two sets? More than you think.

First off, the two sets allows us to diagnosis the switch. People rest their foot on the brake pedal (two foot drivers), this will usually only open the first set of contacts, or tells us the switch is out of adjustment (because some dufuss installed pedal dress up wrong -jk). If you depress the brake pedal a little the first set of contacts changes state. This is used for the shift out of park and cruise control cancel. Why? We as engineers want this as seamless as possible. When you depress the brake pedal to shift out of park, you would be upset if you had to push the pedal all the way down to trip the second set of contacts. A women, young driver, etc., may not have the strength to depress the pedal far enough down to allow the BITSI to disengage and allow the shift out of park under certain conditions, like when the vacuum in the booster is depleted and the pedal goes hard.

When you have cruise control on and want to cancel, you sure just want to tap the brake pedal instead of slowing the vehicle by having to hit the second switch. It was also designed that you can cancel cruise without the tail lights illuminating which the cops would normally see at night and zap you with the radar gun. The second set of contacts which close is for your brake lights and also input for the ESC system. There are a few other reasons also. Why the switch does not have a barrel nut on it for adjustment like the old cars? It self adjusts when assembled into the vehicle, saving us time during assembly and access to under dash is a joke now versus what it use to be. Believe me there are always very good reasons many things are done a certain way that you might not have thought of.

The remote start feature... obviously something you want done right and with the car functioning properly. So we will not allow remote start if a door or hood or rear hatch is not fully shut, if someone is in the car, could be a young child trying to push the brake pedal and shift like mommy or daddy does when you press remote start, any DTC's in the car which could cause issues with the engine or some other aspect of the vehicle not functioning properly (Park paw not holding, so it could roll) etc., we also do not remote start unless vehicle is locked ( so someone cant jump in and drive your car away),we give you approximately one minute to hit the start button after unlocking and opening the door with the proper FOB broadcasting in the vehicle or the proper key code on a metal key when inserted into the ignition switch, or we shut it down, A lot more to all these auto assist features than you can possibly imagine. If done wrong, or not covering every little aspect of operation with proper safe guards the lawyers who represent the people who should not be driving are quick to sue the company.

Drilled a small hole in those pink pieces to hook the spring into long before there was a repair package..... of course warranty ones got a shifter

Might talk to this guy, he's come up with a fix for this issue on some models, not sure if you Shelby can use them, ask I suppose.

https://www.boogerracing.com/boogerbushings.html

As a retired software guy, I can appreciate hearing from the engineers. Sometimes it's good thing, sometimes not.


A lot of this falls under my nannyware rant. I two foot drive but don't drag the brake, I'm not the only one to snap it together wrong, cancel button does same thing. I've hated brake to shift out of park since it was new and brake to push button start bugs me too.


Didn't self adjust for me but ya know, ave dufuss. FSM lists adjustment spec so it must be fixed. Don't pedals with switch go in body w/ dash? I was under the dash - if the thing had a clutch, no way I was getting to the switch and have heard this from ChryCo Eng before. Fav memory ATM was 90s and younger guy happened across a 50s Imp at a s show - said he about passed out drooling over how much room under the hood.
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On a side note, remote start was a factory available option on big Olds in the early 70s. Obviously pre nannyware and smack johnny when he thinks the car is a jungle gym. It doesn't need to be tied in to every door, mirror, air bag and whatever else. I do like the interlock for won't work with the hood up.

Some consideration from the how to build perspective is interesting but pointless. I drive old stuff for a reason and only get involved with new stuff when I have to. I stand by my position that it's a badly designed solution which allows multiple onboard systems to have differing opinions about brake pedal position. Wouldn't be a glaring issue if not for the cost cutting assembly making it vulnerable to user damage, defuses or otherwise. Read a lot of instances of people getting their foot stuck under the brake pedal because, no friggin room under the dash.

You did catch the "jk" part of Dufuss right? jk = joking...

Yeah, totally and in my OP I admit to being a schmuck as well.

Just picked it up, works just fine, total parts and labor $0. Replaced: brake position switch, brake pedal to master rod clip, pedal assembly. I'm gonna look up the crazy prices for all that later. Total cost and labor for fixing the same fail on an actual car: $0 because it's not made of snap together plastic in the first place.

Looping back to what started all this: unsnapping the pedal cover the put the fancy ones on. I mean how easy is that with old metal stuff? How hard can I panic stop this thing without snapping the plastic brake pedal?

The whole thing strikes as a retirement buzz kill because I understand how the technology communicates and I could do with out getting sucked in to the occasional reverse engineering exercise. I mean I know a lot more than I want to about the power top controller on her 200. If the thing had u-connect, I could probably hack it and put the roof down from my desk top. BTW, ave battery live span: 1 year.

If anyone here has spend anytime in an assembly plant they would understand. It takes thousands of parts from all over the world to make a car. At some point they all come together in a final assembly plant.
It may be miles long and it may take days from a car to go from a coiled up roll of steel, stamped out and paint but as it rolls down the assembly line. Another one has rolled past every minute or less.
This is where fast assembly become obvious. They do not design and build them for us to rebuilt and fix them.

So I finally got around to looking up the part numbers from the repair order:

plastic clip that attaches brake pedal to booster: $15
brake pedal switch: $20
pedal assembly: $470

A couple weeks later the remote start is still working and it still drives like a car when started cold. Unexpected and likely difficult to explain bonus: the dumb thing shifts through the first few gears a lot smoother at all temps. My bet is they flashed the trans controller but left that off the repair order. Just noticed it says "removed brake booster to replace pedal attachment clip". Do I have to say it?

As for the logic diagram of the remote start nanny ware, noticed some things not consistent with the explanation above. Pretty sure it does in fact remote start with the vehicle unlocked - mostly because she never locks it the driveway. When ya get in it after remote starting, it senses your butt on the seat and flashes a message to push the start button to keep it running. Oddly enough, ya don't need to hit the brake pedal like ya do if not remotely started. I did also notice that it won't let you shift out of park unless any valid key fob is in the vehicle. No doubt the result of somebody somewhere remote starting a vehicle and then forgetting to grab the fob when they jump in it. Have also noticed that if ya have it running in park and run in the house with the fob in your pocket the fancy electronic dash displays "keyfob not in vehicle" in big bold letters.


In the mean time, I've been dumping about as much money in to my RC as what a base Renegade could be bought for. Still seems like money better spent to me.

A trivia side note.
I read that to be eligible for Motor trend best engineered award, and many other awards bought, er i mean earned by the automotive manufacturers, you have to make 50 engineering changes per each year to be eligible.

In effect if the car was perfectly engineered you have to screw up 50 things up to be eligible for the award again.

They often make stupid changes just to try to win an award that nobody cares about anymore.

I say best engineered award should go to the cars 10 or 20 years after they are made. So many cars like the PT Cruiser and HHR look good until they fall apart in 6 or 7 years.