Rant - inexcusably stupid redesigns

["Curt Voss" <curtv@eudoramail.com>]

Last night I'm finishing up replacing both of my left cv joints, and when I go to put on the nut in the hub I find that it's a different size than the old one and I don't have a socket to fit it. It's out of a NAPA outer kit, so I think they just used some weird size, and get the nut that came in the inner Lobro kit. Lo and behold, it's the same size as the NAPA one! Now this really ticks me off, because I originally bought a socket (32 mm I think) special for the old nut size that's never been used for anything else. I don't want to reuse the old nut because I've already done that three or four times and it worked loose recently, so this means the car sits dead on the driveway for another day until I can hunt up a socket. Okay, today I go down to the parts store - and the hardware store - and the tool store - the nut is apparently 29mm and no one makes a 29 mm socket, they all skip from 28mm to 30mm. A 30mm socket is too loose for 175 ft-lbs of torque; I might be able to force on a 1-1/8" socket if I want to first spend some time filing down the nut. What the f**k gives? Am I now supposed to go shell out for some special one-purpose tool for my ever-growing collection just to be able to pull the friggin' axle? NAPA says they have a 30mm nut by itself - though of course that store didn't have one in stock - so I guess I'll stop by their warehouse on the way home and get it and, of course, a brand new 30mm socket that'll never be used for anything else. So that's an extra day of downtime, a couple of hours of my time, and another $10.00 or so just because some idiot decided to resize a nut that was fine to begin with to some oddball size that apparently doesn't exist anywhere except on outer cv joints.

I always wonder, what the f**k are the engineers thinking when they pull this kind of crap? Are they totally oblivious to the effect their changes have? Or are they deliberately trying to support the auto repair industry by discouraging DIYer's, or trying to make a few more bucks off yet another special service tool?

Sorry for the long rant, I'm feeling very frustrated right now...

Curt
---
'86 Scirocco 8V, soon to be sold
'82 Scirocco 1.8 8v - the daily driver
'81 Caddy
'78 Rabbit 1.7L rustbucket in semi-retirement


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