Bad designs.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Shower drain started leaking a few days ago.

I pulled the drywall down underneath it on the first story and pulled it apart. No big deal really.

Bought a new drain for the shower with the hope of installing it last night. I planned on using the old P-trap. Again, no big deal.

The 1 ½ ABS is a slip fitting into the new shower drain. The ABS drain pipe (with a bushing on the end) Is forced into the rubber gasket within the new drain fitting.

Fine.

If you’re a gorilla.

Sheeeess. I’m 6’4” 210 lbs. I had my Wife stand on the other end of the fitting and I was picking her off the ground. I put some soap on the gasket and Just. Got . it . in.

Except, the pressure I put on it moved the gasket up so much that the hair strainer could not be put in.

Great.

So. I pull the pipe out.

BANG. Broke a lateral drain fitting doing so.

Shit.

I went back to the plumbing store today. Made sure I had the right parts and the right solution.

The OWNER admitted that “Yep, these are a pain in the ass, the only way to get them together is with brute strength and a lot of cussing.”

I’ve done a LOT of plumbing work. And this design is the only one I have ever seen. Someone needs to return to the drawing board.

I got it done. Really, how hard can it be to design a removable fitting for a tub/shower drain that you don’t have to be King Kong to put together?

2

Moving thread from BBQ Pit to MPSIMS.

3

oops… thought this was going to be more on the evolution arguement… :smack:

4

The 2004 Ford Explorer. Or Excursion, I forget which it was. I recently drove about 1800 miles in one of these things over 9 days. Here’s some highlights:

The cup holders are in front of the heater controls. Wanna change the temp or fan? Decide whether to spill coffee or freeze.

There is no front storage area. Glove box? 4 inches wide. Place between the cupholders? Just big enough for two cell phones. In-door storage? TWO INCHES WIDE - you couldn’t even stick a Tom Clancy paperback in the door storage.

Door locks? Once the doors are locked the front seat knobs are 1/2 inch above the trim. It’s impossible to open them.

The front bench seat has a fold-down center armrest. Which has no storage area. More frustrating is that when it’s folded down it has a gap six inches tall underneath. Set something on the middle of the front seat and it will roll into the back seat.

Rear storage? It has a “well” that is a foot deep. This requires you to lean in for three feet and haul anything that dropped in the well up a foot and then three feet back. Since I had 7 copy paper boxes full of handouts, this was a bit of a workout. And our suitcases and laptops and briefcases would all drop in there as well.

Oh, and when we first got them the front brake rotors were bad. So you would touch the brakes and the whole front end would shake. Just what you want on icy roads with a behemoth vehicle.

And Og help me, the only other choice I have for a 4x4 is a Jeep Liberty. Which has seats like straight back chairs, gets blown around by the wind and steering so tight that if you sneeze you can end up doing a 180.

whistlepig

5

Yet more proof Dopers are psychic. I was going to start a thread like this an hour ago after I took my toaster out of its box for the first time. The bad design on the toaster? Where to start.

  1. The cord goes into the toaster at the FRONT of the toaster. The hell?!?! On ANY electrical appliance, the cord is always, ALWAYS, in the back. Why the fuck is it in the front on this one toaster?

  2. The cord is also only about 18" long. Eighteen inches? Eighteen fucking inches? That’s barely bigger than my fucking cock, you goat-felching designers. Add to that fact that the toaster itslf is eight inches long, that leaves only ten inches from the back of the toaster to reach to an outlet. I barely got the cord to reach to the top plug on the outlet from sitting on my table. I actually had to position it sideways so I could gain those eight inches I lost to make it reach.

  3. Theres a cancel button. Excuse me? A toast cancel button? My God. I remember a fake commercial a couple years ago that made fun of fake toaster with a cancel button. I think that pretty much put to rest the sheer rediculousness of a cancel button. If I want the toast to pop up early, I’ll just tap the damn lever up. But no! In the interest of, I can only assume what you think is safety, I CAN’T push the lever up. It’s locked in place, forcing me to use the giant, ugly, red cancel button.

  4. The lever. The plastic knob is extremely loose on the lever. I feel that a five year old could pull it off with ease.

Mind you, I found out about all these “features” in less than a minute after taking it out of the box. Good God. I swear, if I could find a way to be one of those guys who’s job it is is to point out the faults in a companies comsumer products, I’d be a millionaire in a month.

6

well, you always could try - then get it patented, make a ton of money, and hire someone else to fuss with the old fittings because you can

7

About 15 years ago, my stepmother had a Peugeot. I don’t recall the model, probably because I got a therapist to help me repress the entire Peugeot Experience.

Nothing on that car was where you expected it to be. Every single time I’d reach for a control, I’d end up grabbing the wrong one.

Looking for the A/C control? Wrong! It’s down there, where everyone knows God intended the radio to be!

Radio? Guess again! It’s up top, where every other carmaker in the world knows to put the dashboard clock!

The most obvious design flaw, as I recall, was the steering wheel. One of the struts that holds the wheel to the center shaft went directly upward from the horn, with the result that, while driving straight ahead, you couldn’t see the freaking control panel. No more of that lazy American habit of just glancing down to ascertain vehicle status; you had to actually lean over in the driver’s seat to check out the speedometer, temperature gauge, tachometer, etc. Driving that car was exhausting. (Ha ha.)

Every time I’d drive it, I would think to myself, “This is why the French have never been to the moon.”

8

There’s a great book about these sort of problems ( among other things ), called The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. One of my favorite examples from the book are a set of glass doors designed to look perfectly symmetrical; so much so that people can’t figure out which side to pull or push on ( or even if they open out or in ). People who encounter them for the first time tend to furtively look around before trying them; no one wants to look so stupid they can’t open a door.

9

Jackelope, a guess. Based on your description and your location, was it a Peugeot 505?

Lovely cars. :slight_smile:

10

I knew a guy in high school who had a Peugeot of some ancient vintage. It is the only car I’ve ever seen with manual wipers. There was literally a big crank in the middle of the dashboard (perfect for impaling the guy who launches between the front seats 'cause there is no middle belt in the back) which the passenger has to crank. (If it’s only the driver, forget about it…to make it move you had to brace yourself against the door and the footwell and row like a galley slave.)

To the moon? Heck, I’m suprised the French can get to Spain for a weekend.

Hmmm…bad designs; I have to say, Dell makes some of the shittiest, breakage-prone, peripheral-incompatible machines I’ve ever used. What happened to Intergraph, anyway?

Stranger

11

Manual wipers, eh?

Was it a Peugeot 203?

(Yes, I have a lot of useless car trivia in my head, what of it?)

12

Could have been. It didn’t seem quite as old as that (though I notice that they were produced through 1960 according to the Wiki article) but it was in pretty rough shape. The hand-cranked wipers were always good for a laugh, though; they were about as useful as a telescopic scope on a Stormtrooper rifle and as pathetic as Leonard Nimoy without prosthetic ears.

Stranger

13

Yes, that looks like the beastly machine. Hers was maroon, I think.

Come to think of it, in college I knew a girl who had a Peugeot, too. I’m not sure what-all was wrong with it, but I do remember that it had some kind of jerry-rigged ignition system that her father had installed. To start it up she had to fiddle with about five or six different knobs, then manually touch a couple of bare wires together. And I specifically remember that the windshield wipers, while not hand-cranked, were about as effective as wiping the windshield with some light plastic; imagine dragging a few drinking straws over the glass and you’ll get it.

Of course, in college I thought this was the coolest mode of bohemian transport I’d ever seen, and I always wanted to go ride around in it.

14

The cord on my blender is like this. It’s so short that when I want to blend something, I have to do it on the freaking floor. How insane is that? There’s no other way for it to be a. plugged in and b. on a hard surface. I just love sitting on the kitchen floor making my smoothies.

I guess I could get an extension cord, but do they make, say, twelve inch extension cords? I’ve never seen one, and that’s about all I need. I don’t want yards of cord all over the kitchen so I can put the blender on the countertop.

Very poor design.

15

I’d assume that’s to keep you from being able to drop an energized appliance into the sink. Maybe it would be even safer if we couldn’t plug it in at all. Hmmm…

16

Not if I beat you to the patent office!

17

Poor design…

What asshole decided that the best way to ship coin out of the federal bank was to SHRINK WRAP it in thick rubbery plastic? Did the designer him/herself even have to attempt to open the damned things after plaguing us with that idiotic idea? One could spend as much as 5 minutes struggling with that damn shrink wraped roll of quarters, and break a nail in the process.

18

Thank you for this thread!

::ahem::

I hereby present the “Most Pointlessly Bad Design Award” to ceiling fans!

We just moved into a house (rental) with two ceiling fans from different manufacturers. They both have the same headache-inducing design flaws, so I can only conclude that the ceiling fan industry is in a joint marketing venture with the aspirin industry.

The first problem with ceiling fans is that the pull-cords for the light and the fan speed are identical. Until you can remember which is on which side, trying to just turn on one or the other is like playing the slots at Atlantic City. Good luck with guests, too. The owners of this house have tied a cheap piece of curling ribbon around the cord for the light in the kitchen to distinguish them. Here’s a hint to manufacturers: if buyers have to rig up their own ugly 5 cent solution to make your product functional, it might be time to change the design.

The second problem with ceiling fans is that you never know what speed the damn fan is on. How hard would it be to make the thing indicate in some way whether it’s on high, medium, low, or off? Instead, conversation goes like this in the Valley bedroom:

LilyoftheValley: I’m going to turn off the fan. ::pause to study and estimate the speed:: Do you remember what speed it’s on?

MrValley: Um no. Maybe medium?

LotV: OK. ::pulls the cord twice, and crawls back into bed::

<30 seconds pass>

LotV: Does it look like it’s stopping? Or did I just turn down the speed?

MV: ::studies the fan:: Hmm…I think it might be stopping.

<another 30 seconds>

LotV: I don’t think it’s stopping. ::crawls out of bed yet again to pull the cord once more::

…repeat ad nauseum…
Honestly, I think they’re trying to drive me over the edge. Someday I’m going to crack, and get a long enough extension cord to go after the manufacturers with my spinning fan o’ decapitation. That is, if I can figure out how to set the fan on high.

19

Meh! I have one better. Hunter ceiling fan have remote control that use the same frequency for all fans. So if I use one remote all the fans in the house respond to it.

20

The standard cord on all kitchen appliances is 2 feet long. Your kitchen is supposed to have countertop plugs every 4 feet according to the NEC.