Jaime,
I appreciate your prior contributions and I have always had a LOT of
respect for you. After this post, my respect is restored, and I ask
you to consider remaining. I was really surprised and shocked that
you chose to flame the whole list after an extended absence. We all
know that many "engineering" decisions are made by the marketing
gurus and thrown over the wall (as a bomb) for the engineers to
implement. Regardless of the source of the engineering decision, the
success or failure is laid on engineering.
Pointing out the design flaws and unnecessary features of a car
designed before you were in college should not in any way be
construed as a personal attack on you. You had nothing to do with
it.
You do have an important position to us. You are our only hope of
getting the thoughts of those of us who regularly test the outer
limits of product longevity (and DIY) back to the inner corridors and
cubicles of the Daimler design and engineering folks.
If my response to your flaming the list offended you, I apologize. I
honestly thought you had already unsubscribed and would never see it
anyway.
In this world of video game war and VR design, it is remarkable to
have a real staff engineer that works on the same old cars we do!
Even if we don't comment on some of your posts, we want to hear what
you have to say.
Yes, I did have some disagreements with Dr. Booth. But I recall they
were about fundamentals of engine design and operation, not about
anything specific on a car. I did have some issues with the idea that
anything the dokor said was gold, never to be questioned. But he did
alot of good things for all of us, and spread alot of good
information... but he wasn't right about everything, and even a
suggestion that he might be wrong caused problems.
I was ahead of my time, and short on resources, to make dieseltech
(and any real serious projects of my own) work.
I've been on these lists for a long time... 10-12 years? I bought my
first mercedes in 1998, a year after being able to legally drive. I
grew up in a W123 and learned to drive in a W126. I'm in my 30s now.
I'm an engineer and I work in the automotive industry, as some of you
may know. (Which is why I took the attack on the engineers who design
these cars personally)
I've been working on many Mercedes project cars over the years and
most of them I've never mentioned here. I feel that there is no
interest in any real restoration or preservation work. The posts I do
make are largely ignored. This isn't the fault of the list, its my
fault for not finding a more suitable audience.
I'm a big believer that original is best. Something Dr. Booth and I
had in common. I enjoy these cars because they bring me and my
passengers an experience of what things were like when they were new
20-30+ years ago. I take pride in making them operate as originally
intended, design flaws and all. As I get older, I feel stronger and
stronger about this. The projects I take on are usually nice cars
that have been neglected. I bring them back to reliable daily
service, and sell them off (rarely for profit, always because I enjoy
doing it). I'm working on my third one this year right now and
usually own 4-5 cars at a time.
I'll be unsubscribing here shortly, but I wanted to set things
straight before leaving. Whats written above is how I feel. You
might not agree, and you're entitled to that opinion.
As I said before, I'm pretty shocked by the reaction my comment has
had. Once again, sorry if I offended any of you.
Jaime
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 11:30 AM, Mitch Haley <m...@voyager.net> wrote:
Ah, yes. Herr Doktor Booth and young Jaime had their disagreements back in
the day, which would have predated young Walt by several years. Herr Doktor
was of the 'stock is best' school of thought, which held the theory that
Daimler-Benz spent millions every year on engineers who were paid to know
> something about the cars they designed. Those engineers clearly knew more
than you or I, so why would we ever dream of trying to improve on their
designs?
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_______________________________________
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
