Have you heard that you should take it easy on a new car, driving slowly and gingerly for a bit until it becomes “broken in”?
More Top Picks Best Noise Canceling Headphones For Students
You’re probably being too cautious, Elgin Community College Professor Gary Norden says. He discovered that at least one car manufacturer tests each vehicle by driving it at 80 mph within minutes or hours after it leaves the assembly line.
Norden spends his days teaching Elgin Community College auto-technology students how to take apart and fix broken cars and trucks. But “I always wanted to see how they were put together” in the first place, he said. So on Monday he explained to the college’s board members and administrators how he was able to satisfy that curiosity by touring eight auto assembly plants across the United States during a sabbatical leave.
Norden said he found that many manufacturers are fairly secretive about exactly how their processes work. Six of the eight plants limited his access. Only at a General Motors factory in Lansing, Mich. and a Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala. was he able to gain almost unhindered access to the manufacturing floor and allowed to interview the workers.
Norden said he always thought that working on an auto assembly line “would be a cool job to have — for one day,” before the repetitive and fast-paced nature of the work became crushingly monotonous and stressful. But he said he discovered that today’s auto plants fight boredom and improve work force versatility by training assembly workers to do several different skills and rotating them from one job to another every two hours or so.
“These people take a lot of pride in their work,” he said. But they also must meet high expectations. He said one company docks a worker four hours pay if the worker reports late to work by just one minute.
He was surprised to discover that many Toyota Camrys sold in the United States are built in an Indiana plant owned by competitor Subaru. Surprised, he asked his Subaru guide why and was told that for one thing, Toyota owns 22 percent of Subaru.
Norden said engines and transmissions typically are built in a different plant than the one where the final assembly takes place. The engine and transmission are tested by running them before they are put into the chassis. After that “the entire vehicle is built in 15 to 20 hours,” from the start of assembly until the car is painted and driven, he said.
The most time-consuming part of the whole process is painting, he said. Paint takes nine hours to be applied and cured.
Today’s cars are so computer-controlled and electronic that the average one contains five miles of wiring weighing 150 pounds.
Norden said the tours solved one mystery that has aggravated mechanics for a long time: Why it’s so hard to access some parts that have to be replaced or examined when they go bad? The answer is that after some parts are added to the car, other parts are built around that first part.
Norden said cars and trucks are built much more durable and efficient than in past years. In fact, he said Elgin Community College’s auto technology teachers recognize that they must concentrate on only the fundamentals of vehicle repair because “every six months, with any car you can buy, there’s something different.”