"larry moe 'n curly" wrote in message
...
Robert Green wrote:
"larry moe 'n curly" wrote in message
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Another site says: "All three complaints allege that in the mid-1980s
Carrier stopped using stainless steel secondary heat exchangers in favor
of
cheaper polypropylene-laminated mild steel. Carrier switched to the
cheaper
product despite the fact that the industry standard was (and still is)
to
use stainless steel parts to prevent corrosion. Plaintiffs allege that
the
polypropylene separates from the steel and degrades due to the high
temperatures in the furnace, exposing the underlying mild steel to
acidic
condensate. In some cases the corrosion proceeds to the point of
actually
perforating the outside wall of the heat exchanger."
http://www.tousley.com/press/20061010.htm
The Carrier cock-up reminds me of an article about Dell computers trying
to
foist off their purchase of millions of bad capacitors on consumers,
telling
them that "they were doing too many complex calculations" and that's
what
caused their machines to fail.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfai...f-deceit/10165
Dell employees went out of their way to conceal these problems. In one
e-mail exchange between Dell customer support employees concerning
computers
at the Simpson Thacher & Bartlett law firm, a Dell worker states, "We
need
to avoid all language indicating the boards were bad or had 'issues' per
our
discussion this morning." In other documents about how to handle
questions
around the faulty OptiPlex systems, Dell salespeople were told, "Don't
bring
this to customer's attention proactively" and "Emphasize uncertainty."
But one big difference between the Dell and Carrier incidents is that
Carrier switched to cheaper materials while Dell used what were
supposed to be the highest quality parts, only the Japanese maker of
those parts, Nichicon, happened to really foul up their production for
a few years, around 2001-2004.
One big similarity is that the both lied their heads off trying to deny
the
problems even existed. IIRC, the capacitor problems came about as a
result
of someone stealing the formula for a new electrolyte that happened to
be
mis-copied and turned out bad. While Dell was not at fault for the
theft,
they appeared to know they had a problem a lot sooner than Carrrier did.
In
both cases, Dell and Carrier used products that were unknowns, although
I
agree that in Dell's case, they were not directly responsible for the
change
in formulation. Still, they are "badder" guys here because they knew,
and
like Bill Clinton, tried to lie their way out of it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ems-capacitors
"Amazingly, even after Dell identified the defective capacitor problem
in
its OptiPlex PCs, the company decided to keep making a shoddy computer.
According to the AIT brief, Dell knew about a fatal problem with its
OptiPlex motherboards as early as January 2003 and knew specifically
about
the Nichicon capacitor failures by January 2004. Yet Dell sold flawed
OptiPlexes to AIT as late as 2005." Source:
http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/compo...r-disaster.htm
I don't put a lot of faith or trust in a company that *knows* they've
got
crappy components but continues to sell PCs with the bad motherboards
(some
say over 12 MILLION). I think it took rather much longer for Carrier to
realize it had a problem. The evidence apparently showed up first in
Canada
because they have a much longer winter heating season than the US. That
was
quickly followed by reports of failure in Michigan and a number of other
northern US states. The bad capacitors became very quickly apparent to
Dell
as machines started flooding back in for service. The interoffice memos
make it clear that they knew they had a problem from very early on but
continued to sell faulty machines to their customers hoping no one would
pin
the blame on them. That sucks and Dell deserves to go out of business
because of their selling known faulty goods and trying every trick in
the
book to keep their customers from finding out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/te...dell.html?_r=1
While reading through these websites I discovered that Samsung used the
faulty capacitors in their gear and there's a class action suit pending
against them. I will be opening up my two dead Samsung DVD recorders
later
to see if there are any bulging or leaking caps and if their are, I may
very
well opt into the suit. I just knew when the tech said "We have no
reports
of problems with that model" that he was lying his fool head off.
You're absolutely right that Dell was just as bad as Carrier in the
cover-up of their defective products, but unlike Carrier, Dell didn't
initially try to cut corners by using cheap components, and the
components that did fail, Nichicon series HN and HM capacitors, had
previously been highly reliable. Also Dell had been trying to solve
the problem with later defective Nichicons even before 2003, as
evidenced by them changing from Nichicon brand to Rubycon brand
capacitors in the part of the circuitry subjected to the worst stress,
the CPU voltage regulator. Dell later even changed one Rubycon in a
different part of the circuitry to a Panasonic, also to improve
reliability.
I agree there's a substantial difference in how both companies got into the
"hot seat." Dell's problems should have been caught by a vigorous quality
control process that I've found a lot of companies don't have unless it's
forced upon them by contract or law. There's a lot of speculation about the
cause of the "great capacitor plague" but I feel Nichicon's problems
occurring almost at the same time as the Chinese and Taiwan manufacturers is
at least very suspicious.
The story about the stolen capacitor chemical formula doesn't apply to
Dell or Nichicon but to several Chinese and Taiwanese brand
capacitors. A Rubycon scientist was hired by China's Luminous Town
company (Ltec) and duplicated a Rubycon electrolyte formula. Then
some of his assistants tried to duplicate his formula and sold it to
several Chinese and Taiwanese capacitor makers, only they left out key
ingredients that prevented the formation of hydrogen gas, and this
supposedly led to many faulty capacitors being manufactured around
2000-2003. Nichicon never used that formula but always used its own,
and the failures of their HN and HM capacitors hasn't been officially
explained, but some people say they were due to the capacitors being
overfilled with water. However Chinese and Taiwanese capacitors
continue to fail at higher than normal rates, long after the so-called
electrolyte formula scandal ended, and I don't know the reason,
although a couple of researchers at the University of Maryland found
that Taiwanese capacitors were made of aluminum containing much more
copper than the aluminum used by Japanese companies.
It seems that high-end motherboard makers have switched to solid state
capacitors in order to get around the problem. I hadn't heard of the copper
contamination theory, but it's not hard to believe since there's also a lot
of tainted wallboard that has come from China. Somewhere, someone must have
made a switch in suppliers or in fabrication techniques. Nichicon may have
been burned up the supply line by one of *their* subs or suppliers.
Dell's problems, unlike Carrier's, are with subcontractors to be sure, but
big corporations are wise to remember that in the Navy, the captain is the
one who bears the responsibility when a ship runs aground for any reason.
Dell is the one who's going to take the biggest hit over this.
It's like Jack in the Box and ground beef. No one remembers the name of the
supplier who provided the beef that killed little kids. They DO remember it
was Jack in the Box, though. A company is only as good as its supply chain
and it is in their best interest to inspect, test and inspect again at every
point in the process.
You probably know, but some people would be amazed at how far "up the chain"
big food companies like Kraft go to test their ingredients at every step of
the way. They make the Feds inspections look pathetic in comparison. They
do it because once the "stink" of a bad product gets on you, it's hard to
shake. Ask some Wendy's workers about the "chili with extra thumb" jokes
they hear. (-: Hell, I still won't buy Turkey Hill anything since they
shipped ice cream in tankers that had transported raw eggs without a wash
down in between. The results were predictable.
--
Bobby G.