- Everybody makes mistakes.
And that includes car companies.
But, if a car company makes a mistake,
it can cost millions of dollars
and sometimes even people's lives.
This list includes exploding tires, gas loving spiders,
and going way too fast in reverse.
How did this stuff happen?
How did they fix it?
This is "D-List."
Epic engineering fail.
The biggest shocker about this one
is that they did it on purpose.
Mercedes, good, old reliable, 250,000 miles
before it needs an oil change.
Mercedes once tried
to make biodegradable wiring a thing, biodegradable wiring.
It all started in a quaint time called the 1990s
when Germany passed a law requiring
a certain percentage of all cars being produced
to be biodegradable.
Good, that's a good rule.
So, that when you junked it in the future,
those parts would break down
and return to the earth from whence they came.
Sping, spang, spoong.
We're all stardust.
We're all made out of carbon.
I think it's a pretty good idea.
But, Mercedes decided that instead
of doing something normal,
like making biodegradable seat covers
or like headliners or something,
the part they replaced with an eco alternative
was the rubber that covers all of the wires.
Well, what happened next?
I think you can probably guess.
Over time the wires became exposed
to the elements and they degraded causing
a nest of short circuiting,
copper and spicy electricity jumping all over the place
like in "Star Wars." (mimicking electricity)
Give me back my son!
What's even worse is that Mercedes has never issued
a safety recall even though a wiring harness
with no insulation is incredibly dangerous.
The rumor is that so many cars would have to be recalled
that they would never recover from this financially.
This is a sad fail.
Between 2005 and 2010,
Toyota had to recall over 9 million cars in the U.S. due
to floor mats.
Toyota fitted removable floor mats
to practically all of its cars in this period
in an effort to make them easy to take out and clean.
Floor mats are great.
I have some floor mats.
What they didn't expect was that the floor mat would move
around on the floor as you stepped on them
and eventually slide up over the accelerator,
forcing the car to accelerate rapidly.
Like your car started driving as fast as it could
and lots of people couldn't stop.
This resulted in thousands of crashes
and somewhere between 59 and 89 deaths.
So, keep your floor mats tight, aight?
And don't throw empty soda bottles underneath your seat.
I'm speaking from experience here.
They get cut behind your breaks.
My girlfriend does it all the time.
It really worries.
Yet another epic fail.
You all know about the G-wagon.
Kim Kardashian owns gosh darn nine of them.
Big, ole, big old fridgerator truck.
I don't mind them.
I think they're pretty cool.
Originally they were only used
by the military and German farmers
and they were more like a slow truck
in terms of performance,
but now they're fast, real fast.
They got a handmade, AMG, twin turbo,
621 HRSPR, it'll do zero to 60 in five seconds
which is crazy because it is classified as a tiny house.
Despite having four wheel drive
and all the modern day Mercedes technology
to help keep them on the road,
their tall stance and relatively narrow wheel base mean
that they're pretty sketchy feeling
when you're going fast in them.
But, everything is scarier in reverse.
All right, you ever ridden Superman Escape from Krypton
at Six Flags Magic Mountain?
It goes forwards and it's scary.
And then, at the end,
it goes backwards and it's way scarier.
Well, in 2016, 20 G65 AMGs sold in North America
had to be recalled because someone
had a few too many a Schneider Weiss Aventinus,
ice and box,
and forgot to program an electrical speed limiter
for the reverse gear.
Now, without this little tiny piece
of software limiting the reverse speed,
the car could achieve speeds in an excess
of 60 miles per hour, going backwards in a tiny house.
Now, I know what you're saying,
James Dog, 60 miles per in reverski sounds like a blast.
But, here's the thing guys,
in a big old truck brick like the G-wagon,
it's supposed to be limited to 15 miles per hour in reverse
because these big baby boys love to Nestle flips.
It's a dumb one, I know,
because the fix was just to alter a bit of code in the ECU,
but still, how did nobody checked that?
Must've been done on a Friday.
You know what I mean?
Oh, got fail?
The Aztec is so gross it's awesome.
It's like eating your own boogers.
Back when it came out in the early 2000s,
it was basically one of the first crossovers ever.
It came with all wheel drive.
It sat high on the road and had room
for lots of people inside.
It was ahead of its time.
You could even get one with a tent, a tent!
It had a tailgate with cup holders in it,
had a removable cooler in the center console.
And, did I mention, that it had a tent?
People criticized it for its looks,
but the simple fact is that 20 years after its creation,
we're all over here driving crossovers.
So, Pontiac got it right.
Rest in peace, Pontiac, rest in peace to the Aztec.
I like to think that Pontiac is up there,
Lil Peep, Tupac, eating barbecue ribs with Pope John Paul II
on the tailgate of his Aztech.
Yeah, Pope John Paul II drives an Aztec in heaven.
But, for all of it's subtle, future-proofing,
the Aztec had a really, really,
really annoying Achilles heel.
The AC drain plug.
It sat right above the car's main ECU.
And in the summer,
the condensation from the AC would drain right onto
the computer causing a short in front,
and to fry, and fry, and fry the car's brain.
Tons of people reported the issue,
but GM never officially acknowledged it.
I'm starting to see a pattern
with these big old guys, which sucks.
It's like Lil Pump,
future classic with a fried brain.
Right in the fails.
If you've ever been a person in the past,
you might remember this one.
Firestone and Ford.
Two of America's greatest sons,
literal best friends locked
in a court battle over exploding tires.
This whole story began when people started crashing
in Ford's brand new SUV, the Explorer.
The first reports back from the police who inspected
the crash sites were that the tires appeared
to have delaminated with the entire tire tread surface,
coming away from the tire core.
Firestone and Ford had been working together
since the days of the model T,
that is back in great grandpop's times
and both companies were absolutely
and rightfully so horrified by the findings.
Firestone instantly recalled
6.5 million wilderness radial tires,
which were all put onto Explorers.
However, even after this recall, the crashes continued.
Eventually Firestone came out and said
that the problem wasn't their tire, but the Explorer itself,
which Firestone said was unsafe
and would roll over in a crash regardless
of what tire it was on.
The SUV was, at the time,
a new and highly profitable market for Ford.
So, they were quick to deny those allegations
and they broke up with Firestone
in a cowardly attempt to keep on selling their SUV,
bringing a 100 year relationship to a bitter end.
What are you thinking?
And another Ford one.
This one is also definitely their fault.
Between 1988 and 1993,
Ford built 7.9 million cars and trucks
with an ignition switch that due
to its location next to the engine
would overheat and fail.
And how would you know that your Ford ignition switch
had overheated and failed?
Well, it was easy.
Your Ford would stall and then you would lose control
of the steering and the braking.
That's two of the most important things about driving.
You got steering, you got breaking,
a hot snack, some good tunes.
And if you were really unlucky,
the ignition would set itself on fire
and your entire car would burn to the ground.
And allegedly Ford was aware
of the problem during development,
but instead of moving the module to the cooler location
as their engineers had suggested,
Ford chose to just beef up the module to make it last
just long enough to exceed the warranty period,
forcing owners to bear the cost of replacement
when their car burns to the ground.
It's weird guys.
It's almost like these big companies
don't even care about people.
Hm.
The module had been installed
in over 22 million Ford cars and trucks,
but by the time the government mandated recall was issued
only about one third of them remained on the road.
Yeah, I'd say this is an epic fail.
This one is freaking good.
Terrifying.
The Mazda six had a problem,
an eight legged problem.
And no, I'm not talking about four people.
I'm not even talking about two wolves.
I'm talking about a spider,
a certain species of spider known as the yellow SAC spider
is attracted to hydrocarbons such as gasoline.
Aren't we all.
Problem is, on 2009 to 2015 Mazda six's,
there was a way for the tiny spiders,
drawn by the smell of gas
to climb into the fuel system
where they would spin their webs
which would eventually clog everything up and get all gunky.
And these eight legged freaks,
not to be confused with the 2002 David Arquette classic,
"Eight Legged Freaks," crawled their way
in through a small auxiliary hose meant
to allow excess gas fumes to leave the fuel system
and keep the pressure within the system
you know, all normal.
Remember normal, before I knew that gas spiders existed.
Once the spiders get in and spin their webs,
the gases can't escape like they need to
and the pressure builds up in the system.
Mazda became aware of the problem
after 13 owners in the U.S. actually
had their gas tanks crack
and leak fuel due to buildup of pressure.
And eventually they had to release a software patch
that regulated the fuel system pressure
even if the spiders did start living inside of your Mazda.
They couldn't even get rid of the spiders, okay.
They just learned how to coexist.
I've heard of bug fixes, but this is ridiculous.
Yet had another pick fail.
Toyota's live forever.
Well, most Toyotas live forever.
Jeremiah made a video about it,
I'll throw it to you at the end of this video.
From 1994, all the way to 2004,
first gen Tacoma's suffered from frame rusting
due to their box frames trapping water inside.
Now, this forced the company to recall 800,000 trucks,
but for the next generation of tacos,
Toyota decided they wanted to outdo themselves.
So, from 2005 to 2011, Tacoma's suffered from a different,
even worse rust problem.
690,000 Tacomas were recalled
because the rear leaf springs would rust
and rot causing them to snap
and in some very unfortunate cases,
puncture the brake lines and even the gas tank.
The problem was,
the cheap steel being used
to make the leaf springs rusted very easily.
Toyota initially offered steel clips
which went around the rotting leaf springs
that held them together.
But, understandably, owners weren't happy with this fix.
And so, a full recall was ordered.
Guys, we love the Tacoma.
It's one of the best looking trucks ever.
The first gen and second gen.
But, if you're gonna buy one,
make sure these problems are taken care of
and maybe don't buy one that's ever been
in a snowy environment, or on the coast,
or near any sort of rain or condensation,
or if the owner had a pool, or ever cried on their tailgate
after losing a football game.
Epic fail.
In at number one is an engineering fail
which makes me so mad!
The RX7.
This beautiful, but fast killer,
yet supple little beast has dirty fuel.
That's no problem, James,
I'm nifty with a set of spanners.
I'll just pop the bonnet and replace the filter.
Go ahead.
I'll wait.
Oh, what's that?
You can't find the fuel filter?
That's because it's not in there, Jimny.
That's right.
Where a good designer would make sure
that all the important things you would need to access
in order to maintain your lovely,
new rotary powered sports car we're under the hood
or in other easy to reach areas,
the designers of the third gen RX7,
well, they didn't do that.
Instead, they put the fuel filter here,
right at the back of the car between the differential,
the subframe, and the sway bar.
That means you have to literally disassemble
the rear suspension and drop the entire subframe
to change your fuel filter.
A job that usually takes 10 minutes
and it should be done roughly every 20,000 miles.
But, with the RX7, it was such a huge,
and if you couldn't do it yourself,
expensive job, that people just didn't do it.
And this led to the filter getting dirtier and dirtier
and eventually that dirt found its way into the engine
which caused a lack of power and eventually breakdowns.
Look, I get it.
Designing car ain't easy.
I've done it before.
It's hard, but come on design guys.
Let's all try to be better, huh?
No more rusty frames,
bad wiring, cars that are secretly full of spiders.
That last one is very important.
And if you're wondering why I didn't put
the Pinto on this list it's
because I'm sick of talking about it.
Thanks for watching this video.
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You wanna learn more about the Tacoma
and that box frame issue,
check out this episode of "Bumper to Bumper" hosted
by my good friend, Jeremiah.
He's great, you'll love him.
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