The F**d engineers diabolically located the battery on my wife's Escape under the cowl,
Unfortunately, I think that just about anyone who has worked on cars longer than 10 minutes has experienced things like that. Having spent some years as a dealership tech, prior to my time at an OEM, serviceability always remained very personal to me. I had more than my share of knock-down-drag-out-fights over serviceability related issues - and I didn't even work in that group. I would often tell them to picture themselves on the side of a busy road, or in a dark parking lot trying to get their car going. Suddenly, things like battery placement, fuse and relay center locations, or even headlight replacement can take on a whole new dimension.
I used to work with a grizzled, older technician who, coincidentally, was also named Bob. He spent most of his life working on cars, and did not come to work for that OEM until he was well into his 50's. Knowing in advance what his answer would be, we would often "manipulate" the new engineers into asking him the question: "So Bob, why did you want to come to work here?"
We would then stand back and watch their reaction as he gave his stock reply: "Well... I've worked on cars all my life... Nearly forty years... Owned my own gas station and shop for nearly twenty.... With all that... I figured that before I'm done, I just had to go out and kill me an engineer. So here I am."
The expressions on their faces were priceless. All got the joke, but clearly some got it much more slowly than others.
I still crack up when I think about that...
Best Regards...
Bob
