Great discussion, Kevin. Even worse... (archive)

The new or refinished wheel doesn't even have to be off spec to be mismatched. Every process has a tolerance, i.e. + or - a certain amount from the specified values. Minor variation in color from batch to batch is acceptable because a set of wheels finished in the same batch will look pretty similar. But one batch may come out at the lower end of the specified tolerance (e.g. the less reflective) and the next batch at the upper end (e.g. more reflective). Silver is one of the toughest to control (interestingly enough, even blacks can be tough to control - I never realized how many variations of black finish there are).

If you redo or replace a wheel, the odds are slim that it will exactly match what you have, even though the new one or refin may be well within the tolerance for the specs. Add to that the variance in surface prep and mixing a single batch of finish for a repair or refin and it's hard to get anywhere near perfection. Yet you are getting a product that's "within spec".

The closer the specified tolerances on a process, the more likely you are to get an acceptable result. One of the reasons high quality products cost more is that the product specs are usually controlled more tightly and production facilities are optimized. Forget about the cost of hand work - there isn't a "real" (i.e. '60s and earlier) Ferrari that's anywhere near symmetric. The cost of hand work may have been justified in 1960, but there are very few pieces of an automobile that can't be made better by a computer-controlled mechanical process than by a worker today, probably including wheel finishing. Do you agree, Kevin?

Follow Ups:

robots and quality and cost kwillmorth 17:51 6/24/2000 (1)
- Man, if customers only understood this. . . . . David 18:05 6/24/2000 (0)

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