Thursday, July 28, 2011

Kohler Shower Door recall

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Wednesday issued a recall for certain kinds of glass shower doors made by Kohler Co., because the panel with the hinge could shatter.
At issue are Kohler's Purist(at), PinstripeT, Finial(at) frameless glass pivot shower doors. About 100 were sold through various plumbing distributors across the country between May 2009 and November 2010 for between $1,700 and $3,000, the CPSC said.
The 1/2-inch-thick hinge panel was sold as a component under part numbers 705753-L-NA, 705754-L-NA and 705760-L-NA in some of the affected shower doors. The hinge panels are the side panels opposite the shower door handle, on which the metal swing hinge is mounted.
No injuries have been reported, but if the panels shatter, people could get cut, the CPSC said.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9OO5EA00.htm

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The Next Defect Frontier: Electronics

In the last 12 months, SRS examined the prevalence of electronic recalls, reviewing 722 recall campaigns since July 2010 to determine how many involve defects associated with electronic systems. Ultimately, defining electronics recalls is challenging – they range from severed cables and fluid leaks into electronic components that result in short circuits to hardware failures to complex software algorithm issues. When defined broadly, electronics recalls comprised more than a quarter of recalls submitted to NHTSA over the last year. Of those, 24 recall campaigns address software defects.


As SRS has previously reported, automakers have known for at least a decade that electronics have their advantages – and their reliability headaches. At a 2004 industry conference, Mercedes Benz’s vice president for electrical and electronics and chassis development. Steven Wolfsreid, “railed against the temptation to overload vehicles with electronic functions that are useless to the customer,” according to an Automotive News story. The German automaker had removed 600 electronic functions from its vehicles because of quality concerns that were damaging its reputation and ticking off its customers. Electronics are challenging to integrate into a vehicle’s electrical architecture, he said, and what works well in isolation can be a disaster in combination with other electronic components.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Another Toyota Recall

Toyota recalls 110,000 hybrid cars on safety concerns

Toyota is moving more quickly to resolve its latest setback
The world's biggest carmaker Toyota is to recall more than 110,000 hybrid vehicles over concerns about a problem with the power supply circuit.
The Japanese carmaker said the recall involves the Highlander hybrid and Lexus RX400h models globally.
The vehicles could stop suddenly because of an electrical problem leading to a blown fuse, the company said in a statement.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13970431

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Misuse of Statistics #1: Collier County FL Women living longer

It's good to be a woman in Naples Florida!

If you've ever wondered where in the United States people are living the longest, you don't have the look very far. Women in one Southwest Florida county are topping the charts.

William Shakespeare once said, "A light heart lives long."

A new study shows Collier County women have the highest life expectancy in the nation, on average, living to the ripe age of 86.

'I've never felt happier and healthier since I moved to Southwest Florida," Liz Barrett said.

"There's generally high disposable income in Collier County," Dr. Daniel Kaplan said. "Certainly has to do with the ability to purchase better quality, higher quality foods. It also has to do with education and understand what types of foods may be more healthy for you>"

http://free.naplesplus.us/articles/view.php/60040/women-in-collier-county-live-longer-than-anybody-in-the-usa.

Where to go with this one... so many choices.

First of all is it not clear that like the very woman in the story that they move down there from elsewhere "after" they got old?

Secondly, what did they do with their men? Why do not men also live longer in the same area? There are too many ramifications of that to go into.

Thirdly, if you have ever been down there, you also know that they're elderly, and prosperous, but also from the June Cleaver/Harriet Nelson generation, who have been basically hanging around playing tennis since the 70's when Wally and The Beave moved out, i.e. less stress than today's modern women who do not have it quite so good.

The chamber of commerce won't care though.