[scrooched_moose]

The entire industry does. I work for a component supplier in the industry and the US companies are just awful.

Their two priorities are:

1) Proprietary Fit - how do they prevent their customers from buying replacement components from third parties and keep them coming back to them for maintenance

2) Look and feel - I've seen major contracts decided on which design had fake diamond plate to project "toughness", despite higher price and worse performance.

Price and performance are somewhat farther down the list and barely enter into the decisions.

The European and Japanese companies in contrast actually care about and drive performance requirements.

[loonster]

I've done work for a well known euro car maker, and they had several of the brackets interfering in CAD. This could have been avoided with a simple collision check that they should have done. After informing them of the errors, they fixed the print with a -/- tolerance and left the 3d model interfering.

All of the domestic car manufacturers took great care to ensure clearance between parts.

(I'm a Toyota fanboy but have never done work for them.)

[scrooched_moose]

I don't have any automotive experience but that largely squares with what I hear through the grapevine in the Auto industry.

In the heavy machinery industry which Deere opporates it's mostly the opposite. Kubota, Agco, Bosch etc. are miles ahead of Deere and Caterpillar; who are largely relying on past reputation at this point.