I was talking with some friends who were admiring a restored 40 year old car. They asked would I not love to have the car, and I responded "No, I remember those cars and they were not that nice new." This started a discussion into restoring cars to better than new status. For me it became the age old discussion of quality.

Quality

The age old discussion I have seen for years is should you buy a quality item or a cheap one. Maybe even buy something cheap and fix it up and make it something of quality.

Restored Caravan

When I was younger where I had more time than money, as a college dropped I was working as an auto mechanic. I purchased a sweet $800 Dodge Caravan with a bad engine. Then with some trading at local junk yard I got a newer Caravan with a 3.8L V6 so I put that engine, transmission, computer, wiring harness in my Caravan. I put new shocks and struts on it and once it was running nice. I went to junk yard and put in power seats, mirrors, windows. I got that caravan all fixed up only to discover I had a piece of shit (POS) $800 caravan. That is no matter how much I fixed that caravan it was still a caravan. I learned it costs just as much to fix a Mercedes (something with quality to begin with) as it did a caravan. The only difference is what you have when you are done.

The 40 year old car was another example of this debate, that is you are taking something that was not quality to begin with and trying to make it into something it was not designed to be. Sure you can do it with enough time and money, but often you have to ask yourself why would you?

Cheap or Quality

I often get asked by people, should I buy a cheap tool or a good tool. I always tell them that if you know the difference buy the good tool. If you do not know what you need in the tool, or what is considered a good tool then buy the cheap one to learn what you want in a good tool. Once you have learned what you want in the good tool, then buy the good tool and get rid of the cheap one as soon as possible. This approach is based on the idea that you are not buying the cheap tool, rather you are buying the education to learn what is quality.

Quality Engineering

What is quality when it comes to engineering? For example you can write some quick and dirty code to test to see if an idea works. However that cheap code is like the cheap tools, great for education but you would hate to use that code for anything else.

Doing engineering is all about making what you need out of the tools and materials you have. Often I find people do not have the right tools or materials and still get what they need. Is it quality? Yes given what they had it could not be built any better, and it is quality if it meets the requirements.

One rule I do have is that if the outcome does not meet the requirements then it is poor engineering.

If you can not build what you need with the tools and material (team) you have then you should consider fixing the underlying problem before starting the build. If you do not then you are just paying for an education.