- Everybody makes mistakes. And that includes car companies. But, if a car company makes a mistake, it can cost millions of dollars and sometimes even people's lives. This list includes exploding
tires, gas loving spiders, and going way too fast in reverse. How did this stuff happen? How did they fix it? This is "D-List." Epic engineering fail. The biggest shocker about this one is that they did it on purpose. Mercedes, good, old
reliable, 250,000 miles before it needs an oil change. Mercedes once tried to make biodegradable wiring
a thing, biodegradable wiring. It all started in a quaint
time called the 1990s when Germany passed a law requiring a certain percentage of
all cars being produced to be biodegradable. Good, that's a good rule. So, that when you junked it in the future, those parts would break down and return to the earth
from whence they came. Sping, spang, spoong. We're all stardust. We're all made out of carbon. I think it's a pretty good idea. But, Mercedes decided that instead of doing something normal, like making biodegradable seat covers or like headliners or something, the part they replaced
with an eco alternative was the rubber that
covers all of the wires. Well, what happened next? I think you can probably guess. Over time the wires became exposed to the elements and they degraded causing a nest of short circuiting, copper and spicy electricity
jumping all over the place like in "Star Wars."
(mimicking electricity) Give me back my son! What's even worse is that
Mercedes has never issued a safety recall even
though a wiring harness with no insulation is
incredibly dangerous. The rumor is that so many
cars would have to be recalled that they would never recover
from this financially. This is a sad fail. Between 2005 and 2010, Toyota had to recall over 9
million cars in the U.S. due to floor mats. Toyota fitted removable floor mats to practically all of
its cars in this period in an effort to make them
easy to take out and clean. Floor mats are great. I have some floor mats. What they didn't expect was
that the floor mat would move around on the floor as you stepped on them and eventually slide up
over the accelerator, forcing the car to accelerate rapidly. Like your car started
driving as fast as it could and lots of people couldn't stop. This resulted in thousands of crashes and somewhere between 59 and 89 deaths. So, keep your floor mats tight, aight? And don't throw empty soda
bottles underneath your seat. I'm speaking from experience here. They get cut behind your breaks. My girlfriend does it all the time. It really worries. Yet another epic fail. You all know about the G-wagon. Kim Kardashian owns
gosh darn nine of them. Big, ole, big old fridgerator truck. I don't mind them. I think they're pretty cool. Originally they were only used by the military and German farmers and they were more like a slow truck in terms of performance, but now they're fast, real fast. They got a handmade, AMG, twin turbo, 621 HRSPR, it'll do zero
to 60 in five seconds which is crazy because it is
classified as a tiny house. Despite having four wheel drive and all the modern day Mercedes technology to help keep them on the road, their tall stance and relatively
narrow wheel base mean that they're pretty sketchy feeling when you're going fast in them. But, everything is scarier in reverse. All right, you ever ridden
Superman Escape from Krypton at Six Flags Magic Mountain? It goes forwards and it's scary. And then, at the end, it goes backwards and it's way scarier. Well, in 2016, 20 G65
AMGs sold in North America had to be recalled because someone had a few too many a
Schneider Weiss Aventinus, ice and box, and forgot to program an
electrical speed limiter for the reverse gear. Now, without this little tiny piece of software limiting the reverse speed, the car could achieve speeds in an excess of 60 miles per hour, going
backwards in a tiny house. Now, I know what you're saying, James Dog, 60 miles per in
reverski sounds like a blast. But, here's the thing guys, in a big old truck brick like the G-wagon, it's supposed to be limited to
15 miles per hour in reverse because these big baby
boys love to Nestle flips. It's a dumb one, I know, because the fix was just to
alter a bit of code in the ECU, but still, how did nobody checked that? Must've been done on a Friday. You know what I mean? Oh, got fail? The Aztec is so gross it's awesome. It's like eating your own boogers. Back when it came out in the early 2000s, it was basically one of
the first crossovers ever. It came with all wheel drive. It sat high on the road and had room for lots of people inside. It was ahead of its time. You could even get one
with a tent, a tent! It had a tailgate with cup holders in it, had a removable cooler
in the center console. And, did I mention, that it had a tent? People criticized it for its looks, but the simple fact is that
20 years after its creation, we're all over here driving crossovers. So, Pontiac got it right. Rest in peace, Pontiac,
rest in peace to the Aztec. I like to think that Pontiac is up there, Lil Peep, Tupac, eating barbecue
ribs with Pope John Paul II on the tailgate of his Aztech. Yeah, Pope John Paul II
drives an Aztec in heaven. But, for all of it's
subtle, future-proofing, the Aztec had a really, really, really annoying Achilles heel. The AC drain plug. It sat right above the car's main ECU. And in the summer, the condensation from the
AC would drain right onto the computer causing a short in front, and to fry, and fry,
and fry the car's brain. Tons of people reported the issue, but GM never officially acknowledged it. I'm starting to see a pattern with these big old guys, which sucks. It's like Lil Pump, future classic with a fried brain. Right in the fails. If you've ever been a person in the past, you might remember this one. Firestone and Ford. Two of America's greatest sons, literal best friends locked in a court battle over exploding tires. This whole story began when
people started crashing in Ford's brand new SUV, the Explorer. The first reports back from
the police who inspected the crash sites were
that the tires appeared to have delaminated with the
entire tire tread surface, coming away from the tire core. Firestone and Ford had
been working together since the days of the model T, that is back in great grandpop's times and both companies were absolutely and rightfully so
horrified by the findings. Firestone instantly recalled 6.5 million wilderness radial tires, which were all put onto Explorers. However, even after this
recall, the crashes continued. Eventually Firestone came out and said that the problem wasn't their
tire, but the Explorer itself, which Firestone said was unsafe and would roll over in a crash regardless of what tire it was on. The SUV was, at the time, a new and highly
profitable market for Ford. So, they were quick to
deny those allegations and they broke up with Firestone in a cowardly attempt to
keep on selling their SUV, bringing a 100 year
relationship to a bitter end. What are you thinking? And another Ford one. This one is also definitely their fault. Between 1988 and 1993, Ford built 7.9 million cars and trucks with an ignition switch that due to its location next to the engine would overheat and fail. And how would you know that
your Ford ignition switch had overheated and failed? Well, it was easy. Your Ford would stall and
then you would lose control of the steering and the braking. That's two of the most
important things about driving. You got steering, you got breaking, a hot snack, some good tunes. And if you were really unlucky, the ignition would set itself on fire and your entire car
would burn to the ground. And allegedly Ford was aware of the problem during development, but instead of moving the
module to the cooler location as their engineers had suggested, Ford chose to just beef up
the module to make it last just long enough to exceed
the warranty period, forcing owners to bear
the cost of replacement when their car burns to the ground. It's weird guys. It's almost like these big companies don't even care about people. Hm. The module had been installed in over 22 million Ford cars and trucks, but by the time the government
mandated recall was issued only about one third of
them remained on the road. Yeah, I'd say this is an epic fail. This one is freaking good. Terrifying. The Mazda six had a problem, an eight legged problem. And no, I'm not talking about four people. I'm not even talking about two wolves. I'm talking about a spider, a certain species of spider
known as the yellow SAC spider is attracted to hydrocarbons
such as gasoline. Aren't we all. Problem is, on 2009 to 2015 Mazda six's, there was a way for the tiny spiders, drawn by the smell of gas to climb into the fuel system where they would spin their webs which would eventually clog
everything up and get all gunky. And these eight legged freaks, not to be confused with the
2002 David Arquette classic, "Eight Legged Freaks," crawled their way in through a small auxiliary hose meant to allow excess gas fumes
to leave the fuel system and keep the pressure within the system you know, all normal. Remember normal, before I
knew that gas spiders existed. Once the spiders get
in and spin their webs, the gases can't escape like they need to and the pressure builds up in the system. Mazda became aware of the problem after 13 owners in the U.S. actually had their gas tanks crack and leak fuel due to buildup of pressure. And eventually they had to
release a software patch that regulated the fuel system pressure even if the spiders did start
living inside of your Mazda. They couldn't even get
rid of the spiders, okay. They just learned how to coexist. I've heard of bug fixes,
but this is ridiculous. Yet had another pick fail. Toyota's live forever. Well, most Toyotas live forever. Jeremiah made a video about it, I'll throw it to you at
the end of this video. From 1994, all the way to 2004, first gen Tacoma's
suffered from frame rusting due to their box frames
trapping water inside. Now, this forced the company
to recall 800,000 trucks, but for the next generation of tacos, Toyota decided they wanted
to outdo themselves. So, from 2005 to 2011, Tacoma's
suffered from a different, even worse rust problem. 690,000 Tacomas were recalled because the rear leaf springs would rust and rot causing them to snap and in some very unfortunate cases, puncture the brake lines
and even the gas tank. The problem was, the cheap steel being used to make the leaf springs
rusted very easily. Toyota initially offered steel clips which went around the rotting leaf springs that held them together. But, understandably, owners
weren't happy with this fix. And so, a full recall was ordered. Guys, we love the Tacoma. It's one of the best looking trucks ever. The first gen and second gen. But, if you're gonna buy one, make sure these problems are taken care of and maybe don't buy one that's ever been in a snowy environment, or on the coast, or near any sort of rain or condensation, or if the owner had a pool, or
ever cried on their tailgate after losing a football game. Epic fail. In at number one is an engineering fail which makes me so mad! The RX7. This beautiful, but fast killer, yet supple little beast has dirty fuel. That's no problem, James, I'm nifty with a set of spanners. I'll just pop the bonnet
and replace the filter. Go ahead. I'll wait. Oh, what's that? You can't find the fuel filter? That's because it's not in there, Jimny. That's right. Where a good designer would make sure that all the important things
you would need to access in order to maintain your lovely, new rotary powered sports
car we're under the hood or in other easy to reach areas, the designers of the third gen RX7, well, they didn't do that. Instead, they put the fuel filter here, right at the back of the car
between the differential, the subframe, and the sway bar. That means you have to
literally disassemble the rear suspension and
drop the entire subframe to change your fuel filter. A job that usually takes 10 minutes and it should be done
roughly every 20,000 miles. But, with the RX7, it was such a huge, and if you couldn't do it yourself, expensive job, that
people just didn't do it. And this led to the filter
getting dirtier and dirtier and eventually that dirt
found its way into the engine which caused a lack of power
and eventually breakdowns. Look, I get it. Designing car ain't easy. I've done it before. It's hard, but come on design guys. Let's all try to be better, huh? No more rusty frames, bad wiring, cars that are
secretly full of spiders. That last one is very important. And if you're wondering why I didn't put the Pinto on this list it's because I'm sick of talking about it. Thanks for watching this video. If you liked it, hit that subscribe button and the notification bell
so you don't miss anything. We make a video like
pretty much every day. You wanna learn more about the Tacoma and that box frame issue, check out this episode of
"Bumper to Bumper" hosted by my good friend, Jeremiah. He's great, you'll love him. Follow Donut on Instagram at Donut Media. Follow me at James Pumphrey. I love you.
