After 7 months of satisfied ownership of my 06 KR, I just happen to notice today that the driverside door panel speaker grill is tan instead of metallic gray like the rest of them. I took it to the dealer and they came out and took pictures of it and ordered me a new correct colored one (on warranty of course). Pretty strange, even more strange I didn't notice for so long, now that I know it it stands out like a sore thumb. The guy on the door assembly line must have been preoccupied filling out a union grievance or something instead of paying attention.

 

I've heard much, much worse than that. What you describe could and probably does happen quite often. I can easily imagine that if I did that kind of work I would intentionally zone out just to get through the day.

What always amazes me is the stories of, for example, wrong transmissions (disclaimer: exaggeration possible here) or other major drive line components. You have to work at it to get some things hammered in incorrectly.

For all you Johnny Cash fans...

I got it one piece at a time, and she didn't cost me a dime....

 

In the worst days of British Leyland (And there were many) in the late 70's an Austin Princess came off the line with drum brakes on one side of the car and disc brakes on the other !!

 

My passanger side backseat overhead grabrail didn't come wrapped in the KR leather like the other 3 in the expedition.

 

As hard as it is to understand how totally incorrect components can be installed like that, honestly, I can see it happening very easily (I wont get into the discussion about why the assembler didn't get Quality involved or union discussions....). Many components are shipped from the manufacturer in a preset sequence. The assemblers should just pull the next component in line and it's supposed to be the correct one for that vehicle. I spent some time as an engineer making door panels for Ford, and was amazed that I never had to deal with out of sequence panels.