I think there are many people who don't understand the unit thing with specifications, never have been trained in them, and don't particularly care to be, which is just fine, IMO. If I were and accountant I probably wouldn't be particularly interested in spending the time. Engineers who have dealt with the units on a daily basis for decades almost certainly have seen how important the unit understanding is, have also likely seen some major mistakes made by wrong units, and would likely also seen how the units game playing can be used in less than honorable ways by vendors or people with an agenda.
The last item above is the major reason I think it is important for places like this forum to try to discuss these kind of items using the correct units and not wander into using terms that would allow for non technical people to be mislead or not understand what they see here or elsewhere.
Bottom line is that I don't see this as a foo foo issue that is just anal retentive correctness, as there are plenty of examples of things that have been manipulated to, IMO, confuse and deceive customers in the class b business.
A good example of what can happen, I think, is the Zion battery spec when it was released.
The battery, which is a TPPL AGM style, was stated to be a "400 amp" battery, which by "shortening" or abbreviating theory would indicate 400ah to nearly every RV shopper because battery specs have all been rated in AH in RVs. This includes other Roadtreks.
It was probably some engineers or other tech geeks that started wondering where they found room in a Zion for that many big heavy batteries and looked into it, by finding out the brand and chasing down a spec sheet by looking for anything to do with 400 amps. As it turns out it was a 185ah battery and the 400 amps was reserve power rating.
I don't think there is any question that this spec was used to deceive the customers, while still claiming to be technically correct because the battery did have a 400 amp rating for another parameter. At the RV show, we heard sales persons touting the Zion having 400 amps while the competition only had 100-200 amps (which were actual ah ratings). We a also so posters who thought the Zion canme with 400ah based on the specs, so it certainly happened pretty often.
I will point out that the above could just have well happened if the 400 amp rating was changed to 4800 watts as the "shortening" would have folks thinking it was 4800 watt hrs. The battery really would have only 2220 watt hrs. The competition's 200ah battery would have 2400 watt hrs.
The solution, I think, does not necessarily mean everyone who looks at RVs or other items needs to take a scientific units master's class
.
What will help is, first and foremost, when manufacturers or sales persons start playing with units, or other terminology, to intentionally deceive customers, they need to be called out on it here and wherever else it can be stated. They all read these forums or hear about them from customers, so it will get to them. This actually did put enough pressure on Roadtrek to fix an issue when they silently started to include the 6 gallons of water in the water heater to their "water capacity" to have more than the competition. They added a note to the capacity spec that said it was included.
The other part that I think also needs to happen is that when we as owners or followers post here, or talk to other people, about these topics it is important to not reinforce the unit redefining or misuse that is being used by other sources like manufacturers or dealers. If someone searches information on this forum and finds posts that say that "amps" is a normal shortening for "amp hours" and should be treated as equal, they have just been pushed into falling for the Zion battery spec deception mentioned above.
There certainly is no doubt that engineers can be very picky (understatement) on details and data compared to the general population. These stereotypes are not made up and are quite accurate
. It is exactly those traits that make so we get better, safer, more reliable products, so more irritating than bad, IMO. It is when the marketing people start messing with things that you get the things we have been talking about here, as there is no good that can come from misrepresentations.
We all know that there will be lots of stuff listed on the forum with incorrect units because it is in the best interest of the manufacturers and sales folks to have it that way and for many potential RV buyers they are the first to mention them. It is plainly not the posters fault or intelligence that causes these kinds of confusions as they have been fed false information. When other posters mention that incorrect units or ratings have been used, I would hope that most of us can use this as opportunity to learn a bit or at least be aware that they should not be using that unit or term as a comparison to other correct units or terms, as they or others may be misled into making an expensive error.
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