More of a downgrade, technically-- or at least of not refining things quite so far.

"It's workin', it's just not workin' right. My own fault for putting it together in a hurry."

Hey, look at that, fallible robot. Does this humanize him or make him a fragging moron? Apparently, Thrust is trying to find all the little mistakes he made thinking 'this is close enough to spec, let's just keep moving' while his power reserves dipped past uncomfortable levels.

"It's refining energon, it's just... well, basically it's putting out gasoline when I run on diesel. Except that's not how it works, but it's close enough to get the point across."

You know, provided diesel engines got drunk on gasoline before eventually processing it properly as opposed to... just not going.