My Gripe about new vehicles... (and where society is headed)

[harshness]

Why can't the automakers on the huge touch screen TV's in the car, have a Setup menu that allows you to run through every supposed feature, and let you enable/disable them!?!?

Because not all features are independent and some of them are required by law in some jurisdictions (not necessarily yours). Daytime running lights, required in Canada since 1989, are an example that some automakers have chosen not to make optional.

The automakers can't afford to have your bad decisions blow back on them if you do something stupid in the name of freedom of choice. This is the world of hot coffee lawsuits that we live in.

 

[cpalmer2k]

Unfortunately a lot of these features sadly exist today because we live in a society where stupidity is the new normal, and if they didn't make cars do some of these things automatically then people would act even dumber than they currently do on the road. I do get where you're coming from though, there definitely are some annoyances.

My wife has a 2010 Camaro that she rarely drives anymore, but she wanted to keep it so we use it as a spare vehicle when we need to any time our primary vehicles are in the repair shop. A year or so ago the battery went dead due to it sitting in the garage over the winter months and not getting cranked very much. The battery is in the trunk, and the button to release the trunk wouldn't work without battery power. We ended up having to pull back the back seat and have my daughter crawl in and pull the emergency release in order to be able to pop the trunk and get the battery out to replace it. (This is also Chevy's solution too BTW, if you Google it).

My wife's current car won't let you adjust the seats unless the car is in park. Go figure...

 

[harshness]

Unfortunately a lot of these features sadly exist today because we live in a society where stupidity is the new normal, and if they didn't make cars do some of these things automatically then people would act even dumber than they currently do on the road.

It isn't so much that stupidity is the new normal as much as the concept of personal responsibility for one's choices/actions having been declared dead by jury decisions.

 

[iBoston]

Because not all features are independent and some of them are required by law in some jurisdictions (not necessarily yours). Daytime running lights, required in Canada since 1989, are an example that some automakers have chosen not to make optional.

The automakers can't afford to have your bad decisions blow back on them if you do something stupid in the name of freedom of choice. This is the world of hot coffee lawsuits that we live in.

Thats not true, with todays digital age, to make something an option and then giving you a message box releasing them from liability is all they have to do and costs them nothing , Thats how Tesla gets away with their "Self Driving Cars". I'm sorry you are blind the the slow erosion of our freedoms. Companies can sell street legal cars that go 150 mph, but i cannot set a cruise control at 25mph or have both doors unlock at once.. Please you need to make sense if your going to argue with me...

 

[iBoston]

It isn't so much that stupidity is the new normal as much as the concept of personal responsibility for one's choices/actions having been declared dead by jury decisions.

Ill give you an example. Anti lock breaks on ice is very dangerous and deceiving. They put it in because their are morons that step on the breaks and won't let go until the car is stopped.... Without Anti-Lock, Once you do that, you have no steering control so thats why they have Anti-Lock breaks. But, as i have shown to my son and my wife, I can stop THOUSANDS of feet sooner if i learn to feather the break and never let the anti lock system engage on ice, then if i slam on the breaks and let the anti lock system do its job.. People don't educate, and don't know, so people just throw the breaks without concern... This is an example of dumbing our society down. - I have seen the opposite, people with traction control systems just stomp on the gas trying to get through ice and snow and then hit something because then they couldn't stop, rather than feathering the gas when your trying to accelerate through wet snow... We put these features on cars, and say they are safer when yes, they do more good than harm, but if you educated a little bit, they would be better, but we dumb down society doing everything for them, and the result we have a bunch ignorant people driving thinking they are the cats pajamas... I am teaching my son to drive a manual, and i am teaching him to drive a rear wheel and front wheel drive system in snow/ice so he can see the difference on how they interact.. Then - when he gets these gadgets, he will have the foundation and understanding...

And i don't care if you turn blue, you will never sell me on excusing my rights in the name of safety.

 

[harshness]

Thats not true, with todays digital age, to make something an option and then giving you a message box releasing them from liability is all they have to do and costs them nothing , Thats how Tesla gets away with their "Self Driving Cars".

Indemnity releases without a formal legal agreement haven't been valid for a long time.

 

[harshness]

But, as i have shown to my son and my wife, I can stop THOUSANDS of feet sooner if i learn to feather the break and never let the anti lock system engage on ice, then if i slam on the breaks and let the anti lock system do its job.

Anyone can make that claim but can they back it up with scientific evidence as would be required in a court of law?

Anti-lock, anti-skid and automatic breaks have been scientifically demonstrated to have saved more lives than they have taken.

The jurors have to consider the evidence in a world where there are people who believe the world is flat.

 

[iBoston]

Anyone can make that claim but can they back it up with scientific evidence as would be required in a court of law?

Anti-lock, anti-skid and automatic breaks have been scientifically demonstrated to have saved more lives than they have taken.

The jurors have to consider the evidence in a world where there are people who believe the world is flat.

You don't even read what i said, i said, Anti Lock does more good than bad... And i made NO claim to normal street driving i was referring to ice, and i don't need scientic proof.. My son and I spent an hour proving the theory and i told him i could always beat his stopping distance everytime, and not only did i beat the stopping distance, i beat it by thousands of feet, and on two different vehicles with Anti-Lock, my Truck and my Subaru.

 

[harshness]

ut I'm done responding to you...

Apparently not.

My son and I spent an hour proving the theory and i told him i could always beat his stopping distance everytime, and not only did i beat the stopping distance, i beat it by thousands of feet, and on two different vehicles with Anti-Lock, my Truck and my Subaru.

"Proving" something to your family is a decidedly different proposition from proving something to a jury.

That you may be limiting your experiment to 4WD vehicles with their associated linkages between axles is not very convincing in the big picture.

 

[arlo]

I don't think this is about me being older... (50's) .. I just see a trend that really bothers me, and its not just about cars, this problem is stretching through society in all aspects of our lives, but for this discussion, it will be focused on new generation cars....

I will admit, i am a control freak. That being said, i firmly believe 'I own my possessions, they don't own me.' Unfortunetly, we seem to be moving away from that... To give you some background, here are some things that have annoyed me about 2000 generation vehicles.

• Why can't i unlock all doors with one click! - I don't live in the big city.. I'm not worried about someone jumping in the passenger side robbing or killing me!
• Why must the friggen car BEEP at me when i don't wear my seatbelt?? Yes, i wear it but there are times i don't, example, I'm on my property getting in and out of my car often (hauling/moving stuff)... Thank god i could remove the springs inside the actual seatbelt clicker, and make it think my seat belt is always on.
• Why do i have to be going 40 mph to set my cruise control?!?!!?
• Why the hell can't i adjust the radio settings when the car is moving?!!?!?!?!? Have they ever heard of multiple people in the car.. Wife is driving, and i cannot make a change to the radio settings because the car is moving...
• I hate LIGHTS in the car at night.. Why must there be a BRIGHT amber light telling me the air bag is off because it doesn't detect anyone sitting in the passenger seat.. Luckily, a well positioned black duck tape resolves that issue.
• Why isn't there a KEY slot in the passenger side or the trunk?!?!!? - I go to get something out of the passenger side, and forced to walk around to the driver side because there is only one key entry.

Stuff like that drives me nuts. But, its only getting 10x worse!!

Here are problems occurring with new vehicles, thank god, i don't own, that i am very aware of..(from rentals, or friends complaining)

• Its raining, i try to activate cruise control. (it has adaptive cruise control) vehicle says "cannot see". Well then, disable the adaptative part and set the damn cruise control.. NOPE!
• You cannot disable many of the so-called auto-features permanently. You have to disable them EACH and EVERYTIME you restart your car. Example : lane assistance., in another words, the car screams at you and nudges the steering wheel everytime it thinks you've crossed the yellow line.. Or traction control, which is horrible when your driving on ICE.
• Damn car turns off every time you come to a complete stop.
• I know where every knob is on my car, i can enable 4x4 mode or adjust my volume or turn up my heat without my EYES ever leaving the road... Now this is all friggen done through the 17+ inch touch screen TV. Now its impossible to enable / activate those features without taking your eyes off the road, plus i cannot begin to tell you how annoying those bright screens are when your driving at night!!!!!!! Yes, you can turn off the display, but you have to navigate through multiple screens to do it and then to activate anything you have to turn on the screen again, and then go through the whole process of disabling it again. What a pain in the Donkey.
• Those big screens are mostly utilized for selling you annual/monthly service fees for such things as internet radio, or streaming services or mapping services.. None of which i have ANY interest in. And its all about them cheeping out the car so they don't have to pay for putting in knobs and dials...
• NO key entry!!!! - Maybe there is an answer, but how the hell do you get into your car if your battery is completely dead?!!? And then if you cannot get into your car, how do you get access your battery to resolve the issue?!!?! - I live in a VERY cold environment, unfortunately, DEAD batteries are a constant issue around here.

When your possessions control you, that adds stress to your life. That is why i am NOT a overly materialistic person. I own things.. But i want to be in control, and i am willing to take on the responsibility of that.. Yes, i disabled the sensor on the seat of my tractor... I have a snow blower attachment on the rear of the tractor. I need to be able to STAND while its backing up doing the snow blowing. I cannot see if im not standing.,. But, with the sensor, the tractor turned off as soon as i stood up. These sorts of things being mandated with no thought of 'GRAY'.. Not everything is black and white and to shove EVERYONE into this narrow field of what they think it should be is not treating us like 'critical thinkers' that can use our brains and judge for ourselves and take on certain risks... But instead, government and commercialization want to funnel us into this very narrow robotic unnatural way, which just dumbs our society down. I guess in a service based industry, to keep the economy going, that's what you have to do.. Make everyone stupid!

Maybe i am what you would consider old school, but i still like to decide for myself, what i am capable of and not have those decisions taken away from me!

Valid gripes. Some might be a little bit adaptivity related.

The ugly. Take the guy my gal and I took care of for a year. Who's wife left him of 10 years. A dude with it all. Could whoop any one of our asses with a punch that would sail you several feet before your heels would land, dragging the dirt. But an overall nice guy.
Drove around a corner on a snowy night. Lost it. Got launched out of the car by a pond. A passer by stopped and saw him passed out. Picked him up and shook his shoulders. Head flopping around.
Welcome to the world of a quadriplegic. Lost everything he ever had. From that day on depending on another human to keep him alive.There's a lot more. Pity harvesting, unappreciative, vengeful. Got him up and showered, shaved, clothed. Fed. Put to bed. Rolled several times several times a night because a single bruise could end up going to the bone. Body having to be trained like a clock. Eat at this time....bed at this time. Scooping him up from neighbors after coming home from a long day in the hot sun in Florida to a mentally stressed out chick who had about enough.
Neighbors who felt sorry for the poor poor guy. Shoving whiskey, coke, more whiskey in his body. Looking like a dick throwing his joystick controlled wheelchair out of gear and pushing him home with dead senses arms flailing at me.
Getting him up in the morning, dressing him, and rolling him into his wheelchair.
And gravity immediately taking over. Days and days and days (thank God randomly) of going straight to the tiled wheelchair shower. And taking his pants out in the back yard to garden hose off. Until the hammer came down.
Poor poor guy. But try to take a Saturday or evening out with the wifey. Where are those neighborly friends then for a few hours?
Go to a you-pullit junk yard. Slice a chunk of seat belt for the latch. Enjoy your damned no-ding-chime and annoying dash light now-off vehicle.
People who get in my vehicles? I sit there motionless with the engine running until they give me the andele', vamos, let's-go-already look. "Remember Gene?....make it click". The giving and receiving party does not enjoy "The Bowel Program".

Yeah. You save a lot of gas when the engine shuts off every time you stop. What? Every 4-5 years an OEM starter costs 400 bucks and up to hours of labor to swap? Stop and go driving? The stealership loves you when you try to make a warranty claim now. Use the option to bypass that if you have it.

Uh-huh. How about having warranty work performed for a drivers door rattle. The only one with the key slot. For the emergency key tucked in the fob. Only to find you weren't smart enough in the spring from parking it over the winter to keep a battery maintainer on. And pushing the unlock fob button to no avail. The emergency key turning effortlessly in the drivers door. Wondering if in fact there is a solenoid or what. Cant open the hood. Crawl under and find the starter battery terminal. Contort yourself to clip a charger lead on it. Finally being able to unlock it when the battery got enough juice. Why? Because the tech forgot to put the danged lock linkage back in.
But then again. Christmas shopping is a bit safer when you put crap in the back of your SUV and there's no lock cylinder to stab a screwdriver in and spin it into submission. So. Remember that catchy little jingle. Safelite repair, Safelite Replace.

It's Cruise Control. In your face laser etched in the buttons and illuminated on the dash by the annoying seat belt warning visual annunciator. Not tool-around-town control while you stare at the hot chick coming from the gym on the sidewalk and barrel-ass into Mrs. Smith's soccer van of teens. Cruise. Out on the open highway, maintaining the legal speed limit (give or take) adhering to Johnny Law and his electronic speed detection apparati (Latin).

Brakes boys. Brakes. Breaks is what happens when you don't use the....Brakes.
Y'all are the ones who call dielectric grease and blue-snot gasket maker Silicon.
Remember. The beach is made of silicon. Silicone is why you go to the beach. With dark sun glasses.
Okay. So you can beat the safety factor of anti locks you say? On the snow or ice? How about when you start to hydroplane? On loose sandy gravel spilled on the road from a dump truck? How about in a corner at night when its misty outside of a concrete plant? The only gripes you should have about anti lock braking is forgetting to have the system bled and exercised every few years to flush gook from the calipers and pump.
"Breaks"....sheesh!

How many aircraft would careen out of control without the wonderful invention of the anti locking braking system?
Traction control? Takes the fun out of smoking tires.

I moved back to PA and wanted to cut donuts in the snow for the first time since a kid. My inherited, best $10,000 forty thousand dollar vehicle that I paid off from the estate. It wouldn't cut stinkin' donuts. Cut the wheels, stab the gas. Flashy instrument panel lights, chatter and shudders. Feeling like someone shoved a 'tater in the muffler pipe.
Oh. Wait. What's that little squiggly-tire button over there? Salvation! I call it the fun switch.

Parasitic draws. Get used to it. Get a battery tender. When the computer system goes to sleep tens, hunderds of milliamps draw on the battery drops to a milliamp or so. Or should. Ford's infamous call home system forgets and keeps on a sucking the pixies. Probably others also. But Ford. It's etched in stone. You can count on it.
Ever had an expensive vehicle stolen because you thought it was safely parked in the garage?
Well I have. And it sucks. Destroys your trust in mankind. Now I have a battery backed-up Viper alarm with one mile range hidden so deep that it would take you a long time to find where I put it. Guaranteed.
And my HD? After the guy in Orlando woke up with Lojack calling him in the middle of the night informing him his brand new bagger had motion detection. Going out to the garage and finding it gone.
A call to OPD and 45 minutes later he rolled up to a warehouse in an industrial park to a chop shop and his bike in the back of a box truck. So, Lojack got my business 2X. Only good in areas covered by it.
Yeah.

Well. I got asked if I could reprogram a friends Jeep for bigger tires he got his wifey for xmas along with wheels and lights and brush guards and stuff. He aint by no means tekkie. Sure, why not. He bought the programmer.
Easy. Roll a tire over a tape measure and find the circumference. Plug the box in the diag. port. Punch in a few numbers. Follow him and make sure 45 mph is 45. 55, 60, 70. Spot on.
What was cool was other things like one push on the unlock button to unlock both doors. How long the markers stayed lit, windows up on lock or not. Delay after key pulled to operate the windows. Cool stuff, huh!
So. Buy one if you can for your ride. Do your deed. And keep it or sell it.

Ahh the good 'ole soccer van incident. No officer. I didn't have the cruise control engaged looking at the sweaty hottie over there. I was trying to punch in my destination to the new weed store on Harrison on the Garmin. Because Siri was being a bitch. Stop the car, please!

Subs? SXM. Nice to have a free trial with your new ride. Except when you find a cryptic charge when you reconcile your bank statement and $214 gone. Five bucks a month. That's what "deal" I'm offered by SXM right now. That's what? 4 times what the deal costs? Unauthorized charge and like pulling teeth to get refunded. Homie don't do SXM anymore. My cell phone plan gives me enough gigs of data to stream to the car audio system. Bluetooth. Unless you cross over into Kentucky. Where its known as greentooth.
And my former employer going crazy because Onstar let him know that the tires on his Enclave were 2psi under.
So he goes and pays some stupid fee at the stealership for nitrogen per tire. You can get a tank of nitrogen from the welding supply for like 20 bucks. And enough to fill every tire in the 'hood and then some.
Didn't fix the Onstar thing though.
.
Pine Hill Auto Diagnostics on YouTube. Ivan. Not far from me. Very adept and equipped to diagnose most any vehicle. It blows me away with the interconnected modules included in every car these day that have to talk to each other. And how one failure in any one of them can kill your vehicle dead in the water.
And shows just how much the car you bought and paid for somehow just really isn't yours any more.

 

[iBoston]

Awesome Arlo.. Great read!

 

[stecle]

Unfortunately a lot of these features sadly exist today because we live in a society where stupidity is the new normal, and if they didn't make cars do some of these things automatically then people would act even dumber than they currently do on the road. I do get where you're coming from though, there definitely are some annoyances.

My wife has a 2010 Camaro that she rarely drives anymore, but she wanted to keep it so we use it as a spare vehicle when we need to any time our primary vehicles are in the repair shop. A year or so ago the battery went dead due to it sitting in the garage over the winter months and not getting cranked very much. The battery is in the trunk, and the button to release the trunk wouldn't work without battery power. We ended up having to pull back the back seat and have my daughter crawl in and pull the emergency release in order to be able to pop the trunk and get the battery out to replace it. (This is also Chevy's solution too BTW, if you Google it).

My wife's current car won't let you adjust the seats unless the car is in park. Go figure...

Find a 12V PS or auto battery charger and connect it to a 12V socket plug.

 

[Comptech]

Ill give you an example. Anti lock breaks on ice is very dangerous and deceiving. They put it in because their are morons that step on the breaks and won't let go until the car is stopped.... Without Anti-Lock, Once you do that, you have no steering control so thats why they have Anti-Lock breaks. But, as i have shown to my son and my wife, I can stop THOUSANDS of feet sooner if i learn to feather the break and never let the anti lock system engage on ice, then if i slam on the breaks and let the anti lock system do its job.. People don't educate, and don't know, so people just throw the breaks without concern... This is an example of dumbing our society down. - I have seen the opposite, people with traction control systems just stomp on the gas trying to get through ice and snow and then hit something because then they couldn't stop, rather than feathering the gas when your trying to accelerate through wet snow... We put these features on cars, and say they are safer when yes, they do more good than harm, but if you educated a little bit, they would be better, but we dumb down society doing everything for them, and the result we have a bunch ignorant people driving thinking they are the cats pajamas... I am teaching my son to drive a manual, and i am teaching him to drive a rear wheel and front wheel drive system in snow/ice so he can see the difference on how they interact.. Then - when he gets these gadgets, he will have the foundation and understanding...

And i don't care if you turn blue, you will never sell me on excusing my rights in the name of safety.

You hit the nail on the head with that one, wet grass or in the south the asphalt leeching oil and a light rain, you might as not hit the brakes with ABS. You are better off knowing how to drive than relying on electronis doing it for you.

 

[Comptech]

Anyone can make that claim but can they back it up with scientific evidence as would be required in a court of law?

Anti-lock, anti-skid and automatic breaks have been scientifically demonstrated to have saved more lives than they have taken.

The jurors have to consider the evidence in a world where there are people who believe the world is flat.

Don't overstate your intelligence with Breaks! Every car I see breaks sooner or later, but every car I have driven has brakes instead.

 

[Comptech]

Valid gripes. Some might be a little bit adaptivity related.

The ugly. Take the guy my gal and I took care of for a year. Who's wife left him of 10 years. A dude with it all. Could whoop any one of our asses with a punch that would sail you several feet before your heels would land, dragging the dirt. But an overall nice guy.
Drove around a corner on a snowy night. Lost it. Got launched out of the car by a pond. A passer by stopped and saw him passed out. Picked him up and shook his shoulders. Head flopping around.
Welcome to the world of a quadriplegic. Lost everything he ever had. From that day on depending on another human to keep him alive.There's a lot more. Pity harvesting, unappreciative, vengeful. Got him up and showered, shaved, clothed. Fed. Put to bed. Rolled several times several times a night because a single bruise could end up going to the bone. Body having to be trained like a clock. Eat at this time....bed at this time. Scooping him up from neighbors after coming home from a long day in the hot sun in Florida to a mentally stressed out chick who had about enough.
Neighbors who felt sorry for the poor poor guy. Shoving whiskey, coke, more whiskey in his body. Looking like a dick throwing his joystick controlled wheelchair out of gear and pushing him home with dead senses arms flailing at me.
Getting him up in the morning, dressing him, and rolling him into his wheelchair.
And gravity immediately taking over. Days and days and days (thank God randomly) of going straight to the tiled wheelchair shower. And taking his pants out in the back yard to garden hose off. Until the hammer came down.
Poor poor guy. But try to take a Saturday or evening out with the wifey. Where are those neighborly friends then for a few hours?
Go to a you-pullit junk yard. Slice a chunk of seat belt for the latch. Enjoy your damned no-ding-chime and annoying dash light now-off vehicle.
People who get in my vehicles? I sit there motionless with the engine running until they give me the andele', vamos, let's-go-already look. "Remember Gene?....make it click". The giving and receiving party does not enjoy "The Bowel Program".

Yeah. You save a lot of gas when the engine shuts off every time you stop. What? Every 4-5 years an OEM starter costs 400 bucks and up to hours of labor to swap? Stop and go driving? The stealership loves you when you try to make a warranty claim now. Use the option to bypass that if you have it.

Uh-huh. How about having warranty work performed for a drivers door rattle. The only one with the key slot. For the emergency key tucked in the fob. Only to find you weren't smart enough in the spring from parking it over the winter to keep a battery maintainer on. And pushing the unlock fob button to no avail. The emergency key turning effortlessly in the drivers door. Wondering if in fact there is a solenoid or what. Cant open the hood. Crawl under and find the starter battery terminal. Contort yourself to clip a charger lead on it. Finally being able to unlock it when the battery got enough juice. Why? Because the tech forgot to put the danged lock linkage back in.
But then again. Christmas shopping is a bit safer when you put crap in the back of your SUV and there's no lock cylinder to stab a screwdriver in and spin it into submission. So. Remember that catchy little jingle. Safelite repair, Safelite Replace.

It's Cruise Control. In your face laser etched in the buttons and illuminated on the dash by the annoying seat belt warning visual annunciator. Not tool-around-town control while you stare at the hot chick coming from the gym on the sidewalk and barrel-ass into Mrs. Smith's soccer van of teens. Cruise. Out on the open highway, maintaining the legal speed limit (give or take) adhering to Johnny Law and his electronic speed detection apparati (Latin).

Brakes boys. Brakes. Breaks is what happens when you don't use the....Brakes.
Y'all are the ones who call dielectric grease and blue-snot gasket maker Silicon.
Remember. The beach is made of silicon. Silicone is why you go to the beach. With dark sun glasses.
Okay. So you can beat the safety factor of anti locks you say? On the snow or ice? How about when you start to hydroplane? On loose sandy gravel spilled on the road from a dump truck? How about in a corner at night when its misty outside of a concrete plant? The only gripes you should have about anti lock braking is forgetting to have the system bled and exercised every few years to flush gook from the calipers and pump.
"Breaks"....sheesh!

How many aircraft would careen out of control without the wonderful invention of the anti locking braking system?
Traction control? Takes the fun out of smoking tires.

I moved back to PA and wanted to cut donuts in the snow for the first time since a kid. My inherited, best $10,000 forty thousand dollar vehicle that I paid off from the estate. It wouldn't cut stinkin' donuts. Cut the wheels, stab the gas. Flashy instrument panel lights, chatter and shudders. Feeling like someone shoved a 'tater in the muffler pipe.
Oh. Wait. What's that little squiggly-tire button over there? Salvation! I call it the fun switch.

Parasitic draws. Get used to it. Get a battery tender. When the computer system goes to sleep tens, hunderds of milliamps draw on the battery drops to a milliamp or so. Or should. Ford's infamous call home system forgets and keeps on a sucking the pixies. Probably others also. But Ford. It's etched in stone. You can count on it.
Ever had an expensive vehicle stolen because you thought it was safely parked in the garage?
Well I have. And it sucks. Destroys your trust in mankind. Now I have a battery backed-up Viper alarm with one mile range hidden so deep that it would take you a long time to find where I put it. Guaranteed.
And my HD? After the guy in Orlando woke up with Lojack calling him in the middle of the night informing him his brand new bagger had motion detection. Going out to the garage and finding it gone.
A call to OPD and 45 minutes later he rolled up to a warehouse in an industrial park to a chop shop and his bike in the back of a box truck. So, Lojack got my business 2X. Only good in areas covered by it.
Yeah.

Well. I got asked if I could reprogram a friends Jeep for bigger tires he got his wifey for xmas along with wheels and lights and brush guards and stuff. He aint by no means tekkie. Sure, why not. He bought the programmer.
Easy. Roll a tire over a tape measure and find the circumference. Plug the box in the diag. port. Punch in a few numbers. Follow him and make sure 45 mph is 45. 55, 60, 70. Spot on.
What was cool was other things like one push on the unlock button to unlock both doors. How long the markers stayed lit, windows up on lock or not. Delay after key pulled to operate the windows. Cool stuff, huh!
So. Buy one if you can for your ride. Do your deed. And keep it or sell it.

Ahh the good 'ole soccer van incident. No officer. I didn't have the cruise control engaged looking at the sweaty hottie over there. I was trying to punch in my destination to the new weed store on Harrison on the Garmin. Because Siri was being a bitch. Stop the car, please!

Subs? SXM. Nice to have a free trial with your new ride. Except when you find a cryptic charge when you reconcile your bank statement and $214 gone. Five bucks a month. That's what "deal" I'm offered by SXM right now. That's what? 4 times what the deal costs? Unauthorized charge and like pulling teeth to get refunded. Homie don't do SXM anymore. My cell phone plan gives me enough gigs of data to stream to the car audio system. Bluetooth. Unless you cross over into Kentucky. Where its known as greentooth.
And my former employer going crazy because Onstar let him know that the tires on his Enclave were 2psi under.
So he goes and pays some stupid fee at the stealership for nitrogen per tire. You can get a tank of nitrogen from the welding supply for like 20 bucks. And enough to fill every tire in the 'hood and then some.
Didn't fix the Onstar thing though.
.
Pine Hill Auto Diagnostics on YouTube. Ivan. Not far from me. Very adept and equipped to diagnose most any vehicle. It blows me away with the interconnected modules included in every car these day that have to talk to each other. And how one failure in any one of them can kill your vehicle dead in the water.
And shows just how much the car you bought and paid for somehow just really isn't yours any more.View attachment 161798

CAN buss problems make me a lot of money most of the time, nothing a good 4 channel scope can't find.

 

[Comptech]

Now my gripe, I am a certified master Tech, even the local Ford dealership brings me cars. I specialize in drive ability. Figure out a car get it running correct, then those god awe full words, while it is there go ahead and change the oil! GM had it down to reset the oil life monitor key on engine off depress the gas pedall 3 times in 5 seconds, then they changed. My god I have had to find a Jamaican women with a dead chicken to dance on the roof of the car while pressing four button on the info screen while holding the gas and brake pedals down at the same time!

 

[iBoston]

Now my gripe, I am a certified master Tech, even the local Ford dealership brings me cars. I specialize in drive ability. Figure out a car get it running correct, then those god awe full words, while it is there go ahead and change the oil! GM had it down to reset the oil life monitor key on engine off depress the gas pedall 3 times in 5 seconds, then they changed. My god I have had to find a Jamaican women with a dead chicken to dance on the roof of the car while pressing four button on the info screen while holding the gas and brake pedals down at the same time!

How much does the Jamaican lady charge for her part???

 

[telstar_1]

26 interconnected computers in a car just isn't for me. I'm also a totally oldschool control freak and am disturbed even by something like needing to step on the brake to start when it's an automatic and already in Park. Don't need it doing things on its own, either, thanks. Of course most of this is lawyer-driven, if not gov'tal. Recently rode in my nephew's Model 3 and was struck by its reliance solely on a dashscreen with no other visible controls. Now, if my interest were to run toward a geeky car like what the iPhone is to telephony, and you'd be able to go though settings to customize it to your own liking (e.g., be able to turn OFF annoying stuff), I could entertain owning one, just for kicks, but I'm keeping my oldschool collection. I currently have nothing new enough even for airbags. Well, actually I just got an '06 Sebring for a backup car, and I'm sure that has a couple, but I haven't needed to drive it much. That car btw has an electrical drain that I have thus far traced to the interior but not totally narrowed down. So I leave the fuse out until I need turn signals. Battery is completely inaccessible without removing a wheel. I'll stay oldschool, thanks.

Modern vehicles, what a wasteland of boring boxes and overpriced monster trucks. You can't even buy just a regular, conventional full-size car anymore. Of course this is driven by "the market," which now is more women than men, and the vehicles marketed to men are these new muscle cars, the jacked-up pickup truck. Good thing I'm a decent tech and a good mechanic.

 

[osu1991]

The world changes. Nobody in 10-20-30yrs will care. The people in their horse and buggy probably said the same things about the Model T a hundred years ago. If you want a look at the stupidity of drivers, feel free to come do my job and review every collision report in the county everyday. The ones causing the most collisions are the ones driving the 10+ plus year old vehicles or the ones not qualified to drive heavy duty commercial trucks and tractors.

 

[arlo]

Valid gripes. Some might be a little bit adaptivity related.

The ugly. Take the guy my gal and I took care of for a year. Who's wife left him of 10 years. A dude with it all. Could whoop any one of our asses with a punch that would sail you several feet before your heels would land, dragging the dirt. But an overall nice guy.
Drove around a corner on a snowy night. Lost it. Got launched out of the car by a pond. A passer by stopped and saw him passed out. Picked him up and shook his shoulders. Head flopping around.
Welcome to the world of a quadriplegic. Lost everything he ever had. From that day on depending on another human to keep him alive.There's a lot more. Pity harvesting, unappreciative, vengeful. Got him up and showered, shaved, clothed. Fed. Put to bed. Rolled several times several times a night because a single bruise could end up going to the bone. Body having to be trained like a clock. Eat at this time....bed at this time. Scooping him up from neighbors after coming home from a long day in the hot sun in Florida to a mentally stressed out chick who had about enough.
Neighbors who felt sorry for the poor poor guy. Shoving whiskey, coke, more whiskey in his body. Looking like a dick throwing his joystick controlled wheelchair out of gear and pushing him home with dead senses arms flailing at me.
Getting him up in the morning, dressing him, and rolling him into his wheelchair.
And gravity immediately taking over. Days and days and days (thank God randomly) of going straight to the tiled wheelchair shower. And taking his pants out in the back yard to garden hose off. Until the hammer came down.
Poor poor guy. But try to take a Saturday or evening out with the wifey. Where are those neighborly friends then for a few hours?
Go to a you-pullit junk yard. Slice a chunk of seat belt for the latch. Enjoy your damned no-ding-chime and annoying dash light now-off vehicle.
People who get in my vehicles? I sit there motionless with the engine running until they give me the andele', vamos, let's-go-already look. "Remember Gene?....make it click". The giving and receiving party does not enjoy "The Bowel Program".

Yeah. You save a lot of gas when the engine shuts off every time you stop. What? Every 4-5 years an OEM starter costs 400 bucks and up to hours of labor to swap? Stop and go driving? The stealership loves you when you try to make a warranty claim now. Use the option to bypass that if you have it.

Uh-huh. How about having warranty work performed for a drivers door rattle. The only one with the key slot. For the emergency key tucked in the fob. Only to find you weren't smart enough in the spring from parking it over the winter to keep a battery maintainer on. And pushing the unlock fob button to no avail. The emergency key turning effortlessly in the drivers door. Wondering if in fact there is a solenoid or what. Cant open the hood. Crawl under and find the starter battery terminal. Contort yourself to clip a charger lead on it. Finally being able to unlock it when the battery got enough juice. Why? Because the tech forgot to put the danged lock linkage back in.
But then again. Christmas shopping is a bit safer when you put crap in the back of your SUV and there's no lock cylinder to stab a screwdriver in and spin it into submission. So. Remember that catchy little jingle. Safelite repair, Safelite Replace.

It's Cruise Control. In your face laser etched in the buttons and illuminated on the dash by the annoying seat belt warning visual annunciator. Not tool-around-town control while you stare at the hot chick coming from the gym on the sidewalk and barrel-ass into Mrs. Smith's soccer van of teens. Cruise. Out on the open highway, maintaining the legal speed limit (give or take) adhering to Johnny Law and his electronic speed detection apparati (Latin).

Brakes boys. Brakes. Breaks is what happens when you don't use the....Brakes.
Y'all are the ones who call dielectric grease and blue-snot gasket maker Silicon.
Remember. The beach is made of silicon. Silicone is why you go to the beach. With dark sun glasses.
Okay. So you can beat the safety factor of anti locks you say? On the snow or ice? How about when you start to hydroplane? On loose sandy gravel spilled on the road from a dump truck? How about in a corner at night when its misty outside of a concrete plant? The only gripes you should have about anti lock braking is forgetting to have the system bled and exercised every few years to flush gook from the calipers and pump.
"Breaks"....sheesh!

How many aircraft would careen out of control without the wonderful invention of the anti locking braking system?
Traction control? Takes the fun out of smoking tires.

I moved back to PA and wanted to cut donuts in the snow for the first time since a kid. My inherited, best $10,000 forty thousand dollar vehicle that I paid off from the estate. It wouldn't cut stinkin' donuts. Cut the wheels, stab the gas. Flashy instrument panel lights, chatter and shudders. Feeling like someone shoved a 'tater in the muffler pipe.
Oh. Wait. What's that little squiggly-tire button over there? Salvation! I call it the fun switch.

Parasitic draws. Get used to it. Get a battery tender. When the computer system goes to sleep tens, hunderds of milliamps draw on the battery drops to a milliamp or so. Or should. Ford's infamous call home system forgets and keeps on a sucking the pixies. Probably others also. But Ford. It's etched in stone. You can count on it.
Ever had an expensive vehicle stolen because you thought it was safely parked in the garage?
Well I have. And it sucks. Destroys your trust in mankind. Now I have a battery backed-up Viper alarm with one mile range hidden so deep that it would take you a long time to find where I put it. Guaranteed.
And my HD? After the guy in Orlando woke up with Lojack calling him in the middle of the night informing him his brand new bagger had motion detection. Going out to the garage and finding it gone.
A call to OPD and 45 minutes later he rolled up to a warehouse in an industrial park to a chop shop and his bike in the back of a box truck. So, Lojack got my business 2X. Only good in areas covered by it.
Yeah.

Well. I got asked if I could reprogram a friends Jeep for bigger tires he got his wifey for xmas along with wheels and lights and brush guards and stuff. He aint by no means tekkie. Sure, why not. He bought the programmer.
Easy. Roll a tire over a tape measure and find the circumference. Plug the box in the diag. port. Punch in a few numbers. Follow him and make sure 45 mph is 45. 55, 60, 70. Spot on.
What was cool was other things like one push on the unlock button to unlock both doors. How long the markers stayed lit, windows up on lock or not. Delay after key pulled to operate the windows. Cool stuff, huh!
So. Buy one if you can for your ride. Do your deed. And keep it or sell it.

Ahh the good 'ole soccer van incident. No officer. I didn't have the cruise control engaged looking at the sweaty hottie over there. I was trying to punch in my destination to the new weed store on Harrison on the Garmin. Because Siri was being a bitch. Stop the car, please!

Subs? SXM. Nice to have a free trial with your new ride. Except when you find a cryptic charge when you reconcile your bank statement and $214 gone. Five bucks a month. That's what "deal" I'm offered by SXM right now. That's what? 4 times what the deal costs? Unauthorized charge and like pulling teeth to get refunded. Homie don't do SXM anymore. My cell phone plan gives me enough gigs of data to stream to the car audio system. Bluetooth. Unless you cross over into Kentucky. Where its known as greentooth.
And my former employer going crazy because Onstar let him know that the tires on his Enclave were 2psi under.
So he goes and pays some stupid fee at the stealership for nitrogen per tire. You can get a tank of nitrogen from the welding supply for like 20 bucks. And enough to fill every tire in the 'hood and then some.
Didn't fix the Onstar thing though.
.
Pine Hill Auto Diagnostics on YouTube. Ivan. Not far from me. Very adept and equipped to diagnose most any vehicle. It blows me away with the interconnected modules included in every car these day that have to talk to each other. And how one failure in any one of them can kill your vehicle dead in the water.
And shows just how much the car you bought and paid for somehow just really isn't yours any more.View attachment 161798

Keep 'em coming.
Orlando. In the few times it lightly snowed or the roads iced. The....umm..."south of the borderers" who never saw snow ever. Slam the...Brakes (lol) and sail right through stop signs. Or t-bone others in intersections.
When you lose traction you aint stopping. When you lock a tire up it creates a sheet of ice between the tread and road. Your opinion of anti locking....brake....systems being negative for safety is very misleading.
I have a steep asphalt road leading from my home. I (again) Brake check it a few times in the winter on occasion going downhill for a safety check on slipperiness. If the wheels were allowed to lock up a spin out could happen very fast. Anti locks give me a pulsation and keep the vehicle going straight.
And being an automatic, the lock-up torque converter immediately disengages which keeps the direct engine coupling from pushing the vehicle further into....Breaking. Lol.
Although frequently when the state highway plows roads they do spread cinders and....Silicon (sand) which assists in adhesion and....braking. Heaven forbid the new guy loads the truck with silicone. Crash into a power pole and it might be die-a-lectric.

Canbus. High speed, low speed, green crusties in connectors. Scope probes. Mysterious glitching. Although I despise German electrics almost as much as Lucas Electrics. BMW (maybe others) using fiber optic data links. Brilliant! Seriously.

Used to be a guy could confidently work on his own stuff. Hell. A timing belt is even pretty easy. A belt, new idles and a tensioner. Even a timing chain aint that hard. But since the ECU learned how the belt/chain was wearing. The compensation data is written into the computer. And when you do get that Saturday morning to tackle the job and get it all done. Nice and tidy and proud of yourself. You start it up and get a check engine light. Because deep inside the Matrix. Smith discovers that cam timing is way off from the previous learned value. Off to the stealer for an hour labor to clear the code and reset the learned values with the Snap-On rapevan $5000 and monthly subscription diag. console. But of course. You can rent the tool to do the same thing. Hopefully you use it and get it back in time. Or doesn't get lost in shipping.

But I really really do like perforated vented heated and cooled seats. A lot. Especially after grandma makes a big batch of stroganoff with leaks. On the ride home. An urge, a crank up of the hvac unit fan, a grunt. Crack the window a touch. Good to go. Until the next one. Especially when The Cranberries is on the radio playing Linger.