Shit Ideas

[PhilA]

3 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

If the lights stay on to 'see you home' they must be fecking bright to be of any use when you've walked 9 minutes away from it!

If it's dark outside the headlights stay on for 30 seconds after you lock the car; if you leave the headlight switch on you get 10 minutes before it decides to turn them off to save the battery.

Yes, pointless to make a noise about it if there's an automatic override. Particularly not a Apollo-13 MASTER ALARM WARNING style alert either.

 

--Phil

[cort1977]

1 hour ago, Volksy said:

The Dodge Ram I hired over in Charleston last October had a twist switch gear selector, like a Jag XF, however if you switched the engine off without putting into Park, it would tell you off by binging, and a message would flash up on the dash 'ENGAGE PARK!' 

However, it would then immediately, engage park itself. So what was the point of all the palaver!! 

An actor who was in Star Trek was run over by his own Chrysler a few years ago, as I understand it the rotary gear knob was considered a contributory factor.  So not just a shit idea but quite a dangerous one.  

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/24/anton-yelchins-family-settle-jeep-lawsuit-over-star-trek-actors-death

On a happier note, a proper novelty Chrysler change looks like this:

Ernest Hemingway had one of those in Cuba you know...

 

[High Jetter]

5 minutes ago, cort1977 said:

Ernest Hemingway had one of those in Cuba you know...

That  was being restored a while back, with Soul. Anyone heard how it's getting on?

[Asimo]

9 hours ago, JimH said:

Interesting, novel but shit.

Oddly a daft idea like this might help VAG shift some weight backwards in their "premium" range. I can't find the picture right now but there is a shot of an experiemental Vauxhall Victor with this power unit grafted into it. Because that is what the nation's middle managers were after - a 300hp front wheel drive Vauxhall with what might be described as a drink problem.

I would absolutely love a 300hp fwd Cresta with that power unit.  An Eldorado and  / or a Toronado have been in my fantasy garage since forever.

A 7 litre Cresta  with 300 hp that returns 12mpg seems a better bet to me than a 3.3 litre Cresta with 125 hp and 18mpg. 

 

Bongs and beeps?  MR2 Roadster (manual) did beep in reverse, like a piece of construction plant.  One of the few not-shit things about that car was that it was really easy to remove the instrument cluster and pull the beeper off the circuit board. Like pulling a rotten tooth the relief was enormous!

[Craig the Princess]

1 hour ago, cort1977 said:

An actor who was in Star Trek was run over by his own Chrysler a few years ago, as I understand it the rotary gear knob was considered a contributory factor.  So not just a shit idea but quite a dangerous one.  

 

Another one who ate too many jacket potatoes?

[robinmasters]

1 hour ago, cort1977 said:

An actor who was in Star Trek was run over by his own Chrysler a few years ago, as I understand it the rotary gear knob was considered a contributory factor.  So not just a shit idea but quite a dangerous one.  

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/24/anton-yelchins-family-settle-jeep-lawsuit-over-star-trek-actors-death

On a happier note, a proper novelty Chrysler change looks like this:

Ernest Hemingway had one of those in Cuba you know...

 

Not a novelty if it works properly; saves a lot of space for a control that you only use a couple of times per journey. Loved this when I had it:

[chaseracer]

2 hours ago, The Mighty Quinn said:

BMW iDrive.  What the fuck was that all about?  The most abysmal, un-intuitive crock of shit, that's what.

A paragon of efficient simplicity by comparison with the touch-sensitive* panel/TFT screen combo in a certain Japanese hybrid vehicle of my frequent acquaintance...

[Richard]

On 2/26/2020 at 1:06 PM, SiC said:

Frees a lot of room up in the centre console between the two seats. Also makes hill starts a doddle. 

I can accept that the electric handbrake frees up space (and is cheaper and easier to put together on the production line), I can even accept that it somehow meets the C&U regulations. What I'm not seeing is how haveing absolutely no control over when the parking brake releases makes hill starts even possible, let alone a doddle. ...

 

My nomination is Ford's decision to do away with fuel caps. It might work on cars that have the filler neck high up, Transit vans have the filler level with the tank and they drop fuel on every roundabout. Not much, but there are a lot of them doing it. It's easy to prove that the double flap system doesn't work simply by looking at the tide mark and swollen passenger door seal on any Transit more than a couple of months old. Quite why nobody is in jail for this is a mystery* to me.

 

*Not really

[SiC]

12 minutes ago, Richard said:

What I'm not seeing is how haveing absolutely no control over when the parking brake releases makes hill starts even possible, let alone a doddle. ...

Every car I've driven with an electronic handbrake will disengage automatically once you pull away. Either on bringing up the clutch and/or starting to accelerate. Apart from the older Renault system which uses handbrake cables still, I've found it disengages quicker than you can pull away if you are doing it normally. 

 

Incidentally I'm not overly happy with ours just right now...

Thankfully disengaged when we pulled off at the traffic lights. Still need to read the code and find out what it's whining about. 

[rantingYoof]

While not electronic, the foot-operated parking brake (and pull-handle release) in the LS400 is a source of irritation. It increases the temptation to hold the car on the brakes, particularly at unfamiliar traffic lights where it's more difficult to ascertain whether you'll be stopped for 10 seconds or over a minute. While it's hardly an absolute chore using the foot brake and pull handle, it takes a notably longer time to do all of this (and then put the car back into 'D') than it does to simply release a handbrake.

However I don't want to be lumped in with the other people who sit there blinding people behind them, warping their discs etc, so I try to use it whenever I can. 

Occasionally when I'm feeling particularly dim I will accidentally put the car in 'P' when stopping at certain sets of lights and terrify the car behind my briefly when the reversing lights come on. 

[hairnet]

15 hours ago, chaseracer said:

A paragon of efficient simplicity by comparison with the touch-sensitive* panel/TFT screen combo in a certain Japanese hybrid vehicle of my frequent acquaintance...

still not figured it out

 

[chaseracer]

3 hours ago, hairnet said:

still not figured it out

I have.

It's SHIT!

?

[hairnet]

Operator error

[juular]

On 2/26/2020 at 10:04 PM, The Mighty Quinn said:

Renault did that because the gearbox sits at different angles on the Laguna and Trafic.  There is a small plastic dipstick you can buy from dealers with markings for both. It doesn't fuck the gearbox but it does piss oil out of the breather and can blow an oil seal out.

Where to start with the Renault trafic.

Oh I know. A drive belt tensioner put so close to the chassis that you can barely get a socket on it. Held on by a bolt that won't come out all the way because of said chassis.

Over the years they decided that wasn't French enough, because the latest ones don't have a normal hex head you can use to release the spring tension. They have a recess for a torx bit that isn't quite a T50 or a T55, but something in between. And they must have had some leftover Brie in the factory and used it to build the tensioner. Because as we all know torx never ever slips...

That's when you manage to get a bit near it, as the hole is conveniently placed exactly in the path of the belt.

Guess what I wasted my time on today?

[juular]

On 2/28/2020 at 3:12 PM, drewd said:

My old Gen 7 Celica used to beep continuously when reverse was selected. But only inside the car.

People used to think it had reversing sensors, and looked utterly confused when informed the beeping was only to inform the driver that reverse had been selected. It had a manual 'box and a precise gear change so I'm unsure anyone would accidentally select reverse.

The only way to disable it was to disconnect the buzzer from the instrument cluster. Utterly pointless and hugely annoying.

I hated it for a while. All that extra parking pressure that nobody needs. However while sitting in slow traffic I started accidentally putting it into reverse when selecting 1st, so the beep probably saved me a world of pain on a number of occasions.

I reckon the box gets really vague over time and it becomes like gear roulette, 1 or R? 1 or R?

I nominate this as a shit thing.. gearboxes where 1st and reverse are in the same stick direction separated by merely a single rizla.