Car design quirks that do/did your head in

[Urko]

2 hours ago, lesapandre said:

That's an interesting one. I think that the screen-washer set up was a retrospective Ministry MoT requirement that obliged it to all cars even if they were not fitted with it originally?

As soon as the Motorways emerged after '59 it really was a necessity for safe driving.

Seat belts were not interestingly given the same requirement.

Some MoT gurus may know?

I remember "helping" my Dad fit screen washers to my Mum's 1960 Mini (actually badged Austin Seven) - I think  it was 1971 or thereabouts - he had to because of the new law. 

[Asimo]

2 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

I heard the GS needed a cylinder head removed to perform a simple piece of maintenance.

Not heard that one, seems unlikely, BUT it was a bit of a ballache to adjust the valve-clearances and, even more unforgiveably, anything to do with the distributor was dreadful without removing it first. These things being so difficult caused neglect which killed most GS / GSA long before the rust which ate the rest of them.
Bloody marvellous cars nonetheless.

[Nullzwei]

Condensation on the inside of the bootlid on Mercedes 190's. Not sure why 190's suffer from this or why Mercedes decided to leave the inside of the bootlid black and not body colour.

[GR8 PL8 M8]

On 28/12/2023 at 13:35, SiC said:

Does it not have brake hold? 

You have to be careful with many autos that aren't slush as they will burn up clutches if not held with the foot brake. On many it's only the foot brake causes it to disengage the internal clutches and not the handbrake. 

I've learnt something new - I never knew it was okay to hold a slushbox auto with the handbrake instead of the foot brake, I've been putting them in neutral if I want to use the handbrake.

My assumption was that the car would be fighting against the handbrake but the foot brake would engage something to prevent this...

[lesapandre]

1 hour ago, Nullzwei said:

Condensation on the inside of the bootlid on Mercedes 190's. Not sure why 190's suffer from this or why Mercedes decided to leave the inside of the bootlid black and not body colour.

The 50's Wolseley 4/44 and MG Magnette - had some design flaw in the body so they were always damp and misted up. 

[chaseracer]

On 27/12/2023 at 20:45, Datsuncog said:

Saw the title and came here to bitch about the manual XM handbrake arrangements, only to find I've been comprehensively beaten to it.

Am I alone - and possibly a bit weird - in not having a problem with this arrangement, which exists on the W203 too?

Maybe don't answer that...

[Richard_FM]

5 hours ago, Asimo said:

Not heard that one, seems unlikely, BUT it was a bit of a ballache to adjust the valve-clearances and, even more unforgiveably, anything to do with the distributor was dreadful without removing it first. These things being so difficult caused neglect which killed most GS / GSA long before the rust which ate the rest of them.
Bloody marvellous cars nonetheless.

It was probably working on the distributor, I remember it was mentioned on the comments on a Flickr picture of one. 

When Citroen took over Panhard most the their design team were assigned to design a car to plug the vast hole in the range between the Ami & ID, and the result was the GS.

[lesapandre]

3 hours ago, chaseracer said:

Am I alone - and possibly a bit weird - in not having a problem with this arrangement, which exists on the W203 too?

Maybe don't answer that...

On the autos it's fine - works really well on the MB's.

[Rusty Pelican]

6 hours ago, Nullzwei said:

Condensation on the inside of the bootlid on Mercedes 190's. Not sure why 190's suffer from this or why Mercedes decided to leave the inside of the bootlid black and not body colour.

Yep , strange idea , mines had sound deadening fitted which has helped a bit , still shite though

 

[Spiny Norman]

1 hour ago, Rusty Pelican said:

Yep , strange idea , mines had sound deadening fitted which has helped a bit , still shite though

 

I've had that on and off with most saloon type 3 box cars over the years, particularly on anything with a bare metal lid. Sometimes caused by a missing or broken exhaust heat shield which can get the boot quite warm on a cold day.

[mat_the_cat]

On 28/12/2023 at 18:55, adw1977 said:

Also means that if you're approaching from that car's right the reversing light is probably invisible.  Particularly dodgy when walking across a car park and have no clue the car is about to reverse out of a space.

Also a PITA reversing in unlit areas with half the normal illumination. 

[Popsicle]

As a serial van licker it has always annoyed me that there aren't central sun visors, with a lot of vans not having a rear view mirror mounted to the windscreen this makes the gap between driver and passenger sun visors fairly large, large enough that some days the sun seems to spend the entire day blinding me through the gap.

[Noel Tidybeard]

talking of screenwash- pugrot 208 won't let YOU decide how much of a skoosh you want, i goes through the whole sqirrrrrrrrrrrrrrt wipe routine

what i wanted was in fact squit & a flick of wipe

[Alusilber]

Peugeot 2008 (first-gen): Strange aircraft-throttle-like handbrake lever, just pointless. Also, little oddment tray directly under handbrake lever - don't put anything bigger than a coin there, or you'll mash your knuckles into it when you release the handbrake. Plus a solid metal gearknob (gets cold in winter and hot in summer), a couple of cup holders buried underneath the dashboard, and a row of buttons down on the right-hand side of the steering column that are masked perfectly by the steering wheel.

[Captain Mainwaring]

Another thing with screenwash... it's really annoying where cars/vans have the 'extra sweep' feature to get rid of excess water... so after the initial three sweeps, there's another one a few seconds later, smearing salt/muck all over the screen again. Shit idea.

[Metal Guru]

On 29/12/2023 at 15:00, jonathan_dyane said:

I think legislating against single rear lights and possibly single brake lights were applied retrospectively as with having only one headlamp able to dip and the other simply turning off when you dipped the lights 

Recent edition of the Chase.

Question : what feature on a car has an intermittent setting?

Answer by contestant : Headlights.

[fatmanblue]

On 29/12/2023 at 16:37, Asimo said:

Not heard that one, seems unlikely, BUT it was a bit of a ballache to adjust the valve-clearances and, even more unforgiveably, anything to do with the distributor was dreadful without removing it first. These things being so difficult caused neglect which killed most GS / GSA long before the rust which ate the rest of them.
Bloody marvellous cars nonetheless.

I ran a GSA as my daily (and mostly only) car from 2002-2010. Fantastic car, one could argue it was Citroen's finest hour.

But then changing handbrake pads was crazy (even adjusting them on GS was appalling, luckily dead simple on GSA), and the (front) exhaust the work of the devil. Haynes achieved new heights in later manuals, with such gems as "You do not have to remove the engine to replace the front pipes, but if you should ever remove the engine for any other reason it is worth replacing the front pipes on a precautionary basis", "You will then have to cut off the branch pipe. Access for the saw is not good" and "The easiest way to remove the old pipe is to cut it into several short sections, but you can hardly do that with the new exhaust pipe".  As with most things, if you knew exactly what you were doing, it was quite easy. It's just that only a couple of people in the world knew how.

GSA (mine at least) had electronic ignition. Can't remember ever having to touch the distributor.

Glad to say that car still exists. 

[martc]

On 28/12/2023 at 17:08, MiniMinorMk3 said:

The Mini and it's many characterful* features.

And that is why, dear readers, the Japanese became the leaders in car manufacture.

[martc]

On 29/12/2023 at 14:57, bunglebus said:

Yes as far as I know that's the only legal requirement that's been applied retrospectively to all cars with a fixed windscreen - otherwise if it was legal when it was made, it's legal now, so red rear/clear front indicators, no seatbelts etc

Rear reflectors became compulsory on all cars, of any age, when the requirements for night time parking lights were dropped.

[martc]

4 hours ago, Alusilber said:

Peugeot 2008 .... and a row of buttons down on the right-hand side of the steering column that are masked perfectly by the steering wheel.

The e208 also has buttons down there, but the advantage is that one of them turns the lane departure shite off. Once turned off, unlike other cars,  it stays off which is a good thing but to tell you it's off there is a bright orange light on the switch which is a bad thing. But the switch and light  are obscured by the steering wheel which is a good thing. It's almost as if the French hate these things as much as us.

[bezzabsa]

The position of the Stereo on/off volume knob in R56 Bini...STUPID

[EyesWeldedShut]

7 minutes ago, bezzabsa said:

The position of the Stereo on/off volume knob in R56 Bini...STUPID

Don't forget trying to work out which one of the two pointy knobs does what on there - if you have no steering wheel buttons, its dark and its your first time out in one - fantastic experience. Managed to work out the flattish knob is the vent controls - muchly helped by the fact that it is illuminated. The other two?
It's worse than the earlier ones by a far way.

[MiniMinorMk3]

35 minutes ago, bezzabsa said:

The position of the Stereo on/off volume knob in R56 Bini...STUPID

 

25 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Don't forget trying to work out which one of the two pointy knobs does what on there - if you have no steering wheel buttons, its dark and its your first time out in one - fantastic experience. Managed to work out the flattish knob is the vent controls - muchly helped by the fact that it is illuminated. The other two?
It's worse than the earlier ones by a far way.

Similar thing in the E60 5 Series. My brother had one and I had to drive it back from his golf club once. Got in the car to some excessively load music but. I just wanted to switch it off completely, but BMW, in their wisdom, did not bother to put any markings near the on/off volume control on the dash. I nearly hit the back of the van looking for it. That was also the first time I experienced one of those self centring indicator stalks. It was bloody annoying trying to get the indicators to stop flashing after I had used the right sides to pass some parked cars.

Also note the first generation pie dish control on the centre consul, that was the beginning of the end of all cars being easy to get in and out of and drive without needing to spend a day reading the hand book to know where all the features were hidden.

[Spiny Norman]

Talking about reading the manual...
I'll never forget my first passenger ride in an E60. I was on a business jolly in Valencia and our host taking us back to the hotel had just bought one and slammed it into reverse saying "Watch this, it's got automatic reversing sensors" .
Car: "Beep, beep, beep, beep"
Proud new owner: "There, it's working. It knows how far to go"
Car: "BeepbeepbeepbeeeEEEEEBANG!"
Brand new, it had about 500Km on it, the model had just come out and I found out later he had to wait three weeks for BMW to find him a new rear bumper for it.

[rusty_vw_man]

Mr  Citroen decided on the C3 Picasso that the bits of metal below the rear lights would be best as part of the boot lid, giving it little wings: 

these mean that there are four sharp corners at exactly 5’11” from the floor. They have caused bleeding more than once. Why they couldn’t have just kept these as part of the rear hatch, or made the boot open a little further I will never know. At least when suffering from the mild concussion they give me from time to time I can forget I drive it. 

[ETCHY]

Stuff like headlight bulbs being awkward to change.
We have regulations for sodding everything, but this is basic safety shit, so lets legislate for that. The bulbs should be easy to change & with no tools.
On ours you have to take half the bloody front off to get at them,  it's no wonder there are so many cars running on one headlight.

[stuboy]

On 28/12/2023 at 13:10, sierraman said:

Mondeo Mk2, always seemed to piss water in through every orifice. Nightmare in the winter

i can vouch for that!!

 

mk3 mondeo rear light seals leak too

[grogee]

5 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

 

Similar thing in the E60 5 Series. My brother had one and I had to drive it back from his golf club once. Got in the car to some excessively load music but. I just wanted to switch it off completely, but BMW, in their wisdom, did not bother to put any markings near the on/off volume control on the dash. I nearly hit the back of the van looking for it. That was also the first time I experienced one of those self centring indicator stalks. It was bloody annoying trying to get the indicators to stop flashing after I had used the right sides to pass some parked cars.

Also note the first generation pie dish control on the centre consul, that was the beginning of the end of all cars being easy to get in and out of and drive without needing to spend a day reading the hand book to know where all the features were hidden.

I'm a proud* E61 owner. Today Mrs Grogee and I were enjoying the quite-good cup holders (probably optional) and Mrs Grogee wanted to turn up the radio using the volume knob... which was obscured by the cup holder. 

More annoying to me is the idrive/stereo which cannot be improved/updated/appended without using one of the BMW diagnostic programs, of which there are about four and none of them fucking work anyway. 

(I actually quite like the indicator now but struggled recently when presented with a 'normal' indicator stalk) 

[EyesWeldedShut]

VW New Beetle, two cup holders big enough to put a pot plant in. Sounds good?

Except that they are so wide that a skinny cup or can wobbles AND they hinge, as a pair, over to the passenger side. Why?

If the passenger swings them back quickly, they hit a stop so that they don’t hit the driver’s clutch leg. Newtons law of momentum takes over so you, as the driver, are now wearing your hot drink down your shin and into your shoe.

Ace.

 

[PhilA]

I noticed that about the indicators on UK models- there's no cancelling the "Lane change" 3 flashes. Odd because that's much more suited to the use of signals here. A car's lighting there is used in different ways there to here and that often doesn't percolate down to the designers.

Both cars here that do the 3 flash thing can be made stop by pushing the lever all the way on past the latch and then to off. The European models seem to lack the additional switch position inside that knows it's latched and not just tapped.

 

You can't wind the driver's window down on my Pontiac if the handbrake is on. The levers foul. New cars aren't alone.