Tech for the sake of it

[grogee]

16 minutes ago, MikeR said:

I noticed today the mirror adjustment lever had stuck on the drivers door mirror ....

So I wound down the window and poked the mirror .......... 

 

You absolute animal. 

[flat4alfa]

12 hours ago, Peter C said:

On my VW ID7, the dashboard vents are electrically operated via the infotainment climate screen.

The system is fiddly to use and completely pointless.

That would drive me nuts.

And the reason why I like the (now elderly) Ampera.  Yes, it looks dated and cluttered, but no, it works well once you remember where the buttons are. becoming second nature as the little proud ('braille' tab as I call it) tab underneath each button can be 'felt', while not needing to look at the thing

In fact I'm off out and about in it tomorrow, taking it into deepest Fulham, on a job.

[PhilA]

2 hours ago, Missy Charm said:

Tesla door handles.  There is - or at least was, I've not seen it for ages - a Tesla saloon of some description working as a Hackney carriage in the town I live in.  I've been in it more than once, but still haven't a clue how either the interior or exterior door handles are supposed to work.  The driver had to get out and open the door for me at the beginning of the journey and then reach into the back and perform some odd procedure to re-open the door at the other end.  I asked about it and the driver said he was obliged to do similar for almost every other passenger as nobody intuitively seemed to grasp the door-opening technique.  

The whole business wasn't helped by the fact that I'd had a drink and it was dark.  Having said that, pretty much anyone the cab would be picking up at premium taxi time - drinkers at night - would have the same issue.  

Case of the normals. Any of my kids' friends who cadge a ride in the Pontiac cannot figure how to open the doors from the inside or the outside.

Modern bloody rubbish

[sierraman]

14 hours ago, warninglight said:

I've had quite a number of cars with conventional and electric parking brakes.

I've never had a single issue with an electric brake even on cars well over 200k miles.

The only issues have been with old seized handbrake cables, and things stretching and going out of adjustment, needing stripped and checked for MOT every year.

A little motor in each rear calliper to hold the car? Great idea. 10 years ago I thought they were a shit idea, I grant you!

Certain OEMs like Land Rover managed to make the worst of both worlds on things like the Disco 3 and 4, using electrics to pull a pair of cables. 

I’ve had at least 2 vehicles with failed ratchets on the handbrake lever or knackered primary cables. We should have stuck with a lever that jammed in the cart wheels! 😂 

[silvercar]

My Kuga start up ritual is akin to Nadals pre serve sequence in order to switch off as many driver aids as possible.

[reb]

13 hours ago, Missy Charm said:

Tesla door handles.  There is - or at least was, I've not seen it for ages - a Tesla saloon of some description working as a Hackney carriage in the town I live in.  I've been in it more than once, but still haven't a clue how either the interior or exterior door handles are supposed to work.  The driver had to get out and open the door for me at the beginning of the journey and then reach into the back and perform some odd procedure to re-open the door at the other end.  I asked about it and the driver said he was obliged to do similar for almost every other passenger as nobody intuitively seemed to grasp the door-opening technique.  

The whole business wasn't helped by the fact that I'd had a drink and it was dark.  Having said that, pretty much anyone the cab would be picking up at premium taxi time - drinkers at night - would have the same issue.  

When I had my series of Volvo 850s every time someone got a lift in it for the first time they'd fail to find the interior door handle, and ask how you get out, I'd say "pull the handle" and they'd get grumpy at me.

Meanwhile I'd go in other people's cars and instinctively try to pull the handle where it would be on an 850 and feel kind of silly.

The cowards at Volvo changed it to a more standard design for the V70, one of the many "improvements" that made it worse. Another being making the heater controls smaller and feel less positive.

[grogee]

1 hour ago, silvercar said:

My Kuga start up ritual is akin to Nadals pre serve sequence in order to switch off as many driver aids as possible.

That's A Thing that I'm benchmarking at work - how easy is it to turn off the bongs and beeps. Rennow has a 'My Perso' switch that you double press to activate your customised setting for all the safety systems. Remember they are mandated to default ON at startup by GSR and/or EuroNCAP requirements. 

[reb]

4 minutes ago, grogee said:

That's A Thing that I'm benchmarking at work - how easy is it to turn off the bongs and beeps. Rennow has a 'My Perso' switch that you double press to activate your customised setting for all the safety systems. Remember they are mandated to default ON at startup by GSR and/or EuroNCAP requirements. 

This feels like the California vinyards during prohibition selling blocks of grape concentrate that had a label that said "Do not follow the following instructions, or this product will turn into wine, and that would be illegal."

[Spottedlaurel]

Just a thought about turning off driver aids, would an insurer get difficult about paying out a claim if they deemed that doing so contributed to/caused an accident?

[martc]

51 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Just a thought about turning off driver aids, would an insurer get difficult about paying out a claim if they deemed that doing so contributed to/caused an accident?

That's a good point. In my e208 of doom a simple 'mechanical' button press turned off the lane assist, with the Ora a down swipe and tap is all it needs. The manufacturers have given you this option, an option which must have passed the Type Approval when the vehicles were certified as complying with the relevant legislation and are legal to use on the roads. Therefore I would contend that the insurance companies cannot use the disabling of, say, lane assist as a reason not to pay out.

However if you've hacked into the software using a tool from the dark web and fannyed about with the settings yourself then that would raise an eyebrow or two.

[Soundwave]

Speaking of cameras replacing things, Polestar have taken it to its logical extreme and are now selling cars without a rear window. I mean yes, vans haven't had rear windows for donkey's years, but van drivers are generally a different breed anyway.  

My question here is what happens when the camera gets mucky, as I'm guessing it doesn't have a wash/wipe like a window does...

[Spiny Norman]

There's been several instances of these Tesla electronic pop out door handles failing to pop out when the car's on fire, trapping the hapless driver & family inside a burning car. 

They really should be outlawed, replacing tried & trusted mechanical designs based on simple levers and catches with electric motors, ECUs and the like is a dumb idea. See also throttle linkages and electronic handbrakes. At least when a proper handbrake fails it's usually a cheap fix of a cable or broken lever on the brake assembly rather than a motor that needs coding into the ECU by a dealer for ££££s.

[grogee]

2 hours ago, martc said:

However if you've hacked into the software using a tool from the dark web and fannyed about with the settings yourself then that would raise an eyebrow or two.

Interesting thought. 

I can see a world where the "mileage correction experts" move on to "safety systems optimisation" ie permanently disable the bongs and bings.

Which probably would invalidate your insurance if it was detectable. 

Regarding the user switching things off - all new cars have a data recording facility, think aircraft black box recorder. So it's possible to view certain parameters that were recorded just before an "incident". Including the status of any ADAS systems. 

I have no idea if insurance companies are using this data but it's surely just a matter of time. 

Also, for now the authorities (EU and EuroNCAP in our case) have agreed to provide the 'off switch' facility for lane keep and speed limit systems. They may change their mind on this in the near future. 

Finally - we're very close to a world where infrastructure dictates the speed limit wirelessly to the vehicle, and the vehicle then restricts itself to the broadcast limit for that area. At which point the bongs and bings are superseded. 

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, grogee said:

Interesting thought. 

I can see a world where the "mileage correction experts" move on to "safety systems optimisation" ie permanently disable the bongs and bings.

Which probably would invalidate your insurance if it was detectable. 

Regarding the user switching things off - all new cars have a data recording facility, think aircraft black box recorder. So it's possible to view certain parameters that were recorded just before an "incident". Including the status of any ADAS systems. 

I have no idea if insurance companies are using this data but it's surely just a matter of time. 

Also, for now the authorities (EU and EuroNCAP in our case) have agreed to provide the 'off switch' facility for lane keep and speed limit systems. They may change their mind on this in the near future. 

Finally - we're very close to a world where infrastructure dictates the speed limit wirelessly to the vehicle, and the vehicle then restricts itself to the broadcast limit for that area. At which point the bongs and bings are superseded. 

I think we’re not far away from a situation where unless you do everything you are told then the car is disabled until you can show you are a good person.
 

Something like a penalty such as going meat free for a month after drinking 15 units in one go at the weekend or cessation of driving rights due to exhibiting critical thinking. 😂

[barefoot]

I couldn't find a pic to illustrate my point, but does anyone else remember Audi's inertia reel seat belts of the late 1970's which didn't have a buckle on the belt? There was just a belt that you pulled over your shoulder and secured beneath a central clip. No-one getting into the car for the first time could work it out. But 'ordinary' seat belts were so utterly crude in comparison. It took me a trice to get used to the Audi system and weeks to get back into the traditional ways when I sold the car on - a '77 Audi 80GL estate auto.

[ETCHY]

1 hour ago, barefoot said:

I couldn't find a pic to illustrate my point, but does anyone else remember Audi's inertia reel seat belts of the late 1970's which didn't have a buckle on the belt? There was just a belt that you pulled over your shoulder and secured beneath a central clip. No-one getting into the car for the first time could work it out. But 'ordinary' seat belts were so utterly crude in comparison. It took me a trice to get used to the Audi system and weeks to get back into the traditional ways when I sold the car on - a '77 Audi 80GL estate auto.

Toric I think they were called.

Worked well.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Innit:

 

https://youtu.be/HauQtcj7UTM?si=WBsz4zmatuE6By4H

[bunglebus]

4 hours ago, Soundwave said:

Speaking of cameras replacing things, Polestar have taken it to its logical extreme and are now selling cars without a rear window. I mean yes, vans haven't had rear windows for donkey's years, but van drivers are generally a different breed anyway.  

My question here is what happens when the camera gets mucky, as I'm guessing it doesn't have a wash/wipe like a window does...

Ah so that's what I saw today! I came on here to discuss it but didn't recognise the badge.

I've had a new rental van with a rear view mirror TV screen thing, I found it quite distracting as it's obviously a picture rather than a reflected image, and couldn't be adjusted down as far as I wanted - also as up thread you can't move your head about to change the view quickly. I'm used to panel vans anyway so I just turned it off.

Electronic handbrakes are another bugbear of mine, and I saw a LOT of faulty buttons/control units/motors when. VW launched the B6 Passat. A lot of these faults immobilised the car too.

[Asimo]

2 hours ago, barefoot said:

Audi's inertia reel seat belts of the late 1970's which didn't have a buckle on the belt?

I had those in my '76 80 GL auto.  Very good to use. Would have again.

Only disadvantage was the need to explain their use to new passengers.

(It was hard enough to get people to use seat belts at all back then. Many folk believed that they were best "thrown clear" in a crash...)

[Mr Livered]

I'm pretty sure Saabs used to have buckle-less seatbelts too, if memory serves. Maybe it was the 99?

[sheffcortinacentre]

5 hours ago, barefoot said:

I couldn't find a pic to illustrate my point, but does anyone else remember Audi's inertia reel seat belts of the late 1970's which didn't have a buckle on the belt? There was just a belt that you pulled over your shoulder and secured beneath a central clip. No-one getting into the car for the first time could work it out. But 'ordinary' seat belts were so utterly crude in comparison. It took me a trice to get used to the Audi system and weeks to get back into the traditional ways when I sold the car on - a '77 Audi 80GL estate auto.

Lada nivas had those too.

[Asimo]

15 minutes ago, Mr Livered said:

I'm pretty sure Saabs used to have buckle-less seatbelts too, if memory serves. Maybe it was the 99?

[Spiny Norman]

OOOFT! What an interior. ❤️❤️❤️ 

[RayMK]

 

[Mr Livered]

Good video RayMK. Tesla, predictably perhaps, seems to come off worst. Having to go through touchscreen menus to turn off the high beams because you're driving in a blizzard? Having to open the glovebox by clicking somewhere in a menu? This is seriously bonkers.

[Mondeo Enjoyer]

My work van has lane assist, binging sounds for when you go too fast for its liking and an automatic brake if someone half a mile in front of you slows down. The lane assist is particularly fun on country roads, where it likes to pull you one way or the other for your own safety. To top it all off, if it doesn’t know the speed limit on a road it will tell you that the limit is 120mph. I don’t know why it does this

 

[sheffcortinacentre]

Because it's cleverer than you.

[stuboy]

6 hours ago, Mondeo Enjoyer said:

To top it all off, if it doesn’t know the speed limit on a road it will tell you that the limit is 120mph.

foot down...............

[sheffcortinacentre]

How long to first case of " but car said that was limit" excuse.

[captain_70s]

36 minutes ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

How long to first case of " but car said that was limit" excuse.

Probably already happened.

Although these driver "aids" go out of their way to divorce the driver from the experience of actually driving it's not considered a valid excuse. Just because your blind spot light doesn't illuminate doesn't mean you don't have to check it - even though that's exactly what the feature implies...