Are cars too complicated?

[S500 Pete]

It will not long before a hand comes out of the dash and gives you a slap if the mirror has not seen and recognizes you eyes before you pull out or change lanes

That should be a compulsory feature for everybody except me

 

[Devonian]

I think you have all got short memories......

35yrs. ago I when I was doing 40k miles/year I ran firstly a Cortina and then a Capri.....neither made 100k before they were cream crackered.

None of us would think twice about embarking on cross continental expeditions in our daily drivers even if they had done 100k miles, 200k miles or more......


Mic

How true that is. When I first started driving you spent ages checking the car out before a 'long' journey, long being anything over 50 miles and were supprised and delighted if you got there and back without incident. nowadays we just jump in any car and drive any distance without giving reliability a second thought,

Do the toys make them over complicated? sure
Are they good fun ? you bet they are - boys and their toys

 

[GregMVF4]

Interesting. IMO it's a bit of hit-and-miss. When I bought the Q7, as a demonstrator it had just about every bell and whistle, some of which I wouldn't've considered if I was speccing the car, but having used them (radar cruise, moving headlights, keyless go etc) I'd deffo have again. Other things (blinds in the back when already have privacy glass, 22" wheels with 30 profile tyres) I wouldn't bother with.

On the 63, jury's out on the speed limit sign recognition atm, but Comand online (although it pretty much only works with BBs) is good, although having an iPhone/Pod connection as well as 6CDs as well as a HD to transfer choons from an SD seems a bit too belt/braces

 

[turbopete]

i must admit ive NEVER given reliability a second thought, even in the 1981 austin metro i had!

even when i was young and dad had 'old' cars, i remember him doing little more than his regular oil level check/top up etc

 

[television]

reliability, a nice word,,, I can remember on the opening of the M1, as lads we all drove from Watford to Watford gap to test it out and the motorway was covered in broken down cars, overheated, blow outs and all the rest, I even blew a piston on my Volkswagen transporter and came home on 3 cylinders, it had never given any trouble pottering around Watford doing service calls

 

[dgbmvb]

Do without ABS, ESP, air bags, seat belt pre tensioners, Distronic, reactive head restraints, side impact beams, adaptive breaking, etc etc?
Go back to the cars we had 40 yrs ago? Hmmmm?

 

[television]

Do without ABS, ESP, air bags, seat belt pre tensioners, Distronic, reactive head restraints, side impact beams, adaptive breaking, etc etc?
Go back to the cars we had 40 yrs ago? Hmmmm?

But we cannot go back 40 years, if I go back 40 years or more, I can remember driving some Alvis TE or big Alfa with a ZF gearbox or other rare car around the lanes in Oxfordshire to Kingston Blaunt and Chinnor to see friends and hardly see another car from my house in Herts the whole way, you had to drive the cars from those days, those days will never come back

 

[turbopete]

Do without ABS, ESP, air bags, seat belt pre tensioners, Distronic, reactive head restraints, side impact beams, adaptive breaking, etc etc?
Go back to the cars we had 40 yrs ago? Hmmmm?

perhaps we could do without SOME of those. especially the heavy ones! i could certainly live without airbags, side impact bars, seatbelt pretensioners etc

i sometimes think these have made drivers too complacent about safety. try driving something that doesnt have any of those and see how much more careful you are. a place i worked at had an old land rover with no seatbelts and that made you more careful, even though all the other stuff was barely a reality back then!

 

[dgbmvb]

At the end of the day we have a choice which is the key point, we can drive cars with all the convenience bits and bobs or if we prefer the simpler life we can go out and buy the Mk 3 Cortina of our youth! (then book it in to get the camshaft changed, rusty wings replaced, floor panels welded in, fuel pump replaced...) Seemples!

 

[turbopete]

or if we prefer the simpler life we can go out and buy the Mk 3 Cortina of our youth! (then book it in to get rusty wings replaced, floor panels welded in...) Seemples!

the difference being? quote edited for accuracy and effect!

 

[cleverdicky]

Once you've done it already a few times you hope to buy a car you wont need to.
As regards 'Safety' features like door bars crumple zones and air-bags.

The best safety feature we could ever possibly have in a car would be a 10" solid steel spike sticking out of the steering wheel.

 

[st4]

Optional kit like COMAND and radar cruise control usually doesn't fail. It's the electronics standard to the cars like ECUs that cause issue and suspension air systems

 

[television]

My cars never get stone chips, why! because I never ever drive up the back side of anyone ever, what pleasure or need is there when I see some person driving behind a tall artic with a 10ft gap, they can sit there for miles on end, do they feel safe, or what?.

I had an old boy yesterday just a few feet off my rear bumper in mud covered winding lanes and he sat there for miles. how do you get rid of them.

 

[SL63 Mark]

If I am tailgated it makes me sit back further from the car in front so I can modulate my braking should I need to brake suddenly, so the twit behind does not rear end me.

Really strange the way people drive up your backside, when there is no possibility of overtaking, or of you going any faster. It just makes me smile. When I hit a clear bit of road I tickle the loud pedal and they are a speck in my mirror. :lol:

 

[KeithEvans]

If someone follows me too closely, that's my signal to slow down. If they are still doing it, then I slow down more until they get the message or go past me.

That and a few black looks in the mirror usually deters most of them.

 

[BlueGriff]

Perhaps we should separate the Car from the toys fitted in the car. There is an argument that the car itself is in a lot of respects becoming simpler as engineering tolerances and electronics improve.

A particular example of that is CanBus. Go back to your Cortina and every electrical item had a separate wire probably via a relay and a fuse to the switch that turned it on. As a consequence there were loads and loads of cables. Now you press a button which is interpreted by simple and very cheap computer which sends a message to another computer at the far end which enables the device. Once you understand how it works diagnosing electrical problems is so much easier than digging about in the loom ever was.

In mechanical terms loads of parts were more complex than the current made for life equivalent. Think of the front suspension on a Morris 1000, you had to grease that every 1000 miles, along with the prop shaft UJs and loads of other parts. Better engineering tolerances and materials have taken away all that complexity. Even the engine is simpler, when did you last see a Distributor, or a carburettor, fuel injection is a lot less complex.

The toys that get fitted are a different matter.

 

[d215yq]

Are new car designs more reliable and the complexity worth it when compared to 40 year old cars? yes

Are new car designs more reliable and the complexity worth it when compared to 15 year old cars? no

i think nothing of jumping in my 16yr old daily and doing a 1k mile trip across europe, knowing breakdown is very unlikely and repair/parts are possible anywhere worst case. in 16 years will people be jumping in their w212s doing the same?? or will they have been scrapped 6 years earlier when the clever headlight motors, injectors, turbos, etc start to go pop and cost twice the value of the car.

great if you can afford or are willing to afford 35k every 8 years and are an mb shareholder...not so good if you prefer to spend your money on living and don't like seeing resources wasted.

 

[grahamcol]

Are new car designs more reliable and the complexity worth it when compared to 40 year old cars? yes

Are new car designs more reliable and the complexity worth it when compared to 15 year old cars? no

i think nothing of jumping in my 16yr old daily and doing a 1k mile trip across europe, knowing breakdown is very unlikely and repair/parts are possible anywhere worst case. in 16 years will people be jumping in their w212s doing the same?? or will they have been scrapped 6 years earlier when the clever headlight motors, injectors, turbos, etc start to go pop and cost twice the value of the car.

great if you can afford or are willing to afford 35k every 8 years and are an mb shareholder...not so good if you prefer to spend your money on living and don't like seeing resources wasted.

I totally agree with all of this !

 

[cleverdicky]

The difference is besides all the welding and body work needed back then, cars were notoriously difficult to start. And when they did they required countless hours of tinkering and tuning to ensure they did.
But back then, for many that's what evenings and weekends were for. Most people that drove, not only did routine service and regular maintenance themselves but enjoyed making improvements, alterations to engines and upgrades.

But then back in those days, many more people could.

 

[Kylinski]

The red button that folds my roof back is worth every penny of the £4200 I paid for my SLK. Yeah man!