New Stuff on Vehicles likes/dislikes

[Lou C]

I like these, for classic cars and boats...when you understand these, you will never be stuck for the lack of an NLA part....no modules here, no $600 fuel pumps, etc. Downside, they don't run "perfect" after a cold start....that's it.

 

[BWR1953]

Y'all are something else.

 

[jlh3rd]

FWIW. My Monte Carlo purchased new in 1977 cost $5695. Today that's around $30,000. My new toyota was $28,800 out the door. So it's not like cars have dramatically increased in cost. My dollar buys a lot less though.
But complexity, repairability? eh.

 

[jlh3rd]

not a complaint.....just facts.

 

[Scott Danforth]

 

[dingbat]

View attachment 412729

don’t know how old you are, but there where half as many people in the US the day I was born than there are now.

 

[Scott Danforth]

to quote my great grandfather when he was 100. If you didnt know your age, how old would you be? He said he woke up at 160 and went to bed at 16.... He also mentioned that Washington had twice as many horses arses as there were horses to carry them.

Im not quite there on both ends..... but things seem status quo

when I was born in 1968, the world population was 3.545B people. today its 8.2B so a bit more than 2.31x the amount of people.

 

[flashback]

A lot of this new stuff probably makes it easier to drive drunk. LOL

 

[aspeck]

OK I’ll say it:
Technology is not really your friend
It’s like living with your parents till you’re 40
You never learn!
Drivers are less capable than they were when I started driving in the early 1970s. Both in driving skill and mechanical knowledge. If you can’t check oil, change a tire, or read a map when your nav fails, thank tech for making you less adaptable/capable….

Proud of my youngest daughter ... she proudly called me to inform me she borrowed her neighbor's floor jack and changed her own oil recently instead of bringing it home for dad to do. We talked through what she did and she also checked all the fluids and tire pressure while she was at it. She knows there are no lube points on her car (stupid design), but she was ready to go. When she gets home for Thanksgiving we will get a new set of tires to put on her car so she has good tread for the winter.

 

[Pmt133]

I did extended oil change intervals on my old truck. Thing would go like 14k on an oil change.... has like 350k miles on it now. That being said the I6 in it was about the easiest thing on oil imaginable and I had a plethora of oil analysis to back up I wasn't even stressing the oil.... you can do things and back it up with science if it works. I wouldn't do that on a modern vehicle. My analysis data also agrees with that.

 

[cyclops222]

My new local service station does 10,000 mile changes

 

[Lou C]

I have 2 older Jeeps, one is an American Chrysler era Jeep (1998 ZJ 4.0) the other is a Daimler Chrysler era Jeep (2007 WK1 5.7) while the '07 is much faster and more comfortable, I actually prefer the old '98 because every repair job is an order of magnitude easier, no CANBUS, only 4 modules, easy inline 6 design, all cast iron, and ironically, for some things easier parts availability due to using standard Dana axles and many other parts are shared with other similar vintage Jeeps (XJs, TJs, LJs) that are popular for restorations, with very good aftermarket support.

 

[Jeff J]

The bright displays in new cars are bad. Apparently, car designers and younger drivers have zero understanding of night vision and what more light does to it. I keep mine dimmed down so I can see the deer before I hit them.

 

[dingbat]

The bright displays in new cars are bad.

Back lighting is used to increase display visibility in daylight

Apparently, car designers and younger drivers have zero understanding of night vision and what more light does to it.

All of my vehicles self adjust display brightness to ambient light conditions.
Perhaps the problems is your (old) eyes and not the designer and younger driver....lol

 

[Jeff J]

Back lighting is used to increase display visibility in daylight

All of my vehicles self adjust display brightness to ambient light conditions.
Perhaps the problems is your (old) eyes and not the designer and younger driver....lol

The problem is the displays are so bright they light up the interior on a vehicle better than the overhead light and people don’t understand when they run them that bright at night they literally cannot see anything outside the circle of light immediately in front of their car unless it is generating its own light. The average stopping distance at 65 mph is more than a football field plus the time it takes to identify a hazard and react. I think it’s a good thing to see beyond what the headlights can illuminate. It’s a shame you don’t.

 

[FLATHEAD]

The problem is the displays are so bright they light up the interior on a vehicle better than the overhead light and people don’t understand when they run them that bright at night they literally cannot see anything outside the circle of light immediately in front of their car unless it is generating its own light. The average stopping distance at 65 mph is more than a football field plus the time it takes to identify a hazard and react. I think it’s a good thing to see beyond what the headlights can illuminate. It’s a shame you don’t.

They can be adjusted and have been able to be adjusted for decades. If your dash is lit up to full brightness and your too thick to realize how it affects your eyes at night and don’t adjust it, thats on you.

 

[Pmt133]

Your pupils at best are already adjusted to what light is being reflected back from the headlights. You can't improve vision beyond that. Yes the cluster will negatively impact visibility at max brightness but beyond that you get what you get. You also get more scatter on the windshield but thats a different discussion.

A foreground limiter on a vehicle is much more beneficial but people find comfort in having the first 20 or so feet in front of the vehicle lit up like daylight for whatever reason. Limit that and direct more down range and you get way better results vs a dim dash....

 

[bruceb58]

The bright displays in new cars are bad. Apparently, car designers and younger drivers have zero understanding of night vision and what more light does to it. I keep mine dimmed down so I can see the deer before I hit them.

In my Rivian, the display turns to a black background...not an issue at night.

Jeez there are a lot of "old people" in this thread. Get off my lawn!

 

[bruceb58]

...no CANBUS, only 4 modules

I would dread going back to a car without a CANBUS. Cars are WAY more easier to diagnose now.

Boat engines have CANBUS too. I had a bad miss on my 2017 Cobalt. I kinda shotgunned the repair by replacing the 4 coils. Later bought my Rinda scanner. If I had bought the Rinda scanner first, I would have know exactly which coil I needed to replace.

I am fairly recently retired. I also worked for GM for awhile. The tech makes working on your vehicles easier...not harder. My last job was a designer for test equipment for high speed internet protocol testing. We were designing test equipment for vehicles because eventually, all sensor will be on a high speed data bus to reduce the miles of wire in a car. Saves weight and makes design simpler.

My Rivian is the most complex vehicle I have ever owned. It has only 7 modules in it.

 

[FLATHEAD]

you can thank the car makers and their lease programs for helping socially adjust peoples thinking into getting a new vehicle every 3 years, which has allowed car makers to drop the design life of a vehicle from 300,000 km to 200,000 km to now its on average 130,000km

IMHO Leasing is not a good thing. We tried it once years ago. You pay and pay and in the end you have nothing or a liability with a bill to pay. If you need or want a NEW car you’re better off biting the bullet and buying a new vehicle outright. Of course the depreciation begins immediately, but a least you have something, your not paying some bank interest. You actually have an asset that you could conceivably sell if need be without having to pay a bank a balance. That double the beating you take. Take the money a payment would cost and dump it in a high interest account monthly. Lord willing I’ll never have a car payment again.