Car Talk

[JHDK]

And if/when hydrogen cars become popular, those require some sort of grounding system to avoid an explosion when refueling.

I know this is dumb and irrational and I've seen news stories about how hydrogen cars are perfectly safe but they're going to have to get a real PR campaign going if they want any sort of mainstream sales.

When I hear about any sort of hydrogen-powered vehicle, my mind goes straight to the Hindenburg.

 

[JHDK]

Nah, just a promo. If your car blows up, your fillup is free.

Hahahah see? Everyone thinks the way I was just explaining about hydrogen powered vehicles.

 

[sadchild]

 

[Aaron]

Do you all dislike driving at night even more as you get older? Is than an everyone thing?

My eyesight is fine, and the car’s headlights get the job done. Just increasingly feel less safe in a vehicle after dark….

 

[HecticArt]

I don't mind it so much. but I still love driving in the fog.

 

[scotchandcigar]

Do you all dislike driving at night even more as you get older? Is than an everyone thing?

My eyesight is fine, and the car’s headlights get the job done. Just increasingly feel less safe in a vehicle after dark….

I have older siblings/cousins who are all bent out of shape about it, but one of them is a hypochondriac anyway.

I spent many years not wearing glasses at night, and now I have to. But that actually gives me sharper vision than when I was getting by without them. Plus, my new-to-me car has xenon headlights (which I wasn't willing to pay for on my previous new cars). Since I work from home, the majority of my solo driving is at night. I actually prefer it in some ways:
- No cops.
- Other vehicles are clearly marked with headlights/taillights.
- Drivers tend to slow down on highways, which makes it easier for me to get around.

OTOH, I don't like at night: dealing with people crossing streets at random places; or people walking, walking dogs, or riding a bike on the side of the road.

I don't mind it so much. but I still love driving in the fog.

I like driving in the rain, because I feel like I can drive closer to the car's limit (as odd as that seems). Same with packed snow. But fog sucks. Fog means that whenever I can't see ahead of me, that's when I'm going to slam into a deer. Which means that on backroads, I have to drive slowly enough to see ahead.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

I don't mind driving at night but I am annoyed by the latest trend in headlights which are brighter than 3 suns combined and directed right into my eyes.

 

[HecticArt]

I have older siblings/cousins who are all bent out of shape about it, but one of them is a hypochondriac anyway.

I spent many years not wearing glasses at night, and now I have to. But that actually gives me sharper vision than when I was getting by without them. Plus, my new-to-me car has xenon headlights (which I wasn't willing to pay for on my previous new cars). Since I work from home, the majority of my solo driving is at night. I actually prefer it in some ways:
- No cops.
- Other vehicles are clearly marked with headlights/taillights.
- Drivers tend to slow down on highways, which makes it easier for me to get around.

OTOH, I don't like at night: dealing with people crossing streets at random places; or people walking, walking dogs, or riding a bike on the side of the road.


I like driving in the rain, because I feel like I can drive closer to the car's limit (as odd as that seems). Same with packed snow. But fog sucks. Fog means that whenever I can't see ahead of me, that's when I'm going to slam into a deer. Which means that on backroads, I have to drive slowly enough to see ahead.

I love it. It's like floating and somehow seems to feel quieter than clear days.

The deer thing is just a bonus.

 

[sadchild]

dealing with people crossing streets at random places; or people walking, walking dogs, or riding a bike on the side of the road.

Especially when the assholes are wearing ALL BLACK CLOTHES

I don't mind driving at night but I am annoyed by the latest trend in headlights which are brighter than 3 suns combined and directed right into my eyes.

THIS! THIS! THIS!
THIS!

 

[HecticArt]

Especially when the assholes are wearing ALL BLACK CLOTHES

THIS! THIS! THIS!
THIS!

That.

 

[scotchandcigar]

I don't mind driving at night but I am annoyed by the latest trend in headlights which are brighter than 3 suns combined and directed right into my eyes.

Any car that's equipped with xenon headlights (at the factory) have a headlight leveling system. When the car is started, the lights do an up/down sweep and then lock into the proper angle, taking into account the attitude of the car - which changes due to load, passengers, tires, etc. But being that this is a country full of self-concerned assholes, people are having the HID (high intensity) bulbs retrofitted into their non-HID-equipped cars. There's no leveling system on these cars, so they shine right in the eyes of oncoming traffic. And then you have the rednecks with the lift kits on their trucks. That puts whatever headlights they have right in your face.

So while there are plenty of mindless drivers out there, bombing around with their high-beams permanently on, the main problem is with the people, not the technology.

 

[Aaron]

Agreed on being annoyed with excessively bright headlights, and I am outnumbered by country bumpkins with stupid big trucks.

 

[scotchandcigar]

It's been a little while since I've gone on an Andy Rooney-like rant, so here it is. Did you ever notice that with technology, things mostly improve over time, yet some don't? When they came out with rear-projection TVs, I never bought one. Yes, they were much larger than tube TVs, but the picture sucked. I never wanted to voluntarily part with money to make my TV picture worse.

I feel the same way about touch-screen controls in cars. I've never bought a car for myself with touch-screen controls, and I don't plan to. But Mrs. Scotch's car has them. And as the cold weather is here, I'm reminded of how much those controls suck. The car has heated front seats, and a heated steering wheel. On the display below, you can see that on the bottom-right, there's a picture of a seat. Wisely, touching that once puts the passenger seat heater on "high". Turning it off is a little less direct. You must cycle through "medium" and "low" and then "off". Now, having owned many cars with heated seats (going back to 1984), I know a thing or two about heated seat controls. There's no point to a "medium" setting. The "low" setting is mostly not necessary either, as the seat stays warm for a while after the heat is "off". Only in certain cold situations would I want to leave it set to "low". In any case, on my car, if I hold the seat-heater button, it'll go directly from "high" to "off". But the touch screen doesn't offer that.



But that's a minor annoyance compared to the driver's-side controls. There's both a heat control for the seat and steering wheel. To set them, you first have to touch that area on the screen (1), and then you get the popup shown above. To turn both to high, you hit each symbol once (2, 3), and then a 4th time to get the popup off the screen (I believe it also has a timeout - hooray!). But once your hands, ass and back are burning, and you want to turn them off, you have to (1) tap for the popup, (2, 3, 4) turn the wheel heat off, (5, 6, 7) turn the seat heat off, (8) get the popup to go away. If you haven't swerved into a tractor-trailer by then, congratulations! BTW, my car also has a separate button on the steering-wheel for the (you guessed it!) steering-wheel heater, and it's "on" or "off".

How is this progress?

 

[HecticArt]

I have a ghetto car.
No heated steering wheel, and the seats have a rotary dial to turn on.
It has 5 settings. I'll crank it to 5 to start off on a cold day, but will often turn it down to 3 when I can hear my ass start to sizzle. I will run it at 1 for the rest of the drive when it's as cold as it's been lately.

What I like least about digital controls is that you often have to surf through multiple menus to get to the control that you want, and then if you hit a bump, you end up missing the button that you want.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

I have a car a bit less ghetto than Hectics but no BMW. I have heated seats which have a 3 position switch. Low is down, high is up and the middle is off. 2 switches one for the driver one for the passenger. Rear passengers freeze their ass. I have a heated steering wheel and heated wipers both of which are controlled by a button. The only thing that works by touch control is the radio and the map and other setting stuff you don't access that often and not while driving.

 

[JHDK]

It's been a little while since I've gone on an Andy Rooney-like rant, so here it is

Hahaha you're right, do these more often, they're always enjoyable reads.

And I agree about the touch screen, but for a different reason. I find it is way more dangerous than physical buttons like I always have to look down at the screen when trying to fast forward through commercials in a podcast or whatever.... So I'm looking away from the road. I wind up just using my phone because that's on the mount right up by the windshield at least.

having owned many cars with heated seats (going back to 1984),

Ooooohhh....look at you Mr fancy pants. Have you spoken to Robin Leach about your lifestyle?

I have a ghetto car.
No heated steering wheel, and the seats have a rotary dial

Yeah same here. Pam has a fully loaded Telluride with all of those features. Down here you only use it like 3 days out of the year though but you feel good about yourself during those 3 days.

Do you guys use your backup camera when going in reverse? Sometimes I check it when I'm backing into a parking space, but 99% of the time when I am backing up I still am putting my right hand on that shotgun headrest and turning my head to look out the back windshield.

 

[HecticArt]

Ooooohhh....look at you Mr fancy pants. Have you spoken to Robin Leach about your lifestyle?

Do you guys use your backup camera when going in reverse?

No camera in my ghetto-mobile. I use my mirrors and look over my shoulder.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

Do you guys use your backup camera when going in reverse? Sometimes I check it when I'm backing into a parking space, but 99% of the time when I am backing up I still am putting my right hand on that shotgun headrest and turning my head to look out the back windshield.

Yes but I also use my mirrors. When I visit my dad and drive his car, I really miss the camera. I rarely actually turn around just use my mirrors.

 

[JHDK]

Yes but I also use my mirrors. When I visit my dad and drive his car, I really miss the camera. I rarely actually turn around just use my mirrors.

When I got he venue I tried using the backup camera but I'm just bad at it. I've hit multiple curbs when I only use the camera so I've given up. As a teenager I took pride in the fact that I was amazing at going in reverse. Like my friends would have me drive their cars if they needed to parallel park or reverse out of a really tight situation.

I've never been a mirror guy. I don't trust putting a step between my eyes and what is actually happening. So whether it be a camera or a mirror, I want my eyes on the situation to feel comfortable. I've always depended on looking out the rear windshield. But the venue makes it difficult. The rear windshield is high up, and not very large. It's still better than the camera, but it's the worst field of vision I've ever had in a car I've owned.

 

[scotchandcigar]

Ooooohhh....look at you Mr fancy pants. Have you spoken to Robin Leach about your lifestyle?

Do you guys use your backup camera when going in reverse?

Haha, I got my first German car in 84. They've had heated seats forever, plus a fresh air vent on the dash (so you can mix cold outside air with heat and keep your head cool). For a while after that, I had American or Japanese cars with no seat heaters. But in '94 I got my first used BMW with heated seats, and the rest is history.

My car now is pre-backup-cam. But it has a nav screen, and for a lot of money I can have the CIC (central info computer) replaced and a camera retrofitted. Or I can just turn my head. The hard part is remembering I don't have it when switching from the Mrs' car and mine.