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So called " Driving aids" on new cars , help or hinderence ?


Engine Doctor
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Stop/start may be a matter of opinion for some, but for me having a car do anything that I have not positively commanded is a danger and a distraction.

 

All of these "aids and features" just represent goodness knows how many lines of code between me and the road not a good thing at all. Even when one pulls out the car key many of the little computers are still buzzing away running down your battery

 

To have code deciding on collision avoidance, lane keeping etc etc is just too dangerous to contemplate

 

It is also advisable to remember that no programmer knows how to write bug free code! This despite many very clever people working on how to be bug free since the mid 1960s. See today's news about disaster from Microsoft!!!! Goodness knows what the world wide cost of that will be, maybe Microsoft will compensate everyone.?? 🙂

 

I still do not think EVs contribute anything to improving the alleged global warming problem. Additionally see todays warnings about don't charge your EV when the weather is hot!!!!!!!!!!!! Woww must get out my bicycle then

 

Add to the above - all the rare earth metals needed for batts and electronics have to come from basically unfriendly nations. And I do not remember reading about any break through on what can be done with expired EV batteries??

 

So many unsolved expensive problems with no solutions in sight and politicians would have us running off into the sunset without a life belt shouting hooray isn't it good??

 

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, RedBaron said:

No uncertainty and no doubt involved in this just facts.

I used to earn a living driving 300/400 hp cars, hard/fast. Tyres could go new to scrap in 6 months.

No computers. No ABS, skid control, traction limiter, started raining turn the wipers on, nothing.

Lethal machines, made safer cos make a mistake in it, you died, no proper passenger protection box, nothing to do the maths on to design it. Concentrates attention span. Lethal things, reflecting road death numbers.

Those are the facts. Say I am wrong 

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53 minutes ago, RedBaron said:

No uncertainty and no doubt involved in this just facts.

Not quite.  The global IT outage was caused by an update issued by a company called Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity company, so your statement about "disaster from Microsoft" doesn't amount to "fact".  Given this, why would Microsoft have to compensate anyone?

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41 minutes ago, Don Fry said:

I used to earn a living driving 300/400 hp cars, hard/fast. Tyres could go new to scrap in 6 months.

No computers. No ABS, skid control, traction limiter, started raining turn the wipers on, nothing.

Lethal machines, made safer cos make a mistake in it, you died, no proper passenger protection box, nothing to do the maths on to design it. Concentrates attention span. Lethal things, reflecting road death numbers.

Those are the facts. Say I am wrong 

You're wrong. 

According to police STATS19 data the UK death rate has been lower than the 1926 figure, when the stats were first recorded, since around 1990 despite the vastly increased number of motor vehicles. 

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55 minutes ago, Don Fry said:

I used to earn a living driving 300/400 hp cars, hard/fast. Tyres could go new to scrap in 6 months.

No computers. No ABS, skid control, traction limiter, started raining turn the wipers on, nothing.

Lethal machines, made safer cos make a mistake in it, you died, no proper passenger protection box, nothing to do the maths on to design it. Concentrates attention span. Lethal things, reflecting road death numbers.

Those are the facts. Say I am wrong 

The proof that you are wrong is that you are still here.🤣

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1 hour ago, Don Fry said:

I used to earn a living driving 300/400 hp cars, hard/fast. Tyres could go new to scrap in 6 months.

No computers. No ABS, skid control, traction limiter, started raining turn the wipers on, nothing.

Lethal machines, made safer cos make a mistake in it, you died, no proper passenger protection box, nothing to do the maths on to design it. Concentrates attention span. Lethal things, reflecting road death numbers.

Those are the facts. Say I am wrong 

Sounds like a couple of TVRs I had before I discovered aeromodelling (just as much fun, but far, far cheaper!). No ABS or traction control, little crash protection, no airbags, and used to aquaplane for a pastime. Sounded good though - when they weren’t broken down at the side of the road!

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3 hours ago, Don Fry said:

I used to earn a living driving 300/400 hp cars, hard/fast. Tyres could go new to scrap in 6 months.

No computers. No ABS, skid control, traction limiter, started raining turn the wipers on, nothing.

Lethal machines, made safer cos make a mistake in it, you died, no proper passenger protection box, nothing to do the maths on to design it. Concentrates attention span. Lethal things, reflecting road death numbers.

Those are the facts. Say I am wrong 

That's nice. Presumably you needed no crash protection because the roads had no idiot drivers on them?

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7 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

It causes the engine to stop and then start again, sometimes when approaching a roundabout , junction or traffic lights, as you change down and momentarily go through neutral it will stop the engine, making it look as though you had just stalled. Then you have to press the clutch and the start button again to get the thing to start - sometimes it doesn't start. I reported it as a fault, but it wasn't replicable in the garage and then I noticed that it simply stopped doing that if I disengaged the stop start system, so that is what I now do.

that's a car fault not a stop/start feature, I had a manual 520D and it would only stop the engine if the car was stopped with the foot on the brake, second you came off the brake the engine restarted, no need to push a button. 320 auto I have is basically the same, engine only stops when car is stationary with foot on the brake. Starts instantly pressure is released on the brake pedal.

 

All fuel injected cars cut fuel to the engine when you come off the throttle and reintroduce it at low revs, it sounds on your car this isn't happening, and that's the fault, not the stop start system.

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3 hours ago, PatMc said:

You're wrong. 

According to police STATS19 data the UK death rate has been lower than the 1926 figure, when the stats were first recorded, since around 1990 despite the vastly increased number of motor vehicles. 

Errr that’s what I said PatMc. Cars are nowadays pretty safe to travel in, recent small reversals of death rates are largely due to pedestrian's and bike riders getting struck, or possibly committing suicide,  by collision.

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1 hour ago, EvilC57 said:

Apologies, I’ll reread the entire thread before posting next time 😜!

Hey I'm only joshing EC its all good 🙂

 

In other news, today has been a day to reflect on our overdependence on computers...  🙂
...or rather, on giving such world-changing power to one small software company that you've never heard of...
😁

Edited by Phil Green
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12 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

Personally I think the new electronic handbrakes are an excellent addition to the controls, l

Could you explain why you like them?   On the hired Astra  ( very new and an automatic ) last week I found I had to keep my foot on the brake all the time during a long stoppage for roadwork traffic lights on a steep hill or else it rolled forward.  Same on the way back uphill it tried to roll back.  Very tedious.   Old fashioned handbrake would be better in my view.  

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I do like my Dub's 'hill start assist', though I dont trust it 100%, always ready with the 'real' brakes... dont like stop-start... dont like the touchscreen radio... dont like the frequent 'Insufficient flow' error from the EGR... love the ride, comfy for 100s of miles... but the headlights are terrible, sometimes at night I have to stop to check they're on...

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5 hours ago, GrumpyGnome said:

That's nice. Presumably you needed no crash protection because the roads had no idiot drivers on them?

Next driving course to me, someone made an error, 4 dead.

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7 hours ago, PatMc said:

You're wrong. 

According to police STATS19 data the UK death rate has been lower than the 1926 figure, when the stats were first recorded, since around 1990 despite the vastly increased number of motor vehicles. 

 

Yes, I remember my dad once saying that about the same period he witnessed the result of a head-on collision between 2 cars on a narrow Peak District lane when he was out on his motorbike. The consensus was that  they were unlucky they happened to meet on a corner because the roads were so quiet.  Of course, my father never needed to take a driving test 🙂

 

I have a photograph of our shop taken in 1956 on the main road between Nottingham and Ambergate on the A6.  It's obviously the middle of the day because the shops are open but almost no parked cars even without any restrictions.  The increase in traffic since is amazing, yet accidents are fewer. 

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9 hours ago, kc said:

Could you explain why you like them?   On the hired Astra  ( very new and an automatic ) last week I found I had to keep my foot on the brake all the time during a long stoppage for roadwork traffic lights on a steep hill or else it rolled forward.  Same on the way back uphill it tried to roll back.  Very tedious.   Old fashioned handbrake would be better in my view.  

My Peugeot 308sw automatic has an electric hand brake, and it is really good and has never failed.

My XK 8 has an old-fashioned one, a read headache !

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17 hours ago, Frank Skilbeck said:

that's a car fault not a stop/start feature, I had a manual 520D and it would only stop the engine if the car was stopped with the foot on the brake, second you came off the brake the engine restarted, no need to push a button. 320 auto I have is basically the same, engine only stops when car is stationary with foot on the brake. Starts instantly pressure is released on the brake pedal.

 

All fuel injected cars cut fuel to the engine when you come off the throttle and reintroduce it at low revs, it sounds on your car this isn't happening, and that's the fault, not the stop start system.

Very likely it is a fault, but it's a fault that the garage were unable to replicate and it's a fault which turning off the Stop- Start has completely stopped being repeated. It's not something that I'd like to happen again as on a couple of occasions when it happened it was several seconds before I was able to get the car to start again, one time requiring me to reboot, by virtually locking the car via the key fob and unlocking it again. All whilst a queue of cars was stuck behind mine at the roundabout. No thanks. These days I don't drive enough in stop-start traffic for the function to provide anything useful anyway, so it's nothing more than a nuisance when switched on.

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On 20/07/2024 at 10:21, Learner said:

Watched a chap trying to get into a kerbside parking spot outside local shop, engine stopped and restarted 5 times, what a load of tosh!

 

If only he'd pressed the button to disable it.

 

"A tool is only as good as the hands that wield it."

 

Still, I doubt it actually prevented him from parking, so I'd say it's neither here nor there.

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