Other faults that are more important than they sound:
'Letterbox' windows
digital speedos
small mirrors (I believe there are new regulations on the visibility given now, so hopefully gone forever)
LED rear lights that cant be seen... (e.g. VW indicators when brake lights are on)
cars that are almost impossible to get into (e.g. rear of Merc CLS (Im long in the torso))
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More faults which are more important than they sound :
Radios with the most commonly used control (the volume knob) being placed furthest away from the driver - i.e. on the left hand side
Auto windscreen wipers that aren't sensitive enough. Double whammy annoyance factor as cars with auto wipers generally don't have intermittent function grrrrr.
Seatbelt warning buzzers that sound when reversing. (I take my belt off to reverse - as permitted by law - as it's easier to twist and see behind)
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Radios with the most commonly used control (the volume knob) being placed furthest away from the driver - i.e. on the left hand side
Not such a problem if you have volume controls on the steering wheel.
Auto windscreen wipers that aren't sensitive enough. Double whammy annoyance factor as cars with auto wipers generally don't have intermittent function grrrrr.
Great shout! This drives me nuts!
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I don't think I've ever come across a car with auto wipers.
Even more than most contemporary bells and whistles, it's a stupid marketing idea for stupid idle people.
Electronic complexity is bad enough when it is there to make cars more reliable, smooth, economical and so on. Having it where you don't need it is just marketing tosh, for wallies.
This is why I want to see a 2CV or Model T for the 21st century, a car without the weight, bulk and built-in random unreliability of all this carp. Not that I want wipers driven off the speedometer cable like the ones in early 2CVs... they were a bit too much of a good thing, like Ford inlet-vacuum operated ones...
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I don't think I've ever come across a car with auto wipers. it's a stupid marketing idea for stupid idle people.
They still need switching on before they'll work, so less of the idle if you please ;o)
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less of the idle if you please ;o)
I can tell from other posts that people live with and even like these things DD, so clearly I am no authority on this matter. Still, one has one's prejudices.
What I really like are cars with what you need when driving them, no more. How many things that means depends on the sort of car I suppose.
The Porsche 356 Roadster, a stripped, cheapened version of the Cabriolet for the Californian market (and very successful it was) is a charming little car. Few toys with nice solid manual controls. That's the spirit...
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Radios with the most commonly used control ...
But I assume you can reach that far without a problem?
Auto windscreen wipers that aren't sensitive enough.
Auto wipers I had on a Passat and have on current Mazda6 are adjustable. They weren't on the Mondeo. On the Passat if you changed the sensitivity it did an immediate wipe.
Seatbelt warning buzzers that sound when reversing...
I turned them off in the Mondeo (and back on again when it went back 4 years later).
Edited by rtj70 on 03/08/2009 at 16:39
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I have a near 10-year-old VW Bora and, as rtj70 states, the auto wiper function can be varied if required.
However, on the setting I've always left it on, the auto sensing operates in tandem with the level of rainfall and only goes flat out in heavy rain. Otherwise the wipes are intermittent or consistent in steady rain.
Only thing to remember (something corrected in later models) is that you have to choose the auto sensing function manually whenever the ignition has been switched off i.e. go back to the rest position and return to intermittent. I find the auto wipe function far better than having to change between normal and fast speeds.
With regard to the volume control on the Gamma audio unit, the volume control is only a few inches past the tuning knob and easy to reach, apart from the fact that the head unit is fairly low down and the gear lever can get in the way.
However, the volume control isn't used much as there is an automatic volume level increase mode for higher speeds (GALA).
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The variable bit I found on the Passat meant the sensitivity for light rain could be changed. I set it and forgot.
The Golf I had also had somewhere to rest the right foot when on cruise control - as well as a place for the left foot.
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Just a note on my own experience .
I have this awful habit even though i do have a place to rest my foot.
All 3 cars I have owned so far end up having very loose clutches by the time I get rid of them. I haven't had any repairs to make, all that has happened is that the pedeal becomes easier to press. My current car I have done 20,000 miles in and the bite point hasnt moved at all even though the pedal is easier to press.
Dont know if that helps at all.
Middeo
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Well the bite point most likely won't move, it's the release bearing that takes the strain.
Not sure why the clutch feel would change though, not in a hydraulic clutch anyway.
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Not sure why the clutch feel would change though
hydraulic cylinder bores and pivots, often set up with a bit of resistance in new cars, get polished - run in - over time. And return springs soften as well, including the clutch diaphragm.
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Yeah in mine its definately the return springs that have changed as I can lift the pedal back up anbout 5cm to where it used to be.
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In the Jowett, you can rest your clutch foot on the dipswitch.......very convenient for night driving. There's no transmission tunnel or gearbox in the way, even with rwd, so you can stretch your left leg as far as your passenger will allow !....progress ?
Ted
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"This is why I want to see a 2CV or Model T for the 21st century...."
Ted's mention of his Javelin reminded me of how extraordinary it was that Jowett could produce beauty (Javelin and Jupiter) at the same time as ugliness (Bradford).
The Bradford was, like the 2CV and Renault 4, the basic no-frills utility car that Lud is seeking: the Berlingo and Kangoo may be the nearest we get nowadays. They come with creature comforts - at least they do here, as Brits want them.
The French like their base models and probably have fewer problems with their cars' electrics as a consequence. Would a stripped out base Berlingo sell in the UK? I'm not sure - perhaps because for Citroen to make a profit it wouldn't sell for that much less than what we have now.
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My mates brand new Panda might fit the bill. No leather steering wheel etc. It has central locking, EW and PAS but that is about as far as it goes. It has ABS but no ESP, it has hollow head rests (remember them!). No aircon and just two airbags it really is a simple car, oh and it has an 8V engine (remember them!).
It just seems to be a great simple and well thought out cheap little car.
My last car was a sit up and beg (Encore rather than Popular though, Ford got rid of that name plate). No electric windows, no PAS, no central locking, uselsss ventalation etc etc. Never ever again. My car has luxeries such as electric mirrors and I use them quite often. All the gadgets work even after 82k and ten years.
It makes driving a lot easier and more pleasurable. Maybe my next car will have a place to rest the clutch though!
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my electric mirrors work too
but
i only know this when im parked somewhere
and bored bored bored
they could be handy if i was a private detective following a mass murderer from house to car i suppose as i sat low in my seat smoking my Gaulloises cigarettes and eating an onion as i read le figaro----
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Exactly Bellbody its quite cool. You have an irrating passanger sat in your car in a car park going on about how bad her finances are and when I start to fall asleep I just adjust her mirror she soon gets the message! I then kindly rub it in that her car does have electric mirrors but because it is french they have never worked.
Mind you she will soon be rubbing it in that she has a clutch that works and mine dosn't :p.
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I use my electric mirrors when I'm parking so I don't scuff my whitewalls. Those things take ages to clean...
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Indeed I have recently primed and resrpayed my wheel trims (a new Vauxhall set costs £40, mine now look as good as new for £10). So I always point the mirror down if I am not sure how close I am to the curb.
I used to think electric mirrors were a pointless gimick until I got them.
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So I always point the mirror down if I am not sure how close I am to the curb.
This is what you need, Rattle...tinyurl.com/loqpfu :-D
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Rattle, you should curb your gimmicks...:-)
Edited by Stuartli on 04/08/2009 at 01:41
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I've got electric mirrors now. I still have to look for the control thing and remember how to work it though. I suppose those old-geezer delays will shorten with time.
I use them for parking if I think it's difficult, when I remember. But I am still tending to park this unfamiliar, slightly hulking car a bit further out than I would usually want.
The mirrors park themselves too, a bit untidily on the nearside I notice, at the touch of a button. A tight-space and anti-vandal feature no doubt. I nearly always forget to do it. Or is it that as a rational person I don't bother to remember? (Discuss).
A late friend had the door mirror of his Orion gratuitously and expensively broken by a passing vandal. He felt terribly hurt by it and as an immigrant, let down by the Britain he still sort of half-believed in although he was nobody's fool.
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A mirror for my car is £250 but I can get them a lot cheaper from a scrappy.
Lud what car do you have now, I thought you had a battered Escort?
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A mirror for my car is £250 but I can get them a lot cheaper from a scrappy.
Good grief, Rattle! £250? Is this the article?tinyurl.com/m6rf52
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Nope just apparantly what VX charge. Its because of the heated elements inside them. I suspect it would cost about £30-£40 on ebay.
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what car do you have now, I thought you had a battered Escort?
I still have it. Not all that battered actually. I used a self-tapper to straighten the rear end of the left-hand side of the front bumper and it's more or less straight now for a motor its age, give or take a few coarse patches on the offside sill. It's deeply, to many people who post here sinfully, filthy though and still has the squiggle of gold spray paint it acquired last Christmas while we were in Oz. Drove it last weekend, good as gold, bunged in 20 quid of juice, Ms Lud drove it too, it's OK down the sticks for another six months.
As for the one with electric mirrors, heated leather and suede seats, cruise control, air conditioning, decent sound system, ABS, traction control (I ask you!) and so on, but no proper spare wheel of course in the modern manner, I'm too embarrassed to tell you what it is after all the patronising carp I have given you over the months, which you have taken in good part or anyway in silence... Best to draw a discreet curtain over the whole matter.
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So its a Kia or a Rolls Royce then :p.
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There seems to be a curious modern definition of "automatic". Apparently it means you have to turn it on, adjust it, then remember to turn it off again.
I have an automatic gearbox. I activate it by pressing the clutch, then tune in whichever of the 5 gears I want to use. Apart from that, it does all the work for me.
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There are some design faults that sound minor but have the capacity to infuriate when you have to live with them every day and this is one of them I think.
Whether you see the omission of a footrest as a "design fault" must depend on your personal preference. I've only ever owned one car which had a footrest, and on the basis of that experience I prefer not to have a foot rest. I like my left ankle to be stretched out and you can't do that if your car has a footrest.
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A decent car would have an electrically adjustable footrest, which remembers your personal setting when it detects your key.
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"I'm too embarrassed to tell you what it is...."
I seem to remember that in another thread Lud was honest enough to admit that he'd bought a Chrysler PT Cruiser. Doubtless this was because he got a good deal on it rather than on any aesthetic grounds.
If that isn't true, m'Lud, please accept my apologies and don't sue me for libel. :)
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The XM has an electrically adjustable armrest. And, hold on to your hats - it works too!
Steve.
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The Dodge Ram, Ford F150 and a few others have electrically adjustable pedals
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The Dodge Ram Ford F150 and a few others have electrically adjustable pedals
Well, there you are then. It's a sign of these decadent, debased times that it is impossible to attempt a satirical joke because reality will overtake the absurdly fantastical almost immediately.
I remember an interview with Michael Wharton (DT Peter Simple) in which he said he was giving up the column because it was impossible to invent satire fast enough now.
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