sachilles said:
I feel like the invention of day time running lamps as a safety feature has lead to less safe cars at night as the drivers forget to put on tail lights. Been guilty of it myself to be honest.
Yes, but its not the fault of the DRL. It is the fault of the bad engineering, creating a constantly illuminated dash cluster. Go back five years, and it was always...ALWAYS a Toyota with no tail lights. They were the first...
As an old guy with old cars, I think the bigger danger of DRLs is when you drive a vehicle without them. Nobody looks for a car when pulling out, they look for lights.
Still, I think DRLs are a good idea more often than not.
Streetwiseguy said:
sachilles said:
I feel like the invention of day time running lamps as a safety feature has lead to less safe cars at night as the drivers forget to put on tail lights. Been guilty of it myself to be honest.
Yes, but its not the fault of the DRL. It is the fault of the bad engineering, creating a constantly illuminated dash cluster. Go back five years, and it was always...ALWAYS a Toyota with no tail lights. They were the first...
As an old guy with old cars, I think the bigger danger of DRLs is when you drive a vehicle without them. Nobody looks for a car when pulling out, they look for lights.
Still, I think DRLs are a good idea more often than not.
When an old guy with an old car without DRL's drives they certainly are permitted to turn their lights on. Unless it's a british car, then nothing is guaranteed.
JamesMcD said:
slefain said:
The 1992–1998 Pontiac Grand Am is almost extinct. The last remaining survivors have been tagged with a special sticker and released back into the wild:
The exceptions are outfitted with Taz / Tweety Bird floor mats and seat covers.
What the hell is that hatchet guy about anyway?
In reply to ultraclyde :
I’m up on lots of fads even though I abhor them but I have NO CLUE what that is.
Maybe it’s an Insane Clown Posse thing? That’s what Google seems to believe
Edit: yup, just scroll down for more clarity
In reply to ultraclyde :
How juggalos find each other. Somehow they've not all earned Darwin awards yet.
To answer your next question, juggalos are followers of Insane Clown Posse, a couple of now old, fat white idiots that rap about faygo and paint their faces up like clowns.
Hatchet Man is visual the sign of The Jugalos
The audio sign is, "whoop whoop!"
Your not missing anything.
DRLs should also activate taillights but they don't, which is so irritating and can be dangerous in dark and wet conditions.
People in general are totally incapable of understanding the concept of keeping the flow of traffic moving. Examples include the following:
Inability to rapidly (or even moderately) accelerate after clearing an accident or construction zone.
Waiting until the car ahead is completely through the intersection before even letting off the brake pedal.
Sitting in the left lane doing 5 over at rush hour while blocking 25 cars that are wanting to do 10 or 15 over.
Slowing down to look at an accident that is on the other side of the highway median.
Dropping under the speed limit just because a cruiser is spotted going the other direction or sitting in a median.
SUVs and Trucks slowing down to 20 to go over railroad tracks that my 20yrold car with 250K miles on original suspension can safely and easily do at 35.
Lining up 20 cars in one left turn lane, while 2nd left turn lane next to it is totally empty.
Keeping a full car length or more in between cars at a red light.
Probably several others, but these are the ones I most commonly see.
ultraclyde said:
JamesMcD said:
slefain said:
The 1992–1998 Pontiac Grand Am is almost extinct. The last remaining survivors have been tagged with a special sticker and released back into the wild:
The exceptions are outfitted with Taz / Tweety Bird floor mats and seat covers.
What the hell is that hatchet guy about anyway?
Psychopelli.
It's like Kokopelli, but for Juggalos. (Juggaloes?)
I thought it was W-bodies that were Juggalimoes, but these things may be region specific.
Duke said:
Knurled. said:
Hungary Bill said:
Almost every car manufacturer gets the manual option shift pattern wrong on modern automatic transmissions.
You pull BACK on the stick to shift up.
You push FORWARD on the stick to shift down.
Two manufacturers get it right. Porsche, and Mazda. I haven't seen anyone else get it right.
Porsche and Mazda want to give you the dynamics of driving a manual trans. Other manufacturers want to give you the dynamics of driving a PRND21 automatic.
You pull back on a manual stick to shift up twice: from 1-2 and from 3-4.
You also push forward on a manual stick to shift up twice: from 2-3 and 4-5.
Not quite sure where your insistence is coming from. For the typical 5-speed transmission (most common pattern), it's the same number of motions in both directions.
When you pull straight back in a manual trans, you are upshifting, when you push straight forward, you are downshifting. That is why.
With side to side flap-shift-thingies, the proper direction would be right to upshift, left to downshift, for the same reason.
Sequential manual transmissions, or heck even Lenco drag transmissions, have a "pull towards you" motion to upshift. Proper racing automatics also have a pull-to-upshift motion (PRN123).
02Pilot said:
Relative to their numbers currently on the road, Saturns make up a disproportionately large percentage of the cars in a Walmart parking lot on a Wednesday night.
Feel free to add your observations.
I bet this is true of many low income shopping areas. Relative to most cars on the road, Saturns are some of the cheapest you can buy that still run.
mtn said:
mad_machine said:
If people left for work 2 minutes earlier, they wouldn't have to speed like demons on the road.. and lets face it, doing 85 in a 50 for three miles of highway is only going to net you a few seconds
85 in a 50 for 3 miles? Sounds like an 89 second difference. More than a few seconds. Thats a whole gaggle of seconds.
I did leave 2 minutes earlier but I got stuck in the city traffic because of people driving 25mph on a 35mph main road and I had to stop at six lights because the lights are not timed for people who are gawking at stuff on the side of the road instead of driving.
(One of my close family members is one of those people. It's berking creepy how she pays attention to random peoples' yards: "Oh, it looks like this guy is trimming his arborvitys a little narrower this month..."
ProDarwin said:
02Pilot said:
Relative to their numbers currently on the road, Saturns make up a disproportionately large percentage of the cars in a Walmart parking lot on a Wednesday night.
Feel free to add your observations.
I bet this is true of many low income shopping areas. Relative to most cars on the road, Saturns are some of the cheapest you can buy that still run.
Saturns are gone here because they have some pretty severe rust issues and they have a habit of blowing the PCM's EGR pintle driver transistor, which renders them inable to pass emissions, and there aren't really any good options for repairing that.
I wonder if this is related how they seemed to go through as many EGR valves as they did oil filters at the dealership level.
Knurled. said:
Proper racing automatics also have a pull-to-upshift motion (PRN123).
The direction of a reverse manual valve body isn't for continuity with a manual trans. It's done for a couple of important reasons: it puts the first gear you select after neutral as your lowest gear so you don't have to shift through every gear to get to 1st. It means your highest gear is at the end of the shifter travel rather than being right next to neutral where you could over-shift.
rslifkin said:
Knurled. said:
Proper racing automatics also have a pull-to-upshift motion (PRN123).
The direction of a reverse manual valve body isn't for continuity with a manual trans. It's done for a couple of important reasons: it puts the first gear you select after neutral as your lowest gear so you don't have to shift through every gear to get to 1st. It means your highest gear is at the end of the shifter travel rather than being right next to neutral where you could over-shift.
I'm not saying that it's not. In fact, that is exactly the point I am making: pull-to-upshift is the almost universally recognized "best" way to do it, across many different transmission platforms. Hell, even SIMS and video games, down to the wheel I used to have for my Coleco back in the 1980s, had you pull to upshift.
The only reason to have to push to upshift is to coincide with a PRND21 (or PRND321, etc) shift pattern mentality. At which point, it isn't a "performance" thing so much as it is a way to get out of making more detents in the shifter and transmission.
Now I am wondering how steering wheel paddles are set up... are they finger pull to upshift/push to downshift, or right side up/left side down, or no real standardization? I must research this...
Knurled. said:
ProDarwin said:
02Pilot said:
Relative to their numbers currently on the road, Saturns make up a disproportionately large percentage of the cars in a Walmart parking lot on a Wednesday night.
Feel free to add your observations.
I bet this is true of many low income shopping areas. Relative to most cars on the road, Saturns are some of the cheapest you can buy that still run.
Saturns are gone here because they have some pretty severe rust issues and they have a habit of blowing the PCM's EGR pintle driver transistor, which renders them inable to pass emissions, and there aren't really any good options for repairing that.
I wonder if this is related how they seemed to go through as many EGR valves as they did oil filters at the dealership level.
Ions or L series?
Never heard of any of this on S series.
They are gone because they are so worthless that even a minor repair (at mechanic rates) will total them.
In reply to ProDarwin :
S series. I don't consider Ions or L-series to be Saturns, they are just "cheapified Cobalts" and "noisy, slow SAABs" to me. S-series were Saturns, the Ion and L-series were GM trying to make Saturn "Geo of Europe".
Ions came after I was at Saturn. They, quite literally, were a Euro chassis made as cheaply as possible. When that didn't go over well, when Chevy started using that chassis as the Cavalier replacement, they left the cheapification off the table.
Hmm, I've never heard of the EGR thing on an S series. I've had like 11 of them lol. And there are tons of them on the road here.
Knurled. said:
Hungary Bill said:
Almost every car manufacturer gets the manual option shift pattern wrong on modern automatic transmissions.
You pull BACK on the stick to shift up.
You push FORWARD on the stick to shift down.
Two manufacturers get it right. Porsche, and Mazda. I haven't seen anyone else get it right.
Porsche and Mazda want to give you the dynamics of driving a manual trans. Other manufacturers want to give you the dynamics of driving a PRND21 automatic.
Nope...the last Carerra w PDK I drove was a '15 model and upshifts in M mode were a push and downshifts were a pull...UGH...so counterintuitive.
used to be as a pedestrian you could wave at a driver and point to the headlights and they'd understand. As a driver you could turn your lights on and off and they'd understand. Now. Nope. No change. Keep on truckin'.
Either people have gotten dumber or they think you're this guy.
rslifkin said:
Knurled. said:
Proper racing automatics also have a pull-to-upshift motion (PRN123).
The direction of a reverse manual valve body isn't for continuity with a manual trans. It's done for a couple of important reasons: it puts the first gear you select after neutral as your lowest gear so you don't have to shift through every gear to get to 1st. It means your highest gear is at the end of the shifter travel rather than being right next to neutral where you could over-shift.
Also, pull to upshift/push to downshift uses the prevailing G forces to help with shifter motion. When you're pinned in the seat by acceleration, it's way easier to pull a lever than it is to push one.
I'd like to see a real driving test that required real driving ability to pass. One day, when SWMBO was in a particularly bitchy mood, she asked me, "How would you like it if EVERYONE drove like you do!?!" My reply was, "If everyone drove like me, I wouldn't have to, because nobody would be in my way." She was not amused, but it was surprisingly true.
Grizz
UberDork
1/25/19 7:09 p.m.
The higher the pile of scrap metal is in the back of my truck the more likely some dipE36 M3 is going to tailgate me.
It hits a 100% chance when it goes taller than the cab. Like, I've got stuff strapped down, sure, but there's still a slim chance that you could get a 5 ton goodman outdoor unit flying into your hood so why risk it?
Admission: I like how Subaru did it on our 04 Impreza. Headlights turn off when ignition is turned off.
2ND admission: our Subaru pretty much always had the lights on, never turned off as a result of this.
My random observation:
Why is there not a standard 1/4-20 hole in the top of the dash (with a plug from factory) on every car made after 2006ish? Cell phone/gps/dash cams are a thing that isn't going away. They will always outpace car infotainment systems and even with Android Auto/Apple Carplay some phone manipulation is needed. There should also be a 2A USB outlet within 6 inches of this location to allow for short, clean USB charging cables.
