According To You: Part(s) of a Car That Still Make No Sense?
Our According to You series is all about learning and enjoying the shared knowledge base of everyone here in the Hagerty Community. Last week we asked about car parts that are a mystery, items so hard to understand that one decides it’s not worth trying to figure them out. I started things off with the automatic transmission, and that certainly got the ball rolling.
As you will see below, there was some wiggle room for a different definition of “makes no sense,” one that’s just as relevant to this discussion. So have a scroll down and see what we came up with!
Printed Circuits
Jeepcj5: Gauge clusters make no sense to me. I’ve given up on more than one 1980-1986 Ford truck cluster after narrowing it down to that strange copper/plastic/sheeting stuff. So now two of my trucks have an aftermarket temp gauge and the fuel level is anyone’s guess since I never remember to write down the mileage at fill up.
Automatic Transmissions
DUB6: Shoot, Sajeev, tearing an automatic transmission apart is easy – child’s play, really. Now, re-assembling one into working order, THAT will put most folks into a padded room…
Jeepcj5: I disassembled an automatic transmission from a junk Nissan D21 once, just for the fun of it. I still have some of the pieces as a display in my office at work. Even more amazing than the automatic transmission itself are the folks that designed and built those things back in the 1930s-1940s before computers.
Safety Baby Sitters
audiobycarmine: By your phrasing “Make no sense”, you’re really meaning “inscrutable”, “enigmatic” or “unexplainable”. I took it as “unnecessary” or “pointless”.
By that definition, I’d nominate most of the modern safety babysitters, such as lane-drift warnings, sensors for announcing a car beside you, and the myriad other detectors replacing actual human attention and awareness.
Sajeev: I feel the need to offer a counterpoint to your (valid) definition of my question. After renting a late-model Camry LE with these features, I found them to relieve a lot of stress while driving from Houston to Tulsa. I’m not some distracted driver, I just motored down I-45 and found the experience far more relaxing. Whenever I buy new car again, it will absolutely have these features. (And they will be turned off when encountering a road more entertaining than the Interstate.)
The Integral Valve in the Valve Cover?
TG: As far as the subject goes, 2000s era BMWs have this valve in the valve cover that essentially performs the function of a PCV valve. When they fail, you get full manifold vacuum applied to the crankcase, with all kinds of adverse symptoms such as lean burn codes, oil in the intake, whistling through the crank seals due to the vacuum, etc.
These wonderful little gadgets are part of the valve cover, and the proper BMW-approved repair is a new valve cover. Fortunately the aftermarket does offer just the valve, and if you are skilled enough to cut the old one out without damaging the valve cover and without putting a bunch of plastic shavings in the engine. That is a 30 dollar repair, at least!
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Understandable why its needed, but annoying and could have been implemented better: the pedestrian warning noise of the Honda CRV Hybrid. First, many ICE powered cars are virtually silent at low speeds, so shouldn’t they have the system too? When the noise becomes active, Honda’s is the loudest of any competing manufacturer. Why didn’t the engineers tie the ‘smart’ (they are, aren’t they?) cameras into the noise system so it only comes on when pedestrians are present? At the least give users a volume control and let the user pick a tune! 😉 I read there is talk about making the noise system mandatory and retroactive. Fortunately, my ’70 MGB makes enough noise on its own.
I remember when gauges were replaced with Idiot lights, don’t matter how many gadgets the car companies come up with, won’t help if the person behind the wheel is a knucklehead.
How about electric parking brake switch, especially with a manual tranny? You are forced to trust the hill hold function because it won’t release if you don’t have the brake pedal pushed. Not comforting to start backing up a steep driveway when close to the door. Prayer recommended.
Notice I didn’t call it an e brake, exciting if you activate it when car is rolling.
Adaptive cruise control is the worst “modern safety feature” in my opinion, especially if the driver is not allowed to turn it off.
Hey Dutch especially the 60’s Starters it was like you knew it was gonna be something special when it fired up
Hey Mike it could be the spare that is sending the low tire signal
Not hard to understand in itself, but the “why” is hard to understand on the annular clutch slave cylinder. Have to pull the transmission to replace it instead of a ten minute job if it is off to the side. My friend at work wants to sell his S10 before it goes out again. I annoy him when I remind him that my car uses a cable.
Here are the “improvements” to the newer cars that absolutely prevent me from buying one: No oil dipstick, automatic transmission, plastic parts that should be metal, infotainment systems, digital instruments, cars that need “software” updates, options that require paid subscriptions to work, engines that automatically shut off at stop lights, lidar imminent crash detection and most of the other electronic crap they put in cars these days (and I am in the electronics industry). Offer a new ICE car without all that junk and I will buy one. I am sure I am not alone.
And see what their absence does to your insurance premium.
There are lots of systems and controls on new cars and trucks I don’t understand, and in general I’m at peace with that. New cars are far better than old cars, they last well past 150,000 miles with routine maintenance and they operate reliably. And some electronic things are so complex it’s a wonder that anyone understands them. Maybe no individual does. An Apple iPhone15 Pro has 19 billion transistors, according to Google. Could any human understand that whole system?
I rebuilt a 1957 Plymouth Torqueflite 3 speed push button trans in 1961 I was 14.
New Clutch Disks, Bands and Pump, with the key on it would start if you rolled down a hill and pressed 1st gear button.
I would also chirp the tires when it shifted into Second, piece of cake.
Get rid of all the un-needed electronics, sensors, O2 sensors, catalytic converters, push to start, engine shutting down when stopped at a light ect , ect and have just whats needed to make a car run and drive and keep just all that is needed to monitor your engine and the other normal functions.
I passed on a truck 2 years ago because it pulled the wheel gave all kinds of warnings and did weird things when you got close to anything around you.
Just how worthless is that for someone that works on job sites, off roads or that works around a farm or homestead ? Odds something is going to get messed up by all the distractions is to far off the charts for my tastes.
When it does come time to give up my newest 2005 & 07 vehicles I will not buy something new , I be sticking to strictly daily driver grade classics where if something goes wrong,, 9 times outa 10 it can be fixed on the road side or can be fixed with off the shelf parts that is available at any auto parts store without having to be diagnosed with a $5K scanner which still doesn’t always solve the issue many times .
IMHO most All the problems with today’s cars are indeed the electronics themselves and something that can cause more mechanical damage than if it had never been there to start with !
Heck my old 77 GMC dullie with a big block actually got better gas mileage than what my buddies 2022 Chevy dullie does with all that crap on it . Only by 1 mpg mind you , but better anyhow.
Plus when I bought it used @ 3 years old and less than 40K I think I paid around 5K-6K for it from my boss . It was a conventional wrecker at the time and when my boss switched to a flat bed I bought it . I think I even recouped > a grand too after I sold all the wrecker package off it .
Then I drove it for almost 20 years and > 250 K after that with nothing but the normal maintenance you’d expect being done .
I just can’t understand why car sales suck so much lately, maybe these manufactures just might start realizing ,,we don’t want what there selling , especially at the price ?
Call me fussy,,,,,
Lots of that useless stuff is government mandated to keep you safe according to some bureaucrat. Other stuff are features the companies promote as they can charge more. I hate all these giant computer screens that require you to page through pages. They are more distracting than the cell phones the government doesn’t want you to use. I much prefer analog buttons and switches and old time gauges.
I wanted round, (seemingly analog) spedo and tack for my 3WD deuce. I pulled the printed circuit from a ’78 Mustang ll (I think, it’s been a couple of decades). Then I did a simple checking of the circuits with a VOM. Turns out it was a bit fried. Somehow I got the name and phone of a guy in Alabama (I’m in California). He had bought up a bunch – and had the one I needed – for a very reasonable price. The part number is listed on the plastic. I works fine – and I pretend it is a real analog unit.
I consider myself a driver who is well aware of my driving surroundings. The gizmo that lights up in yellow on the driver’s side exterior mirror, warning of a car in a potential blind spot, is a nice to have additional safety tool in my honest opinion. I also appreciate the alarm feature when backing up in a parking lot when surrounded by large vehicles obstructing moving cars that could very well be behind me. These modern safety features have a purpose but should not be a substitute for awareness.
How did such a reasonable, level-headed response find its way into this forum?
– Auto functions obviously mandated by lawyers. When starting my Jeep, the display screen pops up a message warning me to drive carefully, be good, etc. and it stays there for several seconds even after I put the shifter into reverse, delaying the backup camera.
– auto engine off at stop lights. Who thought that endlessly stressing the starter around town was worth saving a teaspoon of gas?
I put up with my Honda CRV. Going through a construction zone, it wiggles the steering wheel, makes it sluggish and hard to turn, as I hold on hard with both hands. But one afternoon on a New Brunswick freeway, with cruise on, it wiggled the wheel. I opened my eyes, as I started to head over the white line. I never forgot that.