Automotive safety features that........

[Daren Todd]

So, ever come across a feature on a vehicle that is supposed to improve safety but may not work as intended ????

Wife's jeep is a manual transmission. Well at some point some engineer came up with "Hill Assist". It's intent is to prevent the vehicle from rolling back when starting out on an incline. Doesn't matter if your on a flat road, slight slope or big hill. Come to a stop, while clutch is pushed in and transmission is in a gear. Computer kicks on the brakes.

Practical use It makes any experienced driver look like they are just learning how to drive a standard transmission. Can't judge when the brake is gonna kick off to allow vehicle to move forward or backwards. Can't take off smoothly unless your pointed down hill. Steep hills usually result in huge revs, slipping the clutch and still a jerky take off

Was going through the owners manual today to figure out something else on it and came across how to turn it off in the menu section. Turned it off and went to town with my wife. She couldn't figure out how I was driving it so smoothly Finally had to tell her I found how to shut off the Hill assist feature.

Now it's much more enjoyable to run around with

 

[skeets]

Thats nothing new, Dad a hill hold on a 62 Studebaker

 

[D2Cat]

In a town my wife grew up in, there's a pretty long steep hill that has a traffic light at the top. The drivers ed. teacher would take the students, after some time behind the wheel, up that street and try to catch the red light. You learned to turn the radio off and focus!

My wife's best friend had a VW and they'd practice easing the clutch out and letting off the brake to keep from killing the engine on that hill.

That feature would have made them get off too easy!

 

[85Hokie]

Thats nothing new, Dad a hill hold on a 62 Studebaker

Yup,

subaru's had them since the '70 too.

Great on a spot where smoke would roll out from underneath the car as the poor stick shifter rides the clutch!

 

[skeets]

My Ex tryed to teach my youngest to drive,, So I took her out one day to drive a bit in my GMC pickup truck it was one of the old 5 speeds. She did really good on the level but the hills gave her a problem, she said Dad mom told me if I get stuck on a hill to put my right foot pedal on the floor and side step the clutch...
What happens if I do that? So I told her go ahead and see... 5 grand and the clutch hit the end of the travel, smoke, screaming tires, and eyes the size of dinner plates. When she stopped, she looked at me and said I think Mom is wrong about that!

 

[Daren Todd]

Skeets, that brings back memories Gramps had an old Chevy 1/2 ton with the granny 3 speed for a plow truck. Had the snow plow on, and he an I were headed to town. I was driving. Come to find out he adjusted the rear brakes But neglected to tell me. Snow was on the road and the Hill he lived on was a 1/2 mile down at a 7 percent grade.

Anyway, first time I touched the brakes we did a 180 and stopped facing back up the hill With out missing a beat I looked at him and said " You really didn't want to go to town did you?!!!"

Dad taught my brother and I how to take off on hills on that hill. In winter, with snow and Ice on the road Those were some fun times

 

[RCW]

Gosh - I still remember to leave some extra space between me and a vehicle ahead of me if stopped on an incline. Just in case the driver isn't too handy at re-starting.

Daren - I've heard of that hill assist, but never knew anything about it.

 

[Stmar]

My favorite is airbags, mandatory that you have them. Oops, millions are at risk of death from exploding airbags. Took Subaru a year to fix mine after the recall letter and during that time they said to not let anyone ride in the passenger seat. Wife wondered why I always drove, lol.

 

[Daren Todd]

Gosh - I still remember to leave some extra space between me and a vehicle ahead of me if stopped on an incline. Just in case the driver isn't too handy at re-starting.

Daren - I've heard of that hill assist, but never knew anything about it.

I didn't know what the hell was going on with it for a couple months. You would go to take off on an incline and it would feel like it was in 3rd instead of first. Kept you second guessing what gear you had it in

Had my oldest son with me in it. First time he had been in our jeep. He was checking things out and asked if it had the Hill assist Was the first time I had heard of it.

I said "Well that would explain a lot!!!"

It's night and day on the response and taking off with it now that it's shut off Before, I was looking like a newbie taking off at intersections with it. You couldn't tell that I've had over 500,000 miles driving standard transmissions from small cars to big trucks

 

[Daren Todd]

My favorite is airbags, mandatory that you have them. Oops, millions are at risk of death from exploding airbags. Took Subaru a year to fix mine after the recall letter and during that time they said to not let anyone ride in the passenger seat. Wife wondered why I always drove, lol.

Got a recall notice on the jeep the other day. Gotta call the local dealer and see when they can get it in

 

[Tooljunkie]

Back up warning system. All junk. Sensors are always dirty or dont work at all. 5 sensors that are in constant need of cleaning or replacement.
Cameras on the other hand are awesome!!

 

[Daren Todd]

Back up warning system. All junk. Sensors are always dirty or dont work at all. 5 sensors that are in constant need of cleaning or replacement.
Cameras on the other hand are awesome!!

Love the camera on my service truck. Makes life easy when hooking up a trailer by yourself.

Agree on back up sensors. If you have a hitch in the receiver, it trips the back up sensor. Only thing they ever did was drive me batty when backing up. Always ended up muting them instead of listening to the beeping if it was an option

 

[car compulsive]

Back up warning system. All junk. Sensors are always dirty or dont work at all. 5 sensors that are in constant need of cleaning or replacement.
Cameras on the other hand are awesome!!

For me, it's the front sensors on my Ram during the winter. They get covered with slush and ice and the beeping won't stop when I slow down.

The worst safety feature to me were the first shoulder belts on my dad's '73 Caprice. It was normally stored in a plastic sleeve along the roof, but you could pull it down, hook it into the seatbelt tang, and then adjust the slack out of the fixed belt. I was just learning to drive and had to try it - only to discover that I couldn't lean forward and reach anything when secured properly. Yep, that got folded back up and put away forever.

Oh, and that car had those wonderful, first generation 5 MPH bumpers mounted on shocks on the front of the car.

 

[BillK01]

All this stuff is nice however it all costs money to fix when there’s an accident. My wife’s Toyota Highlander has laser cruise control - which is housed in the Toyota emblem in the grille. That emblem is $1567 or something ridiculous like that. A normal emblem without it is $58. The lane departure camera behind the rear view mirror is $400+ etc etc.

We will all be seeing higher than normal rate increases on our auto insurance over next few years as a result of all these new safety features that are coming out.

 

[lugbolt]

All this stuff is nice however it all costs money to fix when there’s an accident. My wife’s Toyota Highlander has laser cruise control - which is housed in the Toyota emblem in the grille. That emblem is $1567 or something ridiculous like that. A normal emblem without it is $58. The lane departure camera behind the rear view mirror is $400+ etc etc.

We will all be seeing higher than normal rate increases on our auto insurance over next few years as a result of all these new safety features that are coming out.

Yup. Same thing happened to the motorcycle industry, specifically the sport bikes. They got so expensive to repair that over 80% of them are considered a total loss if the insurance company gets involved, because the cost to repair even a seemingly minor issue turns into a huge expense. All because of complexity. And insurance rates went through the roof because of all of the total loss claims. Same thing happens to homes along the coast lines. 1 hurricane and rates go up for everyone and not just along the coasts.

Electronic throttles. Electric Power assist steering. Automatic braking. Auto this and auto that. Everything's going electronic. That's good for those who don't know how or don't want to know how to properly drive but for the rest of us, it just means that it's gonna cost a LOT more to fix later on down the line. Diesel pickups took a HUGE hit in that department starting in about 2007-ish. Actually it was before that, but 2007 (or thereabouts) things got a LOT more complicated and therefore expensive. Then again when they started using hippy juice in what 2010? And now the bigger M series has it too. I'm told that if someone mistakenly puts diesel in the DEF tank, it can cost up to $20,000 to repair it depending on the model.

And back to automatic electronic controls, it's only a matter of time until someone finds a way to "hack" into someone else car remotely and since they're all going to electronic steering and braking and throttle, it could turn ugly. I think it already has, I seem to vaguely remember a documentary about it. All of my stuff is OLD. As long as I can still keep 'em going, I'll keep using them.

 

[fatjay]

My hummer h2, and a lot of chevy/gm trucks have 2 wires from the pedal to the throttle body. It tells the throttle body how much it should be open to let air in. There's 2 wires because if the voltage doesn't match, it shuts the truck down. That way if one wire fails you don't have a run-away truck that thinks the gas is mashed down.

Neat, right?

Until you're barreling down in a 6000lb truck with a 4000lb trailer at 40mph through a curvy mountain road down a 15% grade. Then you are suddenly without power steering and brakes. It almost killed me.

 

[Tooljunkie]

My hummer h2, and a lot of chevy/gm trucks have 2 wires from the pedal to the throttle body. It tells the throttle body how much it should be open to let air in. There's 2 wires because if the voltage doesn't match, it shuts the truck down. That way if one wire fails you don't have a run-away truck that thinks the gas is mashed down.

Neat, right?

Until you're barreling down in a 6000lb truck with a 4000lb trailer at 40mph through a curvy mountain road down a 15% grade. Then you are suddenly without power steering and brakes. It almost killed me.

Close. There are dual sensors for pedal position and two sensors for throttle plate position. A fault in any one sensor will reduce engine power. Enough to maintain brakes and steering. Its called limp mode.

Dont get me wrong i do not care for this system at all. Not really a safety feature, more of an engine management feature.

 

[Bunker Buster]

My Ex tryed to teach my youngest to drive,, So I took her out one day to drive a bit in my GMC pickup truck it was one of the old 5 speeds. She did really good on the level but the hills gave her a problem, she said Dad mom told me if I get stuck on a hill to put my right foot pedal on the floor and side step the clutch...
What happens if I do that? So I told her go ahead and see... 5 grand and the clutch hit the end of the travel, smoke, screaming tires, and eyes the size of dinner plates. When she stopped, she looked at me and said I think Mom is wrong about that!

Fun times! Growing up, mom was the one who got to pull the boat out of the water. '65 Chevy truck, 396, Muncie 4spd (all from their old 68 Chevelle SS). She would run the rpms up, side step the clutch and deck it, rolling smoke all the way up the ramp while dad and I were given whiplash sitting in the boat on the trailer.

 

[Daren Todd]

Close. There are dual sensors for pedal position and two sensors for throttle plate position. A fault in any one sensor will reduce engine power. Enough to maintain brakes and steering. Its called limp mode.

Dont get me wrong i do not care for this system at all. Not really a safety feature, more of an engine management feature.

Had a throttle positioning sensor go out in my older Ford f150. That was an experience One minute I'm driving miss daisy, going slow as dirt with the pedal floored. Pull into a parking lot and tap the throttle pulling into a parking spot. Truck does one of the best burnouts you ever saw Roasted about half the tread off the back tires in one shot, With cars in spots on either side of the truck, and 3 ft from the front bumper Then got cussed by the old lady in the car next to me