New car - IRRITATING!

StraightnLevel said:
Probably - the people who really shouldn't be driving to begin with.

For those customers, this junk makes sense. For competent, attentive drivers, this garbage should not be forced. If someone wants to use it, fine - but that should be a decision made by the person who paid for the car
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Problem is, the majority of drivers think they're above average drivers.

Perhaps the solution is to make it able to be disabled, but not easily, so the stupid drivers came figure it out. Or have the vehicle computer monitor your driving, and unlock the ability to disable it only after demonstrating competence over some number of miles. Like leveling up in a game.
StraightnLevel said:
Well, ABS is one item that I would not want to disable. The early iterations were awful, but the current independent corner implementations are very solid.
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There are still some situations, like driving on gravel, where ABS is a hindrance and should be disabled.
Bob Noel said:
one thing about all these "features" that are intended to provide a less dangerous car, insurance companies seem to love them.
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Which shows that statistically, they reduce accidents for the average driver. They wouldn't offer a discount if it didn't reduce the claim rate. However, statistics can't predict anything about any particular driver.

Dana,
a very particular driver.
 
StraightnLevel said:
Sorry, but that comparison doesn't hold water. If the autopilot suddenly decided to pitch you 10 degrees nose down and 30 degrees to the left right as you're approach the FAF in a mountainous region, would that be acceptable? Of course not - yet that's the sort of crap that these things do - slam on brakes when there is no threat ahead with traffic close behind - swerving back into a lane that is disappearing (I've been pushed forcefully towards concrete barriers in construction zones), etc.

Perhaps someday the technology will improve to a point that it is effective and safe, but today what I've seen is nowhere near as capable and safe as a competent, attentive driver.
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See, but the example case wasn't about the car suddenly doing something weird, it was about the driver trying to exit the lane. That is exactly what the car, when used properly, is supposed to prevent. That car wasn't doing anything weird, it was literally doing exactly what it was told to do.
 
RussR said:
See, but the example case wasn't about the car suddenly doing something weird, it was about the driver trying to exit the lane. That is exactly what the car, when used properly, is supposed to prevent. That car wasn't doing anything weird, it was literally doing exactly what it was told to do.
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doing what it was told to do isn't always the correct action (the trick with requirements analysis is getting the requirements correct)
 
35 AoA said:
Please continue enjoying modern cars, and my greatest wish is that everyone else does too. I don't want to compete in this market, I just want to buy cars that until a few years ago were esoteric bucket list items for those of us who actually give a ****. But there is a reason that "modern classics" are pulling huge money these days, both at the private resale market as well as at auction. Gooding Christie just auctioned a 1979 (or maybe 76?) s123 (that's the wagon version) Mercedes 280TE in green/green, with 6k km for $220k last week. The guy doing the 6-spd manual transmission swap on my 1995 Merc was the one who did the safety check and drove it onto the auction block. He also drove the $42M original Ford GT, but that one probably falls under the "this was always a collectible" category.
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yeah it's because old farts with lots of loot get all nostalgic and buy them, younger gen barely want to buy cars at all. most wouldn't touch ancient creeky cars with bad steering, handling, crappy suspensions and crappy brakes. that porsche 911 from 1974 would be destoyed in almost all categories by a beatup modern camry, probably with 3 flat tires.

purchasing a really nice 1970's stingray for restoration, first thing daughter said was why the hell you want that old crap, it doesn't even have airbags. that being said she says the same about the mooney so what can u do
 
MackMooney said:
that porsche 911 from 1974 would be destoyed in almost all categories by a beatup modern camry, probably with 3 flat tires.
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Back when I was autocrossing regularly, there was one lady in our group who used to come out in a ragged-looking Toyota, bad paint, torn upholstery, etc. Looked like it could barely make it across the parking lot. Underneath, however, were lots of aftermarket trick parts and a tuned suspension, plus a set of gumball tires, and she was a very experienced hotshoe.

It was funny to watch. Guys who didn't know better would get smoked in their Porsches and Corvettes by this little soccer mom in her beat-up Toyota grocery-getter, with the kiddie seat still strapped in the back.

MackMooney said:
that being said she says the same about the mooney so what can u do
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Disinherit her.
 
172andyou said:
ABS doesn't increase control on gravel? Isn't that the main benefit?
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No... it senses and prevents the tires from skidding on slick surfaces (and does it very well), but on gravel or sand or other loose surfaces maximum braking is obtained if the wheel locks up and a "dam" of gravel builds up in front of the tire. ABS prevents that from happening.
 
Dana said:
There are still some situations, like driving on gravel, where ABS is a hindrance and should be disabled.
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Agreed, but the solution is simple - double-pumping the brakes disables ABS when you need to. (Same is true for driving in snow).

Dana said:
However, statistics can't predict anything about any particular driver.
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Exactly. Personal responsibility would like to enter the discussion.....
 
172andyou said:
ABS doesn't increase control on gravel? Isn't that the main benefit?
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No. The main benefits of ABS are:

1) Being able to turn and brake heavily at the same time without locking the wheels.
2) Maximizing braking on normal pavement in an emergency situation.
 
RussR said:
See, but the example case wasn't about the car suddenly doing something weird, it was about the driver trying to exit the lane. That is exactly what the car, when used properly, is supposed to prevent. That car wasn't doing anything weird, it was literally doing exactly what it was told to do.
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No, the example I gave was the system being confused by divergent lane markings in a construction zone, and the "lane assist" trying to steer into a concrete barrier. That is absolutely the car "doing something weird", because it doesn't know as much as the driver knows.

The car should only do what it is being told to do BY THE DRIVER.
 
StraightnLevel said:
...the system being confused by divergent lane markings in a construction zone...
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I had that happen to me earlier this year, as posted earlier. It was a total non-event. I just steered the car through it. The lanes were all open because there wasn't active construction, but they left the confusing lane markings. In active construction zones, I turned it off. It isn't full self-driving, and I don't trust it when the situation may be complex. Adaptive cruise control and lane-assist help me to drive but those features don't replace me as driver.
 
Two of our three vehicles have lane assist and adaptive cruise. Love adaptive cruise, hate lane assist and luckily I can turn it off on both of those cars.

These cars are separated by eight years and are different brands yet the lane assist acts in an identical fashion. It’s like the old game of pong. Car drifts to the far right edge of the lane, and it overcorrects left. Car reaches far left side of the lane, and it overcorrects right. Rinse repeat and the game of pong is on!
 
My wife's new
Bill said:
Two of our three vehicles have lane assist and adaptive cruise. Love adaptive cruise, hate lane assist and luckily I can turn it off on both of those cars.

These cars are separated by eight years and are different brands yet the lane assist acts in an identical fashion. It’s like the old game of pong. Car drifts to the far right edge of the lane, and it overcorrects left. Car reaches far left side of the lane, and it overcorrects right. Rinse repeat and the game of pong is on!
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My '20 F150 is like that, as was my wife's '18 Highlander. Her current '23 Mercedes will steer itself very nicely down the center of the lane, even on a pretty tight curve. It will, however, not only COMPLAIN if you don't keep your hands on the wheel, it will - if you don't respond to the warning after a few seconds - assume you're incapacitated, turn on the emergency flashers, stop the car, and call for help.

It does other tricks, too. If you're on the highway with cruise set, tapping the turn signal lever will tell the car to do a lane change - which it does nicely, after checking the blind spots. I view that as a parlor trick, since you have to have your hands on the wheel anyway. I guess some of the newer GM vehicles will actually pass slower traffic on their own.
 
DaleB said:
Her current '23 Mercedes will steer itself very nicely down the center of the lane, even on a pretty tight curve. It will, however, not only COMPLAIN if you don't keep your hands on the wheel, it will - if you don't respond to the warning after a few seconds - assume you're incapacitated, turn on the emergency flashers, stop the car, and call for help.
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That's pretty common for 2023-era cars, not just Benz. Nowadays, auto makers have largely replaced the hands-on-wheel requirement with a driver facing camera.
 
MackMooney said:
yeah it's because old farts with lots of loot get all nostalgic and buy them, younger gen barely want to buy cars at all. most wouldn't touch ancient creeky cars with bad steering, handling, crappy suspensions and crappy brakes. that porsche 911 from 1974 would be destoyed in almost all categories by a beatup modern camry, probably with 3 flat tires.

purchasing a really nice 1970's stingray for restoration, first thing daughter said was why the hell you want that old crap, it doesn't even have airbags. that being said she says the same about the mooney so what can u do
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Haha yeah this is true. Though I guess I have minimal interest in cars that are *that* old, especially Porsches.....blasphemy, I know :) For me, 1990's cars are kinda the sweet spot. EFI, disc brakes, ABS, selectable (i.e. you can select "OFF") traction control/ASR, generally no other driver assist systems, multi-link suspension, minimal computer/UI to deal with, but with modern styling that hadn't become bloated yet by the 2000's, or the plastic interiors that came along with that. Great driver visibility, reasonable size/weight. To be fair, a lot of these attributes are unique to German and a little bit JDM. But I'd also prefer a 90's GM product over today's. Also, I was a teenager throughout the mid-late 90s, so like you say about those old guys, this is I guess my version of their 1960's and 70's
 
Dana said:
Nice cars, but I always thought they were rather overstyled. One of my friends called them "rolling sculptures".
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Playing Marlboro Man with my ‘67 SS350 back in the day.

18175110500_192b927dbe_z.jpg


It’s the style that still tugs at my heartstrings.
 
DaleB said:
My wife's new

My '20 F150 is like that, as was my wife's '18 Highlander. Her current '23 Mercedes will steer itself very nicely down the center of the lane, even on a pretty tight curve. It will, however, not only COMPLAIN if you don't keep your hands on the wheel, it will - if you don't respond to the warning after a few seconds - assume you're incapacitated, turn on the emergency flashers, stop the car, and call for help.

It does other tricks, too. If you're on the highway with cruise set, tapping the turn signal lever will tell the car to do a lane change - which it does nicely, after checking the blind spots. I view that as a parlor trick, since you have to have your hands on the wheel anyway. I guess some of the newer GM vehicles will actually pass slower traffic on their own.
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my next GM will have supercruise. during our test drive it surprised even the salesman, he called it enhanced adaptive but it's way better. we were supercruising at like uhm houston highway speeds, when someone slow entered the highway, car didn't even slow, it checked blindspots, got over, passed then returned to the original lane in about the smoothest thing possible. def impressive.

only problem, since i have a plane and the new car will be electric, not really sure how much i'll use it but hey, wth
 
MackMooney said:
my next GM will have supercruise. during our test drive it surprised even the salesman, he called it enhanced adaptive but it's way better. we were supercruising at like uhm houston highway speeds, when someone slow entered the highway, car didn't even slow, it checked blindspots, got over, passed then returned to the original lane in about the smoothest thing possible. def impressive.
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I want a mode for rolling coal as we pass.
455 Bravo Uniform said:
If a performance car can’t light em up, then it’s less fun. Traction control off or n/a…
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Do Mustangs still come with line-lock?
 
MY ‘67 Camaro RS w/327 and Muncie 4spd did me well for 17 years. Never let me down, always started and stopped with zero technical “Nannie’s” installed. Simplicity at its finest. Sure, it had points ignition and plugs that needed attention on schedule, but it never let me down. Not safe by today’s standards, but fun and safe enough when driven responsibly.
 
MackMooney said:
my next GM will have supercruise. during our test drive it surprised even the salesman, he called it enhanced adaptive but it's way better. we were supercruising at like uhm houston highway speeds, when someone slow entered the highway, car didn't even slow, it checked blindspots, got over, passed then returned to the original lane in about the smoothest thing possible. def impressive.
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Supercruise! That's it. My son was telling me about it - he rode with a guy who had it in a Denali or something, and was pretty impressed. It would stay in the right lane except to pass, which it did autonomously. Slick stuff.

We'll see how well the Benz does later this year or in the spring, whenever we take our first extended road trip in it.
 
RussR said:
Of course it did, it did exactly what it's supposed to do. At least in every car I've driven with that technology, 1) if you put on your turn signal it disables that function, and 2) you can manually overcome it anyway. Or 3), you can turn that feature off entirely.

I mean, it's not like it trying to keep you in your lane is unexpected. That's literally the purpose.
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When we were in Iceland, we had a Nissan SUV that had lane keeping. In quite a bit of Iceland the center line gets eroded off to where its hard to see, and the car would occasionally want to drive down the center of a two lane road, so whomever was driving would turn it off.

Driving in Iceland outside of the city does require a bit of extra awareness. There are number of roads with single lane bridges, with nothing but a yellow light at each end as traffic control.
 
FormerHangie said:
When we were in Iceland, we had a Nissan SUV that had lane keeping. In quite a bit of Iceland the center line gets eroded off to where its hard to see, and the car would occasionally want to drive down the center of a two lane road, so whomever was driving would turn it off.

Driving in Iceland outside of the city does require a bit of extra awareness. There are number of roads with single lane bridges, with nothing but a yellow light at each end as traffic control.
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Haha we were just there. First time, it was a Skoda wagon, which was just fine. Second time it was a Hyundai or Nissan SUV (can't remember which, neither are actual cars), and not only was the lane keeping aggressively frustrating, but also every time I exceeded the speed limit it would make this annoying chime. Every time. And I didn't ever figure out how to turn it off. So irritating. Not super specific to Iceland, other than you made me think of it.
 
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