You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Peugeot fitted a hexagonal steering wheel in their 208 series along with a ‘holographic’ display that means the actual car’s speed is blocked from the driver’s vision by the top of the steering wheel, and no amount of adjustment of the seat would allow me to see how fast I was going
I had a Pug as a courtesy car a few weeks back. I could not get the wheel in any sort of position where I could clearly see the dash, either over it or through it. On returning it the dealer asked "what did you think?" I said, decent enough aside from this issue, he replied "oh good, I thought it was just me."
45 minutes to replace a sidelight bulb in my W-reg Ford Puma, and that came under ‘roadside repair’!
Years back I got a phone call from a mate, he was in Halfords car park having just bought a headlight bulb for his Astra van and was struggling to fit it. After applying appropriate levels of derision I went down to help.
Several degrees of "WTF?" and obligate stubbornness later, we schlepped into the store to crib the Haynes manual. "Step 1: drain and remove radiator."
I find that level of ridiculousness hard to believe. The front always looked the same as the cars. What year?
I am cursed because I do have mechanical sympathy, I used to regularly wash and clean my cars, keep the tyres pumped up weekly, don't idle my vehicles, checked the oil and coolant regularly, have them serviced and maintained on time, however despite that I've had more bad luck with expensive repairs and accidents than most people I know.
I meticulously looked after my last car, the paint still failed on the roof, I punctured two expensive tyres a week after fitting them, an injector went and flooded the sump with petrol which cost 800 quid, the gearbox broke at 60k miles and needed a 2 grand repair, then a month later it was crashed into and written off.
Then my colleagues who take on expensive lease cars and never check a single thing, let their tyres go bald because they never have MOTs to remind them, miss their required services by thousands of miles and never check a single thing themself just trundle along in a stress free motoring life without worrying about anything then hand the car back after 3 years and move onto the next one.
Sometimes having mechanical sympathy doesn't actually gain you anything hence why people don't bother learning it.
45 minutes to replace a sidelight bulb in my W-reg Ford Puma, and that came under ‘roadside repair’!
My car is similar. One side (can never remember which) headlight requires disassembly of various bits of engine to access the bulb replacement.
I've driven a lot of vehicles in various cycle races - the races get sponsor vehicles from some local dealership - and most have some sort of complete irritation of a design aspect somewhere within them. A fellow driver needed someone else to show him how to put the thing in gear and take the brake off. We all went to fill the cars up the night before the race, got back to the hotel and he was still there, revving the engine and pressing buttons and wondering why it wouldn't move.
Several degrees of “WTF?” and obligate stubbornness later, we schlepped into the store to crib the Haynes manual. “Step 1: drain and remove radiator.”
Jesus. I thought having to jack up the car and take the front wheel off to access a hatch in the inner wing was bad enough on my 320.*
*TBF you're supposed to be able to just reach in and do it but I reckon you'd have to be a double-jointed safecracker to manage it.**
**Cue 15 people who think it's easy!
Vacuum cleaners... After injuring myself on holiday last year, I took it upon myself to clean the chalet's Shark vacuum. Must have been years since it was cleaned, even emptied. Enormously satisfying to hear the difference in motor effort before and after.
Sometimes having mechanical sympathy doesn’t actually gain you anything hence why people don’t bother learning it.
This goes to a more fundamental issue with some (or many?) people where the only factor considered in any decision is whether it benefits them.
I think I’m fairly mechanically sympathetic.
I am definitely mechanically polite, always apologise to the car if I’m not gentle with it, hit a pothole etc.
45 minutes to replace a sidelight bulb
My V70: remove two 'tent pegs' and the whole headlight unit comes out with access doors easily accessible.
Jesus. I thought having to jack up the car and take the front wheel off to access a hatch in the inner wing was bad enough on my 320.*
The other one that always stuck with me, visiting my mechanic one time, he had an old Jaguar in. What's the old sporty one that everyone likes? E-type or F-type I think, not really my area of knowledge. It was baby blue. I remarked "oh, that's nice, Pete." Pete, ever the wordsmith, replied "it's a hateful bastard." He went on to explain, it was in to have the brake pads replaced. This required the entire rear axle assembly to be dropped out.
What’s the old sporty one that everyone likes? E-type or F-type I think
E-type. Old Jags were always bastards to work on. They had inboard rear disk brakes and used the drive shaft as the lower suspension link. From the point of view of pure performance, this makes sense (lower unsprung weight and lower weight overall by eliminating a lower suspension link), but it was nuts as far as servicing a production road car went.
But that wasn't the main problem. The Lucas mechanical fuel injection needed expensive maintenance to keep in tune. I had a friend who worked for an independent Jag specialist. They did a brisk business replacing the fuel injection systems with carburetors. The other big improvement you could make to a Jag was to replace the Jag engine with a Chevy V8 - lighter, cheaper, more powerful, better fuel economy.
E-type. Old Jags were always bastards to work on. They had inboard rear disk brakes and used the drive shaft as the lower suspension link.
I had a P6 many years ago, they also had inboard rear disks. A mechanic friend at the time said that one common way of changing the rear pads was via a hole cut in the boot floor.
The Lucas mechanical fuel injection needed expensive maintenance to keep in tune.
Guess what? I also had a car with that Lucas abomination fitted. The fuel "distributor" bit was based on a cylindrical rotor inside the main body. The clearance was such that if it was left without being run for any period it was prone to corrosion from moisture in the fuel which seized it up. The annoying thing was the designers must have known this was an issue because it was driven from a shaft which had a sacrificial coupling to save causing further damage to the drive mechanism. I suspect including the coupling was just so they didn't have to make the rotor from stainless or maybe just include a decent inline filter.
I'd forgotten how many shit cars I've had.
Mrs WF doesn’t drive much, and being German tends to drive too far to the left for my liking.
MrsJ is forrin and does the same thing. With recent rain there are giant potholes and deep ditches at the left side of the road. Driving with her is torture. To be fair nothing bad has happened yet, but when it does there will be mucho expense.
Close them gently by hand.
I could have slapped my mate the other day... my coffee cups are stored in a cabinate with a glass window... but most of my kitchen cabinates have plain wood doors.
I heard it slam & ratttle from the living room... how the glass didn't pop out, or simply shatter, is a mystery, but I'm glad it didn't.
Its a kitchen cab door, FFS...you don't need to drop-kick it into the next dimension to close it?!
Lol, reminds me of my colleague going Basil Fawlty on his Megane coupe a few years back after trying to replace the headlight. From memory you had to jack it up and remove the wheel & wheel arch liner to get access.
Silly thing was though, at the time in France by law you had to carry round a set of spare bulbs in the boot. As if anybody is going to stop mid journey and take the front end of their car off to replace a single bulb.