Over-engineering

Blimey ... don't start me on my car.
To get out of it with out it beeping like an angry beepy thing I have to.
a) Be in park
b) Have the ignition OFF..or at least the car has to think the ignition is OFF...however it decides at random the state of most switches.
c) Handbrake on
d) No key left in the car, or maybe there isn't a key in the car, but it thinks there might be.
e) Shut all the doors, or convince the car that they are shut which may involve operating the central locking, clicking random switches.
f) Wear my magic lucky underpants.
g) Various other activities which I hav'n managed to discover yet, which leads me to shrug and walk away sobbing quietly to myself.

The magic key is called an 'Intellikey' a missnomer if ever there was one.
To me an itellikey is the one that fits in a key hole and, when rotated, perform the desired task.
The other day it wouldn't start, wouldn't even let me rotate the stating switch with or without a key. I stuck the battery on charge and walked to work.
Refitting the battery that evening must have re-booted the designed in artificial stupidity, 'cos (shhhhh) _{it's all working fine now .} Damn I knew I shouldn't have risked saying that.
Del

What make model of car is that?????

Sounds French, specifically Renault or Ctroen to me.....

Had a friend drop the *smart* key for the Mercedes in the pool.

Replacement was only a couple bucks, reprogramming - $500

Not only would none of the driver specific enhancements work (pre-positioned mirrors and seat positions, etc.) but the performance sets to *limp* mode.

Why? Why?

I hope the "friend" paid for his stupidity!

German cars get sold at very low prices in the USA compared to here in Germany, I suspect that you might have saved many 1000s of $$$ over the normal German price, depending upon model etc.....extras are often in the car that we would need to pay "extra" for........

Many reprogramming codes can be found on the Net. $500 is a snob rip-off for a 30 minute or less job. The dealer pockets $450 and pays a tech $50 for putting in a code they get for free.

"squeezing as many post-sale dollars out of the consumer as possible..."

Ah, there's the rub. They have to sell it to me first. When I buy something I ask a LOT of questions. When I learn that a re-program costs $500, I'll break the laws of physics, as I'll be out the door faster than a beam of light....

Why should they tell you that re-programming costs $500 ?

For first you have to ask "if I lose the key?" not usually asked is it?

Even if it is they will tell that a duplicate key will be sent wit $2.5 basic cost + handling charges (No mention of re-programming cost and no data hidden, only not asked,

This is a good answer.

I will now plant alogic bomb in each of my US friends minds and you may curse meto eternity, I will understand.

A "padiddle" is a car or truck with asymmetric operating lights; ie, a car or truck with a burned out running light or head light.

My kids used to count padiddles.

Then we noticed the vast majority of all padiddles were GM manufacture.

Of course, a high proportion of cars on the road are GM mfg, but the incidence of padiddles was "darn near 80% were GM make," HAs been for several years. Next time you see a padiddle, look at the manufacturer, odds ar its GM.

At first, I explained it as due to the fact that GM ran running lights in daytime, as per the example document. But Now many other manufacturers do too. So now I understand it as being tied to the follow the money imperative that you have described: make the light bulbs as cheaply as possible and difficult to replace and then you have a stream of future cash flow payments from your buyers replacing your deliberately shoddy design. malfeasance in my humble opinion. malfeasance. Their policies have been to strip prices down from suppliers for years.

GA IC, GA.

milo

I've got to agree that when in Auto mode it's just stupid to tie the light function to the parking brake. Other than that I don't see much of an issue with the rest of the design.

Although I gotta wonder if you're in Auto mode and going down a road with bright streetlights every few yards does the light sensor cause the headlights (but apparently not the D.R.L.) to flick off / on / off / on / off / on...etc.

It's to let you know to released the brake.

Ahhhhh. I see. Of course.

I guess I'm just used to the giant "BRAKE" indicator on the dash providing that function. But this new way is muuuch better.

I think maybe car manufacturers have it all backwards. They're trying to make cars be smart for us. Perhaps instead the cars should punish us for being stupid.

Car lights are my BIGGEST CAR PEEVE.

All over the world, studies have shown that lights on at all times increases safety. Motorcycles are designed so that the key turns on headlights and tail lights. This must be a real challenge for car manufacturers to emulate since no one seems to be able to do it. They manage to make the PARKING lights key controlled, but why? Has it occured to any of those dimwits that the name PARKING light might indictae that they are not designed for driving? What bugs me the most about these lights is that people don't even bother with turning on their lights anymore - they think the parking lights and dash lights are sufficient for nighttime driving. To make it worse, car manufacturers have modified the circuitry somewhat so that the keys now turn the headlights on at half power, giving dimwit drivers the sense that since "my dash is on and the road in front of me is sort of lit up, I'm OK".

If it were up to me, all cars would be wired so that the full lighting system was controlled by the ignition key. If you parked your car, then you could use the f#$%$ PARKING lights.

I'd like to know what happened to the regulations in regard to headlight aiming, height and intensity. It seems that, here in the States at least, they have gone away.

Ford pickups seem to be the worst offenders. Their lights are so far off the road that no amount of aiming will keep them from blinding oncoming traffic or glaring in the mirrors of those in front.

I get to see a lot of them approximately 15 degrees to horizontal.

15 degrees not -15 degrees.

You can see in a bit of a fog or a smog the beam pointing towards first floor bedroom

Normally such a car would not be allowed on the road - ever! If what you say is true.....

Often cars where the headlights are mounted far higher than generally, have this propensity, but the angles and adjustments are still correct and fully legal.

People who drive such cars should remember to give an extra large gap between them and the vehicle in front for that reason alone.....its also good if the Guy up front brakes suddenly too......

For traffic in the opposite direction there is little that can be done to improve things.....

AH!!! That one I can answer

Headlights are either aimed at a spot on the road

or

at an angle

But once you change any aspect of the suspension the angle *should* have to be adjusted

But when I took my Dodge in they threw it on a rack that lifted the tires clear, then set them by angle. Never noticing that the rear of the Dodge rides high, I spent evenings driving and adjusting, driving and adjusting

But every technical rant you could ever want is here in fine analysis and detail. Daniel Stern is one smart cookie, and has peeves I hadn't even thought of.

A classis example of "... just because we can do something, doesn't necessarily mean we should do that something...". This is yet another example of a well-intentioned but grossly misguided product development initiative. I wonder if anyone on that development team acutally asked customers if these features are something they would actually prefer...

I really, really dislike simple tasks and simple requirements made overly complex, and sometimes a room full of otherwise very smart people can make some pretty ridiculous decisions. Much more elegant and challenging to take complex problems and make them immediately understandable. (This is also how we end up with car stereos that have fifty different features nested inside twenty-five buttons in a 2X4 in. piece of dashboard real estate, all of which are no larger than the eraser on the end of a pencil). Yup. Try to change that channel doing 60 MPH in traffic...

In my sometimes not so humble opinion, if it takes more than three numbers or three colors to understand, average folks (and I'm pretty average) are in trouble...

Ayah!

don't get me started on radios

One of the reasons I am peevish about lighting is I am both old AND do a lot of night driving on back roads. But for a shekel or two, I'd have night vision in my pickup.

So my brother-in-law the aero guy who loves a feature scores me a new radio on Ebay and slips it in for me.

No knobs. Infinate submenus. Tiny text fonts. Bright Blue ALL THE TIME! Hit the wrong button and the BRIGHT BLUE pulses to the beat - which is a bit strange on a news program - did I mention BRIGHT BLUE?

Night vision out the window.

Used the excuse of needing weather bands to swap in a marine radio - two big knobs and eight weather bands. Muted green. adjustable. dims with the panel lights. Crappy sound but who cares. Pickup trucks bounce too much for tiny pokey buttons.

We are much of a mind

The wife and I actually found the chart in the owner's manual because when we pulled into the convenience store and she pulled up the handbrake - the headlights went out.

We didn't initially twig to the coincidence, so we started flipping things trying to get the lights on - thought we were going to have to go home - finally broke out the manual and put the brake off - presto! headlights.

20 minutes of our lives we'll never get back.

Some years ago, the smarties on the New York streets were amusing themselves by hitting a parked car with baseball bat. If they did it right, the air bag triggered.

One of the big car companies set up a task force to solve the problem.

Accelerometers, impact sensors and all sorts of things were tried in the design.

Apparently a secretary was talking to one of the engineers one day and he said something about the problem and she said "why don't you make it so that if the ignition is off, the bag won't go off?"

She saved us from another dose of excessive engineering.

O well, seems like the spirit of Heath Robinson lives on!

I suspect this is a case where the "designers" (the ones that work with the marketing department) are who are in control of this. I bet the real engineers that had to implement this were just as aghast as we are.

In large companies I believe product designers and the marketing types establish customer interfaces, not engineers.