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David S. Wallens
David S. Wallens Editorial Director
7/12/22 9:18 a.m.

Less gatekeeping. 

pheller
pheller UltimaDork
7/14/22 2:41 p.m.

The used car market now using national auction sites like Bring A Trailer to value vehicles, or worse, list those vehicles. 

It has made rare vehicle that most people would just want to offload into goldmines that they'll hang onto because one sold last week on BAT for $40k. 

Duke
Duke MegaDork
7/14/22 3:49 p.m.

Crackle tunes.

Has anyone mentioned crackle tunes yet?

Have I mentioned crackle tunes yet?

Someone should mention crackle tunes.

 

tuna55
tuna55 MegaDork
7/14/22 3:55 p.m.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
chaparral said:

Hostility towards the EPA and NHTSA.

If it wasn't for the rules, the automakers would backslide as far as they could as frequently as they could.  We would still be stuck with carburetors and points and lap belts. 

 

There are people who are mad that cars don't still have points and carburetors.  Modern cars need sensors all the time, as evidenced by the fact that auto parts stores still exist. (Yes really)

Presumably their opinion on seat belts is that it is safer to be thrown clear smiley

I know this guy. I have two or three here at work.

"It's always a sensor!" You know what? I'll bet it's not.

tuna55
tuna55 MegaDork
7/14/22 4:24 p.m.
Duke said:

Crackle tunes.

Has anyone mentioned crackle tunes yet?

Have I mentioned crackle tunes yet?

Someone should mention crackle tunes.

 

Yes, but...

 

For some reason loud trucks have some magic which makes the exhaust literally sound like beating on a rock with a hammer. They are not even accelerating hard when doing this. I'll be driving along, in my Bolt mind you, just effortlessly whizzing along, next to some lifted/squatted truck (with prominent Instragram logo, because that's what I want to see more of), hammering away at rocks louder than a jackhammer. It's going the same speed I am, on the same road. Usually there is a "Rough Country" or some such logo. It takes a real man in a real truck to drive on the exact same road at the exact same speed as a guy going to work in a Bolt. What's the fuss all about? What are you doing with all of that noise?

superfund
superfund New Reader
7/14/22 4:36 p.m.
tuna55 said:

What are you doing with all of that noise?

Intimidating you of course. 

rob_lewis
rob_lewis GRM+ Memberand UberDork
7/14/22 4:58 p.m.

So many things....

Gatekeeping should be reduced.  However, some gatekeeping is important and figuring out where to draw the line is difficult.  Someone shows up in a stanced and tire stretched Miata for a track day.  Do you deny them (gatekeeping) or let them run (increasing risk and, thereby, insurance)?  Chances are you won't convince them on the spot that what they have is wrong, they'd have to learn it for themselves when they take a turn at speed for the first time and the tire peels off the rim and destroys both the rim and the underside of the car.

Internet.  Man, I hate the internet most days, until I think back to when I was 18 and how finding ANYTHING about how to work on, fix up, race, compete, etc about cars was damn near impossible.  I absolutely love how much the internet has improved my life, but the lack of face to face human interaction has really done a number on us as humans.

Snobbery.  I am almost just as happy to see a kid with a stanced ride that scrapes the ground and handles like crap as I am about a properly setup autocross car.  Granted, it's not my personal preference for the stanced look, but at least they're interested in cars.  I'm afraid in my lifetime, cars will be even more of an appliance and we'll see more cars leased or rented in some type of "Automobile As A Service" fashion and even less about fixing up/modifying/customizing them.  And the industry we all love will die....

If we expand it to automobiles as a whole and can include manufacturing trends.....

No profile tires.  I just don't get an 18" rim with a rubber band tire on an economy car (or, heck, any car).  The ride is poop and you have to do so much to the suspension to compensate that could be done with at least some sidewall.  Of course, it also means that finding a 14" tire for your vintage Civic is neigh impossible, but I'm not the average Joe car owner.

"Infotainment"  Wife and I are looking at a new car purchase around the end of this year.  Something on the higher end and new (for the first time in our lives).  We both have already voided several cars because of giant tablet sized car controls.  We want buttons.  They're better when driving and less of a distraction.  Having to tap through multiple screens to increase the heater fan speed is ludicrous.  But, I'm the minority in that.  (Although I believe that those tablets are there for flashiness to sell cars, but that nobody really likes using them)

-Rob

Pete. (l33t FS)
Pete. (l33t FS) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
7/14/22 4:59 p.m.
superfund said:
tuna55 said:

What are you doing with all of that noise?

Intimidating you of course. 

It always amuses me that people drive trucks like that because they care that much about what they imagine people they don't like would think.

 

SO controllable.

GCrites80s
GCrites80s Dork
7/14/22 9:16 p.m.
rob_lewis said:

"Infotainment"  Wife and I are looking at a new car purchase around the end of this year.  Something on the higher end and new (for the first time in our lives).  We both have already voided several cars because of giant tablet sized car controls.  We want buttons.  They're better when driving and less of a distraction.  Having to tap through multiple screens to increase the heater fan speed is ludicrous.  But, I'm the minority in that.  (Although I believe that those tablets are there for flashiness to sell cars, but that nobody really likes using them)

-Rob

I don't think you are in the minority on that. There's been plenty of car fads that automakers pushed on people that faded after people determined they didn't like them. Talking cars, segmented LED dashes, hockey stick gauges, sliders instead of knobs, tape body graphics, key release interlocks, louvers, landau tops to name a few.

kb58
kb58 SuperDork
7/14/22 9:45 p.m.
rob_lewis said:

...We both have already voided several cars because of giant tablet sized car controls.  We want buttons....

Does Blackberry still make phones?

The days of mechanical switches are going away. All kidding aside, to this day I STILL like the Blackberry keyboard more than touch keyboards and controls, but I also know that's just how it's headed, so either I adapt or get left behind.

Tom1200
Tom1200 UltraDork
7/14/22 11:02 p.m.

I'm always amazed when I start a post and it goes multiple pages; mostly becuase the post is usually spawned by one by my ADD.

I don't if it's in keeping with the theme but hoarding is my other big one. I think Tim did a column about the "I'm gonna restore them" guy who has 45 cars he'll never get to.

Not that I care if someone wants to collect a pile of stuff but I have a friend who hoards old dirt bikes and other than the fleeting moment when he buys them they bring him little happiness........it makes me kinda sad to see.

Woody (Forum Supportum)
Woody (Forum Supportum) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
7/15/22 3:06 a.m.

"Do it just to piss off all the Purists!"

The Purists don't give a E36 M3 about you, or what you do with your garbage. 

AClockworkGarage
AClockworkGarage Dork
7/15/22 4:15 a.m.

I'm not sure if it's been said or not (I haven't read all 5 pages) But the "screw the environment" guys need to fall into a volcano.

Our hobby isn't environmentally friendly and if we want to keep having this as a hobby it's up to us to lead the charge on fixing that.

We regulate ourselves or someone else will do it for us.

AClockworkGarage
AClockworkGarage Dork
7/15/22 4:18 a.m.

Also Bro-dozers can stop. I know you think it makes you look tough, but it doesn't. It makes you look weak. Your fabricated armoured bumper just makes you look scared.

 

Imagine a guy ordering breakfast wearing football pads and pool floaties. what a wuss.

Now the guy bombing through I-5 traffic in a 40 year old geo metro with a trash bag window... balls of steel.

Duke
Duke MegaDork
7/15/22 8:12 a.m.
Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

"Do it just to piss off all the Purists!"

Honestly, the human race could do without everyone who does things just to piss someone else off.

 

aw614
aw614 Reader
7/15/22 8:26 a.m.
AClockworkGarage said:

Also Bro-dozers can stop. I know you think it makes you look tough, but it doesn't. It makes you look weak. Your fabricated armoured bumper just makes you look scared.

While I know car meets have had their issues with poor behavior. It feels at least in my area, when a car meet goes bad or gets canceled is usually because of a group of bro-dozers discover said meet and decide to ruin it for everyone else. It's been this way since I was in high school back in the early 2000s up all the way now. 

Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
7/15/22 11:24 a.m.
Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

"Do it just to piss off all the Purists!"

The Purists don't give a E36 M3 about you, or what you do with your garbage. 

Well it must be making somebody mad, because people are constantly complaining what you can and can't do with a car. Your car.

Maybe so many MoPar freaks told Finnegan that he absolutely could not put a TOYOTA 2JZ in his DODGE Charger. If I had to hear that from every fool who owns a clapped out Dart sunk to the axles in the back yard, I probably start taunting them, too.

rob_lewis
rob_lewis GRM+ Memberand UberDork
7/15/22 12:42 p.m.
kb58 said:
rob_lewis said:

...We both have already voided several cars because of giant tablet sized car controls.  We want buttons....

Does Blackberry still make phones?

The days of mechanical switches are going away. All kidding aside, to this day I STILL like the Blackberry keyboard more than touch keyboards and controls, but I also know that's just how it's headed, so either I adapt or get left behind.

I have an iPhone and an iPad that I use regularly.  So, I'm not against touchscreen at all.  I just think that while driving, with the lack of tactile feel on a touchpad, a driver will have to look away from the road ahead to make adjustments.  For simple things, like tapping a new station on the radio, probably not a big deal.  But when you have to go through multiple screens to adjust the HVAC fan speed, that's a problem.  And small touch screens for radio controls are OK, but IMO a giant 10" touch screen just slapped in the middle of the dash is a horrible design.

-Rob

Pete. (l33t FS)
Pete. (l33t FS) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
7/15/22 1:13 p.m.

In reply to rob_lewis :

I was amused that the '13 Edge that I found myself in had dedicated buttons on the center stack for temperature and fan speed, which could also be controlled by the right side button pad on the steering wheel... but changing air direction required paging through screens on the center display.

Wait, not amused.  Irritated.  Literally every other HVAC function had a dedicated button, so it was not intuitive that there may be climate controls in the touchscreen.

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