The Lemon Fool

sg31,

You are quite correct. Whilst the auto parking brake function was disabled, until I re-learned the art of putting it on, I did indeed forget on a number of occasions, fortunately without causing any problems.

But this does go further. Recently we had to look after our youngest's car whilst he was abroad - proper, old fashioned handbrake. And yes, I did indeed forget to apply it.

Laziness? Or deskilling? I suspect the latter.

ten0rman

richlist wrote:
My advice is forget the rest......just buy one of the Land Rover range.

Trust me on this - don't!

MM <addicted to the green oval and a professional slinger of spanners (and epithets) at them>

MonsterMork wrote:Oh, and here's another thing with the automatic door locking at speed malarkey: some cars I can set this off on the MoT ramp when I spin the wheels by hand to check the wheel bearings. Which is why I always drop at least one window and leave the driver's door on the latch. This clever little idea has caught more than one tester by surprise, leaving them with a locked vehicle with the engine running stuck on the ramp ....

MM

Nah, easy to sort this one...

Hit the front with a hammer hard enough to pop an airbag and Bob's yer uncle. Doors unlock

richlist wrote:My Range Rover has all sort of whistles & bells, warning lights & switches and a driver manual an inch thick.

What Land Rover offer, that other manufacturers don't seem to, is a complimentary half day 'get to know the technology' experience at one of their 7 UK centres. You can learn about stuff you didn't know existed.

My advice is forget the rest......just buy one of the Land Rover range.

Yes. I'd suggest a 1965 Series IIA.

MonsterMork wrote:Get them on the MoT brake tester and the expletive deleted's lock up with sod all force, to the extent that I have had to fail a few cars for no working handbrake because they lock the wheels at too low an applied force, thus registering no effort on the brake tester

Quite a few years ago I took a Citroen Bx for an MOT. Went to collect it and was told it had failed as the handbrake didn't work at all. When I asked if they had tested the rear wheels the tester did this and then this and five minutes later I had the pass certificate.

bungeejumper wrote:I think there are very few cars these days that don't have the wiring for cruise control pre-installed, all the way back to the electronic control. It only takes an extra bit of flex to do it, ...

Or they run everything using a digital bus such as CANbus. Then the cruise control uses the same wires as everything else on the steering column or wheel.

AF62 wrote:Quite a few years ago I took a Citroen Bx for an MOT. Went to collect it and was told it had failed as the handbrake didn't work at all. When I asked if they had tested the rear wheels the tester did this and then this and five minutes later I had the pass certificate.

I remember watching someone using starter rollers at Cadwell Park. You drove the van on to them, but the back wheel of the bike on, and put the van into gear to spin the rollers (the differentlial took a hammering as one driven wheel would spin and the other was static) whilst someone else bounced up and down on the bike until it fired.

How we laughed as he drove off the rollers 3 times, before working out the van he'd hired was front wheel drive. Of course these days there are traction control electronics to deal with as well.

Paul

AF62 wrote:Quite a few years ago I took a Citroen Bx for an MOT. Went to collect it and was told it had failed as the handbrake didn't work at all. When I asked if they had tested the rear wheels the tester did this and then this and five minutes later I had the pass certificate.

The kill switch on the handlebars is an old favourite for those of us on two wheels

MM

I always remember driving my girlfriends Renault 4 in the snow, and trying to show off with a handbrake turn in a car park. Didn't go well when the front wheels locked up...

Scott.

swill453 wrote:I always remember driving my girlfriends Renault 4 in the snow, and trying to show off with a handbrake turn in a car park. Didn't go well when the front wheels locked up...

Scott.

Now this brings back a few memories.

We owned two of these in succession, absolute beauties of versatility. Handled rough ground a treat, good clearance in the wet, remove the back seat in a few second, even carried sheep and goats in one. The dash gear stick was always a great talking point, but worked a treat. Dead easy to service. Now before that, in the snow, our 2CV was fantastic, and servicing a cinch.

Yes modern cars have all the gizmos, but those old days were fun.

Bagger

Bagger46 wrote:The dash gear stick was always a great talking point, but worked a treat.

Yes, a solid lever going straight across the top of the (longitudinal) engine to the gearbox made a lot of sense.

Scott.

Yes my brother had one with the "trombone" gear stick, always looked a bit scary to me, I never drove it.

Did cars have much more character in the 60s and 70s? I had an old Morris Minor than a Beetle, I had mates with Isetta and Messerschmitt bubble cars, a proper Fiat 500, MGAs, an E type and a Jenson Interceptor. Seems like most cars are more anodyne today.

John

redsturgeon wrote:Yes my brother had one with the "trombone" gear stick, always looked a bit scary to me, I never drove it.

Did cars have much more character in the 60s and 70s? I had an old Morris Minor than a Beetle, I had mates with Isetta and Messerschmitt bubble cars, a proper Fiat 500, MGAs, an E type and a Jenson Interceptor. Seems like most cars are more anodyne today.

John

They certainly did have more character. Roads were different, there were fewer cars, cars were not a consumer item but a luxury choice, people had more time, the sun always shined, beer was free with a pack of Woodbines. Standards were less, erm, standard. Safety and emission issues weren't an issue, designers could make cars that looked different and would sell on style, not monthly installments.

However given the choice of a weekly 400 mile round trip on the M5 in the Avensis or a Morris Minor I know which I'd choose

Paul

redsturgeon wrote:Did cars have much more character in the 60s and 70s? I had an old Morris Minor than a Beetle, I had mates with Isetta and Messerschmitt bubble cars, a proper Fiat 500, MGAs, an E type and a Jenson Interceptor. Seems like most cars are more anodyne today.

One of my schoolfriends had a three wheeler Morgan, with the air-cooled engine up front. Which he wrapped around a tree.

I had a proper Fiat 500 myself, bright red, compulsory sun roof, no synchromesh, and no heater except for a flap that blew smelly warm air from across the cylinder head into the cabin. But hell, it was fun.

As for sixties cars with "character", I had an automatic Morris 1300 estate which mashed a tiny little transfer gear on the outside of the box. Which was the moment when I discovered that British Leyland (or whatever they were called at the time) didn't supply that gear for the auto model - only for the manual version. And that my only repair option would be to buy an entire new gearbox, and then pay somebody a month's wages to "install" and "balance" it. (A custom job that took two days, apparently.) It would have cost more than the car was worth. I asked the garage to find me a used engine and gearbox from a scrappy, which they did. Then I sold the car quickly.

But not before it had died on me in the middle of five lanes of traffic, right where the M5 and the M50 met. English lunatics to the right of me, and Welsh lunatics to the left, and me stationary in the middle of it all with a coil that had gone on the blink. Lucas had used a rivet made of solid butter, and it had basically vibrated away and then melted.

They don't make 'em like they used to. Thank goodness.

BJ

Good grief.
Given that all a car need do is go, steer and stop, they certainly are adding superfluous complexification.

And I thought things were getting out of hand when my 63 Rambler won't allow me to start the car with the [auto] trans in gear !
Which I can and do with the auto in my 74 Land Rover.

V8

My new (to me) auto (DSG) Volkswagen won't let me start it without my foot on the brake. Seems strange not being able to blip the throttle.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:My new (to me) auto (DSG) Volkswagen won't let me start it without my foot on the brake. Seems strange not being able to blip the throttle.

Scott.

Heel and toe is your friend!

John

swill453 wrote:My new (to me) auto (DSG) Volkswagen won't let me start it without my foot on the brake. Seems strange not being able to blip the throttle.

Scott.

It must seem even stranger when it starts without blipping the throttle.

9873210 wrote:

swill453 wrote:My new (to me) auto (DSG) Volkswagen won't let me start it without my foot on the brake. Seems strange not being able to blip the throttle.

It must seem even stranger when it starts without blipping the throttle.

Aaaah, that's another essential skill that's gone all redundant on us. All those years we spent learning how to hold the throttle just so, and then raising or lifting our toes as soon as we detected the first incipient cough, so as to "catch" the engine' and nurse it into vibrant life, as only we knew how. Get it wrong and you'd flood the cylinders, and then you'd have to either go away for a cup of tea or sit there and try to crank the surplus fuel away. I can still smell the petrol and see the wafting blue smoke now.

I was going to say that I'd never needed to toe-throttle a diesel, but I'd forgotten the time when an injector failed on my 2002 Focus. It took all the old-school pedal skills I could muster to coax that coughing beast into action. By which stage it had squirted so much unburnt diesel into the exhaust that powering up produced a great cloud of white smoke. My best hope was to floor it away into the distance before the locals figured out who was polluting their environment.

Damn those ultra-reliable electronics on modern cars. They've taken all the old-fashioned skills out of motoring. And my faithful Colortune kit lies abandoned and friendless in my garage. Not to mention my decoke-in-a-bottle (more clouds of smoke, but black this time). Anybody ever use those?

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:Damn those ultra-reliable electronics on modern cars. They've taken all the old-fashioned skills out of motoring. And my faithful Colortune kit lies abandoned and friendless in my garage. Not to mention my decoke-in-a-bottle (more clouds of smoke, but black this time). Anybody ever use those?

No, but I've still got the orange plug thing that you put between the HT lead and the spark plug so you can see it sparking. And feeler gauge for the points.

Scott.