Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

You can get auto parking on a lot of VWs now. I suppose they’re mid tier though.

I’ve used AC seats in hot countries, bloody amazing!

The Hyundai Hybrid I tested a couple of weeks ago had a (rubbish) HUD and AC seats, which was amusing as it just inflated the plastic seat covers.

Both of my cars have auto and variable speed intermittent...
Sort of proves my point though, none of this shit is new and they’re minor details.

Fully adaptive suspension probably isn’t necessary for most cars, just more rubber and less massive rims.

isn't a huge engineering feat

Not a huge feat, no. But making a quality item with a good UI is the sort of thing car manufacturers generally seem to bail out of.

I guess that's part of what I think of as genuine quality design and engineering. See also shit vs good car dials.

I just miss handbrake levers. They worked, and worked well. Annoying little switches on the centre console are so not the same.

While driving along the M4 this morning near Swindon I was amazed to see a F40 passed me.

The first one I’ve ever seen on the open road

more rubber and less massive rims

Crazy talk.

But a good eg of the battle car manufacturers probably face. Maybe I should blame flakey consumers on their 2 year lease deals instead.

The oil change was fine. Finding somewhere flat enough to jack the car up was the tricky bit. Even on the most level place I found it was still a bit of a stress/uneven getting the car up.

And then there’s all the interest from the public/keeping an eye on your tools. I was considering doing it at a multi storey if it was raining but I imagine they might be a bit funny about it.

I'm trying to sell my e46 M3, it's not quite collector status (CS, CSL or whatever) but it is a decent-ish manual non-sunroof car. It's just been my track day car so cosmetically its a bit rough but mechanically it's great.

Got it on Pistonheads at the moment and going to see how that pans out, but anyone able to recommend a specialist dealer that might be interested in something like this?

How the hell can a solenoid cost over £2k?!

The solenoid unit is around £500, because Porsche are annoying, you then have to take off the right hand exhaust manifold, lock the cams, take off the cam cover (which has the upper cam guides in it's inner surface), remove the cams, remove the old VarioCam unit, fit the new one, refit the cams, time that bank up, refit the cam cover, refit the exhaust manifold, check to see if that all worked.

Got a link, just for curiosity’s sake?

Definitely recommend getting a pair of ramps instead. The ground around my house is relatively soft so I had to do similar to yourself and drive down the road to service the car. Switching from having the front up to the rear up can easily be done in less than a minute.

Maybe I've just seen too many videos of things going wrong, but jacking up a car and putting it on stands always makes me feel a little uneasy!

https://www.pistonheads.com/buy/listing/10918606

Yep

Yeah to be honest the UI was more what I was thinking in terms of reasons why it hasn't become the norm. Though thinking about it, having the same dial as the heater/fan speed would seem like a perfectly fine solution, both in terms of design for the manufacturer and ease of use for the driver.

Love it. Can’t afford it obviously. Sick tho.

Cars too low to get on ramps I reckon. They’d have to be long as fuck.

Yeah, same here unfortunately. Such a great car, it's a shame I can't really justify keeping it.

That's why I hate ramps. I ended up having to make ramps to get the car onto the ramps.

Back to car car tech... I think apart from safety improvements you'd be surprised at how refreshing it is getting in an older car. Our family car is an 2015 Audi A4 that was fully loaded by the original purchaser. It's got tech in it that is pretty current. Even today. I keep all the Accident avoiding tech turned on, except for lane keep assist. The adaptive cruise is probably the most useful thing. Other than that, changing various settings is a faff, too many options and automated things to turn off every time you drive... Frustrating.

My other car is a 20 year old Peugeot 306. It actually has rain sensing wipers, speed adjustable too. Has a basic version of traction and stability control and brake force distribution. Has 4 airbags... it's structure is not the safest! But... It is refreshing, get in, sit down, change gears, drive. It's just simple and there's no screens to distract. It's too noisy inside to hear the stereo so your road trips fly by with "guess that rattle, what's that clunk" etc... It's great.

The BMW? My Mk2 MX5 is fine on ramps and it's pretty low

Edit: Just had a look at some photos online of the E46 and the bumpers do seem pretty low, definitely lower than my car, so you may well be right there!

My E61 won't go up ramps at the front. Possibly at the back but I haven't tried.

can lower tier cars park themselves? a friend worked at honda (sadly now redundant) had a top end civic with all the cruise controls and lane assist etc etc. still couldnt parallel or bay park itself. my 2014 bmw can parallel park itself and i know the newest ones can bay park themselves

Honestly if my car could park it's self I'd be annoyed. What a bullshit gimmick.

I'm decidedly anti-tech in my cars. I don't like it. It's never future proof, so it only get more irritating as time goes by.

Occasionally they nail it, and rather than becoming obsolete and irritating, it become retro. That's rare. I'm looking at you "over drive" and "little manual mirror adjusters"

I ended up having to make ramps to get the car onto the ramps.

If he had a Manta 400 he must have been absolutely minted! 400 was the group b rally car, the only car in the history of history, iirc, to sport twin 50DCOE Webers. Homologation car was gorgeous though

Had it on a car in Australia, never needed it. Would be useful in UK towns though.

If your car has multiple users of different heights, automatic adjusting stuff saved to the key saves a lot of faff. Until it breaks!