Too Simple To Figure Out Dept...!?!

Hey, after driving amongst the masses and observing what a lousy job they do of driving on average, self-driving cars can't come too soon. Maybe then something will be watching the road while the driver is messing with his/her cell phone.

We have a new-to-us 10 year old Audi. What a pain in the rear it is to operate! No push buttons to change radio stations. Must switch system into radio mode and turn knob while looking at display screen. Or use voice recognition system that works, but is slow and somewhat difficult for set up the stations. The $5k GPS is horribly difficult to use. A Honda $2.5k GPS is much easier to use, and the $100 Garmin we have is the easiest of all. Trying to tune the radio while using the GPS is just as distracting as text messaging.

I think there should be a basic industry rule that says when "improving" a product it must be no more difficult to operate than what it's replacing.

One conspiracy theory is that the cars are intentionally being made harder to operate to soften us up into accepting self-driving cars.

I understand this discussion completely.

Our 2002 sedan is in the shop, so they've provided a 2018 version of it to me as a loaner.

Boy .... to fully utilize all of it's "features" would (to me) be like flying an airliner. It has all kinds of frivolous gizmos to appeal to a certain esoteric group of folks, very few of which are really necessary for use of this loaner vehicle as a means of transportation.

The main thing that runs through my old-engineering-school mind is "good luck with all that stuff still working year after year if one should want to keep this vehicle for several years". But I guess that's not a concern with today's "almost disposable" automobile ownership mentality. :S

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Comparing an automobile to a horse at the turn of last century is not relevant. Horses need hay and water 24/7. They need the services of a farrier and vet...

Exactly my point, the new fangled way is to just turn the key and go. As an extra added bonus you even get air conditioning instead of horse manure on your shoes.

Hey, if you want to be a dinosaur I don't have a problem with that.

If your trying to sell me on dinosaurs, I'll pass.

I'm going to agree, too.
Oil-filled heaters with electronic controls are more difficult to operate and fail a lot more than those with mechanical thermostats. I just bought a new humidifier and went out of my way to find one with old-fashoned knobs and switches. Electronic clocks are a pain to set. Things like the radio are much more difficult to work on our newer car. A friend just tossed her new smartphone to go back to the flip phone. With RVs I see that newer ones have central touch panels for lighting, tank level readout, etc. When that panel quits working, a lot of items won't be usable, and the only fix will be spending a few hundred bucks for a new one. That's assuming it will even be available for an older RV.

BB_TX wrote:
And you could sit on the fender with your feet inside the engine compartment while doing it.

My mom still laughs at how I used to do that with my first truck :-). It was comfortable!

BB_TX wrote:
Yeah, like cars and trucks. In “the old days” if your car developed a miss you spent a few dollars and an hour changing the points and plugs. And you could sit on the fender with your feet inside the engine compartment while doing it.
Now you need a computerized diagnostic analyzer to quiz the vehicle computer for idas about what might be the problem and what might be the fix. And when you open the hood you might be able to see part of the actual engine.

Wow, I remember working on cars in "the old days" and watching my dad do the same, mostly because it happened a lot in "the old days". Now I mostly don't have to touch anything. However if the motor developed a miss, yeah it could be spark that could be fixed with new points, new condenser, new coil, new coil wire, new spark plug wire, new distributor rotor, new distributor rotor cap, and/or a combination of the above. However could be a valve sticking, low compression, stuck choke, and the list goes on.

Sorry man, I'll take the new style cars in a New York minute. I get a miss, it did happen on Peggy's 2003 Sport Trac, the OBDII reader told me what the problem was in just a couple seconds. Yeah, I'll take that. Old isn't necessarily better, sometimes old is just old.

Even

B.S.

Figured out what I am talking about. It isn't any type of puzzle -- far from it. The harder we try to be lazy and pushbutton simple the harder we have to work to keep the mechanisms working. It's called a paradox.
Back in the 1960's the federal income tax had strict definitive percentage tiers. Work say a maximum of 44 hours a week and the year tax was "x". Work your butt off for 50 hours a week, enter a new higher percentage tier and end up with a total income equaling 46 hours a week.

An RV is not a consumer item like an automobile or a microwave oven. A consumer item that gains a bad reputation goes bankrupt. An RV with mandatory "TOP FIVE" trouble-prone options that supposedly make life easier end up making relaxation harder and much more expensive.

Automatic Steps

Slide out room extensions

Refrigerator automatic controls

Digitally controlled heating

Digitally controlled water heaters

None of these items are a "muse". The sideouts are nice for extra room, but the remainder are utterly unneeded to have perfect functionality. And before you say "What's the gripe?" look at the forum threads. They are full of expensive, perplexing hassles for owners and there is no opting out.

YET

You cannot purchase a rig that does not have them. Why? There wasn't a huge percentage of gas refrigerator owners that had manual controls that had trips ruined when eyebrows, thermistors, and venting went wrong. A thermostat set at 70 degrees worked for many years if not decades flawlessly. Pull steps out and push them in for decades trouble-free.

Consumers got duped hook-line-and-sinker over the "Lazy Issue". George Jetson, automation.

And no, this cannot include converters because batteries are electrochemical devices that would require monitoring and processor power that would cost more than your house, the land, and everything on it to make it "plug n play".

Comparing an automobile to a horse at the turn of last century is not relevant. Horses need hay and water 24/7. They need the services of a farrier and vet.

And to claim similar automobiles, one basic, the other loaded with bling have similar malfunction percentages is absurd. Even my near junker toad has had issues with unneeded accessories -- all of them have quit working while the base chassis elements have enjoyed normal life spans.

If this is too much to comprehend, then sit back in your chair and ignore it's implications. And wisdom is need to separate a tire pressure monitoring system from electric steps or a refrigerator eyebrow...tires go flat while underway and that can be dangerous. A hot water heater that fails to light-off because of Star Trek automation is not dangerous.

Fascinating.

My sons home refrigerator ice maker lasted just over a year. I replaced it for $60 and it lasted 2 weeks. They said they looked at reviews before buying but my search showed terrible results. It's a bottom freezer model so it also has to have a freezer compartment up top for the ice maker which just adds to the complexity.

When I ordered the ice maker it showed something like 5200 of them previously sold and that's just from one source. Junk products and they have us hooked on crack as we keep buying. I just tried to mount my action cam on my bike and the saddle mount broke in half so I started looking through the other clips and brackets. As I tried to unsnap one of the clips it broke so it looks like most of this plastic stuff was good for less than a year.

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Consider the source of the post and you will understand that it is meant to be a puzzle and playing into his hand is what he's hoping for. Ignore him and maybe he will go away.

Sorry but this time I'm going to agree. We have a 1947 Servel Gas Fridge, it is at the cabin out in the Mojave desert and has been the birth place of hundreds of rodents and all I have to do is brush the rodent nest off the controller, hook up the propane and light the burner. Oh yeah, and wash my hands.

The point, the 120v ac cord is for the light only, no PC boards, igniters, just a temp control. In 71 years, the only failure, one controller and that was back in the sixties. So maybe the K.I.S.S. philosophy ain't so dumb.