What About The Auto Industry Sucks The Most?

[RockJustRock]

Government Regulations? Which Ones? Dumb Moves By Manufacturers? Again Be Specific! Let's get all the negative butt hurt out in the open here so we can clear the way to talk about going fast. Rants about how one car is SO great that everything else sucks are welcome too. Got a type of motorsport that you think is boring, over rated, too expensive, over publicized, under publicized, too expensive, filled with junk, spoiled rich kids, doddering old senior citizens, this is the thread. Let's get it all out here, "The I HATE Thread" so we can go back to talking about having fun and going fast.

[JamesMayberryIII]

Government Regulations? Which Ones? Dumb Moves By Manufacturers? Again Be Specific! Let's get all the negative butt hurt out in the open here so we can clear the way to talk about going fast. Rants about how one car is SO great that everything else sucks are welcome too. Got a type of motorsport that you think is boring, over rated, too expensive, over publicized, under publicized, too expensive, filled with junk, spoiled rich kids, doddering old senior citizens, this is the thread. Let's get it all out here, "The I HATE Thread" so we can go back to talking about having fun and going fast.

The oems. don't make dumb moves for the most part.
The people in the car/truck hobby THINK they do. and will tell everyone and as many times as they can, that they are. but the o.e.m.'s know that those folks are not new vehicle buyers. Why entertain anything they have to say. they are not going to buy your product.

I personally don't like the new vehicles infotainment set up's .
I don't like that they connect everything to or through it.
I don't like that they are designing them for use with cellphones. that the technology moves to fast and will make it hard to keep the vehicles infotainment unit that is connected to everything, updated to be used with the newer after the fact or production, tech/apps/ features.
I think not making the infotainment unit a stand alone unit. of just the radio/nav. is a mistake. time will tell. the jury is still out. The oem's are betting on the lifespan of the vehicle and the cell phone technology being about the same.

This can be listed under my opinion. Not so much as what I'd call dumb moves by the oems. but
I'd move to make the mid sized trucks the 1/2,3/4 ton trucks. and the full sized the 1 ton and higher.
I'd also be asking the federal government to remove the chicken tax law on small trucks. And bring them to market.
If I was g.m. I'd be shipping over the holden ute tooling and offer that as a base vehicle with a bed. 4 banger.

not a fan of drive by wire. throttle is bad enough. the electric steering what happens if there is a short?


Government regs.
The list here is long.
I do not think they should be regulating vehicles. at all.
The oem's should be allowed to sell a vehicle with no air bags. no abs , no other nanny crap. and if the free market shows there is a market for them. let them be.
I'll never understand how people think adding nanny crap will make the roads safer. People could not be bothered to check tire psi. well mandate sensors. well now even more folks have no reason to look over their tires for issues/defects. or wear. BRILLANT.. Back up camera's. how did we manage before? ABS. anyone that has driven an abs equiped vehicle on ice or snow. knows what a cluster that is. I'm going to hope that the newer vehicles with the driving modes "snow" are better but I doubt it.
ABS has allowed oems to bolt whatever on all 4 corners. without worry of engineering balanced braking as the abs will take up the slack of a wheel locking up. other than performance vehicles. don't believe it. disable the abs and do hard stops.

If an oem thinks they can sell a 1600 lb car. they should be able to bring it to market and allow the market to tell them if they want a light, fuel sipping vehicle or not. not some suits in an office.

One thing I wish they would add. if they are hell bent on having a bomb go off in the drivers face. Is apply the brakes. having watched a ton of crash videos. to many vehicles keep rolling into other vehicles or people/things after the crash from the driver being dazed from the air bag going boom in their face.

dump in the trash all the regulations on the vehicle body. allow the designers to design something other than an egg on wheels.

I'd honestly like to see a test of mpg with 2 cars. dropping an older cars body on the same platform as the new car and see real world loss in mpg. at legal speeds. I'll bet the difference is almost nothing.

If a person can't walk by a vehicle without tripping over the pop up headlight, it just might be the person is drunk, and not a safety hazard. the regulations on vehicle bodies is nuts.

If the c.i.e. is dead and electric power is going to take over. why still have café regs. Why still force the mpg testing. Why not turn all that energy resources into making the electric power production, cleaner and more stable??
There is no money in that. that's why

[squirrel]

Harley Earl retired.

[BBR]

1. Feature creep.

Once upon a time, the fancy doo-dads were on the upscale vehicles. Now even the most mundane car has all sorts of higher cost inducing "features".

2. Full size truck size creep.

Full size trucks have almost reached the point of being ridiculously large. Bedsides so tall you can't reach in, gigantic wheel/tire combos, and of course too many doo-dads.

[DanStokes]

The OEMs do what sells - and what they can make money on. Making luxury content standard means they can justify raising prices and it actually saves them money - for example, if all cars in a model line have power windows they don't have to design 2 different window mechanisms PLUS they can justify a price increase. The price difference to the OEM is very little. It sucks but I get it.

To shift gears a tad - LSR is the last bastion of real, grass-roots racing. Sadly, in LSR I'm NOT "the Old Guy". Too few younger folks are getting into it (though a few are - THANKS!). I wish I could wave my magic wand and help LSR get more visibility without ruining the grass-roots nature of it. There's a reason we see people like Wayne Jessel, George Poteet, and others (who could pursue any type of racing they want to) running LSR and we don't want to lose that.

If this was supposed to be a bitch session - well, I don't do much of that.

Dan

[Gateclyve Photographic]

1. Bean counters. Necessary but inherently short sighted.

2. Reinventing the wheel and not making hard parts "back compatible" (the brilliance of Chevy even through eCOPO. is how much of their newer stuff can bolt-in to older models; the curse of Ford is how incompatible so much of their "new" stuff has been since the introduction of the Lincoln Y-Block through present).

3. Anytime factories stop racing and stop supporting grassroots motorsports. Numerous examples:

-- Ford in the Model T era.
-- Buick around World War I (Louis Chevrolet made his name racing Buicks for William Durant, BTW),
-- Mercer (brand died),
-- Stutz (brand died)
--Duesenburg (brand died)
--Ford after the Tucker/Miller Indy debacle in 1935 (https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2016/0...-v-8-indy-car/)
-- Studebaker after WWII,
--AMC in 1955 (see the "Other Hornet" thread)
--AMA Racing Ban,
--GM in 1963 (notwithstanding Vince Piggins and Bunkie Knudsen's brilliant cheating on the GM ban),
--Ford in the USA 1970-1981 (compare to Walter Hayes' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hayes ) spectacular, highly-effective motorsports spending in Europe, which produced numerous rally wins, touring car wins, over 150 Formula One wins, and market share gains)
--Plymouth (brand died)
--Dodge in the late '80s (notwithstanding the continuation of Direct Connection)
--Oldsmobile in NASCAR (brand died . . . arguably Oldsmobile wasted most of its later pro motorsports spending because there was no effective grassroots or street performance tie-in)
--Buick in NASCAR, Indy Car and IMSA
--Pontiac (brand died)

4. Death of medium-priced V8 in RWD cars (not trucks, cars)

5. CAN bus and tech that is too hard to service in the field.

6. Vehicles that are too hard to field service and modify

7. Price gouging

8. Dealers and the increasing concentration of dealerships in the hands of a few large dealership holding corporations

9. Option packages that make you take crap you don't want to get high-performance equipment.

10. Too much awful styling; too much look-a-like styling; Too much "aero" styling.

11. Not enough low-cost sports cars.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Harley Earl retired.

Um, he's dead. BTW, Bill Mitchell did some incredible stuff in the '60s after Mr. Earl was gone. Just sayin'

[dieselhead]

I hate some of the electronic controls. I have a problem with the turn signals flashing fast on my Dodge pickup when the running light are on. I thought it was a defective turn signal flasher but it doesn't have one. The clicking noise I hear when my turn sign signals are on is computer generated. I figured out that the FCM (Front Control Module) is defective. The FCM is a real small electronic module located on the end of the fuse box inside the fender and very hard to change out. It costs $350 so long as my truck will pass inspection I'll live with the fast turn signals

[Barry Donovan]

This can be listed under my opinion. Not so much as what I'd call dumb moves by the oems. but
I'd move to make the mid sized trucks the 1/2,3/4 ton trucks. and the full sized the 1 ton and higher.
I'd also be asking the federal government to remove the chicken tax law on small trucks. And bring them to market.
If I was g.m. I'd be shipping over the holden ute tooling and offer that as a base vehicle with a bed. 4 banger.

I totally agree.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/388305638395709/

Today I found yet another broken frame. local facebook sale.
This stuff is like leaving a good truck overnight to awaken to an in park mishap on a fast acting frost heave or something.. it has given me a phobia since my 1979.
My current 1996 half ton is in a world of its own.. I stay ahead of the steel densifying while its good.
I leave it in neatral, no parking brake (it is a 5 speed) and hope wimpy mans design can hang on.


they could keep calling it the same weight ratings they do, just bump up the steel to the next category.
give me some confidence.

I even crawl under my dads 2016 every spring... it has 24k miles, barely 3 years old.

[squirrel]

utes...yeah, we need utes! They have them in Mexico. (this pic was taken on I-10 in Arizona)

[silver_bullet]

Lack of manual transmission as standard equipment.. too many features that only cause distractions....

[RockJustRock]

I guess I need to start more joke threads, they get good response. I need to make myself more clear too. If you think I was serious you haven't been paying attention or like I said I'm not coming across well. Oh well, posts is posts and everyone loves a busy forum. Now excuse me while I go to contemplate and compose a talk crap about other members thread.

[tedly]

Traction control. That is the most useless thing I have ever encountered. It is downright dangerous on snow and ice.

[tedly]

I guess I need to start more joke threads, they get good response. I need to make myself more clear too. If you think I was serious you haven't been paying attention or like I said I'm not coming across well. Oh well, posts is posts and everyone loves a busy forum. Now excuse me while I go to contemplate and compose a talk crap about other members thread.

[RockJustRock]

I totally agree.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/388305638395709/

Today I found yet another broken frame. local facebook sale.
This stuff is like leaving a good truck overnight to awaken to an in park mishap on a fast acting frost heave or something.. it has given me a phobia since my 1979.
My current 1996 half ton is in a world of its own.. I stay ahead of the steel densifying while its good.
I leave it in neatral, no parking brake (it is a 5 speed) and hope wimpy mans design can hang on.


they could keep calling it the same weight ratings they do, just bump up the steel to the next category.
give me some confidence.

I even crawl under my dads 2016 every spring... it has 24k miles, barely 3 years old.

I think the Gods intended us to make trucks that go swayback as they age. Just like horses...