I talk a good game, but reality.... haha

A few years ago my wife and I went car shopping and there was this awesome looking truck sitting in the showroom. The dealer said it was their top of the line 4x4, built from the ground up with the off-road enthusiast in mind. Now this had my pretty giddy as once upon a time (before kids and family) I was a serious off-road driver. I had an old Toyota pick-up, just like the one in Back to the Future except mine was red. Mud-bogging, rock crawling, fording a river or just making my own road up the side of a mountain, I drove that thing to hell and back. So naturally I was excited about the idea of buying a built for purpose off-road beast, but this quickly turned to disgust as the dealer started going over all the "features" this truck had. About 80% of his sales pitch was on all the wireless blue-tooth nonsense on the touch screen. The only thing I found even remotely useful was a camera in the front that would show you how your tires lined up on the terrain when you put the truck in 4-Low. I pointed out that it probably works great until the camera gets covered in dirt and mud, which actually seemed to confuse the salesman. I then started asking about features that I actually cared about for off-road purposes and discovered that this truck only comes with a manual transmission and leather seats. I consider having direct control over my gears to be essential, and my old truck often needed to be hosed off, inside and out, due to mud and grime and everything else associated with rugged terrain. At that point I just said 'nevermind" and asked for keys to a sedan. They handed me a fob and said there is no key, just a "power" button you push to start the car. I think there may have been actual steam coming from my ears!

Having worked for some time in the car repair business I can state that all this new "modern car technology" is just a time bomb that will blow in the consumer's hands in the close future.

Electronics is never something which you can trust to last for long. Never!

There's a reason why you still have "cars" (diesel chariots) from the late 19th century still working and riding the roads in 2017.
And all these new Audis/BMWs/Mercedes (etc etc) after 5/6 years will only give you big troubles because of the ECU and other stuff.

No wonder that most vehicle repairmen (despite some of them being extremely well paid) are seen driving late 20th century cars.

Man, those old Toyota pickups with the, um, 22RE motor... a bit of a wet dream of mine. If only you could find small pickups like that these days.

The wife would love it if I could find an original Civic CRX Si in good condition. And I personally want an '88 or '89 Supercharged MR2, to go with our '91 Turbo.

My brother linked me to a craigslist post https://dubuque.craigslist.org/cto/5964750660.html that also has me drooling.

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Back to the OP, if the car is a keeper can you install a peel-and-stick clear cling with a matte or satin finish?

Yep, that's the one. It was a little 2.2L 4 cylinder engine that ran great. Until one day the whole thing seized up. Apparently the chain for the water pump had been rubbing against the housing and wore through into the engine. The water mixed with the oil and the engine was toast. I about cried. Although in my search for a replacement I found a shop which specialized in high performance off-road racing. They had a 2.5L all aluminum motor designed specifically for my model of truck. It was about 100 pounds lighter than the original engine and put out around 50%-60% more horse power. They even had a deal where I could get a new engine, transmission and some upgrades to the drive train for a deep discount and a sponsorship deal. Basically I would plaster their brand on my truck and enter off-road and Tough Truck competitions. Part of me will always regret not taking them up on that offer.


That is beautiful! Though I was always a bit partial to the 1970's era Jeep Comanche trucks. Supposedly Jeep is looking at making trucks again, built on the Wrangler design. I'm cautiously optimistic about the idea.

On a side note, have you guys ever driven a modern Mini? Their signal sticks (what the hell are those called anyway? sticks they are.) do not have notches, so you signal left, and the stick immediately moves back to neutral, then if you need to stop signaling you pull the stick in the other direction with a quick and light motion. No haptic feedback, and it is soooo dumb.

Changing lanes is an ordeal. You signal left, move over, try to stop but push the stick slightly hard and you start signaling right instead. Then you try to stop that, but now signal left again. Right, left, right, left. I'm pretty sure fellow drivers sharing the road with me weren't amused, and I promptly dumped that rental.

Generally called the 'signal stalk'. One thing I do like about the new ones (those that still stay in place when flipped) is the momentary flip that gives you three flashes for a lane change.

Wide cars don't bother me much except at the car park.... and of course the person that owns it is an idiot, obviously, because a smart person will want a car they can actually park when they go to the supermarket...... however, the idiot with the wide car at the car park does annoy me allot when they take too much time struggling to park and hold me up. Is it my fault they chose such a wide car? No! so why should i have to suffer waiting for them to struggle to fit? Idiot. .... and sometimes you get one come and park next to you and you have to try and get back in your car with no space, is it fair? Hell no!

But all that is nothing compared to trucks. trucks are out of control in Sydney these days. They pull out of driveways without giving a shit to give way, just run me off to the side of the road.... and never give way at roundabouts, i have to stop in the roundabout as they barge through in front of me..... i am sick of it, so utterly disrespectful. And don't tell me its about not being able to maneuver quickly like a car, i get that, but this goes way beyond that, it becomes the excuse to do whatever they feel like doing. They can easily see me coming, but 'chose' not to give way because of being a lazy selfish arssehole, pure and simple.

I tried riding my pushbike to work for fitness, but my workplace is in an industrial area where all the trucks are coming in and out of driveways. This is where they refuse to give way, pulling out of driveways and running my car off the road. On my pushbike it is much worse, they come out of the driveway in front of me and i nearly slam into the side of them.... they just pull out and refuse to give way.... so i had to stop riding my pushbike to work.

Sydney is such a shithole, so many people now, so many cars, toll roads and flats everywhere.

So glad I moved out of there, couldn't handle it any longer.

In Australia we don't indicate until midway through the lane change!

That's why your 'less' likely to run into the back of someone by tailgating - its totally counter intuitive i know, but because people cut in without warning, your far 'more' likely to run into the back of someone by 'not' tailgating...... I do not particularly like tailgating, but living in Sydney, i have had to get used to doing it in order to reduce the risk of running into the back of someone..... so ironic.... I am not a road hog who will not let people change lanes, i just need warning they want to do it, because cutting in without warning is horrendous, i got no choice but to tailgate to stop it happening.

Not sure about the bubbliness, but I don't recall seeing white indicator lights in any cars here. Not sure if there is some EU regulation stating they must be orange, or if we just don't have that new cars yet... :)

Then again as I said before, I have at least in the past seen some US-imported cars which had those odd red indicator lights that I kept mixing up with brake lights. I presume such cars have been bought directly from US dealers and brought here, instead of some local car dealers selling them here. And it was awhile ago when I saw such red indicator lights anyway.

You ever heard of Handheld PC, PocketPC, and Palm Pilot?

The automobile will go the same way as the mobile phone:
First it was only for phoning, now it`s for everything else but phoning!
The same goes for cars:
They were invented for nothing but driving, soon they`ll do everything else but driving!

Ah dammit, I destroyed my old post. Not gonna post again, summary: There is lots of great driving-related tech in new cars too. Blind spot & rear-cross traffic radars are awesome, gears, transmissions, steering, engines etc, all got noticeable refinements. Infotainment systems are shit, though.