Drowning BMW

[Don Boose]

I am glad that I am not the only person to have had conversations with a truck.

Don

[murphyaa]

Originally Posted by Don Boose

I am glad that I am not the only person to have had conversations with a truck.

Don

I used to get in arguments with my Prostar.

[mldixon]

I have a Chevy Silverado, 250,000 on it. We talk all the time. Recently it decided to shed its skin. White paint job, poor primer. It's sort of like a slow motion strip tease. Oh well I'm gonna drive it until it just can't go another inch.

[Yale]

Funny. All but one of my cars had standard transmissions and I thought they were cheap. None of them ever presumed to tell me when to shift -- you just knew, from speed, grade, and engine sound. My '05 PT Cruiser has a stick, too, but it's the first car with a tach -- not that I need a tach for shifting guidance, but it's handy to confirm that I'm really in 5th.

A light or tone telling me to shift would become so irritating so quickly that I'd remove the bulb or even snip the wire.

[Cybergrinder]

I'm with you Yale, I would "disable" that very quickly! Just thinking though with most cars in the US being auto the manufacturer was covering their butt for when the, erm, not so bright driver blew the engine due to sitting in first the whole drive?

I used to drive a 1981 Toyota Corolla, you could drive it through a brick wall and only scratch the paint we used to chat regularly about the vacuum assist on the carb

[papersurprise50]

I have a KIA Sedona Minivan .Minivan ? It holds a whole lot more than people . When I tell it to shut up it does .
When I tell it to behave itself on a rainy day it does . What it doesn't do is keep me cool in these TEXAS summers . Readout always says replace compressor ! Um,let's see , that would be number four !
I still reach for a shifter even though I've owned it for six years .My last truck ( a four wheel drive , diesel pickup , had a standard ) It liked to let little bells ring when it didn't like what I was doing .
I still hate bells ! Best of all it likes to surprise my when the windows close automatically .( You didn't really want that open now did you ?)

[papersurprise50]

Originally Posted by Don Boose

Since I drive a 12-year-old Subaru Forester, I have no experience with these recent devices, but before the Subaru I owned a little four-cylinder GMC pick up truck with a standard transmission that had a little window on the dash that would light up with the word "Shift" whenever the rpms hit a certain level.

I had a conversation with the little truck every day on the way home from work whenever I hit a slight down slope on Cavalry Road just before the long uphill grade.

The truck would say, "Shift."

I would say, "No. You know that if I do, I'll have to downshift as soon as we hit the hill."

"Shift."

"No! You can't make it up that hill in fourth gear."

"Shift."

"How many times have we been on this hill? There is no point in shifting."

"Shift."

So I would give in and shift into fourth, and a few seconds later, I would have to downshift back into third.

"I told you! You can't make it up this hill in fourth."

The truck remained silent and never admitted that it had been wrong.

I reckon we had that conversation more than a thousand times in the ten years I owned that truck.

Don

Are you sure it wasn't built by a female assembly team . Don't do to argue with them !

[Jim Nunn]

Originally Posted by Uyraell

British automobiles: usually the Electrical "system" {be it 6 or 12 - Volt} (more accurately known as chaos) originated with "Lucas" Co., which meant it failed miserably, hence the Moniker, "G.Philip Lucas: the Prince of Darkness." Uyraell.

Many years ago I had Lotus super 7 got so fed up with the electrical system that when I saw the lamp switch label on friends Mini Cooper I asked him to get me one ... it had 3 positions labeled off, dim and flicker.

Jim Nunn

[JohnM]

A while back now I used to run an XJ6 (XJ40) Jaguar, which had a wee computer in it that did a component check on first start up. I was rather glad that it would allow me to ignore it and drive on though. From day one it would report "Bulb Blown", but unhelpfully it didn't say which one.

I drove it for a year or two, and never did find the blown bulb, but as the fault display screen was only 3" x 4", guess where I used to park my fag packet?

PS: I talk to all my cars. Not only to criticize them though. I find praise and gentle words of encouragement are often returned with surprising reliability. Did I mention that most of my cars are at least 20 years old. Often over 50. I also have some very interesting discussions with Joanna Lumley ... the voice of my Sat Nav.

[sparrowhawk]

In the same line, a very macabre true story:
A workmate of mine was a nurse before she changed to working with handicapped children. One late evening she incidentally happened to come across the site of a horrid road accident: A little Peugeot had turned over at high speed, too many young people in there, some had no seat belts and probably broken their neck with very dire consequences.
O.K., so she rang up the emergency doctors with her cellular phone and did the best she could until more help arrived.
Suddenly she realized what song was playing on the radio which miraculously still was working: "Knocking on heaven´s door" by Guns and Roses.
...!