Some Things You Can’t Do in a New Car

By
eric
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Just like you can’t board a commercial airplane anymore without first being subjected to the sort of Obedience Training you used to have to get arrested first to experience, so also your car – assuming it’s one made recently – won’t let you do some of the things you used to be able to do with a car.

Where to start?

How about not being able to spin the tires? Or lock them up?

Both used to be part of the fun of driving a car, before the advent of electronic intervention (i.e., traction control and ABS). And more than just fun, too. Before ABS, most people avoided tailgating the car ahead of them because they understood they’d probably not be able to avoid running into the car ahead if its driver suddenly applied his brakes. ABS can be seen as a license to tailgate – because it gives tailgaters confidence their car will stop in time to avoid running into the rear end of the vehicle they’re tailgating. And – of course – you can no longer put a car into a brakes-locked skid deliberately, which people who know how to do used to be able to do to execute interesting vehicle acrobatics.

How about not being able to replace a seat – or a steering wheel – with one you like better? This was once a common thing to do that is effectively impossible to do with a late-model car or for that matter any car made since the late 1990s, when you could still buy a new car without an air bag in the steering wheel and manual seats that weren’t electrically connected to the vehicle.

You used to be able to just unbolt the factory steering wheel and replace it with an aftermarket one. Or a nicer factory one, from a higher-trim version of your car. As an example, anyone who owned a base model Pontiac Firebird from the ’70s could easily add the Trans-Am’s iconic Formula steering wheel. It was also possible to swap the seats – until seats became an electronically integrated part of the car and specific to the car, as it was built. Seats now have wiring harness connections – and air bags – and it’s no easy thing to switch them out for different ones. So you’re stuck with the ones you’ve got. Just like the air bag you’re stuck sitting behind.

Set the emergency bake – as opposed to pushing a button to draw up the parking brake. And even the latter is disappearing. In many late-model/new cars, the parking brake comes on automatically as soon as you put the transmission in Park (which isn’t actually done by you, either but rather by electric actuators instructed to do so by the computer after you push a button, turn a knob or pull on a toggle). This automating of the process means you no longer have control over the process. It’s all decided for you, like so many other things you used to be able to decide for yourself. And so you can’t pull up on the emergency brake lever while the car is moving – not to stop the car but to change its direction.

That kind of fun isn’t allowed anymore.

See the engine. Well, you can see it – if you’re willing to take the time to remove the plastic cover that hides almost every modern car’s engine from view. And anonymizes engines, too. It may not be intentional – these covers are really sound deadeners that also serve to “clean up” the appearance of the engine compartment (by hiding the engine from view). But the effect is to make all engines look the same and so to make it appear there’s no difference, this one vs. that one. And that’s psychologically important because it serves to minimize the difference, in people’s minds, between an engine and an electric motor. The latter are all the same – you’ve seen one motor, you’ve seen them all – so why bother to look?

More finely why bother to care?

One last one, which is far from being the last one: Change the battery just by disconnecting the two cables and the hold-down clamp. If you only do that, you might have to call for a tow when you try to hook up the new battery because the computer will have a psychotic break. It is necessary with some (and the number of them waxes) new vehicles to hook up a power supply of some kind before you disconnect the battery, to avoid wiping the computer’s memory and causing it to turn your car into a horn-honking, lights flashing, won’t-run/can’t-drive-it temper-tantruming four-wheeled-two-year-old. Once this happens, you may have to get it towed – to a dealer – to shut it up and make it drivable again.

This happened to me earlier this year with a brand new car I was trying to test drive that I couldn’t one day because the starter battery’s charge was below 14 volts and most new cars won’t start when the battery’s voltage falls below 13 volts. So I disconnected the battery to put it on my trickle-charger. That triggered the tempter-tantrum that could only be fixed by towing the car to a dealer, to be connected to a mondo computer for a therapy reboot.

I like that I can just roll my old truck down a hill with its manual transmission in neutral and then let out the clutch to start the engine. That’s another thing you can’t do anymore – with any new truck save one (the current Toyota Tacoma) because the rest all come only with automatic transmissions.

And there’s very little you can do about that.

PS: “Commercial” is italicized at the beginning of this article to emphasize what you can do – if you have the money to fly privately. That being board an airplane without being obliged to submit to Obedience Training. That’s an interesting thing when you think about it. If – as we’re told – the point isn’t Obedience Training for the masses who aren’t able to afford to fly privately.

. . .

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Related posts:
  1. Some Things About New Cars
  2. What You Can’t Buy for $2,700 Anymore
  3. At Least EVs Have Just One Battery . . .
  4. Start ’em Up!
  5. “Funny Noises”

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50 COMMENTS

  1. If you like bluegrass style music, this guy Billy Strings just came out with a new song called Leadfoot. Good to see some of the younger folks are still making music about cars.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBJudzjpi1w&list=PLT3WQF6Skv7Na0RoPUGdusTrFMmADMVal&index=4

    Lyrics:

    Well Leadfoot Leadfoot racing from the Sun
    Got a 502 in an old Chevelle, he’s letting them ponies run

    Now, Leadfoot Leadfoot carryin’ a heavy load
    Now don’t you step out in the way when he’s racing down the road

    Well, I heard old Leadfoot comin’ from a mile and a half away
    I stepped out on the street there and here’s what I had to say
    I said, “Hey now, hey now! Slow that old thing down
    This city ain’t your highway and you’re tearing up my town”

    Well Leadfoot Leadfoot racing from the Sun
    Got a 502 in an old Chevelle, he’s letting them ponies run

    Well late last night I heard the crash from up by Yeoman’s Hill
    It was the feeling I had all along I knew he’d finally killed himself
    In that old car and I ran down to see the risin’ flame
    Just then I realized I never even knew his name

    Just called him Leadfoot Leadfoot racing from the Sun
    Had a 502 in an old Chevelle, he was letting them ponies run

  2. Can remember an outing with my absentee father in the 70s. We attended a stockcar race in Halifax . We left the event early to find our mode of transportation blocked in by several standard cars. What to do Dad , he had a plan you get in son and push the clutch in and your sibs and I provide the power. Some of the steerings locked but we made enough space to get out.

    Drove my 95 f-150 all one summer with no starter by parking on inclines on woods roads.

  3. Hey Eric, are you (or rather, your site)having DNS problems? I haven’t been able to access this site for several days via the epautos URL, and if I type that into isitdownrightnow.com it says “no response” -but if I type out ericpetersautos.com, voila! Here I am! Just wanted to make you aware.

  6. Some Things You Can’t Do in an old Car……

    Get remotely controlled crashed into a wall…..

    Remote screwing with the self driving tech in new cars….CRASH….

    “GPS spoofing attack changed an aircraft’s clock by years which grounded the plane for weeks while its clock was reset.

    That’s just one example and these attacks cripple multiple onboard systems and processes onboard the aircraft: False GPS information can cause an autopilot to turn the plane in the wrong direction, confuse crew as to where the aircraft is and affect a variety of crucial aircraft systems which rely on GPS.

    These include the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, Inertial Reference System (IRS), The Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B), the HUD guidance systems and the transponders among others”.

    https://www.geoconnexion.com/in-depth/does-your-plane-know-where-it-is-the-rise-of-spoofing-attacks-in-aviation

  7. I work in the space industry, where a $50M satellite is considered cheap, with $100M being the norm. THE NUMBER ONE thing that breaks, (and pretty much the first thing to break) are electro-mechanical actuators. Think articulating arms, rotary joints, etc. So all this crap in cars going to electro mechanical is just waiting to break.

  8. Can’t swap out the radio for an aftermarket stereo. In many cars you can’t even swap out the cheap speakers for premium.

  9. Nice try Eric but no cigar. You are preaching to folks that gave up thinking for themselves decades ago. Basically anyone that put on a mask and/or took the shots. They will argue with you,,, call you names,,, but bottom line,,, they’re NPCs that haven’t a clue.

    The NPCs think we have the problem in that we are older and don’t want change,,, any change. They don’t understand that for the most part they’re younger,,, inexperienced and never had the luxury of thinking for themselves. Ever since Mums put them in a government babysitting service comically called a school, any backbone and intelligence, has been ripped out of them. They don’t notice it because they never had a chance to develop it. Their brains have been miswired thinking along the same lines as their instructors.

    The IQ of the country has dipped well below 100, the average, now easily programmed like a home 8 bit Atari computer. Many our age are also NPCs. The Gas Lighting has been going on for several hundred years as can be verified by the first twenty years of the 20th century when corpgov came out of the closet. It lied in several amendments and the Federal Reserve. Eliminated the militia and made it a dirty word,,, same as they have freedom and liberty. Our young go to their schools everyday and are indoctrinated every day attended. And we wonder why over half the country is communist/fascist. Corpgov shipped the jobs off,,, has devalued the currency and citizenship to a point where patriots are considered terrorists.

    Your attempts to show the before times as good times are commendable but will not sway many in the country nor some that visit your site attempting to berate your musings. They lie about the lifetime of new battery technology. Battery lifetime is determined by the number of discharges/charges so yes,,, some will exceed the average ten year lifetime. Which is why they use the term ‘average’. Many won’t make it that far either. I have batteries that claim eight years but are twelve years old,,, still working,,, because I have watched their discharge/charge times. So it’s pretty easy to exceed the average ten year lifetime of EVs assuming you don’t intend to travel much.

    The batteries they brag on are not easily refurbished and some cannot be salvaged at all. When I grew up even soft drink bottles were returnable for cleaning and reuse. Today it is plastic everything which pollutes our lands and waterways. The batteries they brag on will pollute far worse. While we have limited strip mining we now use children to go out and mine for the special materials we use. The children will die an early violent death but doesn’t seem to matter to the NPCs that worship corpgov hoping to aquire mucho dinero,

    Kudos to you and others for trying to warn the NPCs. Sadly,,, trained like Seals,,, they will not listen.
    honk, honk….

  10. We also don’t have the ability to have a private conversation in our cars either. With the amount of microphones, cameras, Alexis, etc. Big Bro is always there listening, tracking, and storing to some behemoth of a data center paid by our taxpayer dollars.

    Only government could create a system to force the prisoners to pay for their own imprisonment. 😬

    • Hey….RG
      I wouldn’t use the term ‘forced’. It is usually an excuse for those that want to go along to get along. In Europe the EVs are not selling creating a panic. It can be surprising to some who can force who. I have seen NPCs trade in almost new cars to buy an EV so they can strut around like a rooster in a hen house. They are willing to sacrifice thousands of dollars to simply impress other NPCs no matter how much it will hurt their families. It’s a character flaw that the parasites take advantage of.

  11. Eric does your ‘bird have a metal glove box door? I think my ‘70 ‘bird did.

    Hey kiddos, those before times cars actually had metal dashboards with vinyl covered pads bolted on. Metal hinges on doors and jockey box lids too. Metal you could mount via bolts an under dash tape player, AM/FM stereo, or CB radio. And the electrical system was just electrical no computer “body module” to freak out if you added additional loads like the extra radio gear or a set of fog lights.

    All that metal, a full steel frame on the mid size and larger cars, a cast iron engine and rear axle housing yet still weighed less than the aluminum and plastic pigs of today.

    • Hi Sparkey,

      The ’70-81 Trans-Am was a much nicer car than its Z28 Camaro cousin. At least in terms of the inside. The dash was more “finished” and (my opinion) the materials higher-end looking and feeling. I think the glovebox door is metal covered with the same material used for the dash. I’ll go out to the garage and have a look to confirm!

      • Yes my ‘70 Firebird was not a high end model but no slouch either. It was a California car I bought off the first owner in 1975, she had moved to Seattle & was ready for a new car. Pontiac gold exterior, “oyster” off white interior with tan dash, nice looking combination inside and out. Air conditioning was a nice plus, I never bought any car since unless it had A/C one creature comfort I insist on.

        Another “before time thing”, color choices for interiors!

  12. You can watch dash cam videos on YouTube. One video recorded a wheel fall off of a car, the wheel crossed into another lane of traffic, no time to stop, another car collided with the wheel, the car launched into the air, did a barrel roll and crashed to the pavement.

    What can you do?

    This new car business with all of the bells and whistles to make them go, you can’t really drive the things.

    You’re being taken for a ride.

    Might as well go on strike, not buy the things, avoid the misery of a new vehicle, not worth the powder to blow them to hell.

    Yes, we have no bananas say the Longshoreman’s union.

    • Hi drumphish,

      Is anybody, other than the unions, backing this stupid strike? Right now six states are still recovering from a hurricane that hit five days ago. They need food, car parts, building supplies, fuel, etc. The timing couldn’t be worse. As a self professed Luddite I am not a supporter of the latest technology, but it may be time to automate the ports. If these idiots gave a fig about their peers you don’t hold them hostage in the direst of circumstances.

      I don’t think it has dawned on the ILA that they have very little, to any public support. They will shortly when there is a run on the first grocery store.

      • Yeah, but if humans could care less, what about AI? What if the government goons just decide to shut that off as well.

        One of the reasons I don’t subscribe to free trade theory is that we are way too dependent on foreign sources of supply. No, we can’t make everything and import nothing, but, we could do a lot better than we have by making things that we need right here in the USA, obviating our need for these BS ports.

        It’s time to cut back on the traffic at the ports. Every time a ship arrives there from abroad, money is leaving the country.

        Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot sounded the early alarms about what was going on back in the early 90s. They were dismissed as kooks and anti semites. Now, how does it look. One of the reasons I voted for Trump is that he brought this sentiment into the party grass roots like no one had done before

        • Swamp

          The USA is one of the few nations that CAN make everything it needs and used to do just that. Shipping the production offshore was just the first phase in eliminating Whitey making him/her broke to help sway minds. This helped breaking up the families which they have succeeded well beyond their dreams. Average marriage is less than five years. The last phase,,, unlimited immigration of people of a totally different culture. There is no stopping the destruction. It’s too late. Even starting deportations will not work. The ‘newcomers’ will simply out breed the number of deportations.

          The Caucasian parts of the world are now doomed. Their culture destroyed and forgotten. Worse part? It is the Whites and usually the women that have done themselves and their offspring in. The children will suffer the most. Look to Viet Nam where thousands of ‘half breed’ children were left to fend for themselves. Many died, were killed off by the main culture which refused to give up its history,,, unlike most of the West,,, especially America.

          • Yeah, lefty white women (usually with a hog ring in their nose) have been indoctrinated to believe they have “white privilege” and, therefore, “white guilt” so they spread for every black guy they can. Goodbye European roots and culture.

        • Speaking of Pat… My “favorite” smear job of someone was when one report said, “Pat Buchanan’s aide has a bumper sticker that has Hitler doing the Nazi salute!” While that was factually correct, it was still a lie.

          The actual bumper sticker was put out by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. The bumper sticker said “All for gun control raise your right hand”, with Hitler doing the Nazi salute.

          If you were tasked to create a group who was 180 degrees from the Nazis, you’d come up with JPFO.

      • “Is anybody, other than the unions, backing this stupid strike?” – Raider Girl

        The grocery stores? Prices will increase, it is the nature of the bidness.

        Charles Boycott couldn’t get anybody to help harvest his turnips. F you, Chuck.

        Hence, the eponymous title ‘boycott’.

        You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

        You can coerce people to take a vaccine, but you can’t change their minds if they choose not to have an ersatz vaccine.

        Be sure to update your vaccine schedule, it’s free!

        Big (P)harma is on a roll!

        The Palestinians are on strike against the Chosen Super Jews! Maybe just the Zionists, the Chosen is just too Jewish.

  13. Once upon a time, “parking brakes” were also known as EMERGENCY BRAKES, because they were totally operated by human power, and so did not require any external power source, electrical or hydraulic. Which comes in handy when you lose electrical and/or hydraulic power to your brakes.

    • There is no such thing as emergency brakes.

      Parking brake systems only have a static test required for hill holding on a defined grade per FMVSS 135.

      There is no dynamic test requirement for the parking brake to decelerate the vehicle.

      • FMVSS [Federal Motor Vehicle Saaaaaaaaafety Standards] deserves a place on library bookshelves next to LaVey’s The Satanic Bible.

        • LOL – don’t shoot the messenger.

          I agree though. We would have a lot more creativity and actual engineering if FMVSS weren’t a thing.

          For years FMVSS has held back US vehicles from getting technological improvements that have been available to the rest of the world markets.

          Examples active matrix headlights that better illuminate the road and simultaneously decrease glare to oncoming drivers – only recently approved in 2022 for US despite having been available to Rest of Woeld for almost a decade in one form or another

          Same when US mandated sealed beam headlamps and restricted Halogen even though Europe had them for decades.

          Don’t disagree sealed beam is cheaper and sufficient for many but the fact is Government delayed improvements for those willing to pay for them.

          • Totally concur — NHTSA ‘crats have been resisting and fighting automotive lighting innovations for decades. They are quite literally the forces of darkness.

      • Sorry to disappoint you, but though emergency brakes were far from efficient, they did work, else I would not be writing this. Used one about 45 years ago to ride down an Ozark mountain after blowing a hose on a single master brake system.

        • Ok if you’re driving around on a single piston master cylinder on mountain roads (suicidal IMHO but it’s a free country) I’ll agree with you and we can call it an emergency brake.

        • I was driving on a rough gravel road, a tire kicked up a rock that severed a brake line.

          The next stop sign I came to, no brakes. All of the brake fluid was ejected at the breech in the brake line.

          I drove over 100 miles with no brakes and only the emergency brake.

          Without an emergency brake, it would have run off the road and into the ditch.

          So don’t buy a new vehicle if you want safety at your feet.

    • The 05 Grand Cherokee lost a front brake caliper bolt 20 miles from home, brakes on then the caliper would pivot forward into the inside of the wheel making a horrible racket. I got us home using the hand lever ”parking” brake no problem. If that happened today it would be tow truck time.

  15. -you can long longer hold the drivers door open while backing up

    -you can no longer leave the trunk popped open while hauling an overside load

    -you can no longer change the transmission fluid (easily that is) as discussed in a previous EP article

    -you no longer have peripheral vision because of the wide pillars

    • Hi Mike.

      On a late model Dodge Ram I had to move, when you open the door and it slams on the brakes, put it into park and back into reverse and it should back up for you now.

      I wasn’t aware of the trunk thing since as I only drive antiques but I’ve had everything from generators to snowblowers and 2 X 12’s sticking out of the trunk over the years. Sad news to me.

  16. ‘your car won’t let you do some of the things you used to be able to do’ — eric

    At some point, your corporeal self won’t allow you to do stuff you used to do either. Today, for instance, ol’ Jimmah Carter turns 100 years old. In this APe News article, in photo 2 of 5, one can see a shockingly debilitated and barely recognizable Carter:

    https://apnews.com/article/jimmy-carter-100th-birthday-1e540c277dea07bd84242d290b4ebcdc

    Some things never change, though: ‘Jason Carter continued, “When we started asking him about his 100th birthday, he said he was excited to vote for Kamala Harris.”’

    As with the incorrigible DemonRat Carter, so with the refractorily liberal Lügenpresse. New York Slimes today:

    THE EDITORIAL BOARD
    The Only Patriotic Choice for President
    [superimposed over a photo of the Kamala entity]

    At best, growing old gracefully means retaining some capacity for adaptation and change. But the communist Left never changes. It just keeps on pushing the same old broken bromides, mouthed by halfwit grifters who would fail French fry training at Mickey D’s.

    *sigh*

    Might as well huff some more glue …

    • Hi Jim,
      I saw a similar picture of Carter at his wife’s funeral, he looked like a zombie then and hasn’t gotten any better since then. While I disagree with his policies I always respected that he didn’t use the presidency to enrich himself, unlike so many of the recent occupants. Sad to see him end like this.

    • I hope I don’t make it that old. He looks like shit. I feel bad for the guy. Obviously, his brain isn’t working right. Voting for Harris. Stupid.

  17. Back when I was in high school, there was a show on the History channel, where they were talking about people one day living, working, and playing in these giant towers. The narrator had mentioned about “going from cradle to grave, without setting foot on mother earth”. Initially, I thought the concept was…interesting. It wasn’t until years later, when I finally realized what that meant. Seeing the climate czar stepping off of his private jet further proves that point. Movement is only for the “elite”, while us “peasants” remain stationary in our pods!

    • I think some small portion of leftist zealots actually believe they are righteously saving the Earth by decimating humanity. Some are motivated by Satan to sow maximum chaos because they recognize the evil in themselves (and are incapable of suppressing it) and project it onto all of humanity.

      Either way, the leftist movement is completely anti-humanist. Having no moral foundation to contend with, they are able to speak lies with absolute conviction. When they tell you that what they are doing is for the greater good, believe them. Their great good is the eradication of humanity.

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