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Thread: A new reason (to me) to never own a Porsche

  1. #46
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Livonia, Michigan
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    780
    I'm trying to stay out of this. But I remember when my Chevy Cavalier decided to accelerate on its own. Luckily the mighty pushrod 4 it had made as much horsepower as a riding mower and was a bit easier to control. When that happened it drove me to have vehicles with manual transmission for the next 25 years. Now that I'm disabled I can't drive a stick anymore and it really bugs me.

    Remember when the Toyota went out of control with the California Highway cop at the wheel and ended up getting killed? The question that absolutely no one asked was- What would have happened if the car had a manual transmission? I can answer that: The engine may have wrecked but so what? No one would have been hurt.

    Remember, when we talk about how things are computer controlled, the computer does nothing. It's some nameless programmer who you never met, isn't in the car, never faced the situation you're in but has made all the driving and control decisions for you.

    Kevin, I'm glad your story had a reasonably happy ending. But what could you have done if the car had an automatic transmission? Toyota had set theirs up so it wouldn't go into neutral "to protect the drivetrain". Just wonderful. Not all of these controls are bad. But blind acceptance of controls the driver is only dimly aware of? No, I don't like it.

    -Tom

  2. #47
    Great story Kevin! Now you have to post one about parachute malfunctions!

  3. #48
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Falls Church, VA
    Posts
    2,336
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    I had a 1990 Ford Ranger that would accelerate unexpectedly. Ford thought it was the cruise control and replaced it. I found out later that it was the carpet (bought from Ford) causing the throttle pedal to get stuck. The pedal was at exactly the right height above the carpet. I saw later that there was some sort of recall over sticking throttles and wondered if it was all carpets.

  4. #49
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Chapel Hill NC
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    113
    Quote Originally Posted by Frederick Skelly View Post
    Great story Kevin! Now you have to post one about parachute malfunctions!
    I'll wait until someone starts a thread about electronic vs. mechanical parachutes...

    Baaaack in MY daaaay....

    K

  5. #50
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    SF Bay Area, CA
    Posts
    15,332
    Now had you been on I-280 instead of US-101, it would have been more fun and probably no CHP....
    Wood: a fickle medium....

    Did you know SMC is user supported? Please help.

  6. #51
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    NE Ohio
    Posts
    6,983
    Great story Kevin! Now you have to post one about parachute malfunctions!
    Speaking of which....
    First time I jumped, they gave us an 8 hour class on how to do it.
    All morning long we practiced how to push off from the wing & how to do a PLF. (parachute landing fall)
    Everyone was having fun and joking around and we were all smiles and laughs.

    When we broke for lunch, the instructor told us, "When you come back, we'll spend the afternoon going over what to do when things go wrong".

    25 people turned silent and we all had the same look on our face of - "Go wrong? Nothing goes wrong! Why would anything go wrong? I'm not sure I like the sound of "go wrong". No - I'm POSITIVE I don't like the sound of "go wrong".
    LOL!

    IIRC, everyone came back after lunch.
    My granddad always said, :As one door closes, another opens".
    Wonderful man, terrible cabinet maker...

  7. #52
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Upstate NY
    Posts
    3,789
    Quote Originally Posted by Rich Engelhardt View Post
    Speaking of which....
    First time I jumped, they gave us an 8 hour class on how to do it.
    All morning long we practiced how to push off from the wing & how to do a PLF. (parachute landing fall)
    Everyone was having fun and joking around and we were all smiles and laughs.

    When we broke for lunch, the instructor told us, "When you come back, we'll spend the afternoon going over what to do when things go wrong".

    25 people turned silent and we all had the same look on our face of - "Go wrong? Nothing goes wrong! Why would anything go wrong? I'm not sure I like the sound of "go wrong". No - I'm POSITIVE I don't like the sound of "go wrong".
    Just before my first jump another person in my group got out under the wing and then refused to either jump or come back into the plane. After a while he lost his grip and just fell into the woods without doing anything at all. He broke his ankle. I was reassured that it was pretty safe if he could do everything wrong and just break an ankle.
    On my second jump my chute got tangled up. If it was my first jump I don't know what would have happened, but as a veteran I just untangled it and all was well.

    ANYHOW... I asked a friend who used to race about this issue of sports cars. He said that they are a completely different experience that what I have had, but didn't think a responsible person on public roads would ever push a sports car hard enough to know the difference.

  8. #53
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Deep South
    Posts
    3,970
    I have no desire to waste my time explaining something to someone which they either already know (as I suspect) or who have never noticed the difference in the properties of different 4 wheeled vehicles. You might as well ask what is the difference between a sports car and a side by side 4 wheeler.

    All you are really doing is saying in an obscured fashion that people who buy sports cars are wasting their money. Why not just make that statement plainly and be done with it?

    Quote Originally Posted by Wade Lippman View Post
    If you can't explain the difference, you don't know the difference.

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