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Collateral Damage posted:Did he look like this? Essentially, yes. Maybe I haven't seen non-powered windows in a new car since the mid 90s when my mom had a Jetta. We got rid of it around 1996, and I haven't seen a car without power windows since. Even my friends K car had power windows.
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May 8, 2016 01:59
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Wanamingo posted:It's less for rental places and more for dealerships. They keep around some "basic" models without things like power windows or a stereo system so that the dealer can use it as a foot in the door to start upselling you on other stuff. The biggest customers for those base level vehicles are probably fleet and governments. In my experience with US gov't vehicles, they like the cheapest possible. No extras at all, standard cab if a truck.
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May 8, 2016 02:18
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My fiance's 2001 Hyundai Atoz had crank windows. Now he has a 1996 Ford Laser and it too has crank windows. Meanwhile my dad still has a 1990 Nissan Laurel with power windows, and neither of the back passenger ones work.
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May 8, 2016 03:33
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I'm about to hit 24 and we had crank windows until the early 2000s when we got a short-lived GM Equinox. That got recalled, and our next car was a 1989 Lincoln Town Car....which also had power windows. We bought it for like $100 and it had a bad radiator, but it was a luxury car in its day so it had power windows, a digital speedometers, leather bench seats with electric adjustment in all directions, etc. I still kinda miss it even if it was unreliable. I've never had a rented car without power windows. In fact, pretty much every rental I've been in (and I've been in a hell of a lot the past year) has had plenty of luxuries. On the other hand, crank windows are still common in Penske rental trucks. I got one in December and one in January and both of them had crank windows and simple dashboards with no amenities but a radio with a CD slot and two 12v ports. Combine that with the stiff seats with zero adjustment bolted against the back wall and you're in for an uncomfortable ride cross-country.
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May 8, 2016 05:18
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TotalLossBrain posted:The biggest customers for those base level vehicles are probably fleet and governments. In my experience with US gov't vehicles, they like the cheapest possible. No extras at all, standard cab if a truck.
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May 8, 2016 05:47
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As of about 10 years ago, Enterprise Rent-A-Car bought ~10% of all new cars sold in America. Most people don't know, as they're not publicly traded, that they're the largest rental company in the US by a wide margin. They absolutely buy economy cars without power windows, 1) because they're like $300 more per car; and 2) because they can upsell more easily when a car lacks power windows, cruise control, and an aux input.
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May 8, 2016 06:54
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I drive a 2007 Skoda Fabia and I have neither power windows nor central locking. Get on my level.
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May 8, 2016 10:46
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Pham Nuwen posted:I've never driven a Ford Crown Victoria where all four electric windows worked properly. The idea is you don't escape.
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May 8, 2016 11:19
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twistedmentat posted:I also recently came across someone who wanted a car with manual windows because he felt that was more "authentic'. Dude is only 22, there is no way he ever was in a car with manual windows unless his parents had an old beater around. Pfft. It's all about sliding windows for that authentic 'difficult to open while driving, poo poo air flow and tendency to leak' experience. But you've probably never heard of them...  Really the whole original Mini is fractal levels of obsolete and failed technology. All it did was show every other manufacturer in the world the correct way to do a small front-wheel drive transverse-engined family car without all the brilliant but pointless design wankery.
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May 8, 2016 11:46
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nocal posted:As of about 10 years ago, Enterprise Rent-A-Car bought ~10% of all new cars sold in America. Most people don't know, as they're not publicly traded, that they're the largest rental company in the US by a wide margin. They absolutely buy economy cars without power windows, 1) because they're like $300 more per car; and 2) because they can upsell more easily when a car lacks power windows, cruise control, and an aux input. I wonder at what point it is more cost effective to have power windows on every car than it is to manage two different builds and supply chains,
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May 8, 2016 12:24
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The_White_Crane posted:I'm only 27 and I'm pretty sure my parents still had cars with manual windows up 'til I was at least 10. Yeah, I never drove one myself, but my parents had a car with manual windows in the nineties.
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May 8, 2016 12:30
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spog posted:I wonder at what point it is more cost effective to have power windows on every car than it is to manage two different builds and supply chains, I'd say it's less about cost and more about price discrimination. They can advertise a nearly-fictional barebones price, but a package that includes things almost everyone thinks of as standard like power windows/locks could sell for 10% or even higher of the car's lowest possible price Personally I'll shoot for barebones with my next car, I'm a big fan of simplicity, it sucks when a multi-hundred motor/regulator dies, and I unironically loved driving old cars that didn't have power steering
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May 8, 2016 12:46
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For other silly car industry poo poo, how about the poo poo cars that exist solely to boost the average MPG? Stuff like the Chevrolet Aveo that doesn't come with AC standard but has a designed point where it can be added after being manufactured. I like that the mandated average MPG was met by someone saying "hey averages are skewed by outliers so let's just have an outlier in the other direction!  "
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May 8, 2016 13:41
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My ex in-laws were very proud of all the money they saved buying cars even into the 90's without power windows and without air conditioning. "The dealers didn't want you to know they had them but they did." I hated those drat people.
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May 8, 2016 13:42
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spog posted:I wonder at what point it is more cost effective to have power windows on every car than it is to manage two different builds and supply chains, I heard at one point in the 90s, the weight of a full power window assembly actually weighed *less* than a full manual window assembly. I can't remember the source, but it seemed really implausible at the time.
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May 8, 2016 18:26
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Goober Peas posted:I heard at one point in the 90s, the weight of a full power window assembly actually weighed *less* than a full manual window assembly. I can't remember the source, but it seemed really implausible at the time. It's pretty true for many vehicles that still offer manual windows. The weight and size of a modern power window motor/regulator is amazingly low, on the order of a couple pounds. OTOH, some manual windows still use the old method, which involves a large half-gear operated by a small gear hooked to the manual handle and is relatively heavy. At this point it's safe to say that power windows add virtually no weight to a vehicle. The other thing with power windows is that the motor rarely fails, it's generally the lovely regulator mechanism - some are cable operated, some use sliding levers, and others use a plastic tape arrangement. So using a manual handle instead of a motor still exposes you to possible failure if the manufacturer does a poo poo job in designing the regulator. Source: I am a state govt. fleet mechanic and replace a fuckload of dead power windows.
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May 8, 2016 20:23
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Obviously for safety they should just have both. That way if your power windows fail you can still manually open it when you drive your car into a lake! edit: Obsolete? window tech: those smaller angled windows you could open up to smoke through. Light Gun Man has a new favorite as of 20:54 on May 8, 2016 |
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May 8, 2016 20:47
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I drive a shoe. Close thread.
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May 8, 2016 20:48
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From the Funny Pictures thread, 1990's life hacks https://imgur.com/gallery/uQF2K Wondering how many floppies it would take to install a modern game.
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May 8, 2016 21:01
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Phlegmish posted:From the Funny Pictures thread, 1990's life hacks Just Cause 3 would take 36,801 1.44Mb floppies and take 30 days and 16 hours to install. e: not counting time swapping disks or arthritis cream. tight aspirations has a new favorite as of 21:14 on May 8, 2016 |
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May 8, 2016 21:09
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Phlegmish posted:Wondering how many floppies it would take to install a modern game. Bookmarking this for if I get drunk some day and start buying people joke custom titles.
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May 8, 2016 21:10
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BalloonFish posted:Pfft. It's all about sliding windows for that authentic 'difficult to open while driving, poo poo air flow and tendency to leak' experience. But you've probably never heard of them... Flipup windows is where its at! 
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May 8, 2016 21:33
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Shai-Hulud posted:Flipup windows is where its at! This reminds me of another thing: pretty much any non-commercial airplane. And by "commercial" I mean like, anything that's a 777 or newer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4WcMsTDsfc General Aviation is a minefield of archaic technologies abandoned by the Automotive industry decades ago. Granted, the plane in this video is pretty old - but then again, I'm pretty sure the new Cessna GA aircraft still have *distributors *carburetors *manual carburetor heat/choke *zero fucks given for the environment - as said in the video - Open headers. No real exhaust system to speak of. What reminded me of planes was those little windows - I was up in a 152 one day and it was kinda warm so my instructor just released a little catch, and the window flew up and open, held there by the pressure of the air as the plane flew through it. Ridiculous.
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May 8, 2016 22:39
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Shai-Hulud posted:Flipup windows is where its at! Hah! This is going to sound like a punchline but I swear it isn't - aside from the Mini my other car is a Citroen 2CV. So I don't own a car with rolling windows, powered or otherwise. The Citroen does have a manual rolling roof though. You also have to grease the steering every 500 miles and it has a starting handle - on a 1988 car. Obsolete technology all the way. sarcastx posted:This reminds me of another thing: pretty much any non-commercial airplane. Piston aero-engines don't even have distributors (well, kinda, but not in the coil+points+condenser+rotor arm sense like on a car). They use magnetos which were obsolete tech on cars in the 1920s. But they provide an entirely self-contained ignition system that generates its own power so it makes good sense for the purpose. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most GA piston engines use constant-flow single-point fuel injection now? It's still 1940s technology but it's a step forward from carburettors. Of course there'll still be thousands of C172s and Cherokees around with their carburetors, manual mixtures and cold-start primers. But yeah, the attitude to the environment is pretty obsolete by car standards. I guess it's just reliability, safety and tried-and-trusted technology, and the lack of any real drive to change, that keeps the old designs in use. As well little (or no) exhaust silencing most engines run very rich mixtures to keep the cyinder head temperatures down. And the power/size figures are laughable compared to a car - a 5.2-litre Lycoming makes 160 horsepower. But of course it can produce that power running virtually flat out for hours at a time for thousands of hours total. And the entire engine only weighs something like 110kg. So it's one of those cases of still being really fit for purpose but the world of technology has moved on around it.
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May 9, 2016 00:30
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sarcastx posted:General Aviation is a minefield of archaic technologies abandoned by the Automotive industry decades ago. Granted, the plane in this video is pretty old - but then again, I'm pretty sure the new Cessna GA aircraft still have Can’t use a catalytic converter with leaded fuel. e: Or run rich, for that matter.
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May 9, 2016 01:17
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Jonathan Yeah! posted:Just Cause 3 would take 36,801 1.44Mb floppies and take 30 days and 16 hours to install. That is really cool. I used to use the AOL disks like that. There are rumors that the Nintendo NX is going to be a cartrage system, but I'd say that is a tech that went from being obsolete to being useful again. With solid state storage improving, that may actually be a better choice than disks. Though I'd hate it if it did drive up the cost of games. I remember when I was deciding between a PS and a N64, I saw how the games were at least 10-20 bux more on the N64, that an FF7 was coming out for it. Though people have been saying "why bother? you can get everything DD!" well, yes, but if you download a game it still costs the same amount, plus not everyone has massive dl speeds, or unlimited access.
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May 9, 2016 03:35
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A great use for obsolete tech! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giUlMP22RSw
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May 9, 2016 09:53
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The sheer number of copycat channels after that one guy got popular on reddit is hilarious
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May 9, 2016 10:00
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These are fun to watch but it doesn't take long to realize there are only three ways they end. Soft objects deform and flatten, hard objects splinter and break, dense hard objects explode. Material mixes are the most fun.
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May 9, 2016 10:07
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My Lovely Horse posted:These are fun to watch but it doesn't take long to realize there are only three ways they end. Soft objects deform and flatten, hard objects splinter and break, dense hard objects explode. Material mixes are the most fun. The padlock one was kinda interesting. The book exploding was scary though!
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May 9, 2016 10:35
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I do have to say that "soft" and "hard" are subject to some redefinition in the face of a hydraulic press. The book was pretty good and unexpected.
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May 9, 2016 10:39
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My Lovely Horse posted:The book was pretty good and unexpected. Holy poo poo  e: referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmvKlnhMjUw
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May 9, 2016 11:31
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I rented a barebones Dodge Calibre and holy poo poo driving around 4 people without power windows or power locks sucked. Every time I got out of the car I had to manually lock and/or roll-up 4 doors and windows because no one else would remember. Light Gun Man posted:edit: Obsolete? window tech: those smaller angled windows you could open up to smoke through. Vent windows were the only thing that made driving a '73 VW in the South tolerable. Did everyone else's roller cranks routinely break? I replaced so many handles I started keeping a spare one in the glove box.
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May 9, 2016 14:28
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Krispy Kareem posted:Vent windows were the only thing that made driving a '73 VW in the South tolerable. Until you hit a high enough speed and they would slam shut.
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May 9, 2016 15:34
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hackbunny posted:Rentals! No idea why, but it seems in the USA they keep those features out of base models specifically so that rental car places can buy cars without them. Then again he's too young to rent a car at most places Since when is 22 too young to rent? LOL.
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May 9, 2016 16:58
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Kontradaz posted:Since when is 22 too young to rent? LOL. A while? Most US places won't rent to an individual under 25. A company can rent it and give it to someone under 25 to drive and that's fine though.
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May 9, 2016 17:02
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Kontradaz posted:Since when is 22 too young to rent? LOL. I think some places still don't rent if you're under 25. You definitely pay a lot more, and many restrict you from renting anything but a standard car, etc... Definitely under 21 is a no-go though for a lot of rental places.
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May 9, 2016 17:04
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Man, I wish my car had crank windows. The passenger side motor has been broken for years, so I never get to open it anyway, and now anybody that rides with me can't roll it down either. Replacing the motor somehow requires cutting into the metal interior panel - great design there - or paying someone to do pretty much the same work. Wish car makers would put in a manual crank as a backup in case the motor goes out. The motor on my rear passenger window went out while I was all the way down, had to have a buddy help me pull the panels and put the window up. Simple hidden hand-crank would be fantastic in a situation like that.
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May 9, 2016 19:13
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You want to rent a compact car? Whoa, better be 25 to do that. Want to rent a 25' moving truck? 18? Go nuts. I'm sure there are exceptions to both of those, but it doesn't quite make sense to me. For content, these stickers:  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying the registration fee, or getting my car inspected, or even having the plates and keeping a piece of paper in my car. I just hate swapping out the registration sticker every other year. Trying to scrape off the remains of the old sticker with a razor blade in an incredibly awkward position is just a huge pain in my rear end. I'm pretty sure a cop can just look it up based on my plate number, so why do I need the stickers?
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May 9, 2016 20:19
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In FL the registration stickers just go directly on the license plate itself. I don't see why that wouldn't work in any other states, maybe they thought there would be an epidemic of license plate theft/swapping? True that there's no smogging here, but why does that even need its own sticker? Just get paperwork from whatever agencies saying that your car passed the various inspections, then bring that to the DMV when it's time to renew your car (or sign an affidavit if your car is non-operable and get a different color registration sticker so the police know there's no valid inspections). That way if you don't have your inspections, you don't get your registration renewal. Sentient Data has a new favorite as of 20:41 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 20:39
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