Well, I like to find a more interesting phrase if I can :-) FWIW, I'm a
10.5 stone weakling and I can navigate a rolling 2 tonne Discovery or a 1.5t BMW about the place. Yes, not easy, but not impossible. And, as I said, the PS adds almost none of that resistance.Find me a car without PS and I'll show you a light car car with skinny tyres. And (I forgot this one) more turns lock-to-lock. I have a vague notion that camber and castor angles were different too years ago before PS was standard.
My car gives visual and audible warnings if I take the key out of the car with the engine running, even when stationary.
"Proper" SAABs, with the key in the console, have done that since the late '60s. The UK's not alone in having long had legislation requiring the key to provide a physical security lock - usually done by locking the steering - but obviously that's not so easy with the key down there. But what else is down there...?
There's always one. That's a van though, not a car ;-)
Yep, most sweeping generalisations are usually disproved like that...
Not according to the council, when I parked it in a "Goods Vehicle" loading bay whilst loading it...
is that really so? Why does the steering suddenly become too stiff to turn when the engine stalls and you are still coasting along then?
Robert
I learned to drive in Norway. I was taught never to use the handbrake at all. If you used it for parking it could freeze to the drum, and the brake lining's surface would be pulled off when you started next day.
Robert
Yes. It was just alien enough to be very confusing at the time.
The one thing I found the Saab really excelled at was driving at speed on cobble stones. Apart from that it was fairly ordinary.
Honest to $DEITY. I've only experience of hydraulic systems (both steering box & R&P) but they just don't add any appreciable resistance. The stiffness comes from the ratio of the rack, width of tyres and weight of car.
It doesn't. You're a wimp...
But, for some manufacturers, power steering is used as an excuse to change the steering geometry. Removing the power steering but leaving the same geometry would give the same weight.
It seems to be standard on Toyotas.
In the days before power steering became standard fit, cars with manual steering had a rack with a different ratio to an identical car equipped with power steering, giving more steering wheel turns lock to lock. Same car with power steering, remove the power steering belt and the car needed very significant effort to drive at low speeds and was, for all practical purposes, impossible to parallel park.
I've not got a new BMW, but on this one the only thing that happens when you replace the battery is the clock needs re-setting. I'd guess later ones get this from RDS.
And FWIW, the original BMW branded battery died just outside the car warranty. The replacement Bosch installed by myself - which looked all but identical - lasted 11 years. ;-) Replaced by another Bosch.
And it's not a good idea to have the parking brake on if you don't expect to use the car for a while. They rust up and seize, had a devil of a job freeing off one of SWMBO'd brakes not that long ago. No amount of forward/backward/dropping the clutch would release it. Had to take wheel off and clout drum with lump hammer.
So that's why they need to 'introduce' the battery to the computer, so the computer knows when the warrenty is up to activate the shunt load hidden in the loom to kill the battery.
You can add lamp replacement which requires partial dismantling of the vehi cle to the list of totally insane 'improvements' foisted on us by car manuf acturers.
To replace a front indicator lamp on my Skoda Octavia:
[1] Remove bumper [2] Remove headlamp cluster [3] Extract sealing plug from rear of cluster taking care not to break too much of the cluster (as warned in service manual) [4] Replace almost-bespoke lamp. That'll be £20, Sir [5] Fit blanking plug kit. Cost: unknown.And you wonder why so many new cars have failed lamps.
Clearly the above is not a 'roadside' repair so the question I asked Skoda is whether it is necessary to take a spare front indicator lamp when I take the Octavia to Europe. I'm still waiting for a reply.
I did take one and, unfortunately, the indicator lamps did not fail because , as I understand it, Les Flics will replace your failed lamp if that is wh y they have stopped you. I would have loved to see a French copper taking the car to bits on the side of an Autoroute
Richard
cars without power steering tend to have a different gearing on the stearing to those with power steering.
You just have to try doing lock to lock and count the turns to see how much difference there is.
This gearing makes cars with power steering harder to turn with the engine off.
Not that someone like me would notice having picked cars up to remove the jack before now (not that I would even attempt it with the two ton monster I drive now).
Dunno why even small cars have power steering these days. At one time only limos had PAS. Are we become a nation of wimps?
At one time even buses didn't have PAS.
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