Car warranty

[Cindy Hamilton]

Perhaps life in Michigan has its compensations. Plastic does deteriorate, but not all that quickly.

Last night's meteor shower was a bust for us. 100% sky cover.

Cindy Hamilton

[trader_4]

The contradiction is that the US had sealed beams because the govt claimed the design with separate lens, bulb and reflector were prone to degradation, dirt, misalignment, which would reduce visibility. Yet now they have open designs with plastic lenses that we all agree do deteriorate and result in reduced visibility.

On another related note, here in NJ, the DMV used to require all cars to be tested once a year, through a battery of tests. That included;

checking headlight alignment driving the car onto a floor skid pad, hitting the brakes and checking force lifting the front end and trying to rock the wheels by hand checking windshield wipers, horn checking for cracks in windshield or other glass

then they added, at a cost of about $400 mil, emissions testing during the Christie Whitless years, because fed EPA ordered it. That added a dynamometer that got the car up to highway speed, while the tailpipe emissions were sampled. It was a disaster, took longer to get working, cost more, had inspection lines waiting for hours... About two years after they got it working, EPA went to just using the car's OBD to hook up to, no dyno anymore, so they tore the $400 mil system when to the junk yard. Now, you can't tell me that the EPA couldn't have known that in just a few years OBD would suffice.

And subsequently, using OBD to check emissions compliance is *all* they test! That's right, you can drive a car in with a blown out headlight, no horn, wipers don't work, cracked windshield, bad brakes and as long as it passes the emissions OBD test, you get a new sticker. New cars are exempt for 5 years. After that you only have to inspect every two years. And cars older than like mid 90s don't have to show up at all, because there is no OBD to connect to.

The headlight alignment might have been a good thing, because here now you can have them pointed so they blind oncoming drivers and nothing happens. With the new designs IDK how hard or easy it is for them to get out of alignment or how much of a problem it is on the roads. I do occasionally notice a car that appears to have low beams on and it's interfering with me seeing.

[dpb]

I really dunno anything about the history of DOT reg's; I'm sure there were myriad. What's permissible within current I also don't really know; all I do know is the present population of those with plastic outer lens soon suck big time owing to the lens degradation no matter how good they may have been on the showroom floor...

...

VA required it when we were there, but left 40 year ago for TN which never did. Don't know whether VA dropped or not, but it's a nanny-state mentality, too, so probably not.

KS hasn't since we've been back (now 20 years); whether ever did or not I don't know but don't think so.

The alignment would definitely be worthwhile; here with the preponderance of trucks in particular, it's more the rule than the exception they're aimed too high so with any load they point way too high. Not to mention all the lifted ones that paid no attention to any such niceties including braking effectiveness, stability, etc., etc., etc., ...

[trader_4]

Some cars, eg Porsche have lights that dynamically shift in response to vehicle pitch. If you brake hard, they move up. I think some now also have lights that move sideways, like if you're turning right, they move toward the right slightly.

[Clare Snyder]

On the alignment question -- With a sealed beam headlight lifespan averaging a few years and needing changing on a regular basis a lot of "unqualified" people replaced headlights - and with the aiming screws and the retaining screws in close proximaty MANY headlights got "adjusted" inadvertantly when the headlights were changed. Also I have seen a LOT of sealed beams installed upside-down, or 60 or 90 degrees off of where they should be.

That can't happen with "insert" bulbs in "permanent" headlights - which is a large part of the reason headlight aim is not the problem it used to be.

Physical "leveling" type adjusters also could not compensate for the (relatively uncommon, admittedly) situation where the filament supports sagged in the unit, throwing the pattern WAY off. There were a couple brands, over several time periods, that suffered from that problem - mostly, if I remember correctly, with the "halogen" sealed beam from Wagner?

[gfretwell]

That is all still true and to say they can't enhance the ability of an industry standard sealed beam instead of that plastic piece of shit that is model proprietary even among similar cars from the same manufacturer in the same year is ludicrous. There may be some small aerodynamic advantage to the new style lights but it is mostly just "style". I also disagree that they would cost more than $5 if it was a commodity part that spanned several hundred million cars. The Chinese would be pounding them out for pennies a unit.

[gfretwell]

Florida had inspection like that too. A democrat governor tossed it.

The predicted spike in accidents and injuries from the ending of inspections coming from the nanny state people, never happened. A cop can still stop you if you have some obvious problem with your car and write a "fix it" ticket but other than that, run what you brung. It saved the state millions.

There are only a few urban areas that do emission testing in Florida last I heard, basically scanning for codes. Out here in the red parts of the state, they don't inspect anything.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I've seen where states with no inspection have the same accident rates as states with. It is a nice income for shops though, opportunity to cheat too.

When I lived in PA, before they started doing emissions testing the safety inspection was twice a year. I can tell many stories about cheating, both by drivers and shops. Today, with a scanner and color printer you could have a nice business selling fake stickers.

There were four types of shops:

1. The honest shop that did the inspection and gave you honest results. That was the most rare.

2, The shop that told you things like a drag link, idler arm needed replacement because most owners had no idea what they were.

1. The shop that took you money and did nothing. You had to stay at least 20 minutes because that was the state approved time for inspection. It was not visible from the street if watched.
2. A variation of the above. They put the car on a lift in case they were being watched. Seems like very car they inspected needed headlight adjustment, a quick and easy buck.

We had three cars in our house, I took all three to the same shop, two with know to me defects, but turned out, just a quick headlight adjustment was all that was needed.

I also used shop 3. I should not say Frank did nothing, he put his foot on the brake pedal while scraping off the old sticker. Yep, feels good. Put the new sticker on.

[Clare Snyder]

The aerodynamics are significant, and if the Chinese pound them out for pennies a unit they will have the same problems the aero headlights do. The problem is the plastics they are using, not the design. It needs to be UV resistant, chemical resistant, ozone resistant, high impact resistant, optically clear and reasonably priced. Oh yes - one more thing - it needs to be economical and easily molded and fabricated. Polycorbonate hits every base except UV resistence. Lucite (acrylic) solves the UV problem but is brittle and gets soft with heat - high output headlights have melted lucite lens. Coextruded plastics with acrylic top surface over polycarbonate are an option - not sure how they would stand up if the acrylic doesn't filter out the UV.

Boric glass or lead crystal hit all the bases except price (and weight which I did not mention).

Not much else out there.

[gfretwell]

Define significant. 0.5% difference in MPG on the interstate? Most driving is 30-40 MPH around town and aerodynamics are insignificant at that speed.

If they used a common, simple shape, they could be Pyrex again. Tough, scratch resistant and UV immune.

Then you go on and make that case.

[Clare Snyder]

They could be pyrex today too - it would just add a few lbs and a couple hundred bucks to the MSRP

[gfretwell]

I doubt a simple sealed beam weighs as much as that whole head light assembly but if it did add a pound or so, who cares. They take on a couple pounds at Burger King and nobody cares.

[trader_4]

The govt cares. There are CAFE regulations that have to be met. Or has Trump repealed them too in his quest for smoke stacks spewing coal smoke?

[Bod F]

True but on a "car" like the Yaris, you'd have to beef-up the front suspension to handle the extra weight of glass headlights.

[dpb]

We could only hope...

[invalid unparseable]

Living in DE I know PA inspection is a PITA. Many on the PA border that might have moved from DE will maintain the DE license to avoid this crap.

We have a state inspection which does not have to be done on a new car for 5 years and then every 2 years thereafter.

Inspections do not improve accident rates but they will remove junk off the road like one I saw years ago where the guy had cut the roof off a car to make it truck like. It was a piece of junk.

[dpb]

On 12/15/2019 7:52 AM, Frank wrote: ...

What's the basis for calling it "junk"? It might well pass inspection irrespective of appearance.

It's his vehicle, can do as pleases as long as it will stop and avoid me with adequate handling.

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[micky]

I've never had a broken or burned out sealed beam except when I wanted to upgrade some car and I put in halogen because they were brighter. They burned out in 2 years (and I put the old non-halogen back in). These were an early design and perhaps they are better now.

[dpb]

I wasn't aware the proscription went back to as early as does--1940.

Certainly the cost differential for borosilicate glass would be minimal owing to material cost; particularly if there were some standardization required again. We're back to the plethora of customized vehicle/model dependent replacements that caused the mandate to begin with.

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[trader_4]

The halogen bulbs that go into the open design are worse, in my experience. I used halogen sealed beams, they were fine. The halogen bulbs for the BMW here last about a year, maybe two if you're lucky.