OT: "Mixed up the brake and accelerator"?!?

[Commander Kinsey]

Never had a Korean, my Jap cars were always autos.

Nope, since it's mathematically closer to 1st.

[Commander Kinsey]

Vibration? The whole housing could easily move.

Indeed. Some garages are moronic in things like that. They waste their time and yours having you come back for minor corrections.

It may be aimed correctly, but it can be stupidly bright and pass. It's not safer to have brighter lights so you can see well, if the person coming the other way can only see bright white light and not where the road is.

I've never had a car that had a warning at all, except one, a 1988 Range Rover. But I didn't know what it meant. It produced a symbol which I thought was water spurting at great force out of the top of a radiator, so I wasted hours trying to find an overheating fault, then realised it just wanted washer water. What's so bad about just having English words on the lights?!

My power steering fluid tank has a marker on the side for min and max. Except it's very opaque. Absolutely stupid.

Don't most people go under there for some reason every now and then?

Anyway, a decent car will tell you on the dashboard. My current car actually tells me if the engine oil is a bit low. It didn't tell me the gearbox oil was low though. Oops. 5th gear now has a permanent whine. There is actually no way whatsoever to check my gearbox oil without half disassembling the gearbox!

My first car, a Rover, had only one sensible thing about it. The washer fluid was in a position such that it got a lot of heat from the engine, so on a cold day, if the washer water was frozen, after 10 minutes of the engine running it would defrost. Every other car I've had, if it's below freezing outside, no washer fluid. Which is just when you need it with the grit spraying up from the road.

First time I saw an engine management light I wondered WTF a blob was. Seriously, that looks like an engine? So anyway, er... a problem to do with the engine, that could be one of 50 things! Why not have an LCD display which says "replace crankshaft sensor", etc?

There is no retest fee in the UK. All garages must allow a free retest within 2 weeks.

I was once stopped for HAVING an MOT. It was apparently "due to expire tomorrow sir". I pointed out that: a) that means it's valid today b) I renewed it almost a week ago I was told by the stupid young pig that I should always carry the paper MOT certificate for a couple of weeks because their system is slow to update. I told him I wouldn't do his job for him and that he should maybe wait the length of time required for their antique equipment to update before stopping people. He inspected my car very briefly, spotted 4 new tyres (from the MOT) and said "I'll take your word for it". I shook my head and drove off. Where do they get these people?

Yes you can, the chances of being stopped in that short distance are almost nil. Or just buy it online. Although last time I tried that, the DVLA website insisted my vehicle number or whatever it's called was a digit too short. I just drove to a post office and it worked there.

[Commander Kinsey]

We used to do it that way, but the government wanted to make it more complicated for us. They claim it stops fraud, f*ck knows how. They just want more money as usual.

Same here, except that fails because they change the codes so often that their website gets confused. My last car was owned by the previous owner for about 5 years. That was long enough for it's code number to be so out of date the system said I'd entered it wrongly.

[Commander Kinsey]

Which wears them out.

So why can't the system be intelligent enough to notice you're braking continuously and drop a gear tor two? It is supposed to be automatic after all.... if it can work out what gear to accelerate in, why not which gear to brake in too?

[Commander Kinsey]

I had a 1999 Honda CRV (4WD) automatic. It had a column gearchange (great big ugly lever that looked like an overgrown indicator stalk). I was surprised to see it on any non-American car. I found it very difficult to use, since on a normal manual stick coming through the floor (which every other car I owned had), you push it all the way in one direction until it stops. But this had every single gear in one straight line, with nothing to stop you pushing it too far, apart from a mild click. And unlike a floor mounted auto where you can see the 123D etc next to the lever, this just displayed the gear on a small display on the dash (I think it was an LCD). It was lucky it was computer controlled (I assume) so you couldn't select 1st when going 70mph, because trying to drop from D to 3 often got me into 2 or 1. Trying to swap between D and R for a 3 point turn was almost impossible without pushing the lever too far and selecting an entirely different gear.

[Commander Kinsey]

Strangely I had no problems driving a rental car in France (which drives on the right and I drive on the left in the UK). All the controls were the opposite way round. But I think being in another country I was already doing everything in mirror language, like driving on the other side and going round roundabouts the other way, so it seemed natural.

[Commander Kinsey]

They seriously still have the indicator and windscreen wipers the wrong way round on some new cars? I thought this was now an international standard. I have never driven a single car where it's not: indicator and lights on the left stalk, wipers on the right stalk. With the exception of my neighbour's Rover 75 where the headlights are on some weird switch somewhere on the dash. But at least the indicator is still on the left where it should be.

[Commander Kinsey]

The Morris what? Is that a car for terrorists?

Is that what they call a dogleg? Where you get R instead of 1st?

[NY]

When I first drove an LHD car, I was flummoxed for a moment because I expected the indicator and wiper stalks to be the *opposite* way round to an RHD car ;-) I suppose my brain was expecting *everything* to be a mirror image.

[Commander Kinsey]

I ran into the back of a roadworks van in a queue (while I wasn't looking forwards, but instead to the side at the colossally inefficient roadworks to my right). I had two weeks previously ran into the back of another car when I forgot my car had no ABS but the one I had previously did. The damage to the bonnet from the first accident was still there, and the roadworks bloke was so horrified as he thought that had happened on his collision, that he made no attempt to claim against me. Mind you I think all I did was knock his rear lights off.

[thekmanrocks]

Commander Kinsey:

My mixup is, thankfully not with the Go & No pedals, but on console-shift automatics:

Starting about ten years ago, when shifting out of Park into Drive, I consistently land in Neutral!! ARRRGHH!! It happens to me in straight-line PRNDL/321, or in more recent 'jagged' offset console automatic shifters, doesn't matter - I always end up trying to drive off in f-kin Neutral!

Is it just a part of growing older(I'm now fifty), or should Neutral be someplace else in the auto-tranny pecking order? Maybe PRD321N? Never happened to me until my early forties.

[None]

You're probably having trouble auto-groping your tranny pecker because you're a retarded dumbfuck.

[Commander Kinsey]

I have no idea where my fog light switch is as I never use it. A light precisely the same as a brake light does not ever get used on my car. I want folk to know when I'm slowing down.

[Commander Kinsey]

So you borrowed a car where the brake and accelerator were the other way round? No, you're just a dumb ass.

I've never even got that far. Here's a clue - the loud pedal is on the right.

[Commander Kinsey]

That would be acceptable if they only used them at night. But a light during the day, WTF? I can already see the bicycle, due to something we call sunlight.

[Commander Kinsey]

Agreed. They're far too tentative.

[Commander Kinsey]

The only woman I've seen that drives fast is one that works in a garage. It was quite funny when she was giving me a lift while my car was in getting fixed. She was cursing at everyone for getting in her way.