Wing mirrors on cars

[NY]

I wasn't sure whether it was a genuine incident that someone had happened to film, which got used as a commercial, or whether the whole thing had been set up as a commercial.

[boltar]

Which was my point.

Some old cars did.

I don't know, but they are. Try driving one and you'll find out.

One monumentously bad decision which will probably affect their profitability for years. Its a sign of the lack of foresight and business acumen of the people running the company. But then its par for the course with american can manufacturers which is why a number of them had to be bailed out to stop them going bankkrupt.

Do you know how a clutch works? Once it bites the engine rpm drops to whatever the gearbox ratio and wheel speed allows and it probably isn't at the max torque peak. Sure, you can slip the clutch but then you're just turning the engines power into heat and your clutch will be dead pretty soon. Either way you're not going to accelerate as fast as an electric car with max torque from zero rpm.

Don't be a pedant. The throttle is colloquially the right pedal.

Thats why motors - on trains at least - have cooling fans. And zero efficiency for about a microsecond before the car moves. Anyway, I suggest you tell all this to Tesla who've managed to get a 2.2 ton car to do 0-60 in 2.5 secs. I'm sure they'd welcome your input.

Argue it out with language pedants, I couldn't care.

[Huge]

There's a laughter track. It's obviously not real.

[NY]

Yes, but that could have been added if the clip was shown on You've Been Framed or one of that type of programme. I imagine the fake "SP", volume level, battery level indicators, date captions were also added at that time, because even if camcorders display those in the viewfinder, they don't record them to tape.

It may well have been made as a commercial, but it could alternatively have been a real event that someone just happed to capture. "Unless you know better," to quote Esther Rantzen on That's Life.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh dear. You obviously dont know how a clutch works

[boltar]

I think I have a better idea than you. Hint - clutches arn't built to slip for any significant period of time. Perhaps you should stick to driving autos.

[Rod Speed]

Has to be 100% fake, you don't get anything like the volume of smoke seen when its going uphill, or when going backwards later and you don't get the smoke from just the front wheels when going back either.

[Rod Speed]

Don?t believe it, the smoke is obviously 100% fake, wrong color for starters.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I believe (just going by what bikers have told me) that wet clutches are. Dry clutches like on cars are not.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

You must have a strange car, I've never noticed my car try to increase the angle of steering when reversing. It always goes back to centre if I let go of the steering wheel.

No, it's very easy. You just observe what the trailer's doing and pretend you're pushing it. If you want to move the end of the trailer nearest to you to one side, you steer the car to make the towbar push it in that direction.

It's already 2nd nature to me, nobody told me how to reverse a trailer, I just did it. Just as though I was pushing it with my own hands.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

That would just confuse me, you're now doing a triple negative.

[TMS320]

If someone sits in a high gear with the pedal pressed beyond the point the engine can deliver, that's awful driving style. The sort of driver that would be better off with an automatic.

Probably when the decision making was done mechanically.

I know about the speed (on upshifts). The question was - so what?

A big problem was the pension scheme. JLR is now only profitable after a lot of money has been spent (probably involvement of UK taxpayers), something that Ford couldn't do after running out of willing investors and creditors.

In terms of product line, I believe it's normally considered good practice to offer product that customers are prepared to spend their money on.

It is normal to slip the clutch when starting off. If not, either the engine stalls or the wheels spin. I have already mentioned heating.

If the instantaneous torque from the power plant, through the gearing, develops sufficient tractive force to make the wheels spin, how can the power plant further increase its torque?

The maximum torque at zero revs comes from when motors have a raw supply applied to them and the windings left to sort out how much power they draw. A starter motor, for instance. The motors of a modern electric car are fully electronically managed and I bet that even without traction constraints, they are not configured to produce maximum quoted torque at zero rpm.

It is not pedantry. I have known the right hand pedal as the "accelerator", colloquially, from long before I knew anything about oily bits. "Accelerator" is not a particularly brilliant word but at least it is reasonably descriptive and independant of the operation of the power plant. "Throttle" is plain stupid.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Blocking the road is pretty rare. Safety is the only reason for the rule.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Those are for pilots.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I have no idea what the f*ck you're talking about. Why would you put a hitchball (which I assume is American for tow bar) on the FRONT of your car?

[Tim Streater]

As I have said before ad nauseam: companies other than pension companies should not be running pension schemes. No company should be allowed to run its own pension scheme for its own employees.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I don't think I'd have tried to, unless I could somehow take the overly large caravan out of the picture.

[NY]

Near me there is a steep 1:4 hill with hairpin bends (Sutton Bank) which carries a caravan prohibition. Occasionally caravans do try to go up - and I'm sure with modern powerful cars and better brakes than in the past, it's not really a problem.

I was once coming down the hill and just beyond the lower hairpin, I came round a bend to see a caravan broadside across the road as it reversed into a driveway to turn round. Fortunately the driver seemed to be pretty skilled and I was only delayed about 5 mins, but imagine if he'd cocked it up and had to have several attempts - or had given up altogether.

The problem is that the signage at the last point where caravans can easily turn, 7 miles away, is only *after* they have already committed to turning, and rather than aborting immediately, I imagine many continue in the forlorn hope that a proper turning-round place will be signposted - and there isn't one. They approach the roundabout, planning to turn left as their map says, but there is no "left turns prohibited ahead for caravans" sign in advance.

Last year there was a well-publicised case (in local papers, anyway) about how the police had seized several caravans for being towed without permits. The newspaper reports showed enormous caravans being towed by Transit vans. I wonder if the people had no fixed residence...

[rbowman]

They are on many bikes. Typically is is a multi-plate clutch running in an oil bath, either the engine oil or a separate compartment. Harley, for example, uses different lubricants in the transmission/clutch and the engine. With bikes that use the engine oil, you have to be careful about some oil blends that add anti-friction compounds.

That said, other than at shift points, the slipping is done at parking lot speeds. You actually hold the engine rpm steady and control the speed with the clutch engagement.

[rbowman]

You obviously need a diagram. In tight places it's often easier to push a trailer than back it in. Think about the angles involved when the steerable wheels are very close to the pivot point.