Toyota accelerator recall

Best not fly in a commercial airliner then ...

Net forward propulsion then,

without the need for all those horrendous batteries

And avoid TD5 powered cars like Discoverys and Defenders...

If it comes out of both ends at once, I bet he undergoes some kind of Catherine wheel effect. (Drivel, if you find yourself spinning rapidy end over end, either clench or shut up)

:-) The thing is, it doesn't really bug me if I'm not at the controls - it must be some kind of risk/responsibility thing, and I'm OK with other (experienced) folk putting their faith in such systems, I just prefer not to have to do it myself. I love flying in planes (well, takeoffs and landings - the bit in the middle can get a bit dull :-).

The root of it might be that I've seen plenty of mechanical systems degrade quite slowly over time as things wear out, whereas I've seen lots of electronic or computerised systems go from "completely working" to "utterly buggered" in the blink of an eye. Not that it can't and doesn't happen that way with mechanical systems too, of course, but I feel like on the whole I get more warning that "something's going wrong" with a mechanical setup - and sometimes that gives enough time to take whatever action's appropriate.

cheers

Jules

You're implying throttle cables don't snap. ;-)

The thing is with an auto the relationship between throttle position and control to that is critical. Some older boxes used a mechanical link for that (BW 35, etc) and in practice it was invariably well off the correct setting in short order. Later (or better) boxes used a vacuum link which at least took mechanical wear or adjustment out of the equation but has other problems. If you go to electronics you can use the same signal for both engine and gearbox. And car electronics are here to stay.

I'm not at liberty to say :)

We have quality cars!

Bah! :-)

impressed with the amount of 'old metal' I used to see knocking around NZ roads. And old stuff in general, actually - lots of folk who have their heads screwed on right and don't get suckered into always buying the latest-and-greatest things...

Closest I've got to the above is this (unearthed in our woods):

cheers

Jules

We got a Packard too:

We don't have salt on the roads in NZ and the climate is OK so cars last a long time.

No, not really - that's covered in "Not that it can't and doesn't happen that way with mechanical systems too" :-) But I've seen far more throttle cables start to fray (such that it's clear that they need replacing before there's any problem during use) or ones that have slipped and gone out of adjustment at the far end than I have ones that have outright broken.

You're probably right there (barring some global catastrophe, but at that point having a vehicle at all is perhaps irrelevant).

I think I can get another 40 or 50 years out of our truck though (no electronic anything, even the voltage regulator is electro-mechanical) if I stockpile a few "consumables" over the next few years. The only thing that would really keep it off the road is if the fuel supply dries up (which could happen within that lifespan)

cheers

Jules

I've replaced those electro mechanical regulators for dynamos with solid state ones. You can get much better performance out of the dynamo with one. Being home built I wasn't worried about it failing - much more easily repaired than a mechanical one. But they never did.

:-) The main body's in a field way out back, upside-down and horribly crumpled. I found rear mudguards, running boards and seats in the woods, too.

I believe that the chassis rails are what's partially holding up the mother of all grapevines along one side of the woods (certainly chassis rails from something, but hard to tell if they're Packard).

Quite why it met such a terrible end, I'm not sure.

performance.

I've got the Fox Classic Car Museum a few minutes walk away

Jaguars have become more streamlined over the years (my latest one at bottom):

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:

Not just the gearing - the castor and kingpin angles are usually different on PS, leading to a terrible draggy effect when the PS goes off.

its family. Despite the later car being one of the best developments of the XJ6.

They're not on the SD1 which has simple strut front suspension. The only change is the rack itself. Although the manual steering version I drove had smaller wheels and tyres. But should have weighed less than the power steering car I own.