š¾šššš šæšššIt's that time of year again.
Echo DotIsnāt it great how cars just have like random lights that come on whose design is so ambiguous that thereās no possible chance you could work out what theyāre trying to indicate.
My car occasionally displays a blue tick, what the hell is that supposed to mean? It only comes up maybe once every 4 or 5 months so itās really hard to work out a pattern.
Dont you have the manual? I did buy a used car and it had manual
No you dont get it, its bad design if you have to read. Also why are there 3847436189347 different lamps that indicate something now? Thats bad design. Oh why do i not know what the single error lamp means and what exactly is broken?bad designā¦
All because people dont want to rtfm.
With all the infotainment bullshit theyāve added to cars these days they really could just tell you what the problem is. Still, RTFM.
True, but who is gonna go to their car dealers mechanic if you can just read a errorcode.
The challenge there is that there is rightfully an air gap between the infotainment and the actual critical systems to running the car. Sometimes thereās a heavily limited data feed that feeds some data one way but generally the two systems are completely separate and cannot communicate with each other so that you canāt brick your car by loading a malformed music CD for example.
Pay attention the next time youāre futsing with settings and notice how the infotainment is separate from any sensors or settings related to vehicle operation
Itās called user experience. Itās like a whole discipline.
Itās a car itās centuries old technology I shouldnāt have to read the manual to know what itās complaining about. It has a big infotainment screen it could put the error in English on there, but no.
My ten ear old Subaru has a small screen that says what the light is. Unfortunately that doesnāt always help: recently the āspend $1,400ā light came on but the screen claimed it was āpassenger airbag sensorā
I HATE that sensor. It was the arse weight one, right?
Iāve had it programmed out of a car once. Just couldnāt use a child seat in the front pass. Seat afterwards. Big deal.
Yes. I was lucky that the car had an outstanding recall on the wiring so replacing that was free and the airbag has a long warranty so replacing that was free, but it wasnāt enough. And apparently the sensor is not replaceable so they had to replace the seat base and rebuild the seat. I suppose it could have been much more expensive but this is excessive.
I donāt understand why they couldnāt program the sensor out - let the airbag always deploy in case of accident. The reasoning behind it is stupid anyway. Theyāre afraid some kid might be in the front seat and be injured by it, yet the weight of a car seat by itself is almost enough so what point is there?
I needed to get this fixed to pass my stateās inspection, but what made it more painful is that apparently that requirement is dropped after ten years. It would have been cheaper to just pay any tickets until December when I could magically pass again. Realistically though, I would not want to be the guy saying āI saved some money by not fixing thatā in case an airbag was ever needed
And apparently the sensor is not replaceable so they had to replace the seat base and rebuild the seat.
One of my favourite examples of planned obsolescence in cars - they build a high failure rate part into an expensive part that would otherwise last longer.
I donāt understand why they couldnāt program the sensor out - let the airbag always deploy in case of accident.
Itās not even possible in all cars. I had it done in my W211 Mercedes and the guy said newer models donāt even have an option, the sensor just is there and thatās it, the car always expects it. I donāt know how it is for Subaru. But yes, they donāt want to take any liability.
I needed to get this fixed to pass my stateās inspection, but what made it more painful is that apparently that requirement is dropped after ten years. It would have been cheaper to just pay any tickets until December when I could magically pass again
Ah yeah, my car at the time was like 16 or 17 years old, but unfortunately you canāt have an SRS light up even on a 60 year old car. Not that any CURRENT 60 year old cars have the system, but essentially if the system is present, it must work. No lights allowed on any safety-critical systemsā¦
I bought a used car and it had not just the manual, but the original sales offer to the Estonian government (a specific department of it that I wonāt name because thatās too specific).
But in general itās been hit and miss for manuals with used cars. Sometimes Iāve looked them up online, but not all are easily found.
I donāt think Iāve owned a single vehicle that didnāt come with the manual in the glove compartment, and Iāve always bought used vehicles.
3 with over 100k miles, 2 that were over 15 years old when I bought them and 2 that were less than 100k miles and less than 5 years old when I got them. Half of those cars I only got one key with, a couple didnāt last 2 years before developing severe mechanical issues, but the one thing that every single one has was the original owners manual in the glove compartment