> on my Toyota the radio and the cigarette lighter are > switched off by the ignition key - pretty silly! > While the headlights are not Back in the 50's, car radios worked without the ignition keys - good for leaving the kids in the car (before political correctness ;-). I think too many people ran the battery down - leaving the radio on - so that had to change. Cigarette lighters developed the same bad habits when radar snoopers came along. In a modern car, a flat battery could be avoided by simply having a 15-minute delayed power-off for these circuits. My (10 yo) Subaru kills its head-lights and parking lights unless I activate a separate 'leave me on' switch. N's Peugeot is super-clever - it turns on the headlights for her when it's dark and turns them off 10 seconds after engine-off - so she can find the front door keyhole... Perhaps not so good if you're doing 100kph one night and have to overcome an insane computer ;-) Best power design decision I ever saw was my old Peugeot 405's ability to continue to operate the electric windows & sunroof when the interior light (dome-light) was on. Countless times I had the engine off and keys in my hand - only to bless this feature as I tidied up a window that had been left down. Also good if you left a passenger in the car and took the keys with you. There wasn't any security problem with activating the windows or roof, as if the light was on, it meant a door had to be open already. Worst one was in a Benz that my dad bought in the 70's. They put all 4 windows and the roof on one under-sized fuse - which blew if you activated them all at once... We proved that one day when a flash storm came over and we got a free rinse. Being a young (and entirely too brash) engineer, I suggested to the MB Service Manager in Tampa that this wasn't a good example of superior German engineering. I bet you can imagine how sympathetic he was ;-) Best Regards Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Apr 13 2010 - 04:26:36 PDT
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