Oh, I love this: While in France I saw a very proper-looking guy in my age, with a beautiful young woman beside him, maybe 25 years younger than him, after having had lunch in this picturesque town, strolling down to his Mercedes sports car, some classy late 60's model, gladly chatting. Then things start to fall apart: He can't find his car keys! I remember the young woman very well, as she had hair that was so long that it reached beneath her knees - never seen that again! Anyway, she points out that the keys might still be in the car, and they are (no thieves around, evidently)! And the sun roof is slightly open. So this suit-clad guy has to face losing face big style, if he can't get at the keys, and as he's a gent he doesn't ask the lady, so he does his damnedest to get them, and after a while the girl is laughing hysterically, as he's stuck, with his legs pointing skyward, and can't get out, nor in! My friend, a proper Frenchman, decided we should retire, quickly, as not to upset the poor guy further! I think we laughed for the rest of the day! My friend (the Volvo guy I've mentioned before) told me about his present car's queer behavior - also due to misbehaving computers: It has modern, high-tech 'intelligent' wipers, that when you used the wipers and sprayed water on the windshield, after a delay of fa few seconds does a pair of extra wipes, to collect any remaining drops. Very intelligent and all that, but now the car do those extra wipes randomly, when it pleases. Scared the hell out of him the first time, and you can't turn it off, of course! But now he feels it's part of owning a Volvo :-)! I told him of other people's cars that randomly turns on their horns !!! That is worse! -----Original Message----- From: Paul Hayward <pdh_at_mmcl.co.nz> To: 'Tord' <tord_at_mindless.com> Cc: paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net Sent: Tue, Apr 13, 2010 1:26 pm Subject: RE: [Paddlewise] Toyota Problems > 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 - 13:57:54 PDT
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