My Car is Smarter than me.

[mary and bob]

Originally Posted by MC1

Charlie... I can sure relate. Dwell meters, distributor wrench, etc are entering the Jurasic era. Can't even sell this stuff. Nobody wants or needs it.

Old goats like me still own and use those tools on old vehicles. Sometimes I wish everything was as simple as it once was back in the day. But even I have got spoiled with modern features. When I was shopping for a used truck to pull our new to us Casita I "Had to Have" power windows and mirrors and door locks. Yes I need less tools now because a lot of repairs I'll take to the dealer, they have the training and specialized equipment to diagnose and repair a problem. This is my first vehicle with the ignition key that is not an actual key, the salesman had to show me how to use it, DUH. I haven't bought a brand new vehicle since 1969, and still own it.

[Andrew Gibbens]

Originally Posted by Borrego Dave

A restored pre computer ride is looking better and better all the time.

I used to run a 1970 Morris Minor as my winter car when I was a motorcyclist and the only electronics anywhere on the car were inside the alternator that I had added to the car.

One day the engine just died and I could not find the cause so called out a roadside recovery service. As soon as the mechanic turned up, he beamed from ear to ear, delighted to be using old-fashioned spark-and-fuel fault finding. (I felt marginally less stupid when he located the fault as a break in the power wire to the coil inside the insulation.)

But even then just the alternator was a big step forwards from a dynamo in winter, so I'll vote for electronics happily. My current car has modern 'canbus' electrics where absolutely everything is controlled by the car's ECU (Norm, your Odyssey will be like this), so that the wiper switch just sends a message to the ECU and it is the ECU that supplies power to the wipers. And on my next car, I think I'll go for the full 'inadequate' package with video-controlled cruise and automatic parallel parking by sensors. I may even treat myself to a nice walking stick....

[ATHiker]

Originally Posted by honda03842

As planned in 2014 we purchased a new car, a 2014 Honda Odyssey. I knew humanity was in trouble when our car was smarter than me.

Shortly after we purchased it I stopped at a store with Ginny. She ran in for a quick purchase and I waited in the car. She was back and in minutes and I attempted to turn on the car but got no response. The car knew the engine was running and unlike the old days when turning the starter on would cause a crunch with a running engine, I got silence. The car’s engine computer was smart enough to know the engine was already running. The car was smarter than me, well aware of what it was doing, well aware of it’s local environment.

That's a nice feature with Honda's, as the motors are so quiet, you can't hear them running.

[Paul O.]

Soon the North Koreans are going to hack into your car and know what is happening in the back seat!
"I wish they had spoken to me first" - Anonymous

[Carol H]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

and what happens when the computers stop working??????? everything shuts down, perhaps our lives have become so dependent on the microchip that it has become our Achilles heel.....hhhmmmm

Same thing that happened in the good old days of distributor caps - car stops working!

[Uplander]

I have this vision of our future world when all human life ends but the power source for computers continues and they (computers) just keep on doing their thing...interacting with other computers as if we all were still alive.....frightening thought....we have created a monster....remember "HAL" from 2001 a space odessey.....just one letter off from IBM in our alphabet....Hollywood was predicting the future even back in the 1960's......HAL now starts our cars and stops us before we crash!...Spooky new world we have created.

[MC1]

Originally Posted by Uplander

....remember "HAL" from 2001 a space odessey.....just one letter off from IBM in our alphabet....Hollywood was predicting the future even back in the 1960's......HAL now starts our cars and stops us before we crash!...Spooky new world we have created.

Pat... I worked for "HAL" for 30 years and I still can't figure out how they can shoe horn 30,000 images into an SD card, which is no larger than a 25 cent piece.

[carlkeigley]

Mike, I was leary of the push button start, but after using it this year,
you would really appreciate it in your situation. I just have to remember
to have the key in my pocket when I leave the house..............

I have hit the start button once while it was running also. I was glad
that it didn't respond like the manual key would have done..................lol.

I have a 2002 Astro and the service engine light stays on. Been to several
garages and I just ignore it now. I had a 92 Astro that did the same thing.
Then the light bothered me so I put some black tape over it so I couldn't see it.

Mankind has nothing to worry about. I've read the book and we are here at
the end. I just feel sorry for those who won't know what to do without all
their gadgets. I pretty much do without them now and will do fine if they all
quit. So the hackers can hack away. I still know how to chop wood, make candles, saddle a horse,
and holler across the fence to the neighbors.

[honda03842]

If computers and associated robots reach the state of self awareness, the state of being alive, their evolutionary progress could be astounding. The ability to remember everything and to at birth pass it onto prodigy in seconds, reaching maturity immediately. This action in a sense compresses time, particularly compared to human life cycles.

Thinking about the future, one I can not experience much of, is interesting.

[TomK]

Smart cars are nothing new. Remember the Knight Rider? My Mother the Car? Herbie the Love Bug? I'm sure there were more...

Tom

[mary and bob]

Regarding the engine service light that won't go off, I had one I couldn't get off by following the directions in the owners manual. Problem was I had the odometer set on "Trip A" and it has to be set on the total vehicle mileage position.

[mary and bob]

Originally Posted by Carol H

Same thing that happened in the good old days of distributor caps - car stops working!

For $20 or so I could carry a spare cap, rotor, points, and condenser and with a few simple tools diagnose and probably get back on the road quickly. The last several years I worked as a truck mechanic our diagnostic tool was a laptop computer we plugged into the vehicle. I like the new vehicles, just glad I don't have to work on them anymore.

[Alf S.]

Originally Posted by Alf S.

Hi: mary and bob...I retired because at 64 I knew how to drive a transit bus. At 65 I needed to be tested, and I don't do well at skill testing questions!!!
As for my vehicle being smart... the "Service Engine Soon" light has come on, been fixed, come on again, been fixed again, come back on again, and been fixed...yet again. Now that's really "Dumb"!!!
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

Hi: mary and bob..."SES" on for the fourth time!!! This really smarts. Odo. not on trip A.
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[FTTRV]

Smart trailers could be the future. No more lighting or pushing switches for hot water, heat, AC, mood lighting, heated towel rack and toilet seat, automatic hitching to tug. A trailer that recycles heat, propane, water. A trailer that cleans itself in and out.

[tractors1]

My other hobby is restoring antique tractors (hence the moniker) ... Not much simpler than a 1939 D4 Caterpillar (machine # 146, 1st year of production.) No battery, pull-start pony motor, and no spark plugs....

Top speed is 3.5 mph, but you CAN go pretty much anywhere you want. Useful for knocking down trees, too.

[mary and bob]

Charlie; that's great, I'd love to have an old crawler tractor. My oldest tractor is a '46 Farmall H, unrestored, bought new by my grandfather. Also have a '68 Ford, 60 something Case, and a Beaver garden tractor. You must be a "Antique Power" subscriber.

[Rob and Linda]

Well, this thing isn't very smart... it's raw, loud, has a bit of an attitude, and rides like a hay wagon...

But, my oh my, it's sure fun!

Rob

[Roger C H]

As we leveled off after take off, a voice came over the loudspeakers:

"Welcome to the first fully automated flight. I am a computer and am completely in control of your flight today. There are no humans controlling the aircraft.

Do not worry, nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong...."

Like the Airbus A320 whose computer thought it was landing and by jingles, it was going to land and ended up plowing a wide swath through a forest because the human pilots just wanted to do a low level fly-by for demonstration purposes. The field itself was too short to accommodate the airliner.

The problem is that we cannot anticipate all possible situations. If you study air crashes it is always a combination of individual factors that no one anticipated.

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by Rob and Linda

Well, this thing isn't very smart... it's raw, loud, has a bit of an attitude, and rides like a hay wagon...

But, my oh my, it's sure fun!

Rob

I learned to drive in a Porsche. It never ceased to amaze me how that thing stuck to the road, just an amazing vehicle. My Dad bought one, the first one a 1955 Speedster, and not to be out down my Mom got one. (Originally they were very reasonably priced.)

My Mom, with a little more patience, taught me to drive.

[Rob and Linda]

Originally Posted by honda03842

I learned to drive in a Porsche. It never ceased to amaze me how that thing stuck to the road, just an amazing vehicle. My Dad bought one, the first one a 1955 Speedster, and not to be out down my Mom got one. (Originally they were very reasonably priced.)

My Mom, with a little more patience, taught me to drive.

Ohmygoodness! I am so jealous! Of course, you already know that Speedsters are going for stratospheric dollars these days. My 911 is one of only 62 ever made and its scarcity contributes to its constantly-appreciating value (!)... but those Speedsters....