While interesting, I don't really care because the corporation--just like Toyota--is going to fix the problem. Really, I find it idiotic that Toyota has received this much flak for this problem.

But GM? GM can suck it.

GM is America's largest manufacturer AND they took bailout money, and they're publicly mocking a competing company that makes better, safer products. For those who recall a previous thread of mine, I coined that GM made the Cavalier which has a half-star side impact rating for over ten years and knew about it. In other words, they don't care if you die if you don't spend enough money. If I was Toyota, I'd sue GM for defamation of character.

Why Toyota got so much flak? Why else, Toyota probably failed to keep up their protection money payments. Or failed to endorse someone enough or so on. I mean what was it even about? Incorrect speedometer readings? Fuel injector increasing rate without pedals going down? That's what lots of media FUD was saying but then it's about price fixing. Anything that sticks, truly bizarre.

I read that GM is majority-owned by US Treasuring department, US government invested a total of US$57.6 BILLION, a smear campaign on the national media, so I am calling it the Government-Media-Industrial-Complex. There was probably too much competition lately for Obama Motors Detroit HQ, and so they employed "synergy". I wonder if this will set a new pattern? And so I'm going to keep a look out for it because I call it first.

I will never buy a GM car unless I'm forced to at gunpoint.

I've had 2 GM cars, an 1987 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS and a 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.

The Monte Carlo was a rust bucket which was not the biggest fault besides the engine being replaced at 70k miles and the transmission as well. The entire electrical system was constantly at fault for the car stopping on idle or not starting, this was due to a short. Its a great car for the NASCAR enthusiast but a pain for just having a nice car, I'd rather have a Lexus.

The Cutlass supreme had a faulty fuel injection ( also on a recall notice) system that would make the car run like it had a shortage of fuel at the stop light. This was replaced twice in 160 k miles. The V-belt system fell apart at 60k miles (The pulley itself). There were so many weird noises coming from the car by 100k that no one wanted to buy it used.

Oldsmobile went out of business in 2004 and I can see the reasons why.

You implied a great point.

I do not support the defamation of free market companies by ones run by the government.

Should they? The way I see it, the problem is that people just can't afford American made manufacturing anymore (not with the lifestyles most choose to lead, anyway). Foreign companies can make better quality products cheaper and they do. Their citizens can't expect the same wages. About 4 of the major car dealerships in town (out of maybe 8 or 10) have been shut down now for months because the employees are locked out, refusing to work at the wages offered.

And [North] American consumers flock to those foreign products, leaving the American companies to cut corners to make cars "affordable". You get what you pay for. I bet close to 50% of the cars I see around this region are Kia or Hyundai now. I hate those PoS cars.

I suppose we're just going to have to surrender to the Koreans because American companies can't compete and [North] American consumers don't much care about them...

bamccaig, I think it might be more complicated than even that. And those Toyotas are made in USA too...

If you charge more than $10,000 for something, solely of my opinion, it better be damn well safe. To say you need to pay more than that just to have a safe car is silly. Moreover, if it is not stated in the brochure that you are buying a car that is misleadingly unsafe, it is grounds for litigation.

Toyota manufacturing jobs pay wages in America similar to the Big Three.

A Fight Club reference to the Ford Pinto fiasco. Yet, I still feel safer with modern Ford than GM. Ford has new management and a dedication to improvement now--to contrast 30-40 years ago. They're products are getting much better--though, I still don't prefer to buy them. Chrysler makes safe cars (minus the Caravan...) but their product durability is nil. GM is still run by scum, as evidenced by this recent outburst. That statement is not becoming of a professional environment.

The amount is irrelevant. How safe would you feel in a $10,000 aircraft carrier? There is always a spectrum of poor to high quality. I would say $20,000 is on the low end for cars. $30,000 is getting into the decent range. $40,000+ is where you can start having expectations for quality. If you think you can engineer a perfect machine and market it for less while still making a profit then I look forward to your company's success.

Maybe in the USA, but what about everywhere else they have factories? If they can offset the costs in the USA in other parts of the world then all foreign companies automatically have that advantage over American companies whose foreign markets are weak at best.

What world do you live in? The median income in America is $32,000 before medical care, housing, and living expenses. So by that logic the average American can't afford safety.

5 stars, all under $20,000.

The GM version of "under $20,000."

The Hyundai version of "under $20,000."

Would you'd pay $365 to not die? Except, the 2005 Cavalier, adjusted for inflation, is $11,630. So would you be willing to save $940 to not die?

Moreover, on the "American" car makers not being able to afford it. Over 70% of the Ford Mustang comes from overseas. So they're cheating just as much as any other company. There's more American parts in a Toyota Camry than a Mustang. And Volkswagens are made in Germany and America, both of which are hardly 3rd-world countries. Yet Volkswagens still out perform GM vehicles.

The point still stands that American manufacturers have willingly put themselves into a place of non-competition, opting to pay off legislators instead of building the best products. They deserve everything they get, and no bailout. Did you know that an American is responsible for Japan's success in business? American businesses didn't want to listen to him, so he went overseas and taught the Japanese.

Maybe I'll go buy a 2011 Hyundai Sonata. The test drive was real nice.

He lives in the Canadian/USA border world

I don't think very many people go out and plunk down $20-30k cash for a new vehicle. Everyone I know gets financing when they buy new vehicles and it usually takes them a few years to pay it off. So if that means that it may take a typical American family a few or so years to pay off a brand new $20k or more vehicle.

I had a Mustang some years back. It had a problem with sudden acceleration. I remember reading some people were complaining about the problem but Ford(Found On Road Dead) kept denying the problem existed. The car was five years old when I got it, I had it for another five so the problem existed for quite some time. It was not until some years after I got rid of the car that they acknowledged a problem with the cruise control caused the sudden acceleration. There were no hearings that I remember. Toyota is getting a raw deal if you ask me.

Both my parents' '89 Ford Crown Victoria (which we got rid of years ago) and '95 Ford Crown Victoria had that same acceleration problem. You would be driving along happy and suddenly you'd realize that the car was accelerating all by itself and you'd have to ride the brakes to hold it back (even on the highway!). There was nothing you could do. Finally, presumably after Ford finally admitted it (years after we got rid of the '89 and years after we got the '95) my dad took the '95 into the shop (read: a couple of years ago) to have the cruise control (and related systems) removed. So it doesn't do that anymore, but now you have no cruise control...

I remember one time (I don't recall which car it was) I was pulling into a rural Home Depot parking lot (dirt) and was pulling up behind a parked car to park behind it. I had let off the accelerator to coast in, but I suddenly realized that I wasn't coasting at all, but rather ACCELERATING. I locked up all four tires, aggressively sliding through the dirt, and stopped just short of the car in front of me while the owner was walking to his car... I got out and he said "I saw that" in a sort of old man complaining about kids today way, thinking I had done it on purpose... I just smiled, still slightly in shock, and went on with my business, swearing to never drive that car again.

p.s. I'm not sure why I always come off as a douchebag in my writing. I apologize, again.

I had a T-Bird back in the '80's and one time I'm on cruise, come up to a red light, and the harder I push on the brake, the harder the engine's trying to make it go. I had the presence of mind to shut off the cruise, then didn't use it anymore. But then I noticed people coming up behind me and locking up their brakes when we were all slowing down for a red light, so I checked that the brake lights worked. They didn't, it was a bad brake light switch on the pedal, and fixing that made the cruise control work properly again.

Ouch! I can tell what they did--there's no point in having two brake switches--but I'm not sure why they messed it up so badly that it would fail with your brake light. Sounds like cruise control was added as a severe after-thought! That's scary!

Thanks! And I do plan on doing just that! Now, I don't really know if there's an easy way to make a cheaper econobox meatwagon, but in terms of spartan sports cars and 2 seater econoboxes I'm pretty confident I can do it better. Super-long-term durability is the goal.

Some Volvos had a vacuum line running to the brake pedal, stepping on the pedal opened a little valve that opened the line to air, killing the vacuum. Any failure in this setup would result in no vacuum, so the cruise control could only fail at the brake pedal signal by not working at all, rather than trying to maintain speed.

I own a 2002 Sonata. It has about 150,000 miles on it. It's been a work horse, and I absolutely love it. It looks like shit, but it gets the job done.

The quality of Hynadai's product is comparable to Honda's, but it has a poorer perception in the marketplace and thus is cheaper. Unless I hit the lottery, my next car will definitely be another Sonata.

I've lived through 42 side impact crashes on my 2000 Cavalier, so I won't be giving it up any time soon.

There have been far more than 42 side impact crashes worldwide since the year 2000, or you mean you bought it 4 days ago?

I'm talking about my car...

So your Chevy has suffered 42 side impact crashes? No wonder you're not giving it up soon, no one wants it now!

[EDIT]

Get it towed out of that busy intersection!

It scares me that we got more and more drivers who

• can't use a manual gear box

• can't drive without cruising control

• can't use brakes without ABS

• can't park a car without radars or this VW's new self parking system

• ...

Feel free to add to the list. What comes next? Pedestrian recognizing system?

I don't think I've ever driven a car with any of those features (I have driven automatics though, but I prefer a manual).

I have driven a few times a car with automatic transmission. Was kind of fun, but I'd not buy one. I would feel very unsure f.i. when parking the car and the street is icy. It's like the gear box is full of dough and you don't know at what point something starts to happen. Sure one gets used to it, but still it's not something I like.

I currently drive a manual, without cruse control (does any manual come with that option?), and I question if it has ABS or not. I'm leaning toward no as the recent snow storms has shown me that if I hit the brakes, and it slides, releasing the brake and it stops sliding.

Yes, in which case there's a switch on both the brake and clutch to disengage it.

Oh... my... god... Insert Matthew Perry's "what have you been smoking"-face here

You can tell if it has ABS by two ways.

1. Under hard braking in slippery conditions, if you feel the brake pedal kicking back sharply and repeatedly, and/or if you hear a grinding noise, ABS is present.

2. Check under the hood, there should be a unit that looks somewhat like this:
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The actual configuration varies but there's usually that machined header into which the brake lines (four to each of the brakes in the tires and one from the master cylinder) attach.

Any decent driver can feel when a tire locks up or is about to. You can feel it from the steering wheel and the seat and it also affects your sense of balance.

I am not a car fanatic. I drive at the speed limit and have never been the driver during a collision. I have no idea what a locking tire feels like, and my car does not have ABS.

Does this make me a crappy driver?

Pretty much, yeah. To be a good driver is to know how your car will behave in unexpected situations. Being careful isn't all there is to it.

What situation causes a tire to lock up anyways? I see people talking about driving on ice. There is no ice where I live.

If the brakes are applied with enough force that the friction between pad/rotor or shoe/drum is greater than the friction between tire/road, the wheel stops rotating and you skid. Since static friction exceeds sliding friction, you're not slowing down as fast as if you were at the limit of skidding. Also, a wheel slides sideways just as well as forwards, so you give up all directional control when the wheels are locked up. Driving on ice simply reduces the traction, and if you drive the way you habitually do in good weather, you'll skid all over the place. Of course, sometimes the crown of the road itself is too steep to keep the car on the road with melting smooth ice.

In a way, yes. You should know what it feels like to have your tires lock up because if you're ever in an emergency where you need to stop fast, you need to know how to handle it if you want to handle it well. Studies have shown that in nearly 50% of accidents it was the other guy that caused it. If you just put the brake pedal to the floor without ABS then I'm afraid you're probably not going to stop in time. Worse still, you're probably going to lose complete control of your car (think spinning and/or rolling) which can make a bad situation worse.

There's such a thing called threshold braking. It's essentially what ABS does for you. Whenever the tires lock up, it releases the brakes momentarily and then grabs them again. This helps to prevent the skid caused by a locked tire, which helps prevent you from losing control (the actual effectiveness depends on the quality of the system). Without ABS, you basically have to do this yourself. A lot of people are taught to "pump the brakes" (I especially hear this from previous generations), but that's the brainless way to brake without ABS (with ABS it's even less effective). The intelligent way to brake without ABS is to use threshold braking. You only brake as hard as you can without locking up the tires, essentially walking the line between locked and not locked. If you go a little too far and feel the tires locking up then you let up just enough for them to start spinning again. Your aim is to slow them down, not stop them. Slowing the tires will slow the car. Stopping the tires too soon will result in a skid.

I think some people just naturally don't comprehend the physics involved when driving though, the same as I don't naturally understand social interaction. I suppose there isn't much you can do about it aside from taking it easy or getting professionally trained.

Steven VI should go to a large abandoned parking lot in the rain (no cops) and get jiggy wid it for practice.

Well, worn road + hard rain can cause hydroplaning for example. A hydroplaning tire behaves pretty much the same as a locked up one, and will lock up if the brakes are applied. However one needs to be pretty damn numb to not feel hydroplaning taking place. Of course, if one has never hydroplaned before, he/she won't know what's happening.

They may lock up under any hard braking. Or when trying to brake normally but someone's leaked oil onto the road. Or if the oil's been cleaned up a month ago but it's rained recently and the road's still wet (a friend broke a collarbone this way), the residual oil is almost impossible to get off and with rain it becomes very slippery, even if the same spot provides normal grip in dry conditions.

I was going to suggest that, but I'm afraid of getting him killed... The type of vehicle he drives can have a lot of influence on how he needs to react to control it. A vehicle with a short enough wheel base or axle track will want to spin and a vehicle with a high enough center of gravity will want to roll.

If he takes it easy enough then he should be fine, but I would recommend trying this in a small, wide ish, low car.

For example, start by driving in a straight line (again, in an empty parking lot or empty straight stretch of road^[1]) really slow (maybe 10 km/h or 6 mph^[2]) and try putting the brake pedal hard to the floor. This should be enough to lock the tires momentarily, but be slow enough that you'll come to a stop before the car has a chance to do anything crazy (keep in mind that short, thin, and high vehicles are much less stable than their opposites). Once you're comfortable with how the car reacts, try going a little bit faster (15 km/h or 9 mph). If you gradually increase the speed then you should be able to feel the incremental differences in how the car reacts. The faster you're going, the longer you'll skid, and the more chance there will be for the car to spin or roll. If you do feel the car start to spin or roll, let off the brakes and steer towards the direction you want to go (hopefully you won't get much of this at such low speeds, but it is possible).

That should be enough to give you an idea, at least. Anything more and I would highly recommend you hire a driving instructor to guide you. At least, I don't feel comfortable encouraging more without seeing how you handle that. I wonder if you could participate in police driving instruction. They learn some really cool stuff.

There was a brouhaha a few years ago about some Suzuki SUV that could roll over from extreme maneuvering, and the Suzuki PR people said that "people don't do these maneuvers in parking lots" but the reason the testers did the tests in parking lots as opposed to actual roads was so innocent people wouldn't get in the way. But I'd think even this model of Suzuki could remain upright with the limited traction of a wet surface (unless it was really rough or had large cracks that could "trip" the tires)

Are you referring to the Suzuki Sidekick?

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Those are a prime candidate for spinning and rolling. They have a short wheel base and axle track and a relatively high center of gravity. I think you'd be able to stay in relative control if you were able to stay straight enough, but I'm sure it would want to spin around on you at anything close to highway speeds and once that happens you're fucked.

Actually a car with a short wheel span is less likely to spin than one with a long one, this one I can tell from experience. A functioning rear pressure regulator also helps (these things can and do get stuck but are hardly ever serviced).

However, in an oversteer a long wheel span is much easier to control than a short one as the "lever" from the rear wheels (may they be controlled by the handbrake or engine torque) to the pivot (front wheels) is longer so the weight at the end of the lever, (which causes the oversteer in the first place) is easier to keep in check.

I had an AMC Gremlin back in the day, it was also notorious for a high center of gravity (I could squeal the tires going at the speed limit around curves) but I also put it sideways plenty of times without rolling it over.

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[EDIT]

A what??

Or the infamous Mercedes A-Class (or "Weltklasse"^[1], as it quickly became known as over here), that was so unstable it flipped over during a standard avoidance test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_test

Obstacles such as mooses and others of their elk should be fined and removed from the road

I was doubting myself as I wrote that too. Just to be clear,...

 |-----|  -+
    |      |
    |      | wheel base
    |      |
 |--+--|  -+
      
 |-----|
wheel span (can differ between front and rear)

Correct?

If that's wheel span, then there's no way a shorter wheel span will reduce roll overs. It's a simple lever arm equation, but easier still, look at formula 1 cars. Rolling over is dependent on the center of gravity, the roll center (and their relation to each other), as well as suspension geometry (chamber gain on roll, roll stiffness, etc).

Interesting side note: Cars with the same mass, and same weight distribution (50/50 front/rear, 80/20, etc) can handle completely different due to the moment of inertia which depends on how far weight is away from the center of gravity. That means a 50/50 split car with the engine at the middle, and one with the engine at the front and transmission/diff at the rear will handle completely differently. The middle engine one will resist turning much less and feel more "nimble." Whereas the front engine, rear transmission, will feel like a freight train. Even though they both have an even and identical amount of weight on each wheel.

My car has ABS and I'm more than happy it does as I'm sure it's saved me many times in snow and ice.

As for dodgy cars, this was my first (just a representation) and I crashed it up the side of a mountain, it had rear wheel drive, a massive bonnet and absolutely no ability to stay on the tarmac when cornering. It still drove me home though despite no exhaust, no wings, crumpled bonnet, broken roll bars, etc

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A differential?

wheel base = wheel span != track width.

In my previous post, long/short => measured front/back => wheel span, wide/narrow => measured left/right => track width.

I never referred to rolling over, just spinning. Track width, spring rates and the height of gravity center are more significant for rollover tendency.

However, stiff springs also make a car easier to spin on soft and slippery surfaces such as gravel, snow and ice.

Suspension design is all about tradeoffs and a lot of suspension geometry affects a lot of other things, so at best a good suspension is at the driver's desired point between comfort, stability and grip. For example the legendary 205 GTI is comfortable and hangs on to the road like it was glued to it but it's possible to roll the car over by mad cornering alone. Likewise, I had this old Mitsubishi Lancer that had Weitec Ultra GT suspension kit, it had grip and it didn't roll and spun only if provoked but it was also uncomfortable as hell.

No. A bleeder valve that regulates the hydraulic pressure from the master cylinder or ABS pump depending on rear axle load. I.e. if the trunk is full of stuff, the rear end sits lower down, a mechanical linkage opens the bleeder valve so the brake pedal gives more pressure ("braking power") to the rear brakes. During hard braking, if the regulator is stuck fully open, the rear tires can lock up, if it's stuck almost closed, the inertia of the weight of the rear pushes forward while the front wheels do all the braking and the car becomes very unstable.

The purpose of the rear brakes is not slowing the vehicle down, their purpose is to keep the rear end under control when braking. The front wheels do all the stopping.

Hang on, what's this about genetically modified cars? I want organic.

The new ones even look good.

The very first Hyundai's were crap, as were the very first Honda's. It's just that the crap Honda's are further back in time, therefore harder to remember for you youngsters.

Neither was Toyota for that matter. I remember they used to rust faster than American cars, up until the 90's most of them fell apart from rust but the engines were still much better than most American cars.

I remember my sister's '73 Civic. That thing was a piece of crap. She hit a power pole at about 30 k/h and it literally fell to pieces. That would have been about '83 so it was only 10 or so years old.

I had a '71 Hillman Avenger (Chrysler Avenger in North American, iirc) for a while in the mid '90s until I sold it to my cousin. He still drives it. He's crashed it a few times, and my friends and I used to take it rallying out on the riverbank roads where it also received a few bumps and scrapes, and it's still going well.