Yeah but if a single switch fails the rest of your controls aren’t impacted. If your central display fails, you can’t do a thing.
Has car manufacturing quality gone downhill or is it just me?
- Thread starter TechMinerUK
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Yeah but if a single switch fails the rest of your controls aren’t impacted. If your central display fails, you can’t do a thing.
VW MEB have the speedo and HUD separate to the infotainment. Are you not just thinking of Telsa model 3 when you say no speedo with no infotainment
Soldato
Show me a touchscreen that fails frequently. Even the 2006 XKs are just fine
I’m not saying it happens frequently just that the previous poster was absolutely correct from the perspective that if it fails you are locked out a lot more than if a switch fails.
It’s obviously done to drive down cost from a production perspective. I don’t think it makes for a better user experience.
Old cars are rubbish too as if the engine breaks the car is equally useless ??
Weirdly my born drives fine even with the screen turned off. I have a Speedo too. Let’s not listen to nasher about EV. Seems the closest he has to experience is by sitting in a passenger seat of a Tesla
Weirdly my born drives fine even with the screen turned off. I have a Speedo too. Let’s not listen to nasher about EV. Seems the closest he has to experience is by sitting in a passenger seat of a Tesla
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Soldato
It’s not only FUD, but Nasher FUD
I still await the answer. Which EV have you driven?
Infact it’s interesting you have so many opinions on all sorts of cars yet limited experience? Why not share more personal examples ? What new car with a screen that broke and stopped the car working were you in ?
Sometimes you seem to just post a random one liner just to get your post count up.
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I get what @Nasher means though in that having everything on one or two displays is a problem waiting to happen, as an example on my old 308 I had a glitch where the dash and infotainment unit went kaput on one journey and I had no idea what speed I was doing so I had to pull over to the hard shoulder and wait for it to fix itself.
At least if just the infotainment unit is on a screen you can still see what speed you are doing and control the heat etc
True but it's been a while since I have seen a car with an engine go pop whereas with newer cars I find that the components around the engine seem to be more susceptible to problems.
I wouldn't say it's just EV's but rather any car thats decided to lump all its controls into a few screens, stuff like the new Volkswagen/Audi/Seat/Skoda and Stelantis range seem to be the biggest culprits but even Fords and Hondas seem to have gone the same way.
I've known a few friends who have had issues with units on Hondas and Nissans where they have been quoted exuberant amounts to replace the unit on cars that aren't super old to the point where I'd expect issues with digital components (2017/2018 models)
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Name anything in life that has gone up in quality. Cost is the focus. To be honest though it’s a bit of an assumption to link that scratch to quality. That could have been anything you hit that would have marked any wheel regardless of age.I'll preface this by saying I haven't owned many cars but recently I've felt as though a lot of the new cars on the market have really sub-standard quality/finishing.
I remember when my mum and dad bought cars in the past and you could walk down the side of them with your coat on, stand on the sills, drive them without worry and they'd get a few marks here or there but they could always be polished out without anyone being able to see them
Now though it seems that you so much as look at the paint work or the wheels funny and it gets a mark deep enough into the clear coat to warrant a respray.
Even when it's not damage related the quality of the paint work that's turfed out just feels sub-par from the paintwork being contaminated to in some cases just flat out not having enough on and being able to see through to the basecoat.
The past two cars I've owned have been relatively new and have either had really soft and delicate paintwork or the wheels on them have barely been able to cope with standard usage without suffering damage.
Part of the reason for this post is that this morning I just found a scratch/chip on my wheel on a car which is less than 2 years old and that has done less than 3000 miles on the left side (So it's not even facing oncoming traffic at the best of times)
/rant
Is it just me or does anyone else think the same or have similar stories of newer cars having suboptimal quality?
Sounds like it's a problem that already can happen then, whether you've got screens or not
One. Or two? The issue was one display only in a car. Most have two.
Indeed. Let’s not mention Ford S max clusters.
Let’s be honest too. The one thing that has got massively better is electronics reliability
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Soldato
I only use the motors for here to be honest mate. Got other things more interesting going on than surfing this whole site. I just wish I was ignorant as you cause as they say ignorance is bliss.
And simple people get to enjoy a simple life
with embargos on us exports of semiconductor technology/CAD software(/ARM IPS?) , all with duel military use, verification and reliability of chinese car automotive electronics might be problematic,
(Is trump planning anything more forceful there - who are chinese suppliers currently. )
another reason to buy british/european/japanese
(Is trump planning anything more forceful there - who are chinese suppliers currently. )
another reason to buy british/european/japanese
Yea I don't think people expect it with things like CAD software. But it also means just sharing things like technical drawings with Chinese companies can get you in trouble. They will have to figure things out themselves and find workarounds, which doesn't always go well.
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Fair however I didn't actually hit anything (Well technically something I guess but its not like I kerbed it) however I would expect a car to cope with "wear and tear" without damaging something like the wheels. I'd expect them to be robust enough to put up with the odd bits of grit and dirt without permanent damage
Likewise I've owned previous cars where the paintwork has stood up to the odd flick of dirt better than the newer cars. As one of the other posters mentioned it's likely down to the paintwork being spread thiner with a finer/shallower layer of clear coat
If I drove the car into a tree then I'd happily take it as a me issue but this car barely gets used so I think it being a quality/manufacturing/fit for purpose issue is fair
Valid point however it's not something I have experienced in cars that had standard spedometers etc before
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Good point as whilst the bodywork and overall interior seems to have gone down whilst there are the odd problems with slow infotainment systems its a far cry compared to what used to happen with the older Freelanders where you'd get a bit of water on it and all of a sudden the car wouldn't start
Swings and roundabouts I guess and if it comes down to the car not starting or worse paintwork then the starting makes sense as the priority
You're right, in the case for me both the digital displays went off however I guess if whatever went weird affected the actual spedometer system (I'll preface this by I have no idea if that would be the case as I never got an answer as to what actually went wrong on my car) then it wouldn't have mattered if it was a traditional spedo or a screen
For me I don't mind having the digital stuff for radio stations, Android Auto, reverse cameras etc as they are "nice to haves" but things such as heating, speed, revs etc I prefer on dials. If they are duplicated on a digital display thats fine but it's personal preference I like to have them as dials and seperate buttons
Before the thread becomes a "Hate digital" thread I'd disagree that its the biggest issue in the deterioration in quality. Don't get me wrong some infotainment units are laggy messes (The Citroen/Peugeot ones are naff) but the ones in Seats, Audi, BMW etc are actually pretty decent from what I've used. On the whole anyway (I'd expect the odd glitch when connecting devices in the same way I'd expect a glitch everynow and then on older cars with the stereo flicking between stations)
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They have certainly become more complex to maintain when they go wrong. My current Mercedes and BMW have suffered with temperamental technical issues that simply would not have impacted previous cars because they didn't have the high levels of sensors the current ones do.
My BMW as an example has ongoing issues with auto full beam deciding it won't work on occasion, pedestrian protection sensors the same, outside temperature intermediately reading a 50 degrees which in turn impacts my internal AC for some reason. Recent issues with front nearside brake disk caused by a seized caliber pin and a tyre sensors system that determines what the pressures would be each time you start the car. 38psi today, 41psi tomorrow etc. This has been the most unreliable BMW and I think most unreliable cars I have ever owned, not least when you add in diesel filter issues.
My Merc has had 2 failed seat belt sensors, full set of engine mounts (they are clever dynamic mounts) and full set of dampers (another glitch). Never stopped me using the car and we all fixed under warranty, but annoying. Also, why is it when 1 car has issues the other car INSTANLY has issues. Seems you can never get to the point of "at least one of them is fine".
I really think the new BMW 5 Series is poor. Too big, hated the infotainment and felt lifeless and powerless in 2L Diesel form.
I do think manufacturers have cut conrners on materials, be that soft touch plastics and seat leather, just doesn't feels as good or has hard wearing.
My BMW as an example has ongoing issues with auto full beam deciding it won't work on occasion, pedestrian protection sensors the same, outside temperature intermediately reading a 50 degrees which in turn impacts my internal AC for some reason. Recent issues with front nearside brake disk caused by a seized caliber pin and a tyre sensors system that determines what the pressures would be each time you start the car. 38psi today, 41psi tomorrow etc. This has been the most unreliable BMW and I think most unreliable cars I have ever owned, not least when you add in diesel filter issues.
My Merc has had 2 failed seat belt sensors, full set of engine mounts (they are clever dynamic mounts) and full set of dampers (another glitch). Never stopped me using the car and we all fixed under warranty, but annoying. Also, why is it when 1 car has issues the other car INSTANLY has issues. Seems you can never get to the point of "at least one of them is fine".
I really think the new BMW 5 Series is poor. Too big, hated the infotainment and felt lifeless and powerless in 2L Diesel form.
I do think manufacturers have cut conrners on materials, be that soft touch plastics and seat leather, just doesn't feels as good or has hard wearing.
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