Just below this thread in my list was the "Ford fake vroom" thread. #Ironic

Apple Carplay + Waze

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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I used to work on them things. Fairbanks Morse opposed piston engines.

There is an upper crankshaft and a lower crankshaft. An injector shoots fuel in the middle of the cylinder and the opposing pistons compress it.

No cylinder head. No valves. Massive blower and two massive turbos.

About the only thing that could go wrong is if you got some dirty fuel. The injectors would get worn down and leak. It was such a simple design that you gould rebuild and bench test the injectors on the spot with basic tools.

Also carbon buildup in the exhaust and turbos.

Would run on pretty much any kind of fuel. Diesel, JP5, MGO.

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We still run MEP's in oil/gas industry. We run ours on natural gas, so its clean fuel. I wouldn't say there are just a few things that go wrong. They are expensive to overhaul due to the number of moving parts (Turbos and blowers). The gear driven cranks start to have "lash" and eventually are out of time, sometimes to 2-3*. And when that happens, you lose power substantially. They are also 2-stroke and are not exactly clean for the environment compared to today's standards.

In my experience with them, they wont last 50-60k hours between overhauls like a modern engine and are more costly to overhaul. Some of that maybe due to the lack of availability of parts tho.

Multi clutch transmissions are pretty awesome:

Option parameters.

Being able to go into the EEPROM and change the options your vehicle "has".

Used to be a day pulling trim, running harnesses, modifying hardware... now you just flip a bit.

There are tons of improvements, but I really like lane keep assist and radar cruise. I drove my wife's Navigator on 2 long road trips and you only have to 1/2 way pay attention to the road. As long as you have a hand on the steering wheel and the curves aren't too sharp, it will stay in it's own lane. When I go back to driving my vehicle, I'm drifting back and forth inside my lane for a few miles expecting the steering wheel to gently center me in my lane.

Blind spot monitoring is also nice. I almost never have to turn my head further than the rear view mirrors while driving.

All of these safety features do make me a complacent driver though.

The modern twin turbo V6 engines are impressive from a power and fuel economy standpoint.

This whole thread and not one mention of cars downloading repairs. That's how Tesla fixed their battery-catching-fire-at-highway-speeds problem. Sent out a patch to tell car to ride 1/2" higher at highway speeds.

TexasRebel said:

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TxAg20 said:

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...and you only have to 1/2 way pay attention to the road.

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Ugh.

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Then you're going to hate it when level 4 automation is perfected.

It's supposed to be 106 today, with a heat index well over 110.

I will stand by my statement of ventilated seats.

TriAg2010 said:

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TxAg20 said:

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TexasRebel said:

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TxAg20 said:

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...and you only have to 1/2 way pay attention to the road.

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Ugh.

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Then you're going to hate it when level 4 automation is perfected.

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The problem is that you're doing a **** job driving right now and bragging about it.

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I was able to take free Waymo rides when they were in pilot mode. They do a **** job of driving too.

No mention of power plugs. That's got to be on the list.

I would also simply say the backseats on four door trucks. Especially on the Fords and Dodges.

Those cane from the 70s with Chevrolet's 3+3.

TriAg2010 said:

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TxAg20 said:

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TexasRebel said:

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TxAg20 said:

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...and you only have to 1/2 way pay attention to the road.

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Ugh.

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Then you're going to hate it when level 4 automation is perfected.

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The problem is that you're doing a **** job driving right now and bragging about it.

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Who is TriAg2010, this omniscient being that can grade my driving ability, performance, and safety simply by my username and a sentence?

I'm not saying I do, or don't, fall into this category, but did you ever think that maybe some people have so much brain power and coordination that driving down a highway doesn't require 100% of their brain power to safely operate their vehicle? Did you ever think that if a vehicle handles functions like automatically steering to hold itself within the driver's chosen lane and automatically accelerating and braking to maintain a safe distance from forward obstacles that it might require even less of a driver's brain power to operate a vehicle at the same, or higher, margin of safety than a vehicle without those features?

Some people, who may be very talented compared to your own abilities, have either natural ability, or learned ability, to safely operate machinery without using their full attention capacity.

gggmann said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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TxAg20 said:

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TexasRebel said:

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TxAg20 said:

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...and you only have to 1/2 way pay attention to the road.

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Ugh.

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Then you're going to hate it when level 4 automation is perfected.

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The problem is that you're doing a **** job driving right now and bragging about it.

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I was able to take free Waymo rides when they were in pilot mode. They do a **** job of driving too.

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It sounds like we have different definitions of "perfected."

TexasRebel said:

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Those cane from the 70s with Chevrolet's 3+3.

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When exactly did those become a factory option? I used to see them on older squarebody trucks but wasn't sure if before that they were aftermarket or not. Pretty sure I've seen a couple of '67-72 Fords like that too but not enough to tell if that was a custom thing or not.

ccolley68 said:

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Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Its insane how big trucks have gotten. Makes half tons from the late 90s look like Rangers / S10s. I blame Dodge, they started it all with their drastic new body style and **** escalated from there.

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I was in agreement with you for a while. But I took my kids to get donuts this morning. I have a stock 2014 F250 4WD. Guy parks next to my truck in a stock early 90's F350. I loved those trucks, so I gave it an extra look. And I distinctly remember thinking to myself how that truck was just as big as my truck. I mean, it's probably a little bigger, but this truck next to mine certainly didn't look like a Ranger.

And to keep things on track, the best innovation for me, and I would have never imagined this would be the case, is air conditioned seats. **** me I will never buy another vehicle ever without them. Heated seats don't do squat for me, but a/c seats are the cats meow.

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I parked next to a mid 90s chevy & took photos. I also hate how much of a pain in the a$$ it is to reach into modern truck beds.

Anyway - side-by-side results show the biggest culprit is .... drum roll ... tire size. That old chevy was rolling 15" wheels (z71s had 16s) - that's a couple inches drop from modern 18-20" stock wheels. and it made all the difference in the world on the bed side.

also, big a$$ fans

Tossup between

BOOOOOOOST factory in a pick up

And