Modern Motorcycles... and Technology

JetRanger said:
LOL... I had two FIATs: a 128 & a 124 Spider. They were fun to drive reasonably reliable but some of the engineering left me speechless. I replaced the starter on the 124 & the bolts had to go in from the back... between the transmission & the transmission tunnel. Luckily, I had skinny fingers back then. The real problem was that a simple wrench wouldn't reach (I don’t recall how many of the bolts) but I managed to get them tightened down using a socket with THREE u-joint adapters (two borrowed) & much cussing.
I swear I also found several relays which weren't connected to anything.
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I didn’t own my 128 Wagon very long but long enough to learn it handled much better than the nose heavy MG. It would go pretty much wherever you wanted to put it in a corner and that fast is relative. The timing belt in the interference engine broke two months after I bought it relegating it to the scrap yard. I moved on to VWs.
 
dduelin said:
Proximity warning issues can be nuanced between brands and models and relying on hearsay with one brand limits credibility speaking broadly.
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Nicely worded Dave, and I honestly mean that and am not being sarcastic. I was always a fan of Winston Churchill quips and appreciate how he used to politely insult people without them realizing it until later when they had time to think about what he had said. This sounds much like the way that he would state that what someone is claiming is a lie, or at least insinuate that it is a fabrication, without actually stating it.

In my defense I made no attempt to present any of the contents of my post as factual, nor did I make any claim that any of it was based on my personal experience. I was intentionally very clear that what I wrote was what was told to me, so yes indeed it is all hearsay. I also thought that I was being very clear that what I was describing was all related specifically to one vehicle brand only, very late model Nissan vehicles, so no broad industry swipes were intended or implied. My newest vehicle is a 2018 and it is devoid of all of this stuff. For clarity I admit huge ignorance of what technology is present in any new vehicle of any brand, not just Nissan.
dduelin said:
Lane assist and departure assist can probably be turned off as well.
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Apparently some can and some can not. I was told by my Brother, so all hearsay again, that some of these things can be disabled but not turned off. This means that he has to do it every time that he starts the vehicle if he doesn't want these things annoying him. In his case this can be many, many times during one day. His choices seem to be that he has to keep disabling stuff over and over again or he can just start the vehicle and go and live with the functions that he finds annoying being active. With some of these functions he has found that both of these choices have become very annoying over time.
 
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Andrew Shadow said:
Nicely worded Dave, and I honestly mean that and am not being sarcastic. I was always a fan of Winston Churchill quips and appreciate how he used to politely insult people without them realizing it until later when they had time to think about what he had said. This sounds much like the way that he would state that what someone is claiming is a lie, or at least insinuate that it is a fabrication, without actually stating it.

In my defense I made no attempt to present any of the contents of my post as factual, nor did I make any claim that any of it was based on my personal experience. I was intentionally very clear that what I wrote was what was told to me, so yes indeed it is all hearsay. I also thought that I was being very clear that what I was describing was all related specifically to one vehicle brand only, very late model Nissan vehicles, so no broad industry swipes were intended or implied. My newest vehicle is a 2018 and it is devoid of all of this stuff. For clarity I admit huge ignorance of what technology is present in any new vehicle of any brand, not just Nissan.

Apparently some can and some can not. I was told by my Brother, so all hearsay again, that some of these things can be disabled but not turned off. This means that he has to do it every time that he starts the vehicle if he doesn't want these things annoying him. In his case this can be many, many times during one day. His seem to be that he has to keep disabling stuff over and over again or he can just start the vehicle and go and live with the functions that he finds annoying being active. With some of these functions he has found that both of these choices have become very annoying over time.
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Andrew, we get along fine. Kindred spirits.
 
Andrew Shadow said:
It does put off current owners.
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...and future ones. The proof is in the pudding. New car sales numbers are down but demand for older models on the used cars market is solid, people going for the easier to repair/maintain lower tech models that are also easier on insurance premiums.

Andrew Shadow said:
He jokingly told me that he enjoys getting in to his old dumb car at the end of the day because he can enjoy a quiet nag-free drive home.
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On the optimistic side, surely AI will make all of this much more palatable......

In the meantime, good we have AARP here in the US offering multiple courses for seniors to keep up with all the technical "improvements" (like how to aluminum foil wrap your keyless entry fob to prevent code stealing).

I am through trying to help senior friends with their car tech issues, I just tell them to ask the dealer...who often doesn't know either!

Many manuals nowadays include all options and you are stuck guessing if the model you are sitting in is "so equipped" or not. A nightmare.
 
Upt' North said:
This has made me think.......oh dear, anything can happen now and it's likely to be less than good.
You know when some young hotshot went into his Powersports emporium in the 90's, can you picture it? He was wearing the latest kit and full face helmet and his gaze was drawn to a fancy candy blue ST1100 ABS/TCS. Integrated luggage including accessory Topbox, electronic sparks, shaft drive, proper fairing and space for two. OK, it was nothing earth shattering but in the world of ST, this had moved the competition back a notch or two.
The purchase was obviously made and those easy payments wouldn't hurt.......too much.
When he rode it on a warm morning to the local diner and parked it next to the less advanced competition I wonder what the others thought, I'm guessing "too much tech, it'll never catch on, who needs ABS and what is TCS". Well those are the bikes you are riding fellas. Is there too much Tech on a 90's ST1100? Maybe, maybe not, but you're riding them and enjoying them. No?
Too much is just an expression of the moment, tomorrow it will be too little.
I told you I shouldn't think.
Upt.
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I agree, up to a point. The tech has reached the Law of Diminishing Returns level. I'm struggling to figure out what advantage taking something like a power window and making it digitally controlled by the BCM has? The window went up and down before, and it still does now, so what exactly was the point? And there are many other examples of tech for the sake of tech.
 
dduelin said:
My first car was a 1968 MGC built at the pinnacle of British car decrepitude. I did own it 8 years and maybe 100,000 miles. (will never know because the plastic gears in the Smiths speedometer bevel drive stripped nearly as soon as replaced) Having a mechanic for a father was essential to my long term ownership. that car taught me a lot about handling a sports car and doing my own car repairs. I loved it. Replaced it with a Fiat….. talk about dumb things we do in our youth.
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the Sprite was my first car, not much power but cornered like it was on rails! I used to Love to see Mustangs and Camaros show up at solo "cone" races. I would put it in second gear and put pedal on the floor. Now I think how second gear lost a tooth! Your MGC was one of the Big Dogs in our type of car choices!
 
dduelin said:
I didn’t own my 128 Wagon very long but long enough to learn it handled much better than the nose heavy MG. It would go pretty much wherever you wanted to put it in a corner and that fast is relative. The timing belt in the interference engine broke two months after I bought it relegating it to the scrap yard. I moved on to VWs.
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I forgot to add that in a fit of youthful exuberance, when I safetied the Spider, I replaced the tubed Pirellis with BF Goodrich tires & kept the tubes in. One fine day, I topped up on 100/110 octane at the airport & pumped up the tires to 50 psi.
I had an overpowered go cart! Corvettes and TransAms couldn't touch me for the first 100 yards & it cornered like a demon!
Inevitably, a week later, the head gasket failed. I took the aluminum head to a machine shop & was pleasantly surprised to be told that it wasn't warped so I slapped it back together and it ran fine.
Moderately expensive lesson learned: NO AVGAS!
 
Keeping with the jest of this thread. My 2021 Chevy Colorado Z71 model is about as techy as I ever want my vehicle to be. The two most irritating tech on the truck is the Kid in the back seat warning. (stupid if you ask me) and the front collision alert warning. (startled the piss out of me) It goes off when it wants and not when it should. Both of which I turned off and never had a need for. Other than that, a great mid size truck and I love the heated steering wheel and seats at my age. My 2019 Kawasaki Versys 1000 SE (Electronic suspension) with it's tech that works well and is not intrusive at all, but the bike has a mode to which you can set the suspension to a custom fit with an app on your cell phone. That feature is kind off senseless if one asks me. The best 4 wheeled vehicle for simplicity and dependability that I wish I sometimes still had is my 1980 F100 Ford pickup. Straight 6 cylinder with power steering. three speed on the tree, a heater and radio. Nothing else to break. Did not break and if it did was easy and cheap to repair. Best motorcycle for simplicity and dependability is my 2013 Suzuki V-Strom. Again does not break and if so easy to repair. Both very simple and inexpensive to maintain.

1980 Pickup.jpgSAM_5712.JPG
 
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Sadlsor said:
I can't find anything you said here that I can argue with, Martin.
But I WOULD like to get a comprehensive service manual for my 1250 from BMW sooner, rather than later...
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OTOH they already know where your house lives... ;)
cybersecuritynews.com

Volkswagen Data Breach: 800,000 Electric Car Owners' Data Leaked

Volkswagen has inadvertently exposed the personal information of 800,000 electric vehicle owners, including their location data and contact details.
cybersecuritynews.com cybersecuritynews.com
Positive they're not the only MFG siphoning customer data en mass...
Sure, OnStar and eCall have only our safety in mind... right... the latter is mandatory over here, even them BMW motorcycles have it...

And you thought that William Gibson's Neuromance Trilogy was fiction... pfffff...
 
ChucksKLRST said:
The best 4 wheeled vehicle for simplicity and dependability that I wish I sometimes still had is my 1980 F100 Ford pickup. Straight 6 cylinder with power steering. three speed on the tree, a heater and radio. Nothing else to break. Did not break and if it did was easy and cheap to repair. Best motorcycle for simplicity and dependability is my 2013 Suzuki V-Strom. Again does not break and if so easy to repair. Both very simple and inexpensive to maintain.

1980 Pickup.jpgSAM_5712.JPG
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It's crazy if you think about it. In those older vehicles. if your windshield started to fog up you reached over and twisted a knob or slid a lever from heat to defrost and turned the fan up. You knew where the controls were by habit and you could adjust them from memory of the positions. You did not have to stop paying attention to the road to do it. On today's vehicles "climate" is buried somewhere on a menu on a big touchscreen which you have to "navigate" through to find it being completely distracted from the road. But fear not the manufacturers have laden our vehicles with systems to protect us from the system they installed, lane departure, collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control, ect. And to what end? We are no warmer, the windshield still fogs up, we are no safer if anything quite the opposite. Not sure things are going in a positive direction here. Unfortunately this same technology is trickling down to our bikes. Just read a review where the bike was knocked because connectivity didn't come standard, it was an option? *****? How long will it be before there is a yellow light on the dash to remind us when there is a passenger on the back?
 
Donk said:
It's crazy if you think about it. In those older vehicles. if your windshield started to fog up you reached over and twisted a knob or slid a lever from heat to defrost and turned the fan up. You knew where the controls were by habit and you could adjust them from memory of the positions. You did not have to stop paying attention to the road to do it. On today's vehicles "climate" is buried somewhere on a menu on a big touchscreen which you have to "navigate" through to find it being completely distracted from the road. But fear not the manufacturers have laden our vehicles with systems to protect us from the system they installed, lane departure, collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control, ect. And to what end? We are no warmer, the windshield still fogs up, we are no safer if anything quite the opposite. Not sure things are going in a positive direction here. Unfortunately this same technology is trickling down to our bikes. Just read a review where the bike was knocked because connectivity didn't come standard, it was an option? *****? How long will it be before there is a yellow light on the dash to remind us when there is a passenger on the back?
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:rofl1:
 
ChucksKLRST said:
... the front collision alert warning. (startled the piss out of me) It goes off when it wants and not when it should ...
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Don't remind me...
I did mention the 1.9ltr tdi VW T6 panel van in the past... many "features" are now mandatory over here when it comes to commercial vehicles...

So I'm driving this thing, brand new, a few days...
Its winter, ghastly day, some sleet, running service calls I'm driving through the city, approaching an empty roundabout...
Rolling with less then 40kph/25mph, still gentle on the engine I'm softly shifting into 3rd... BAM!!!... without any warning that van seized right at the spot, me bouncing into the seat-belt, kneecaps hitting the plastic dash covers, engine off, instruments a light show, beeping...
Judging by the noise paired with the violent stop/seizure I expected a gearbox grenade... gently trying to get it into neutral... OK, shifting mechanism still working... lets try starting it... (you've to reset the ignition and only blip the key while depressing the clutch, the thing then starts automatically, if it feels like it)... damn thing fires... trying 1st gear, let the clutch grab... once the rear brakes release with that typical pounding (hill assist, you have to drive against applied brakes to release), and it starts to roll... yep, drives like nothing happened... so what was that?!!

Thoughts rolling, I finally figured it out:
sleet had accumulated on the grille and the bell-mouth of that front assist LIDAR, a gentle bump while approaching mentioned empty roundabout shock the snow loose and it fell right onto the sensor...
Thanks a bunch... imagine another car behind, that would likely slammed right into me there...

Happened again when a storm blew the twigs of a bush onto the front grille... seized at the spot, same procedure as above...

It never engaged for the situation its been made mandatory over: like a kid playing with a ball popping out in front, because I do look out for such... :rolleyes:
 
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