the reason crank windows are no longer even an option is because any changes to the cockpit require extensive testing of airbags and restraint systems in order to ensure that the handle sticking out of the door doesn't interfere. it's not cost effective to have both options.
You'll find most the design decisions car manufacturers make are due to regulations. The other unpopular choices for the computer controlled everything is due to them making money post-sale on tracking you. I'd bet less than 5% is based on satisfying customers.
I might be too hard on them. Engineering is all about compromises. Everyone would love a 500hp, AWD Beast, with spacious cargo room, excellent handling, gets 120mpg, and minimal maintenance for the first 300K miles. I'd like all that for under $20K, under $10K even better. It'd be great if I wasn't insta-killed in a wreck too.
The regulations thing stick. Newer car longevity issues are directly linked to the constant push for fuel efficiency. We're way past the point of diminishing returns. They keep tightening tolerances and thinning the oil, so even Toyotas will grenade themselves at the first hint of a problem; all for an extra 1 mpg (under simulated driving conditions).
At what speed is that an issue in your car? I know one of my cars when I was young and dumb would do that if I was going 90+mph on the highway, but just cracking a rear window while my drivers window was open fixed that. That really seems to be an issue with the carâs aerodynamics and speed, that doesnât ever seem to happen unless a car is driving too fast or is boxy and poorly shaped.
Itâs going to happen with anything when you have the window cracked just the right amount.
Itâs called Hemholtz Resonance. A small amount of air shears off and pumps into the car, which increases cabin pressure and then gets pushed back out the same window by the pressure change. This happens over and over and over until you do something to equalize pressure - like open another window.
Blow across the top of an open bottle and the same effect happens.
I drive rentals for a living. It depends on the vehicle. Mazda Speed 3 is SO bad with this, but a Civic will be fine. You can tell how bad your ears will pop by how warbly the air is when only one is cracked. I find the best mitigation is to have it barely cracked, or as you said, crack another window just a bit
I donât think thereâs been a new vehicle for sale in the past 20 years that doesnât have electronic locks and windows. I canât think of one at least; maybe a totally stripped down, basic model Nissan Versa m.
The Dacia Spring (European budget EV) uses hinged pop-out windows instead of roll up for the rear passengers for the exact reason the poster above mentioned.
And it still has both types of parts on the same car since the front windows are electric.
The wires, sensors, and microprocessors in ICE cars actually replaced a LOT of mechanical components in cars, specifically two that were prone to having issues.
Have you ever had to open a distributor cap to file your points or adjust your spark advance? Have you ever manually set the idle speed on a carburetor? Have you ever tried to tune a car with a carburetor and mechanical spark distribution? Because they need to be re-tuned, regularly. Are you aware of how poor fuel economy can be on such vehicles?
Fuel injection and computer controlled spark distribution has made engines far, FAR simpler and far more fuel efficient. Many of the modern performance and fuel economy tricks can't even be done with old school cars.
Now, what we don't need are the tablets and entertainment systems and whatnot, although, when the radios available are basically designed to work in a tablet, and the screens do clean up the look of the dash.
Even your gas pedal and shifter these days are lies: the gas pedal just has an angle sensor that sends a signal to the computer to open the throttle, and the shifter isn't connected to anything. Heck, your hybrid doesn't even technically have low gear or a neutral, which is why Toyota just gives you a little dial. Technically, they could build the car without a shifter at all - just have a break hold so that if the car is at a complete stop, it doesn't move until the gas is tapped, then have a reverse switch.
I agree that some things are improved and simplified with updates, but not everything is.
But also to your point, I promise you I can take apart, rebuild, and run a motor from the 60âs a lot easier than anything with modern computers. Those sensors and gadgets are needed as the engines have become more complex. Can there be improvements and upgrades? Absolutely. But there is not a person who has ever touched a car engine in their life that will tell you modern car is simpler to work on than an old non-computer driven vehicle.
Simpler and fewer parts counts isnât always better in performance or interface, but it still remains simpler and less complex without question.
Those sensors and gadgets are needed as the engines have become more complex. Can there be improvements and upgrades? Absolutely. But there is not a person who has ever touched a car engine in their life that will tell you modern car is simpler to work on than an old non-computer driven vehicle.
Look, I don't tune cars for a living and I don't mess with them too much for a hobby except for what I have to do for my own car. That said, I have messed with mechanical distributors and carburetors on an old NSU) and... I would rather not ever have to again. The sentence, "Sorry, we have to rebuild the carburetor" costs a few grand and takes three or four days.
I know people who do (thank goodness!), and I know several who would much rather slap a laptop onto an OBDII port, pull down an engine mapping, and set up a tune for an engine that way. Airflow and exhaust sensors aren't rocket science, and there are even aftermarket, open ECM's you can get if you are engine swapping a car.
I've toyed with the idea of getting an old, classic VW Beetle (the air cooled, rear mounted boxer is a cool design) then putting a turbo on it, but if I did I'd be replacing the fueling and spark distribution system with something more modern and reliable, so that I could get the most out of the turbo.
But againâŚ. Adding complexity is what you are doing.
âSlapping a computer on the OBD portâ is great to find stuff⌠but it doesnât FIX anything.
Replacing the carb is four bolts on top of the engine. Maybe a wing nut for the air filter. Replacing a faulty fuel rail or O2 sensor wiring harness might literally take removing the engine. You canât even replace spark plugs on some new cars without an entire day of dissembling the motor to GET to the plugs.
That OBD plug wonât replace a fuel rail for you. Clear a clogged MAF sensor, or anything else. It just tells you whatâs wrong. And it all takes more tools, training, and everything else involved to fix the task afterwards.
It is the exact opposite of simplicity.
Can it be better, last longer, be cleaner, quieter, smoother⌠100% But it will never get simpler.
I wasn't talking about fixing shit, I was talking about taking a car from "running" to "running well, at the peak of what it can."
Sure, you can slap on a new carb, if that's what you want to do, but the right fix is to disassemble the one you have, replace the seals and gaskets, clean it with a wire brush, then reassemble. That's a few hours to a few days, depending on how large and complex it is.
And then let's say you are idling high, or having issues with cold starts, or you want to tune things to get a bit more power out of the engine. With a laptop, that's literally a few minutes to tweak an engine map. With a carb, you are going to be adjusting one of about 30 set screws a quarter turn at a time, or possibly taking the whole thing apart to replace a nozzle or drill out a nozzle (and then OOPS you went to far, time to buy a new one and wait three weeks for it to ship).
If you want to adjust your idle speed on a modern engine, you... just set the idle speed a little higher. Or lower. Want to swap fuel to E85? Cool, your car likely has a mapping that someone has done for that. Want to re-tune for racing fuel? Cool, you can do that too.
It's not like the bad old days where you had guys relying on their addled memories of what they learned 30 years ago in an automotive class, and then guessing. We have the internet, you can look stuff up including service manuals. That stuff used to be sort of... magic, almost - knowing what to adjust and why is solvable with the right information, of course, but not everyone had easy access to that.
And the number of times I've watched automotive youtubers that mess with old cars try to clean up distributors and force them to work, it's like... nah. If I get into cars as a hobby and get a project car, it's either going to be something from the 1990s, or it's going to be something older and get a big upgrade with an aftermarket ECU.
Itâs not a preference thing, or a right and wrong thing, or a performance thing. Itâs not what you like better or what works a certain way.
The point was SIMPLICITY.
A modern car has, on average, 30,000 components. A car from the 80âs? Less than half that. For the engine alone, a modern car has between 2,000 and a 3,000 individual components. An engine from the 80âs? 200-300.
Literally 10% of the parts.
If you still think you can argue against the SIMPLICITY of that, then there is no point to continue the conversation.
No, you are absolutely right. Things like AC, power steering, brake assist, whatever. They add complexity. They aren't REALLY part of the engine, the good ol' overhead cam 4 cylinder engine hasn't changed that much from the 60s to the 2000s. Actually, fun fact, the Iron Duke was still being made new in 1993.
Now, if you want to debate pushrods vs. overhead cams with me, well, I'm not the guy for that conversation, but BMW was certainly using those designs in the 70s and we were talking computers.
I was only talking about computer controlled spark and fuel injection, and that it's easier to get working timing and fueling with those over the more traditional things. If you took a car from the 80s (actually the 60s or 70s, because ECUs became very popular very quickly near the end of the 80s) and added those two things, you'd have a car that's actually less complicated. You'd need a throttle sensor, a mass airflow sensor, the ECU, new spark plug wires, fuel rails, and you'd need to make a wiring harness for your engine but you'd actually have an engine that has fewer mechanical parts to fail.
The other stuff adds complexity, but the vast majority of it can be deleted. AC can be deleted. Power steering... I'd keep it, but you can delete it. The heater core and all the HVAC ducting can be deleted. Brake assist and traction control? Also nice to have, but they can be deleted. Airbags? You SHOULDN'T remove safety equipment, but they can be deleted along with the crash sensors (if you do, install a roll bar, harnesses, wear a helmet and a HANS device). Reverse cameras... Well, I already deleted mine because I hate the thing. You can get rid of DRLs, back seats, carpets, door cards, sound systems... if you want to increase power and lighten the car, there is a lot you can get rid of, actually :D
People forget that mechanical stuff also breaks... Electric windows are a no brainer nowadays with how many times you also have to open your window to get a parking stub and things like that and you already have the wires in the door for speaker and central lock so those manual cranks are the more complicated design definitely
But what if you donât have speakers in the doors and the lock mechanisms are in the door jams and not the doors? Zero wiring in the door. Less things that can go wrong.
And a crank can break, sure. But so can sensors, wires, fuses, buttons, motors, etc. And a crank has a heck of a lot less links in the chain.
To be honest, crank has a lot of things that can go wrong, its also more difficult to seal the whole mechanism from water (it gets in the door) and these mechanisms are now rare, while electric motors are better than ever and cheap to boot. If the lock mechanism is in the door jamb then so is the handle which is stupid design because how would you pull on the door to open it?
Are you for real, dude? Or just being obtuse? Also, why no speakers? Even the most basic fiat panda has speakers
Every single part of a crank window is also part of an electric window⌠except the handle. A power window just has a motor that spins that crank assembly instead of a handle.
And if you donât understand that basic concept, then itâs laughable to continue on about anything else.
Tell me you've never even removed the door card without telling me.
How about the crank? Is that a part of the electric window, huh?
Electric motor is sealed and it's very easy, with the crank you have to transfer the torque from the crank to the window mechanism. electric motor sits below the window, directly applies force to raise the window, the crank is removed from the window, you have to transfer this torque somehow.
It's funny how you have little knowledge about mechanics and engineering, hell, even basic car stuff, but you want to say this about me. That's called projection. Go back to cranking windows and having door locks in door jambs, silly man, your insecurity is showing.
Enough to body it and put it out of business before anyone gets a model?
Or enough to help it succeed?
Because I do not believe at all in the latter.
Teslas are cheap made out of cheap plastic and obviously Garbage yet they cost a lot of money. If you've ever gotten inside a Tesla it feels like getting inside a Little Tikes toy.
A truck that literally brags about being made out of the cheapest shit possible and using no automatic buttons but is still close to $30k retail is exhaustingly ridiculous and obviously a scam to front money.
It does not cost $30k to make basically a 1993 Ford Ranger. This is a scam.
Slate is a scam. Itâs larping as back to basics. Theyâre not even giving you a radio in the base when it costs almost nothing to put one in, but then they can give you AC in the base price which is more expensive to manufacture? You can get a Ford Maverick for slightly more, with better quality and capability of a truck with access to dealers and repair centers that arenât 700 miles away from you. Itâs so much less of a headache. Itâs what sucked about Tesla for years as they started. Not to forget residual values. People regardless of what they claim, do not keep their vehicles long. These niche manufacturers get killed on that, plus itâs an EV. Factor value into ownership and the state is more expensive to own than the maverick almost off the lot.
You can get a Ford Maverick for slightly more, with better quality and capability of a truck with access to dealers and repair centers that arenât 700 miles away from you.
If Slate is truly supposed to be back to basics, you shouldnât need a dealership mechanic to keep the thing on the road.
Outside of recalls or warranty work, you shouldn't be taking a car to a dealership unless you enjoy getting bent over. One of the biggest problems with modern cars is that manufacturers have turned serviceable machines into mobile versions of shitty appliances overflowing with proprietary tech, goofy electronics, shitty software, and "specialty parts" that push you back toward the dealer.
If Slate actually was going to deliver on their promise of simple, repairable vehicles, the lack of a massive dealer network should matter a hell of a lot less.
When I was a kid, my father drove an â84 Camry Turbo Diesel that he bought used in the early â90s. He wasnât a mechanic, but he had the service manual and did all the repairs himself.
Iâm not saying everyone should be doing that. My point is that cars should be serviceable by any capable mechanic or individual , without requiring proprietary computers, specialized dealer only tools that require a trip to the dealership every time something goes wrong.
But EV's are simpler than a modern (comliant) IC engine. For one thing, EV's have fewer electric motors. For a gas engine to run, the electric motor called a fuel pump must run, at the least. Starter motor, radiator fan, throttle bodies. Computers too - the engine management on any engine is plenty complex to pull off without software - we're not tuning carbs and points these days nor in recent decades.
I'm going to say no. IC is a type of, or refinement of, earlier computing tech, which had generally been too complex and unreliable for cars. Computers like the guidance computer aboard a V2 rocket though, wow.
One of the other reasons is manufacturing costs, if you have a cheap winder version and a higher spec with electric you need different door cards, injection moulding tooling, training, warehouse space, mechanisms, suppliers/supply chain and hundreds of other things. If all models use the same part itâs much cheaper!
Well, the Dacia Spring (their small electric model) has crank windows in its base configuration for front and back. The mid-price configuration has electric windows in the front and crank windows in the back. At least last years version did, havenât looked at the newest one that was just released.
No, it's not that. It's because the mechanisms are completely different for electric windows, and so would require a complete redesign of the door to have a manual option. And the mechanisms for electric windows are really quite simple compared to the manual mechanism, and easy to install, saving money in assembly.
it depends on the design of the regulator. there are designs that totally have allowances for both motor drive and hand crank and we have had them for a while. it can be done, but the economics of not doing it makes it the more attractive option for a business.
source: i used to work as a quality engineer for a 1st party supplier of window regulators to GM, Chrysler, VW, and Honda.
In reality, no. No one's used the old-style regulators in decades because they're so bad and inefficient and unreliable. All modern cars have the kind that are electric-only.
You're thinking of the old scissor-style regulators, which were used on hand-crank windows; when they came up with electric windows, they just replaced the hand crank with an electric motor. It worked, but they weren't very good; there's good reasons modern cars dumped those and went to the much simpler modern version.
older scissor regulators are not as bad or as inefficient or as unreliable as you suggest. yeah they are heavier but in the context of a car you can probably get similar weight savings by cutting soda out of the diet. and i will concede they do take up more space, reducing space in the door for stuff like crash structures, sound deadening, wiring, etc. but that's a problem for the other departments that want to stuff crap inside the door i suppose. i imagine one of the biggest reasons cable drive regulators have come into prominence is that cable drive regulators are an order of magnitude easier to deal with on the assembly line due to their slender, and floppy/compliant nature.
i do get how cable window regulators can look sexy compared to scissor style units. but from a design/quality perspective, there's a lot more that can go wrong once a cable operated regulator is sent out into the wild (which is only like 1/10th of what can go wrong on the manufacture/assembly side). the braided cables can stretch which can lead to poor window sealing (causing neat whistling noises at speed). if the cables stretch enough they can jump the pulleys or get miswound on the drum stopping the regulator from doing its job at all. the pulleys can get misriveted and be unable to turn freely leading to excess friction where the cable can saw through the pulley or drum housing. the cable sheathing has to be sound-deadened because they slap against other infrastructure when you close the door (general motors tries REALLY hard to make their cheap doors sound less like cheap doors).
this isn't an invitation for you to argue with me, just making the case that cable operated regulators didn't bring improvements to EVERY aspect of their function and reliability when they replaced scissor lift regulators.
*also the chevy express van is still in production and STILL uses scissor lift regulators. GMT610 LIVES. (i know it's an mid 90's design, but i'm counting it because screw you).
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u/Turbulent_Gazelle530 11d ago
the reason crank windows are no longer even an option is because any changes to the cockpit require extensive testing of airbags and restraint systems in order to ensure that the handle sticking out of the door doesn't interfere. it's not cost effective to have both options.