What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?

[portland_bill]

Autonomous emergency braking (City braking) is getting better with each incarnation. There will however be hiccups. Not being able to drive over some foliage should not happen, unlees going too quickly.
The systems generally will not operate below a slow speed, otherwise they will prevent you parking into your garage, or tight against your fence. If however you approach said fence too quickly, like a nervous passenger it will panic.
There is also a maximum speed in its operating range, dependent in part on its radar measuring distance. Over this speed it may warn, or just let you hit stuff. It is still the driver's responsibility to look where they're going, although from observation out on the road, this point seems to be missed by many.
Most systems will also not respond if the closing speed is greater than the vehicle's speed. Whilst this may sound scary, if someone is heading towards you on your side of the road, there is a practical reason. Not all roads are straight. Heading towards a left-right bend, you are likely to be heading directly at oncoming vehicles, what you really do not need is the car to stop, as you will likely get hit from behind, and pushed into the oncoming car instead of just passing each other at the bend.
If someone is dancing around in front of the car, and is in that, moving towards the sensor, the closing speed will be greater than the car's speed, so will happily run the clown over.

If your car has this feature, to test it you need two friends and an old sheet, or some means of holding the sheet ahead of you, like a banner.
The friends hold the sheet across your path, with a light grip so that they can let go without injury. Drive towards the sheet within the speed range of the system (read the handbook). Just keep driving, and the car will, very late, heave on the brakes. It is incredibly violent, and in a manual, the car will of course stall.
Even better, do this in someone else's car.

 

[DaveMcT]

When moving house I rented Merc van. Doing about 20mph, I spotted a huge subsidence dip in the road and hit the brakes. Firmly on the pedal, but deff not emergency stopping. The auto emergency braking kicked in with full force throwing me around like a rag doll and to add insult really aggravating the "pothole" impact.

As Bill says It was incredibly violent and the van stalled. I really don't think it added any safety to the vehicle as I was not even close to what I would call emergency braking.

 

[portland_bill]

When moving house I rented Merc van. Doing about 20mph, I spotted a huge subsidence dip in the road and hit the brakes. Firmly on the pedal, but deff not emergency stopping. The auto emergency braking kicked in with full force throwing me around like a rag doll and to add insult really aggravating the "pothole" impact.

As Bill says It was incredibly violent and the van stalled. I really don't think it added any safety to the vehicle as I was not even close to what I would call emergency braking.

That'd be the "Emergency Brake Assist (EBA)"(Skoda call this HBA). Those earlier systems were often quite frightenening, and very annoying. A colleague had this on a Passat. It was impossible to stop gently from less than 25mph, as the brakes would apply far harder than required. Risk from behind very high.

EBA is quite clever, if set up well, as most are these days.
Some clever people in a German university, along with Bosch and Mercedes, did some research and determined that in most real emergency situations, drivers applied the brakes only around 85% of the vehicle's potential, effectively extending the braking distance and potentially hitting things that could be avoided. Psychologically this was thought to be because we are afraid of breaking the vehicle, or losing control.
When the brakes are applied either beyond a pressure setting, or particularly quickly, (over an application speed threshold), the system assumes an emergency, and uses the ABS system to apply full braking pressure.
When experienced, this is extremely violent, stops incredibly quickly, and once over the shock, quite fun. The Corsa 'D' had this as standard and it worked well, never engaging unnecessarily. Using these as driving school cars was fun. No student ever failed an emergency stop with this, unless their observation when moving away afterwards was poor. From around 30mph, we could have the rear wheels skipping as they were carrying almost no load at that point.

Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB, or City braking) is different. This uses a radar or camera, or both, at the front of the vehicle to identify when a collision is likely, and will apply the brakes to prevent this. Only works within a small speed range, my Skoda states between 5-30km/h (3-18mph). So above or below these speeds, it will only warn, not assist.

My Skoda handbook also mentions 'Multi collision brake' (MEB). If an impact occurs above 10km/h, and other criteria are met, the system will apply the brakes to bring the vehicle to a stop. Seems like a good idea, as often once a collision has occurred, the driver may well have 'lost' the brake pedal. I don't think mine has this, as it does not appear on the list of build codes on its spec label, not that I wished to test this one.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

One of my friends posted a picture on Facebook today, she is a critical care specialist nurse and the reason for her posting the picture was because of the damage to her face that 12 hours of PPE wearing has caused, looks like she’s had a fight, she has black eyes, sores all round the bridge of her nose and under her eyes. As well as a deep line across her forehead from the visors they wear.

It is a perfect demonstration of just how much staff are suffering on the front line, but I am immensely proud and thankful for all her and her colleagues hard work

 

[StevenRB45]

That'd be the "Emergency Brake Assist (EBA)"(Skoda call this HBA). Those earlier systems were often quite frightenening, and very annoying. A colleague had this on a Passat. It was impossible to stop gently from less than 25mph, as the brakes would apply far harder than required. Risk from behind very high.

I tend to find them annoying...not because they don't work but they are designed assist panic braking but seem to do naff all otherwise.

Unfortunately for me my braking foot (and distance I observe the road ahead out to) was calibrated in cars with no Abs and skinny tyres so I rarely suddenly smash the pedal. Which means they rarely do anything, you can produce better braking performance by hitting the pedal suddenly than smoothly applying the same pressure which is working as intended but makes the brakes feel inconsistent.

The other thing is if you've spotted something ahead and started braking already then what you've spotted suddenly becomes more urgent the one in the Mazda doesn't activate if you had already started braking then change pressure on the pedal.

Again this leads to wondering where the brakes you normally have are as normally a sharp tap at this speed would stand it on it's nose but now you're going full he-man on the brake pedal for the same result.

Perhaps modern ones are have more shades of grey.

Day to day they are fine with a consistent feel but you just never quite know if you're going to get normal or assisted stopping when stopping hard.

 

[portland_bill]

While I'm sitting here reading this, I heard a large truck thunder up the road. We're a cul-de-sac, so anything bigger than a standard 7.5 tonner will struggle to turn around. Didn't see how big he was, but he managed to turn around. Looks like a 30foot long 25 tonner, delivering greenhouses, now there's an emergency purchase.

He has then returned down the road, got to me, then proceeded to reverse back up the road with much beeping and engine noises, whilst looking mainly at house numbers instead of anything behind him.
Perhaps if he'd travelled slower and paid more attention to the house numbers on the way up, he'd have been able to plan his parking spot and aim directly at it on the way down.

After several minutes of faffing, he's managed to park it.
Yesterday I was out training a supermarket delivery person to arrive more slowly, observe and plan, to avoid delays, annoying residents and reduce the stress of the job. The same principles apply no matter the vehicle size. Should I go have a word? I could start with, "you're a prat, and I can help".

 

[jimboy]

My daily driver still has winter tyres, I really want to put my summer wheels on. Easy job, but in my condition dodgy hip & knee, this will take me far longer than before. Not only that I'm a persnickety git & will be checking things with the wheels off, not only that I'll clean & lubricate things as well. All has to be done in my car ownership book..

Checked weather & Wednesday is going to be a very sunny 18c, tropical for up here Ah decisions, what to do....

 

[portland_bill]

The Panda is still wearing its winters. Mostly due to laziness, just haven't got round to changing them back. They're getting old now, so will be less flexible, but hardly worn. Was hoping to get some wear out of them to make replacement feel better.

 

[StevenRB45]

Laziness may be why mine is on all seasons..

Not having to put a few hundred quids worth of wheels into a shed a toddler could break into is another.

All seasons are doing fine so far if anything if I'm out at the minute it's late on (local shop is open till 11 see no reason to fight the crowds early doors). Saw the ice warning ping up last week due to clear skies.

They are pretty soft rubber though so I'm sure if when/we get that week in the late 20s we usually get it'll handle like it's got bubble gum tyres but they have been fine to mid teens.

 

[portland_bill]

Received the vehicle tax reminder. £150.

2015 Fabia 1.2 was £20.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I've thought often about buying seasonal tyres but never taken the plunge. Mainly, I think, because most of my driving these days is in and around the city. Mind you we do go down to the "deep south" maybe 3 or 4 times a year but only once when the weather is likely to be cold. Also my annual mileage is now such that I barely manage to wear a tyre out before it gets too old. So, still can't make my mind up?

Anyway all this talk of tyres made me realize I hadn't checked the car's tyre pressures in a while. Becky's (Panda) were absolutely fine so I moved over to Twink (Ibiza). They too were well within a couple of pounds of what they should be which was very pleasing but I then decided to look at wear patterns. The Ibiza I bought new in early 2016 and the tyres are all marked with late 2015 stamps.

Having checked the pressures I took a good look at the sidewalls both inside and out and noticed a very small degree of surface crazing of the rubber (only to be expected of a four and a half year old tyre) and slightly deeper cracking at the base of the thread grooves, which you can see in the pictures, doesn't worry me yet though.

What is more interesting is the wear on the treads. Front tyre wear is almost identical on both sides. If you really squint at it the very edge of the inner shoulder is just a small smidgeon more worn:



This is a typical front wheel tyre wear feature and caused by compliance in suspension bushes allowing the wheels to "splay" out slightly under braking forces. The Inner groove is 5mm, middle 6mm and outer 5mm with no sign of lipping (feathering) of the tread. I'm very pleased with this as it would indicate that the car is using the tyres well with nothing to indicate either that toe might be incorrect or that anything is damaged. I can probably explain the wear being slightly heavier on the shoulders than in the middle because I run my pressures at the "comfort" recommendation of 33 psi (front) because the suspension is quite hard and if I run at "normal use" 38 psi then minor bumps and road irregularities are much more intrusive. I'm probably now going to go back up to the 38 psi which may well cause the tyre to wear more evenly in the middle.

Rear tyre wear pattern is a little more interesting in that the outer shoulder seems to be wearing slightly more quickly than the inside:



Inner groove is at 6mm, the middle at 6mm and the outer at 5mm. Both tyres measure identically, ie outer shoulder most worn. Oxidation and cracking is the same as the fronts and pretty inconsequential. These figures surprise me because when you stand well back from the rear of the car you can see that there is a small, but obvious, amount of negative camber on the rear wheels. So surely the inner shoulders should be more heavily worn? Then I noticed that if you "squint" along the sides and line up the rear wheels with the front wheels there appears to be a fair amount of toe in going on. Now that would probably explain the wear on the outer shoulders even with the negative camber I observed. I carefully compared both sides and, by eye, there would appear to be an identical degree of toe in on both sides.

So, in conclusion, although the rear tyre wear (slight as it is) surprises me a little, I'm not at all worried by it and think it's probably as it should be. Mrs J is going to have to put up with me looking at any other Ibiza Estate of similar age I might come across in the street, maybe even to the extent of lying down in the road behind it to get a good look! I'm going to ask the main dealer what the rear end geometry figures should be just out of interest. On the other hand, with nearly 20,000 miles now on the clock and tyre wear of just 1.5 to 2 mm worn away, it looks as if I'll be scrapping these tyres due to age long before I've worn them out. Think I'll swap them front to rear at the next service just to even things up a little.

 

[StevenRB45]

I've thought often about buying seasonal tyres but never taken the plunge. Mainly, I think, because most of my driving these days is in and around the city. Mind you we do go down to the "deep south" maybe 3 or 4 times a year but only once when the weather is likely to be cold. Also my annual mileage is now such that I barely manage to wear a tyre out before it gets too old. So, still can't make my mind up?

It's why I went all season, I had age crazed 4 year old Goodyears with 20 odd k miles on them they'd also hardened up so tyre noise was getting bad.

A set of Michelin Crossclimate+ in small size is pretty reasonable. Probably all you need, I have Goodyear Vector 4 season which is winter biased so looks rather overkill in summer! But last tank was 45mpg so not hurting economy despite looking like a set of off road tyres, and it handles fine though if I ever hit a track day they'd melt.



In testing good All seasons out perform summer tyres or level peg with them up to 7 degrees, more than that in the wet as the deeper groves resist aquaplaning more.

So don't have a huge disadvantage but come with the ability not to look like Bambi on ice in winter.

 

[dave]

Received the vehicle tax reminder. £150.

2015 Fabia 1.2 was £20.

my viano was £565 and ive only driven it once in the last 6 weeks

 

[puntofan01]

Sad times. [emoji853]

 

[SB1500]

Sad times. [emoji853]View attachment 208862

Sad indeed. It’s been a long run. But it outlined many lesser built but much newer small engines in its long life!

That’s not to say you and I can’t re-build ours over and over [emoji16]

 

[puntofan01]

I must admit, knowing that the FIRE has finally been laid to rest does make me want to keep my Grande as long as possible even more, or certainly, try to be a Punto owner for as many years as I can.

 

[dave]

Sad times. [emoji853]View attachment 208862

sad indeed built to last if looked after properly

 

[puntofan01]

I must admit, once they've finished making a healthy supply of spare parts, I do wonder what they'll use the areas where FIRE engines were produced for instead...

 

[Eklipze3k]

Batteries and electric drivetrains, hopefully. The cheaper they get the easier it'll be to electrify an older, cooler car.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

I must admit, once they've finished making a healthy supply of spare parts, I do wonder what they'll use the areas where FIRE engines were produced for instead...

Presuming the engines are built specifically in an engine facility then they will retool the factory to produce the next engine, at the moment they are making probably relatively low numbers of 3 cylinder engines so they will retool the factory for making them. Realistically this is probably what has been going on for a couple of years and they have been moving out the machines used to make the fire engines and moving in new machines to make the newer engines, now they have reached a point they no longer need to make any more fire engines they can move the last of the machines out. From this point on they have probably made all the spares they intend to make.