Too many driver aids

RobAMerc

I was pulling away from a mildly moist roundabout the other day when I noticed the DSC light flashing on the dash and it got me to thinking, are car manufacturers hiding poor chassis/suspension design behind the electronic gadgetry they can lump in to cover up a cars shortcomings ?

Most of my cars never had these systems and I never remember them spining wheels at every roundabout in town or over poorly surfaced piece of tarmac.
(Although the wife will always remember the first wet right turn in the MX5 !)

peasant

Saying that manufacturers deliberately hide bad designs behind gadgedtry might be taking it a bit far, but it certainly enables them to push power ever higher without really having to worry about the suspension setup.

What is really scary though, is how far the driver is removed from sensing the road and the conditions. Basically you can belt along at the speed limit on any road and never know (except for seeing it), in what condition the road is.
Until that point comes when even the gadgets can't save your ass.

My car has about the worst suspension setup possible ...two live axles on coil springs without any electronic helpers, not even ABS ...but I can tell you at any time how far away from critical I am on any given road and any surface and behave accordingly because I still get the full feedback from road to tyre to car to arse to brain without any electrics blocking out half of it.

colm_mcm

most people consider themselves to be better than average drivers, this is not possible, If nannying devices prevent the masses from carving out the odd pedestrian, then ultimately they are to be welcomed.

mike65

I think everyone should spend a day in windy conditions in a pre 1980 car to learn seat-of-the-pants driving.

Mike.

colm_mcm

Pre power steering and ABS? try a Polo

Wibbs

While I do agree with colm_mcm's point, I think a lot cars today do isolate the driver far more from the road they're on and the speed they're doing. It seems soooo easy. That may actually cause more problems. ABS and better crash protection is to be welcomed in a big way.

Where I see the problem is the level of comfort and ease of driving that you find in a lot of cars now where 80 Mph feels not that fast at all. Which it is. At 80Mph the chances of surviving a crash rapidly diminish. The steering in some cars is unbelievably wooly and over assisted. Same with brakes.

I've been in cars with people where they thought they were doing fine, yet you could see they were close to the ragged edge and this wasn't at mad speeds either. Wet road basically. You do the same in something like a pre 1980 RS2000 and by god you'll know when you're close to the edge. 80 Mph in one of those things and you really know what 80Mph actually feels like.