This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Your Future Car's Hood Will Be Welded Shut
Related Links Top of the: day, week, month.
New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman
Mechanics? (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, what happens when the radio transmitter breaks?
computers + internal combustion engines = stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
just my opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Screw That! (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, so you can pay $40+ (USD) for an oilchange, along with god knows what a dealer charges for the rest of the routine maintence.
I mean, ok, so the cars geared for women, and we know they can't do their own maintence, but what if they have an ounce of common sense and realize theres no reason to pay dealer prices?
By women, for women? (Score:5, Insightful)
Awful (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of that, the concept is stupid. There are things that people (yes, even women) can do themselves under the hood of their own car. What's next? Welding our computer cases shut? (or at least making better "void your warranty" stickers)
missing a step (Score:4, Insightful)
If it breaks under the hood how do you fix it????????????
Preferences = oil change? (Score:2, Insightful)
Simple Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just silly (Score:4, Insightful)
Women gripe about how mechanics always treat them badly and try to take advantage of them anyway - why enable that by making a car that you can't check out, even if you wanted to?
breakdown service?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the other design features also sound more like bunch of men were having a laugh as to what a woman wants in a car... like being able to colour-coordinate with your clothes... Please!!!
I guess doing this kind of design study is a good way of getting publicity though, even made it onto slashdot...
Robin
Wow, insulting maybe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on! Just because a lot of women don't do their own maintenance, does that mean that the hood should be locked shut? I mean, women who *don't* know how to do their own spark plug changes or oil changes would still be smart enough to just not open the hood, wouldn't they?
'Sides, the car-repair show on the local radio program is hosted by a woman who is a genius when it comes to mechanics -- I wonder what she'd have to say about it.
.yawn. (Score:3, Insightful)
A car with a welded hood would be like having a harddrive that couldn't be defragged, it would be like not being able to use anti-virus software.
Source code isn't everything. I perform basic maintenance on closed source programs everyday. It could be argued that a closed source easy-troubleshootable program is actually easy to fix than an opensource program whose developers don't give a crap about trying to help people troubleshoot.
Re:computers + internal combustion engines = stupi (Score:3, Insightful)
Truth be told though, EMP isn't really a problem for microchips. It's generally a problem for electrical systems with long stretches of wire (like telephones and power grids.) What usually blows out a CMOS chips is static electricity, which you won't get from an EMP.
TMYK
Re:Mechanics? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that specialized tools is a new idea. Car companies have been doing that for years to try and get people to bring their cars back to the dealer for repairs.
They don't have to weld the hood shut. (Score:5, Insightful)
Many vehicles are designed to have "minor" service with "major" pain. Ever look under the hood of a minivan? Good luck changing the fuel injectors, or a spark plug. Most of these will require removal of at least the intake manifold's upper plenum (along with accessories), if not dropping the engine cradle.
For many people, a "welded" hood already exists - they don't want to open it anyway. It's not for me (I wrench my own cars - rebuilding my own transmission this weekend). But for others, why not. A welded hood is not much of a difference than the way my father-in-law treats his Cadillac anyway.
As a woman... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah, and as a woman who can't afford to go to a mechanic every time my car needs a fluid topoff, I think this would suck a lot.
I think it would discourage people from doing routine maintenance on their vehicles and from being able to figure out problems before heading to the mechanic.
When I go to mechanics, they often try to rip me off or tell me I need more parts than I do. One of them tried to get me to buy a new radiator when I already knew I only needed a coolant overflow tank (because the radiator was full and only the overflow tank was consistently empty).
Sure, if a person's not going to do any maintenance anyway, whatever. But this is basically like saying "rip me off, pretty please, I have no idea what this car does or what's under the hood!"
Additionally - what happens when you need a jump, or when your battery needs replaced? Even the most technologically inept woman I've ever met can be talked through a battery installation. What happens if your battery dies a hundred miles from the nearest Volvo dealership?
What is more insulting (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, from the article: The whole front of the car is moulded in one piece which can be removed only by a Volvo mechanic.
Bull. This is up there with the three bits (or whatever) of encryption on DVDs as the lamest attempt at obfuscation. The next day, after hitting the showroom, Autozone would have a 3 dollar wrench to open this bastard. And I bet anyone with an IQ over 10 could pop this badboy off with a screwdriver and a little leverage. That's probably all this Volvo mechanic would do after tiring of this Feature.
A clumsy kludge that has no point other than being a big pain in the ass. Really, does having access to you're car's naughty bits in any way effect driving? This is the New Coke of car innovations.
Besides, the only Swedish vehicle worth sitting in is a Saab Draken.
Re:Awful (Score:1, Insightful)
Linux.com is by far the worst, and I can't bring myself to read it anymore. I certainly hope that the teenaged male Slashdot readers will grow up, get a damned life and cease to be so bloody sexist.
Re:computers + internal combustion engines = stupi (Score:5, Insightful)
90% of all horsepower increase achievements have came from electronic and computerized engine management. There are things you CANNOT do with mechanical ignition timing and engine management.
Re:yup (Score:3, Insightful)
Plasma cutters.
It is about securing the maintenance market (Score:2, Insightful)
Just my 2c
silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:.yawn. (Score:4, Insightful)
Source code isn't everything
Why yes... there's configuration files, so if your programme crashes in 640x480 resolution then...
I perform basic maintenance on closed source programs everyday
What exactly to you mean my maintenance, and if it's so easy why do you do it every day?
A car with a welded hood would be like having a harddrive that couldn't be defragged
Defragging a HD is one operation. Having the hood open lets you change many things. Do you see the distinction?
The analogy is flawed
Smiles politely. Oh all right, I fell down laughing =) =) =) =)
Reliability vs. Cost of Access (Score:4, Insightful)
When was the last time you needed get inside your car's radio? (OK, I know I posting on
The point is that if the cost of providing access exceeds the benefits of providing access, then you get products with "no user servicable parts inside."
Re:HONDAS dont break (Score:5, Insightful)
And if the person who's going to buy your car off you when it's 5 years old can't open the hood to fix it themselves, how much do you think they're going to pay you for it? You'll buy a nice shiny new plastic piece of crap with zero resale value.
The vision just popped into my head of dozens of these cars at 10 years old or so driving around major cities with no hood, because the owner ripped it off and left it off.
Volvo hot-rod, anyone? Problem is, I'm sure the practical V6 with hundreds of wires and sensors, so cluttered that you can't even see the engine, won't look nearly as impressive as a chromed 396 big block chevy.
Re:Not a new idea (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, I let your first comment go, but this is the second time you have made this outrageous claim. Are you saying that you could open the hood of a 2004 Audi and diagnose even a small problem? Even the mechanics at the dealership need to hook the engine up to the diagnostic computers these days. I could understand doing repairs on older cars, say circa 1995 and older, but give me a break. I am mechanically inclined as well, but I wouldn't even attempt to repair anything inside the engine of a 2004 car. Expect maybe the washer fluid reservoir, or replace a broken cap. Exactly the parts you could access in this new Volvo.
Welding the bonnet shut makes perfect sense (Score:3, Insightful)
How does the new owner of a perfectly good 3 year old car replace the battery? It becomes an hour labour for a mechanic plus the cost of the battery (90). And think about the amount of time you have to take out of your day to take the car to a dealer's garage, several hours. It only takes 10 mins to replace a battery normally (30). How about a new fan belt?
The problem with manufacturers who think like this is that they only care about the first user who buys the car new from a showroom. The second and subsequent users are irrelevant to them. This will obviously affect the resale value of their cars.
You DON'T fix a modern car by yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:computers + internal combustion engines = stupi (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer engine control was kind of rough when it first started being used; the computers died a lot, they were susceptible to sensor failure, etc. Now they're way better, and engines are FAR more reliable than they were before computers.
I for one don't want to go back to the days of carburetors and distributors. Fuel injection and coil packs or coil-on-plug, along with the computer(s) to control them, have made cars LOADS more reliable. Sure, it may be harder to work on them, but you don't NEED to work on them nearly as much.
Try taking a 1969 car and driving it 120,000 miles without doing anything more than changing the oil.
Also, I find that in most cases it's EASIER to work on my car with a computer. Without a computer you only know if there's something wrong if it's bad enough to cause serious performance degradation. With a computer, you can catch problems way before they become serious. I had a light a few months ago, went to the auto parts store, borrowed their scanner, saw that I had a stuck EGR valve, wrenched it off, cleaned it, and replaced it. Without the computer I'd never have had a clue, just kept polluting more than necessary, and possibly fouling my catalytic converter as well.
I do have to agree about the shut hood though. I'd never even consider buying a car like this, or letting anyone in my family buy one.
I think they're missing a bit by saying this is "for women" - most men never do anything under the hood, either; I know men that are more hopeless mechanically than many women I know. One of the best mechanics I've ever had was female. I think the whole thing is kind of insulting.
Re:ummm what happens if the engine is on fire? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a car for women! (Score:5, Insightful)
Except sooner or later I'll probably moot this whole idea and replace my Cherokee with a Wrangler or old CJ with a totally washable "interior" and use it as our beach/tow/camping vehicle, with my wife's Hyundai reserved for "civilized" driving.
(BTW, my wife checks oil and other necessary fluids often. I don't think she'd want a car where she couldn't do that easily.)
- Robin
Re:HONDAS dont break (Score:3, Insightful)
How will this bomb? Let me count the ways... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems to think women are vain creatures who want to be the Imelda Marcos of car seat covers.
"The engine's on fire--quick, call the mechanic to open it up!"
"That fender bender will run you $2000 to replace the one-piece front end..."
Re:Mechanics? (Score:5, Insightful)
But how else would we know what our boss feels like when we say the harddrive just died on the RAID attached to the mailserver, and even though the machine is chugging along just fine, we really do need a new disk?
Maybe it's different in England (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what cell phones are for... I'm not trying to insult you here, so please don't take it that way, but I'd never leave my wife dependent on the kindness of strangers.
Like I say, maybe it's different in England.
Re:Maybe it's different in England (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, no, not if I was in the car, too. I'd probably and stand there with her for a bit, before suggesting we close the bonnet, find a pub and call the AA (like your AAA, not like your AA) from there.
Seriously, though, I wasn't saying it was necessarily the best idea in the world, but she was just saying that in those cases when she was stranded at the side of the road with no-one to come to her aid, then she'd appreciate being able to raise the bonnet, if only for purely symbolic reasons.
I don't know if there are fewer serial killers/rapists/whatever in England than in the US, but, based on my limited knowledge of US culture (mainly informed by Hollywood), I think there might be a greater fear of them over your side of the pond.
Re:I nominate this... (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you going to do anyway? The overwhelming majority of people I know do not carry a full set of tools in their car, and even if they do, they carry little to no spare parts. So you break down. You can perform Manly Car Manuever #1: open the hood and stare at the engine. Even if you can diagnose the problem, what are you going to do without replacement parts?
And the ability to open the hood here means you can not only perform MCM #1 (detailed above), but you can do #'s 2 and 3: Freeze your ass off while doing it, and cuss at it.
Oh, you're one of those zealots. Now I understand the basis for your objection. Religious issues...
There's nothing that says a person can't know how the car works, and still not want to... or be able to, even!... perform their own maintenance on that car. The concepts here are, frankly, brilliant in that they take into account the existing desires of the target market. A lot has been written here about "reinforcing stereotypes", but the fact remains that most people (men and women) do not perform their own maintenance. Ergo, make the car so they don't have to.
A better article on this project, which is called "Your Concept Car" or YCC, can be found at http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?article= 6907 [thecarconnection.com] and explains some of the features in more detail, including the big one: the first maintenance stop is at 35,000 miles.
parents could use removable seats (Score:3, Insightful)
Kids are crawling, walking, talking, oozing mess machines so parents could sure use washable seat covers. Vinyl seats were good for some things!
Re:Audi A2 (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, there is a real advantage to a sealed hood/bonnet: stiffness. I would bet that the modern hood is a real PITA to car structural designers who look at that big unstressed hood and weep.
Re:Argh. (Score:5, Insightful)
So does the BBC article:
The whole front of the car is moulded in one piece which can be removed only by a Volvo mechanic.
The headline was only misleading to the extent that it didn't mention the "designed for women by women" angle--that it's not Volvo wanting to seal everyone's hood, just those of women. So they aren't attacking open source, they're attacking respect for women. Which is kind of worse if you stop and think about it.
This isn't 1970 anymore! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars manufactures have changed over the years. At one time Honda really was significantly more reliable than Ford. Many people have let Honda slide on this reputation for years, paying for more, for a car that isn't really any better than something that others can give.
Hondas have problems too. Fords have problems. I don't know who builds the better car this year, and we can't know for 20 years. Until then it is just a guess. Some years Honda builds good cars, some years they don't. People are willing to forgive Honda for a bad car because "everyone has a few problems", but Ford with just as many problems just adds to their reputation of not building good cars. It isn't right.
Re:Porsche Boxster anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
if you have the money for a luxury car then you should also have the money to pay for repairs, no?
The need for certified wizards - balderdash (Score:4, Insightful)
Er, yes. Well, not literally yes, because mine is a 1999 VW, and I don't need to open the hood. I spent a couple hundred bux on something called a VAG-COM (VAG-COM [ross-tech.com]) that hooks up the OBD-II connector of any reasonably recent VW/Audi to a Windows notebook. It reads out the diagnostic codes in plain english - something like "temperature sensor shorted to ground" or "MAF signal intermittent" or whatever. It does a lot of other helpful stuff, too.
Many other brands have similar tools available.
The hood comes into the equation only because mine actually opens, and I can actually change out the temperature sensor after finding out that it is bad. But even if I had an Audi A2, if I knew a mechanic with the ability to get inside, at least I could tell him never mind the diagnosis, I want part such-and-such changed.
Now, as it happens, I don't choose to do much of my own work, but I did find out my MAF was bad, and changed it out. I bought the part from the internet for 1/5 what the stealership would have charged, and changed it literally in 5 minutes, a pliers-only job which probably would have been at least $200 for diagnosis and labor, not counting parts, at the stealership.
Re:Maybe it's different in England (Score:2, Insightful)
Greater fear, yes. Greater risk? Maybe not so much. Probably what is fair to say about both sides of the Atlantic is that we all spend too much time worrying about things that have very low probabilities but are shocking, rather than worrying about more realistic and common dangers that we have more control over.
In any case, I don't have a car (by choice, you can't imagine how much money I save). So I guess I'll have to wait for the girls to make a bike where the gears are all encased in metal and where the seats come in different colors to match my riding gloves before I can get in on the smugness and macho superiority trip.
Re:Magnets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a car for the clueless (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd rather see a hood lock where you can only get the key if you pass a basic competency test.
Out of curiosity, where's the battery in this car? How would one get a jump start if you need a mechanic to open the hood?
Setting the morons straight (Score:5, Insightful)
However, they are missing the larger picture. If the manufacturer is the only entity that can repair the vehicle, the profit will not come from the sale but from the repair.
And once the repair of the vehicle becomes the means of profit, manufacturers will have NO incentive to make quality automobiles. They will have every incentive to create automobiles that WILL require repairs, because that would fit perfectly with their new business model.
Re:It's a car for women! (Score:3, Insightful)
Anger will prevail (Score:2, Insightful)
Does anyone read the article anymore? (Score:1, Insightful)
Volvo will never actually take this car into production, of course.
So call off the boycotts, no one cares how much you would or wouldnt pay for this. It will never see the light of day..
Re:Setting the morons straight (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe it's different in England (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gas vs. petrol (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH, electric range feed lines can't develop leaks of invisible, explosive gas.
When I buy a house, I plan on switching to an induction range to get the best of both worlds.
Re:Another one for you... (Score:1, Insightful)
Regular people (many of whom couldn't give a flying nutsack what speed it reaches in 60 seconds, or what grade of oil it takes, or whether they can pull it to bits and reassemble it blindfolded) just want their cars so they can GET PLACES without having to deal with mediocre public transport. If I want to get to a friends house at 9pm, I don't want to have to catch a bus 2 hours earlier because the timetable doesn't coincide with my interests.
People want cars for convenience, not because they see rednecks drive 500MPH in a bent circle at NASCAR.
Re:Gas vs. petrol (Score:2, Insightful)
That depends where you live. In all the places I've lived in Canada and the US hot water has always been gas except in old cruddy student housing with ancient water heaters bought back in the day when electric was competitive. Electric furnaces are even more rare, and usually only found (where I've lived anyways) only in older houses.
Stoves yes are mostly electric. Which is silly because a gas stove is just *so* much better!
My mum's car has this... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a Skoda um... Fabia/Felicia maybe? It might start with a f...
So we shifted the filling station for washer fluid to the side of the car, next to where you fill up fuel, and we closed the bonnet for good.
Yeah that's nice that it's been moved to a convenient place so you don't need to open the bonnet but surely moving a few tubes doesn't mean the bonnet should be permanently closed. What possible reason do they have for welding the thing shut? Let's see... there's aesthetics and there's anti-competitive practices. I'm sure it'll be for aesthetics when the competition comission ask them.
Volvo doesn't seem likely to do this (Score:2, Insightful)
I have, single handedly and without many tools:
Changed (upgraded) the front and rear suspension, steering rods, and brakes.
Installed aftermarket torsion bars.
Changed the wheel geometry.
Installed an exhaust header and modified throttle body.
Upgraded the cooling system.
Changed the timing belt.
Now, granted, I'm something of an amateur mechanic with a good toolbox, but I didn't need anything special to do this stuff. There is NOTHING on this car that's at all mysterious. Even the electronics for the fuel injection aren't that strange. You open the hood, and it's *sparse* in there. There's no question what wires go where, what hoses are what, etc. And there's room to move around.
What's my point? *ALL* Volvos share this design. If they mess up the design, they'll only mess it up for the US market. Canadian and European models won't get that treatment, nor will any car destined for Israel. (When you pay a 100% tax on a car, you expect to be able to maintain it forever.)