Jaguar Recalls 18,000 Cars Over Major Software Fault 356
DMandPenfold writes with this excerpt from ComputerWorld UK "Jaguar has recalled nearly 18,000 X-type cars after it discovered a major software fault, which meant drivers might not be able to turn off cruise control. The problem lies with engine management control software developed in-house by Jaguar. The problematic software is only installed on diesel engine X-Types, which were all produced between 2006 and 2010. Some 17,678 vehicles have been recalled, as a result of the potentially dangerous problem. If the fault occurs, cruise control can only be disabled by turning of the ignition while driving — which would mean a loss of some control and in many cars also disables power steering. Braking or pressing the cancel button will not work. 'Jaguar has identified that should an error with certain interfacing systems be detected the cruise control system will be disabled and an error message displayed to the driver on the instrument cluster,' the company said in a statement."
Oblig. (Score:2)
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The Lucas motto: "Get home before dark."
Lucas is the patent holder for the short circuit.
Lucas - Inventor of the first intermittent wiper.
Lucas - Inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.
The three position Lucas switch - Dim, Flicker and Off.
The Original Anti-Theft Device - Lucas Electrics.
Lucas is an acronym for Loose Unsoldered Connections and Splices
Lucas systems actually uses AC current; it just has a random frequency
No automatic update (Score:2)
Jaguar said drivers who returned their cars would need a software upgrade to their vehicle. No hardware needed to be replaced, it said.
What is worse: having to recall 18,000 cars or having the ability to get an automatic update (wi-fi...) + the risk of the car being remotely hacked?
Re:No automatic update (Score:4, Funny)
Hell most of them will be updated during the next visit, not because they received the notification.
Don't tell me (Score:2)
They had forgotten to add the leak_oil() function...
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Software solutions (Score:2)
The Jaguar X-Type's software was custom built in-house, which could mean it's not even that mature or robust. Jaguar are not known for their software, why should we assume that their practices and methodology are sound enough when it comes to developing critical software systems? Do transportation
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When you're trying to solve the same problem, software solutions aren't necessarily worse than discrete circuits. The only difference is that software can solve more complex problems, so that's why software bugs are more common.
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In fact, discreet circuits are theoretically harder to test than software that does the same thing and certainly harder to debug.
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Give me discrete controls any day (Score:2)
In fact, discreet circuits are theoretically harder to test than software that does the same thing and certainly harder to debug.
People like you scare me.
I'm not sure it's even possible to create software that does *the same thing* as a discreet circuit. If it is possible, it's never done in practice. Software invariably does more. (Trivial example: Memory management.) And that is where the problem lies.
Discrete controls will be assigned to one task and one task only (because making them do more makes the problem more complex, and thus involves more work). In practice, this makes them easier to test and debug.
Software will be as
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That would be quite easy. It's the opposite way that's often impossible. Problems that can be easily solved in software are often too complex to solve in hardware.
The reasons are clear: software is capable of solving complex problems for a low price, and customers want those features.
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As a software developer of another major car manufacturer (actually doing cruise control among other things), I can tell you that there are plenty of very very complicated systems in a car - much more complicated than what I would have dreamed of before starting here. The complexity cannot be put into hardware simply because of the weight of it the cables required between the interacting components.
Cruise control is like most other components (in a modern car) connected to everything from crash detection sy
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Right. That's why the most common method of locking a vehicle in cruise without a vacuum or wire system is to lock the throttle actuator, or simply override it in to a 'by wire' system. Since most modern vehicles use by-wire for the gas pedal now, this is the most common way. My bet is that they went out of their way with some backasswards convoluted design to stop the small time mechanics from having an easy way to fix cruise and TPS/MAF systems.
I'm a big fan of mechanical systems for just this reason.
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As the owner of an '87 Jaguar XJ6 I have to agree with you. There are so many relays tucked away in odd, hard to reach locations sometimes I wish the ECU's were more complex back then.
Although my car still has its original wiring harness smoke installed, it does have some electrical gremlins that I'm having a devil of a time tracking down.
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Now that they have made an error it's much easier to update a software than to replace a circuit.
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Why do you think a hardware solution would be less bug-prone than a software solution?
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There are authorities that are relevant for automotive embedded software safety. Groups such as the UK's MIRA have a working group, MISRA (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association) which define a safe subset of C that is workable for embedded systems.
Specifically, undefined, unspecified and implementation-dependent behaviour of the C standard is identified, and the unsafe aspects are prohibited as part of the MISRA-C subset.
Alongside this, embedded system vendors in the automotive industry have serio
Hmm.. (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like a driver issue.
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Ha.
Speaking of which, I might suggest a driver-initiated technique to handle the situation: The cruise control might still allow you to change the cruise speed, which may temporarily inactivate cruise control. Push and hold the lever/knob/button to reset the cruise speed. Or use the increase/decrease speed function as your (rather clumsy) accelerator.
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Lovely. Subtle. With all the "get a clutch" comments, I had "Meh"ed and moved on to other comments before my pun detector kicked in.
Oblig. (Score:2)
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
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Are you criticizing capitalism? Indeed, even libertarianism?
A fight! A fight!
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Unfortunately the first two rules of what is being referred two prevent me from disclosing what is being referred to...
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That is certainly a 'whoosh' for you. This is a quote from the movie/book Fight Club, where the main character did this for his job.
Yes, it was a whoosh, thanks! :)
Seriously? (Score:2)
If the fault occurs, cruise control can only be disabled by turning of the ignition while driving
The advice is really "try turning it off and on again"?
(How about adding a soft-reset button on the steering wheel for all these drive-by-wire features?)
Could the article be more wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
If the fault occurs, cruise control can only be disabled by turning of the ignition while driving â" which would mean a loss of some control and in many cars also disables power steering.
Public Service Announcement time from a decade-long car geek.
SHUTTING OFF YOUR ENGINE WILL NOT CAUSE YOU TO LOSE CONTROL OF YOUR CAR. You'll somewhat slowly come to a stop. You won't "endo". You won't flip over and crash in a ball of fire. Your wheels won't even lock up. Furthermore, once your car is moving at a walking pace, you no longer need power steering. Try it some time in a parking lot. And no, you won't lose your brakes, unless your braking system has been poorly maintained. Test this by shutting off your engine in your driveway and seeing how many times you can press the pedal before it suddenly goes hard. That's where you have lost braking assist. Even further: loss of braking assist does not mean you can't stop the car - you just have to press much, much harder.
What is dangerous: if the ignition lock on the steering column activates and you need to steer. This is why you should turn the key to the accessory-only position.
Braking or pressing the cancel button will not work
Second PSA:
BRAKING ALWAYS WORKS. With the exception of some ultrapowerful cars like the Veyron, there is an order of magnitude difference between the maximum torque your brakes can generate, and the maximum torque your engine can.
The key is that you have to stop safely but quickly, firmly, and completely, and STAY STOPPED until you've shut off the engine. If you ride the brakes, you'll keep heating up the rotors, pads, and brake fluid. If the brake fluid boils (or more accurately, the water in the brake fluid, since it's hygroscopic and people aren't good about changing their brake fluid as often as they should) or you exceed the maximum operating temperature of the brake pads (passenger vehicle pads are designed for "cold" bite, ie to be useable for panic stops), then yes, you will not have effective brakes.
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Let me see if I get this straight.
If I turn off my engine by turning the key, then I could end up engaging the ignition lock and the steering wheel won't be able to be turned. Also, I lose power steering, which could make keeping control of the car much more difficult. If my car won't respond to the normal ways to turn off cruise control, I think most people who think to use the keys would instinctively turn the car all the way off, not remember to only turn it to accessory. And in accessory, you still los
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If it's stuck in gear, you won't lose the power steering since the engine will be getting turned by the momentum of the car.
If you turn the key off, you won't lock the steering. The lock only comes on when you pull the key right out. If you manage to do this by accident, put the key back in and turn it to accessory.
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On many cars, the steering will lock when you turn the key to the off position even if you leave it in the ignition.
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I know mine is like that. It was handy to know that once when I had the throttle cable stick.
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Not on any car I've ever driven. In every car I've seen, the key has four or five positions, "Lock", "Off (sometimes)", "Accessories", "On" and "Start". The key can only be removed when it's in the "Lock" position, but turning it to that position *will* lock your steering, even if don't remove the key.
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It depends on the gearbox. On most that don't have electronically-controlled selector valves, it will turn the engine once you're above a certain speed.
You are a lucky person (Score:2)
But some of us are not and we might have to loose speed FAST. NOW, not AFTER our brains have processed not just that we need to stop in a hurry BUT that now something is wrong and we have to do something we never really thought about doing while whatever has made it necessary to stop is approaching at 130km/h.
Or translated, I am driving on cruise control, which means I am NOT fully in control of the car because I am not expecting anything, when suddenly there is an accident in front me. I slam on the brakes
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Second PSA:
BRAKING ALWAYS WORKS. With the exception of some ultrapowerful cars like the Veyron, there is an order of magnitude difference between the maximum torque your brakes can generate, and the maximum torque your engine can.
I think they are referring to the standard practice of pressing the brake to automatically disengage the cruise control. Apparently, that does not work in this case.
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SHUTTING OFF YOUR ENGINE WILL NOT CAUSE YOU TO LOSE CONTROL OF YOUR CAR. You'll somewhat slowly come to a stop. You won't "endo". You won't flip over and crash in a ball of fire. Your wheels won't even lock up.
I owned a 2004 Pontiac GTO at one point and, coming from a 1995 Chevy Cavalier, decided to slow down by shifting from fifth to third and rev matching, then completely releasing the accelerator.
TOKYO DRIFT TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was this loud screeching and my car wiggled with every nudge of the steering wheel, it was like floating. The rear tires had completely lost traction on dry, black pave. That fuckin' V8 engine had enough negative torque with the throttle closed to skid my back wheels!
Have fun
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The tires would be fine, since the brake counteracts the engine before you get to the tires.
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No, he said that shutting off your engine won't cause you to lose control. I simply backed off my engine (in a low enough gear) and it provided enough braking force without the brakes to put me into a rear wheel slide.
Read the quoted line.
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This is why you should turn the key to the accessory-only position.
I'm sure that will occur to drivers, with (slightly morphine-blurred) hindsight as the nice fire-persons are cutting them out of the wreckage. When you're driving along and the cruise control suddenly jams on, most mere mortal's thought processes will be along the lines of "What the fu...?!"
More to the point, though, what is this "ignition key" of which you speak? Even in my DasMini you plug the key fob into a wireless socket (which powers everything up and releases the steering lock) and then press a b
Could you please read the arcticle slowly? :) (Score:2)
which would mean a loss of some control and in many cars also disables power steering.
SHUTTING OFF YOUR ENGINE WILL NOT CAUSE YOU TO LOSE CONTROL OF YOUR CAR.
TFA was referring to a loss of some control, which is exactly what happens when you lose power steering/brake assist. It was not referring to a total loss of control or "endo"...
Test this by shutting off your engine in your driveway and...
Don't. With modern vehicles, letting the engine rotate while powered off may damage the catalytic converter when it is reached by non-burned/liquid fuel. You should only do that for a 10-20 meters in case of an emergency start (e.g., depleted battery due to age/cold temperatures).
Braking or pressing the cancel button will not work
BRAKING ALWAYS WORKS
TFA, again, is correct since it is explaining that br
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With modern vehicles, letting the engine rotate while powered off may damage the catalytic converter when it is reached by non-burned/liquid fuel.
If the ignition switch is off, the fuel injectors won't be injecting.. Still, it's probably not a great idea
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All good advice. Now you carry out that advice when travelling at 70MPH on a busy motorway. Not everybody knows the systems of their car as well as you do, and even those that do are liable to be panicked by the situation.
How you can argue that potentially locking the steering wheel isn't losing control of your car is beyond me. Are you sure you can find the 'accessories only' position of the key when under that sort of stress?
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And like many geeks, your pronouncements are quite true - but irrelevant in the real world.
But that part between whatever speed you are currently doing and a walking pace is a real bitch though.
Prince of Darkness (Score:2)
If you have never worked on a British car then the humor may be lost on you but there is an entire sub culture around Lucas the prince of darkness [mez.co.uk].
Does not apply in the US (Score:2)
So yeah, it sucks that Jag has a software glitch. But nobody here has to worry about it since there are exactly zero Diesel X-types in the US.
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Not everybody here is from the US.
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But nobody here has to worry about it since there are exactly zero Diesel X-types in the US.
Not everybody here is from the US.
Very true, and I could have been more clear on that. However many Americans will use this recall to bash Jaguar, when the recall involves only cars that they could not buy from their local Jaguar dealer for any amount of money.
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Like many other manufacturers, they assume that Americans are either too stupid to handle a Diesel
Not an american, but just wondering, why are Diesels more difficult to handle?
This reflects total incompetence (Score:2)
This is totally incompetent real-time programming and hardware design. There should be a stall timer in the hardware, and it should only be reset after all the safety-related conditions have been checked on each cycle. Safety-related functions and non-safety-related functions must be strongly isolated, preferably in different CPUs. This is all well understood. Some people need to be fired.
I worked with some of the people who designed the Ford EEC IV, which controlled most Ford cars in the 1980s. Backup
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That third pedal is getting harder and harder to find these days. On anything, at least in the US. I think I can count on one hand the number of friends that I have that currently own a car with an actual clutch that's not a computer controlled dual clutch setup.
Also, with the improvements made in the dual clutch setups and slushbox efficiency, the maintenance and skill demand of that third pedal is waning quickly. There will always be purists who search it out, but we'll be paying a premium for it.
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It's still the other way around in a substantial part of the rest of the planet. In Europe for example, it's only by special request that you get an automatic. By default all cars I've seen on a dealer lot in every country in Europe I've been to are manual shift. Some automatics are available, but they are certainly not common. I see the same when I am in Africa... almost all cars/trucks are manual shift.
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Nowadays, we pay a premium for the old-fashioned gearbox, which I (as a gearhead) find particularly odd and disturbing...
Why "odd"? If I make 100,000 cars of a model type. 85,000 regular automaticss. 10,000 luxury automatics, with pseudo-manual "Tiptronic". 3,000 sports models, also with pseudo-manual. And 2,000 conventional manuals. Why would you expect a system developed solely for a 2,000-car range to be cheaper than one developed for a 70,000-car range?
I suspect, eventually, it will be cheaper to put a drive-by-wire pretend clutch-pedal connected to that pseudo-manual automatic, rather than develop a real manual gearbox a
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if you except a drive by wire*(excluding good old steel cable) clutch - then you are not one of the people looking for the third pedal
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I have to assume you have no real idea what benefits there are to a manual transmission ( or even what the real differences are ), or the whole idea of putting a fake pedal on the floor would *never* have occurred to you.
And cars have been designed to accommodate both an automatic and a manual since time out of mind, so, no there would be no modifications, and the car would not be a modified custom car.
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"The auto was the "modified" version, hence more expensive, hence reserved for the luxury or executive version"
and
"So for the manual, they need to produce an entirely unique production line"
Not really, the car is designed to accommodate both, it is just a matter of what is fitted. The automatic is more expensive because there is more to it ( in general ). There is no different production line ( except for the transmission itself, of course ).
"And as dual-clutch autos increasingly filter down to the base m
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It is very disappointing.
The modern all aluminum overhead cam engine has no low end torque. That makes a huge difference in the enjoyment of rowing your own gears. My previous vehicles had old American push rod V8's that put out peak torque right off idle.
Oh how I wish I could buy a compact 4x4 pickup with a diesel engine and a manual transmission.
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Re:My car has a fail-safe device... (Score:4, Informative)
1. Apply handbrake while keeping clutch pushed in.
2. Move foot from brake pedal to accelerator.
3. Slowly release hand brake while simultaneously easing off the clutch, and pushing the accelerator.
Without a hand brake, you'd start rolling backwards if the hill is too steep.
On a more gradual slope, you don't need the hand brake. Just release the clutch enough that you can let go off the foot brake.
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Yes, that's what I said will work on a gradual incline. If the hill is steep, you cannot hold the car with the clutch alone, but you'll need some extra gas as well. At least with gasoline cars. Diesels have much more torque, so you can start them on a steeper incline with clutch alone.
Of course, you could still do it quickly, and you'll only roll back a little bit, but that's considered bad style, and could be hazardous if someone is behind you. Where I live, starting on a hill is part of the driver's test,
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I've been driving manual cars/trucks for 20 years and I've never had to do what you describe. We have some very hilly areas around here...
I'd wager if you had to do that you should be driving an automatic.
Come to think of it, if you take a driving test with a manual car and do that you'd probably rack up demerits here... (not in Europe)
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Not really. I guess it depends on the car. If you have plenty of torque, you can do a lot with just the clutch. In Europe, engines are typically smaller and only have 4 cylinders. Gasoline engines are quite eager to stall at low RPMs.
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Don't know where that is, but a hill start using the handbrake is part of the test in the UK. Except for Peterborough, allegedly.
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it's easier for people who don't heel/toe well
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Further to this, I only ever saw one manual drive car made in the USA and it would not even start the engine unless you put your foot on the clutch. I was told this was standard for manual drive (but I've lived most of my life in Europe and never heard of such a crazy thing) to stop you starting up in gear.
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Huh? I have been driving manual transmission cars in the USA for about 40 years and I have never once seen that "feature". In fact it appears that this would not even be legal, since you have to be able to turn on your headlights while parked.
And why do you need the emergency brake to start on a hill? Can't you coordinate your heel/toe and the clutch properly? I have driven quite successfully, many times, through one of the hilliest cities in the world - San Francisco - with absolutely no need fo
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You usually have a switch on the clutch as well as the brakes to disable cruise control. I have found on at least one car (vauxhall/opel corsa) that if you knock it out of gear the cruise control doesn't realise and starts increasing revs - I didn't wait to see how far it would go... For all manual cars the system should expect a correlation between road speed and engine revs (gear ratios are fixed after all) and disable the cruise control and flag a fault if this is not the case.
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That's the thing. In theory, there's a rev limiter that will keep the engine from damaging itself. On the other hand, in theory, the cruise control will disengage when you brake or hit cancel. OOPS.
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most cars do not have a rev limiter that is exists before the natural one of something failing..
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Actually, newer ones with full digital engine management tend to.
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This is the Jaguar X-Type Diesel, which if I am right was until 2008, always manual, and has a clutch. (I know, because I had one of those)
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Yes, because people who can barely drive as it is should get a car where they have to worry about coordinated action of ANOTHER limb, in order to avoid an extremely rare fault.
Oh, and automatics have an even more reliable engine power cutoff - pushing the shifter forward to the stop will put the transmission in neutral... And it will stay there.
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Everyone has excellent control over the cars, but road sense is a different story
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A few decades ago you may have had a point. But guess what - an automatic transmission is smarter and better than anything you as a meatbag can do. You may have more direct control over your transmission, but you're shit compared to a machine.
I will concede that automatic transmissions are--within the last 5 years or so--finally approaching the fuel economy manual transmissions have give drivers for decades. However, until my car can read my mind, I prefer to control when my car shifts. Without traction control or the like, you can prevent a car with a manual from slipping on ice by putting it in a higher gear, etc... Traction control has it's uses but in certain situations--muddy, rutted roads for example--it's also a good way to get stuck
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You're showing your age...
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It's a Ford, everything breaks down.
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Well it can be turned off by the ignition key.
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I used cruise control but found it ungodly difficult and dangerous by default, but that's going through winding back roads at 25mph (speed limit). It's unnerving and just ... not responsive to conditions. What is the point of cruise control when your foot is resting on the gas pedal?
I've also done 100+ mile trips (one way) in that car, cruise control was not helpful and I shut the god damn thing off. It takes significantly more driver concentration to manage the cruise control system--backing off my gas
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The engine has a rev limiter. It might sound scary, but it isn't going to damage itself in the 30 seconds it would take to get to the side of the road and stop.
Even if you didn't throw it into neutral, the brakes are still strong enough to stop the car.
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While I have a manual, I don't think automatics give significantly less control in practice - we're not talking about racing, you shouldn't be driving close enough to the limits where it matters. In some cases, such as busy city driving, having one less thing to think about could be a safety advantage.
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Indeed. My Ford focus dumped its power steering fluid during a long drive. I was able to keep going; the only hard part was parking at the end of the trip. Once you are up to about 20mph you hardly even notice that the power steering is b0rked.
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2. When did they stop putting rev limiters in cars?
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My car doesn't have a key. It has a single push button, and I have no idea what happens if you push it while driving. :)
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It actually varies a lot by the make of car. You should know the best procedure for your car. Advising people to do something that may blow up the engine is a good way to make people too hesitant to take the necessary step. Not to mention, a blown engine may cause sudden loss of visibility and result in an accident.
In many cars with steering lock, the key will NOT go to the lock position unless the car is in park. It's easy enough to find out if that applies to your car or not in the safety of your driveway
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Try Birmingham or Coventry in the UK. :)
Soon add Wolverhampton to the list.