The car manufacturer Toyota has been in the news a lot recently due to a spate of accidents (some sadly fatal) and near misses involving several of its models which it appears are having problems with their brakes and accelerators.
This started to make me wonder about just how over engineered and complex some of the "basic" systems now fitted to modern cars have become.
Gone are the days when a throttle was linked to the engine via a pedal linked to a cable and attatched to the carb , now they are connected to a potentiometer in a black box, or some other weird and wonderful arrangement. Brakes,once upon a time,used to be directly connected to a piston which then (through hydraulic action achieved by the driver pressing a pedal) would apply pressure to pitons in the callipers and thus clamp the brake shoes/pads onto the disks/drums of the car. Not so now of course, now it all has to be done via a computer system to ensure "optimum performance".The question is, are car manufacturers just getting a little too clever for their own good, and are the public becoming "lab rats" to help with their research ?
As you are well aware, Scarlett (My Scirocco) is now almost 23 years old, and at this moment in time i am feeling so glad that she is not burdened with all the clutter and gizmo's that all modern cars seem to be.
I would say that given the choice of choosing a car to travel any great distance in right now, and given a choice of my old "trusty steed" or some all singing all dancing box of wires and chips set on four wheels, i know which ignition key I would be turning!.
Sometimes driving something with less is better than being let down by something with (apparently) so much more!.
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