I happen to disagree.
What I consider necessary for almost any vehicle to have are:
ESP (Electronic Stability Program - Greatly improves the car's handling in emergency scenarios),
EBD (Electronic Brakeforce Distribution - Allows to avoid using ABS, and allows for much greater control when braking),
EBA (Emergency Brake Assist - In emergency scenarios, it increases the pressure in the braking system to stop quicker),
LKA/LDW (Lane Keep Asist / Lane Departure Warning - Helps you avoid running off the road),
LIMIT (An over speed warning can be really useful if your county/country went crazy on speed enforcement),
CarPlay (To have maps and music on the car's infotainment screen)

My '09 Corolla already had most of this and I retrofitted a screen and switches to have the rest, and my '14 Focus already had most of these and more very nice tech.

IMO, '09-'12 are the best cars because they have the systems that you actually need without going overboard.

Things that are definitely nice to have are:
AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking - If a collision is imminent the car will apply brakes),
LCA (Lane Centering Asist - The car can steer and drive it self in lane. Even the '21 F-150 has so it'll be soon the new norm),
ACDA (Assured clear distance ahead - Kind of rare but I like it on my Ford. It writes the distance (in seconds) to the car in-front)

I disagree entirely. I don't have, don't need, and don't want, any of that. Just more expensive junk to break on an old car. I don't plan to ever own a car with those "features".

I agree with Chuck. It seems that all these electronic whiz bangs are designed for lazy, irresponsible and unskilled drivers.

If you know how to drive you don't need any of that, and you're certainly not going to mistake the shadow of an overpass for a solid object and slam on the brakes in the middle of a freeway either. Not to mention having actual physical/tactile buttons and switches, instead of a touchscreen, that are always in the same place and can be activated by muscle memory without taking eyes off the road.

@ChuckTobias @Doc
I agree that 99% of the time these systems aren't needed - but they are lifesavers when someone on the road has made a mistake.
It doesn't matter if that person has been a trucker his entire life or if he just got his driving license, a lot of things just happen.
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When it comes to the features I've listed, on my cars - it's after market / dealer installed and I can remove it when it start to cause issues. But with most of these features - I just don't see how they can become issues as the car ages.
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I agree on disliking touchscreens for everything, I also hate modern climate control systems especially with the amount of blend doors, sensors and buttons they have.
But having a gauge cluster screen for a digital speed reading, or a main touch screen for it to show Waze navigation helping me avoid jams and warning me of cops - that's just super convenient, much better then installing a flimsy phone mount.
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At this point I just can't see my self buying a car without an autopilot system (even if it's a basic one like Toyota's Safety Sense / Toyota Lane Tracing Assist. not to mention even the cheapest cars like the Kia Rio and Toyota Yaris low trim models have them nowadays) - because having the car take care of tracking jams for me and cruise for me on the highway, is just incredibly convenient - made my horrendous rush hour commute much less fatiguing, I just keep an eye out that the car is doing what it's supposed to do (I end up intervening like maybe once or twice during my commute)
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The Kia Niro I've been driving for quite a lot recently has it and I just arrive where ever I need to much less tired. Instead of doing the work, I monitor that my vehicle is doing the work for me correctly. kind of like autopilot on a plane but (arguably) better (as it doesn't requite as much interaction, any programing on before flight, or any technical knowledge).
https://youtu.be/QVyRsdILbRw
It just makes driving a different experience.

@doc "It seems that all these electronic whiz bangs are designed for lazy, irresponsible and unskilled drivers."

ie. most of them.
So I'm glad when people buy cars with these features. It's a small step to prevent them from killing me.

Perhaps, until the systems malfunction. Complexity breeds instability, which breeds the opportunity for novel forms of accidents, accidents produced by hardware and software failures. It also raises the cost of insurance (and the cost of vehicles) for all of us, over the course of a shortened useful life for these vehicles. (Because the systems, when damaged, are so expensive, we're going to see many of them totaled, relatively early in their otherwise potential useful remaining lives).

In the end, it's a cost/benefit ratio. For me, at 69, the cost is far greater than the benefit.

for me, my life is priceless

Think of that when your collision avoidance system mistakes a shadow for a solid barrier and slams on the brakes with a tractor trailer bearing down on you from behind.

😉

Right on, Chuck!

You gotta start somewhere. People resisted seatbelts too.

"Complexity breeds instability, which breeds the opportunity for novel forms of accidents, accidents produced by hardware"
That's what horse buggy people said when automobiles showed up. 😛

@geriscan
When it comes to cost - As far as electronics they’re inexpensive and don’t add much complexity if done during the car’s design stage.
The hardware cost of the systems I retrofitted to my cars are under $100 - due to the fact that’s it’s legally mandated where I live and has been for the last 6 years, and will be mandated soon across Europe - economies of scale make it cheap.
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It doesn’t matter if it’s a fancy system like a Mobileye EyeQ5 or something basic - it’s a commodity.
the same way a car’s horn can be a fancy FIAMM highway blaster (like on Jags, Volvos, Austin Martins, and Ferraris) costing tens of dollars a piece, or it can also be done with an equality reliable Chinese one costing mere cents.
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As far as raising insurance cost - that’s also just not the case, cars with FCW and LDW have much lower rates.
(I’ve seen a comprehensive study on the safety improvement that came with the mandate for all cars to have FCW and LDW)
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And as far as complexity - The general trend of car sub systems is to become simpler. I am quite genuinely impressed how a lot of modern cars manage to be simpler then counterparts from the early 2000s (compare an Aisin 5 speed to a modern 8 speed, the 8 speed has half the parts and are much less prone to breakdowns)
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When it comes to possible failures leading to crashes - these are extraordinary rare due to hardware and software interlocks, but mainly smart design.
Many features get “axed” because no car manufacturer is willing to risk a chance of getting into a lawsuit over such an accident - even assuming a high profit margin, even a single wrongful death lawsuit will deal a significant blow to their bottom line and may cause insane damage the brand’s image.
So systems like these, in passenger cars - are usually fully ready and safe.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of such systems on each new car gets evaluated by EuroNCAP (they have a new testing program solely dedicated to this) in Europe and by IIHS in the US
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But at the end - that’s a game of risk calculation and the reality is that not trusting car safety systems, is like driving instead of flying - solely because you don’t trust flying (statically you’re putting your self at much greater risk, although it may not necessarily feel that way)
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Also, as far as the possibility of a vehicle’s lifespan being reduced due to the implementation of such systems - I haven’t seen these systems breakdown in a manner that’d shorten the vehicle’s life.
The most I’ve seen is a “SCC unavailable” message pop-up on a car where the millimeter-wave radar got damaged in a major front-end collision.
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And I agree with MountainManJoe, for me my life is also priceless 😄.
As a Volvo owner, I can definitely say I don’t mind paying more for the safety of me and my passengers.

I do mind paying though. I think OTHER drivers need these systems. Not me. 😆

@Dan, I really don't buy those arguments. Having worked in computer technology for over 40 years I know where the bodies are buried and do not trust those systems. No thanks, I do not plan to ever buy a car new enough to be equipped with such systems.

The comparison that @mmj made to seat belts is a little off, seat belts are simple, inexpensive mechanisms. The belts in my 50-year-old station wagon still work just fine. I don't think anyone who works on cars would say a modern car is simpler than those from 20 years ago, quite the opposite.

Which is simpler and cheaper to repair, electric power steering or hydraulic? Which is simpler and cheaper to repair, windshield wipers controlled by a simple electrical circuit or an expensive computer that can fail? Transmissions? A 3 or 4 speed hydraulically-controlled transmission can be economically rebuilt. How much to rebuild an 8 or 10 speed transmission? A CVT?

As far as insurance, the insurance cost on my old beaters which lack modern active safety systems is quite reasonable.

All good points here. And yes I am trolling a little bit.
However, on the subject of insurance costs... vehicles bills are trivial compared to hospital bills. The difference is a factor of many zeroes. So if these technologies do end up preventing more deaths and injuries, then the insurance costs plummet drastically, leading to lower rates. The cost of part replacement becomes quite moot. And it's a fact that insurance providers DO give incentives for these systems. (just like anti-theft measures)

I agree with Chuck and find Dan's argument unpersuasive. I also find Mountain Man's analogy of "horse and buggy" to be flawed, because I'm not a Luddite.

Let me tackle this from another point of entry, one that may or may not be familiar to some of you: Computer Operating Systems:

I don't use either Windows or OSX. For fifteen years, I've been running various versions of Linux as my "daily driver" of computer interaction. Why? It's faster, it runs better on older hardware (such as this E6330 Latitude notebook), it's more stable, more configurable and because it's Open Source, problems are quickly identified, by the community, and solved. Anyone can look at the code, and anyone can offer up fixes, or customize the code, any way they see fit.

The technologies Dan discusses are generally proprietary CLOSED sources. They are essentially macro-corporatized "black boxes." They can't be tinkered with, improved or even approached by an audience analogous (with some differences) to those Scotty reaches: The DIYer's of the digital world, whether these be PCs, notebooks, Internet of Things devices, or our mobile devices.

IF all of these systems were open source, and configurable (and flaws identified and fixes offered) to individual users, to turn on and turn off, or to use in different ways, if they EMPOWERED users and owners, that would be a one situation.

But what we've seen are overly complex auto/digital ensembles that are proprietary, poorly conceptualized, meant to increase profit and reduce the economic viability of vehicles. You know, we see what this looks like on Audi's, Mercedes, BMWs and Teslas. Often, the technologies inserted into these vehicles as status fetishes, digital fetishes meant to appeal to the status conscious.

Let's have optional and configurable Open Source technologies, where the user can pick and choose rationally designed and user configurable options. And let's "sandbox" features, so that the entire vehicle isn't disabled when one feature goes down.

FInally, ALL technologies are mixed bags, from the invention of agricultural implements to CRISPR. There are always intended and unintended effects (or as William Gibson once put it: "The street finds its own uses for things."

One thing is for certain: Technologies become social actors, shaping the world, rather than being mere tools. (This approach is called "actor-network" theory). The greater the degree of technology, the greater the complexity, the more complex the control issues for optimizing the use of those technologies.

Optimizing the system for particular forms of technical control is ultimately a political, rather than a technical, issue. It's a point worth remembering.

I know insurance companies do give discounts for those systems, but it is not a huge amount. Remember, I'm looking at these things from the standpoint of someone who typically buys cars that are 15-20 years old or older with 200,000 miles or more, and the more complexity the more problems they're going to have. The chance of those features still working in a car that old is probably not very good. So for me this stuff is "NO SALE".

it's not just about discounts. It's about calculated annual premiums.

Excellent points, @geriscan. I also am a Linux user, for over 20 years now (I'd worked with Unix since late 1970s), and do not use Microsoft, Apple, or Google products beyond watching some Youtube videos such as Scotty's. Even my phone runs Linux and I'm typing this on a 17-year-old Acer laptop which runs Linux quite well. I'm very suspicious of closed-source, proprietary systems. That's another aspect of modern cars I want no part of. I do not want a "connected" car phoning home. (The worst example of that is the recent Tesla server outage which left owners unable to get into their cars!)

@mmj, my annual premiums are very reasonable. Maybe they'd be a bit less with all the features under discussion, but certainly not lower enough to pay for buying such a car or repairing those systems when they fail. Also looking at your graph the biggest drop in deaths came with the introduction of 3-point belts, crumple zones, and side beams. All very simple stuff. (Of course there may be other factors in the death rate that are not accounted for.)

I found Linux unusable. Everything is buggy and half-baked. If you want something good, you have to pay for it. Money is the best motivator. Open source cars are a pipe dream.

That runs contrary to my own experience, which spans decades. The Fortune 500 companies that run Linux in their server farms would also disagree with that evaluation. In fact I know a guy who maintains Linux systems that run critical financial transactions for Wall Street banks where millions and even billions of dollars are at stake and milliseconds count. Most consumer electronics runs Linux internally as well, as does a major part of the internet's infrastructure. I'm afraid your evaluation does not coincide with objective reality.

that's because they've PAID engineers to make them good systems. Under the hood, Apple's MacOS and mobile iOS are UNIX too. It's just that they've paid oodles of money to have it polished up.So are all those car systems you're trashing ( and yes they are bad. Because they cheaped out on development).

The home user needs a degree in computer science to make Linux do anything beyond rudimentary things, or if he wants to plug any peripherals into it. This is going way off course though. I don't want to get into it.

To steer this back to cars a bit, check this out. This barely-20 kid designed, built, and programmed a custom transmission controller for his Mercedes. A so called "closed system". Just goes to show that anything can be reverse engineered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpl15ZJ84CU

I agree with Chuck, and concur with all of his points: The New York Stock Exchange runs on Red Hat. Amazon has it's own specialized, exclusive Linux. Across Europe and Asia, entire state and national governments are turning away from proprietary "black box" software toward Open Source.

Android is Linux at its core. And, of course, Chrome OS (which runs on tens of millions of Chromebooks, many of them in K-12 settings) runs on a Linux kernel.

On a more micro-level, even my wife, who is as technophobic as it gets, works on her Latitude e6330 outfitted with Linux Mint. I'm on an Arch derivative, a rolling release model, Manjaro, which is stable and extremely trouble free.

You see, as Grover Norquist is famous for quipping," More money does not buy you more education." More money often buys you a less adaptable, less user configurable, less "free" OS and apps. Making Apple and Microsoft rich does not buy you a better computing experience, anymore than buying an Audi gives you a better car ownership experience than buying a Camry.

@geriscan, one of the simplest computers for users that I've seen is one targeted to seniors, and it runs Linux with a customized user interface. (It's a terrible buy as far as the hardware though, really minimal stuff at a very high price. I helped an elderly neighbor with one from time to time.)

@mmj, one more comment, then back to cars. The GPL (the license that Linux is distributed under) requires that any modifications that are distributed outside the organization that makes them must be made publicly available in source form. Therefore all the work that companies like IBM etc. put into Linux and then sell in their products finds their way into freely-available Linux distributions. I have found Windows systems to be far more buggy, fragile, and unreliable than Linux. That's without even getting into issues such as end user control over their own systems which is sadly lacking with proprietary software.

Getting back to cars, as far as safety features, if a car has 3-point belts, crumple zones, side beams, collapsible steering column, dual-circuit master cylinder, and disc brakes I'm perfectly comfortable with using it as a regular driver. These are things that do not require complex, failure-prone electronic systems and will work just as well on a decades-old car with hundreds of thousands of miles as they did when the car was new. The chart you posted, as I said, shows a drastic drop in deaths that coincides with the wide-scale adoption of those features while older vehicles, many of which did not even have lap belts or padded dashboards, were retired from service.

I bet you can't sample the individual speeds of all four wheels, and modulate brake pressure of each wheel independently, all while trying not to crap your pants, at 1,000 times per second.

I don't need to, and the chances of that working properly on the kind of cars that I drive (decades old) is minimal. On the other hand, the fundamental safety features I listed that are responsible for the huge drop in highway deaths will work for the life of the vehicle.

There's nothing wrong with trying to improve safety further. ABS has gotten fairly ironed out over the decades. I haven't needed to spend a dime on it (other than normal maintenance), so I wouldn't call it failure prone. It can stop better the car better than I can. How can I argue with that?

The ABS in my 25-year-old daily driver doesn't work, and that's a pretty simple system by today's standards. (Goes to my point of this stuff breaking down in old cars.) I have not bothered to fix it. As Scotty says, the brakes work just fine otherwise. In over 50 years of driving I've never owned a car with ABS before and don't miss not having it.

The NHTSA did a study on the economics of ABS in 2009. They concluded, "its economic benefits in damage and injuries avoided are at least equivalent to the costs of ABS. "

Further, "We would expect that whatever the number of off-road fatalities was in the years covered by this government study, that number will get steadily lower from now on. That’s because the number of cars equipped with antilock brakes that do not also have stability control is going to diminish every year regardless of any other factor. "

Not very convincing.

That's all I've got. Bottom line for me is it hasn't cost me anything, and it saved me some damage once or twice. So I'm net positive. Not revolutionary, but not bad either. 🤷‍♂️
Also power bleeding the brakes using a scan tool is sweet. Takes mere seconds.

The trouble with studies is that without detailed information on the way they are conducted the reported results are pretty much meaningless. All too often studies reflect the needs, desires, and preconceived notions of the people and organizations who fund them.

Brake bleeding procedure on my car is via simple pressure bleeder whether the ABS is working or not, no scan tool needed. (No bleed function in the factory scan tool as far as I know.) There's actually not much in the way of service procedures that require the scanner aside from things like programming remotes and a handful of features. There is no body module, no transmission module, and. the radio is a standalone unit not tied to anything else; headlights, wipers, windows, etc. are controlled directly by switches and relays. Simple setup by today's standards.

If the ABS worked I'd leave it of course but it doesn't and I don't feel like crawling under the car to replace the wonky sensor.

Good points, Chuck. I want to add a couple of macro points to this discussion, particularly to the larger macro-social and macro-political dimensions:

1. If and when these data collection devices become standard (with safety as their rationale), here's what's likely to happen, in part or in whole:

a. One way or another, insurance and other risk assessment companies (perhaps banks and credit institujtions) will have access to that data, not only when there's an accident, but as part of routine transactional exchange of patterns of information for cash. It's part of the overall development that has been come to be known as "surveillance capitalism." From a quote about the very nature of surveillance capitalism, by a scholar who has developed the term, Shoshana Zuboff :
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook
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Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioural data. Although some of these data are applied to service improvement, the rest are declared as a proprietary behavioural surplus, fed into advanced manufacturing processes known as ‘machine intelligence’, and fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later. Finally, these prediction products are traded in a new kind of marketplace that I call behavioural futures markets. Surveillance capitalists have grown immensely wealthy from these trading operations, for many companies are willing to lay bets on our future behaviour. (end quote)
___

This means that your car will report your speed, your travels, etc. and the automobile manufacturer, Ford and Honda  (who have explicitly said they will do this) will sell that lucrative prediction and control data to all sorts of potentially interested parties (in the way that Google and Facebook have made their enormous fortunes).

See this Washington Post article, which discusses how Honda, among other car companies, intends to monetize, via digital surveillance, "Every move you make, every breath you take, I'll be following you," via all sorts of Internet of Things "connected devices," continuously uploading the mundane details of everyday movements:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2018/01/15/big-brother-on-wheels-why-your-car-company-may-know-more-about-you-than-your-spouse/

2. How is this peddled to the masses? Under the guise of "convenience" (which has become just a banal a pitch as the overuse of the word "awesome") and  oversold promises of"safety/security?"

3. So, the cost/benefit equation is, in part, this: How much privacy and freedom are you willing to surrender for the (at best, partially fulfillable) promises of convenience and safety?

Something for all of us to think about.

Chuck the study goes into painful detail and it's easy to find should you feel so inclined. I can bleed my brakes the old fashioned way too, but it isn't nearly as convenient. Sensors are behind the wheel. No climbing under. (not that I've needed to. You get fresh ones with a new hub/bearing assembly anyway)

geriscan do you fill out the decennial census?

It's a fallacy to imply that the overt, conscious filling out of the census (a one time event, per decade) where data is never disaggregated is equivalent to the covert, continuous and finely granulated (via biometric surveillance) of recording, risk assessing, monetizing human behavior that comes from the emerging embedded "disappearing surveillance" in interactive devices. The active, once-a-decade census event is not the same as a "smart refrigerator" that inventories and sells information about what's in the fridge. (See the Census' policy on information privacy, here: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/rumors.html )

Do a little research, even ready the relevant press releases of the auto companies. They're euphenistic, but it's not hard to decode the PR speak. Vehicles are becoming profitable data centers, and that's where the future bulk of profits are likely to come from. And the car companies can't wait for that future river of transactional data stream profits to arrive. Of that, you can be absolutely sure.

To sum up: If I understand you correctly (and advise me if I haven't), you're equating the single census event with comprehensive and continuous data collection, of mundane activities, by these biometric surveillance devices, to be gathered and sold to risk institutions and marketers. If you're equating these two very different practices, well, that's a fallacy of scale. 

You are trying to put words into my mouth and confound what was a simple question.
And do you believe there is some benefit (to you) from collecting some anonymous data about various human behaviours? Lets say for city planning purposes. Or maybe to improve a product that you use regularly.

i agree with Chuck. Enough already! How did any of us survive without all that CRAP!

To close the argument, these systems work and save lives. the highway insurance institute where I live found a 45% reduction in insurance claims on cars equipped with FCW and LDW as opposed to cars that are not (using the General Linear Model, and accounting for the car’s properties, and much more) - Its official suggestion was to offer a discount up to 15%.
Also, insurance companies know these kinds of things best (when it comes to statistics) - The government mandated minimum insurance (where I live) for 20y.o driver on a 1.6L car - without ABS, ESP, FCW and LDW is $855.75, but with those systems it drops down to $572.42.
So needles to say - there is a huge safety improvement.
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(I’m glad that where I live, They’re mandated. Since 01/01/2018 all new cars are required to have FCW and LDW, since 2010 all new cars are required to have ESP - these systems do not have any effect reliability, at all. But they had a great positive impact on safety. (even the early 2000s Meganè I had, already had ESP even back then and over about 200k miles with that cutting edge technology - no issues. these systems do not break or cause issues))
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Also, as a person with IT certifications and as of recently CS degree - I use a Mac and an iPhone, I really rather pay to have a ‘polished’ and stable device out of the box. I fully agree with everything @mmj said, Linux is a pain to use, Open source cars are impossible (everywhere except a dystopia without a free market), and these system are both reliable and effective.
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@ChuckTobias , When it comes to complexity - when it comes to simple cars, where each and every part on them can be easily rebuilt - they end up constantly needing to rebuild something (Vaz-2101, Fiat UNO, …)
On the other hand, Toyota’s gearboxes and engines are much more complex (internally, in comparison): oil nozzles to help coat the cylinder walls, plastic fittings in the engine’s cooling channels to help improve flow, very advanced variable value timing systems and way more on very reliable well tested engines - but it’s way more reliable then others that are for the most part way simpler.
It’s how the simple Renault 4 speeds on 2000s Citroens C5 would always break (but they cost nothing to rebuild), and I’ve never herd of an 8 speed braking on the 2017-onwards C5 Aircorss (although they’re used as cabs often with hundreds of thousand of kilometers - they just work. I imagine the cost to rebuild such a thing would be insane, but you can just get a used gearbox, that's genuinely a better idea when it comes to modern tech)
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As far as “how did we survive without all of that crap” - that’s survivorship bias, many didn’t survive. as you can see in the graph @mmj has posted:

@Dan, sorry I reject your arguments both for complex auto safety systems and computer operating systems. As I've said before, the huge drop in deaths in the above chart is a result of simple passive safety features rather than complex driver aids. I plan never to buy a car made in this century, ever.

However we've gotten to the point where we're simply telling each other "you're wrong" and neither of us is going to change the other's minds. I'll be sticking with simple cars that lack electronic active safety features regardless, and will also be sticking with Linux systems. You are of course welcome to your over-engineered overly-complex vehicles as well as your proprietary software/spyware.  I'll be having none of it.

As HAL said to Dave...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x56O4G8VsiA

I agree with Chuck, but I'd like to add one set of results of a recent research s
"tudy, released in October, 2021, on the problems with so-called "safety systems:"

"Vehicle safety systems struggle to "see" in bad weather"

https://www.ace.aaa.com/automotive/advocacy/sensors-safety-systems-struggle-in-bad-weather.html

Thanks, @geriscan. I expect a well-maintained car to last for decades. Maybe if someone can show me one of these highly advanced tech vehicles where not only do those features work reliably under adverse conditions, it's all still working after 25-30 years and hundreds of thousands of miles, then maybe there will be something more to discuss. Other than that I think we've pretty much run out of gas here.

none of these systems (in mature form) have been around that long yet. By the time that bar is met, then cars will have already evolved further. I can tell you they last hundreds of thousands of miles just fine.
Your malfunctioning ABS could be a matter of 20 minutes of work to clean off a sensor. It's not evidence of it being unreliable. Everything needs maintenance to keep working properly. Just like brakes.

Being Scotty's age, in the unlikely event I'm still alive in 30 years I'll be way too old to be concerned about any of this.

In the case of ABS it was a relatively mature technology even when my car was made and much simpler than today's new tech. Failure mode is benign, it's not going to do anything like suddenly slamming on the brakes with no warning.

In my case there's no communication with one of the wheel sensors so probably a bad cable. Maybe next time I service the brakes on that wheel I'll take a look at it. Thankfully there are no other "driver aids" on the car.

the early systems were terrible. The sensors pickup rust and give erroneous signals, or they would move in their seat. I would get premature or unwanted ABS activation (meaning lack of brake pressure which is almost worse than slamming the brakes) This would actually INCREASE braking distance and got me in trouble at least once. They have since shifted to a different kind of sensor which is more reliable. This was about 20 years ago.

ABS has been around longer than many people realize. The first electronic ABS system was introduced as an option by Ford in 1969, but it only worked on the rear wheels, which were the most prone to skid. The first 4-wheel system was offered by Chrysler on the 1971 Imperial.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/archived/antilock-brakes/

Sensors on my ABS system appear to be just a coil of wire wrapped around a magnetized iron core. Super simple. They can be tested with an ohm meter (nominal 1000 ohms if OK) but of course the scan tool is faster in finding the fault. Typical failure mode is open or shorted cable due to flexing over many miles.

wow I had no idea it was that old

they've switched to hall effect sensors
https://apecautomotive.co.uk/techmate-guides/abs-sensors/

For what it’s worth, the ones on the modern VWs have already started ‘braking’..

I would wait with Yaris Cross, it is a new model with new engine. Or have they already fixed starting issues?

@g-t
I don’t recommend it yet - since it’s too new and has been out for only a year and until recently mostly in JDM.
The price is right and they still offer them with non-hybrid powertrains where I live… I’m scared they’ll stop offering them as non-hybrids like they did with the C-HR and as Suzuki did with their S-Cross and are starting to do with the Vitara.
That’ll be the end of affordable long-lasting cars…

Where I live, only hybrid Suzukis are avaliable among new cars. Do you have any experience with normal SX4 and SX4 cross?

@g-t
Yep - a very positive experience with the outgoing model. It was a 1.6L M16A with the 4 speed automatic and although it had quite a bit of mileage (>200k km) it was almost flawless (the transmission never had a fluid service so it probably needed adaptation or work there but expect that quite a nice comfortable and solid SUV.
The non-hybrids that are luckily still available on my market share their powertrain with the regular gas Vitara (the same nice engine with the Swift Sport and the transmission with diesel Peugeot’s and Volvos)
The 1.4L Turbo BoosterJet and 6 speed TF-71SC seem like an excellent combo - extremely reliable and have more torque then a 2.5L on a Camry (last generation, the new ones probably have better torque) out of that tiny 1.4L.
The 2019 diesel Skoda octavia VRS estate with its horrible dual clutch is only 1 second faster (0-100kmh, 0-62mph) then a reliable and inexpensive Suzuki 1.4T with similar fuel economy.
I think Suzuki are brilliant cars - a lot of people disagree.
It’s important to get only Aisin conventional automatics (preferably the TF-71SC 6 speed and not TF-80SC) or manuals and only K14C, K15B or well serviced late model year M16A engines (at least where I live that’s about 85% of all their cars)

Because Suzuki is launching a new S-cross and we are near the end of the year - I hope I can get a discount from my dealer and maybe get my self a Suzuki. I'm in a position where I don't really need another car but I'm scared that in a year or two there will be only hybrids and no normal well built petrols.

@g-t forgot to add the K15 "commercial engine", and that smaller Suzuki engines also last for ever - the K10B and K12B are high-tech and bulletproof.
I herd they can go well over 500,000km as long as you don't let carbon build up, avoid Opel versions and drive in a reasonable manner,
I also saw a great video from youtube on the 1.2L K12B variant, but that's the Opel variant and those had quite a lot of timing chain issues:
https://youtu.be/RxEZ2ncRqHg
But I usually don't usually recommend those cars because at only 910 kilograms (of soft Japanese metal), if you get hit by a 2.6 ton Land Cruiser / 2.5 ton Tesla / 3.0 ton RAM3500 - It won't be pretty.

Such trucks are rare where I live. More critical are heavy haulers. It happened twice this year on same spot. It came out of the corner in opposite direction, half of the truck was on my way.

The video says, such engine is also in Suzuki Swift. I had the 2002 AWD one with 1.3 K13BB engine for 5 years. Unfortunately I had to sell it because it was too rusty. But I miss its killer AWD. Do you know in what shape are AWDs of later generations? Rear differential does not seem decent to me since it is too exposed.

Are later generations still rust buckets? What about other models?
How is it to drive them in night?
If I compare 2018 Auris and 2002 Swift, I must say Auris is terrible, especially in corners (you don't see anything on a serpentine road) and reverse (one weak backup light).

Correction, it was G13BB engine 🙂

Or they don't want to as they always want to be something special

{blackemo}:laughtertotears:
brilliant

Funny thing about that bit where the garage pulls itself up out of the way when the wife pulls in - one of my old cars is in excellent, unrusted condition except it has a few minor fender scrapes where the previous owner's wife couldn't reliably tell where the garage door ended and the car began. Life imitates art!

😆

My mother's car, bless her ... same thing. 3 different cars. I can relate.

slightly longer version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkM5iL8h3Do

Nice find! I have the whole cartoon here that I recorded off TV, as well as Tex Avery's other "future" cartoons from that time period. I could only find snippets online.

@alex-g, I know what you mean, I remember well BMC and British Leyland vehicles and the reputation they had here in the United States. Makes current GM and Fiat-Chrysler look like paragons of quality and fine engineering in comparison. In fact the car in the photo was sold here for a few years as the "Austin America" with catastrophic results. (Automatic transmission living in the engine sump and sharing the engine oil - what could possibly go wrong?)

That's a feature that used to be available in the U.S. in the early 1950s on cars like Nash. Also on some European makes. I don't know why it fell out of favor.

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/saloon-with-a-view-an-incompleat-history-of-the-rear-window-wiper/