Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

:dunno: I think it's a good demonstration of how close he was to dying. The pic might even motivate some people to pay more attention to the road and not allow themselves to be distracted by their phones or infotainment systems of whatever. I don't have a problem with it.

Speaking of that, I would love to have the infotainment display have a delay off. I only need it to change a song, radio station, HVAC. I don?t need it always on. Can?t they have it switch automatically and come on when you touch the screen?

Hell, almost everything?s got real buttons. Just like on UConnect you can choose to switch it off and during that, the display only comes on when the volume is adjusted via the steering wheel or you press a heater knob.
 
Last edited:
It happens.

an '06-'10 with the 4.6 and the Six-Speed should be good enough for rick. Good, sturdy vehicle with a frame and reliable oily bits.

Actually, if you can't find a last-gen 'truck' Explorer with the 6 speed, your best bet from the prior generation is the Lincoln Aviator. Nobody remembers them, they have terrible resale value, they have the 32V naturally aspirated 4.6L Cobra motor in them and they often had all sorts of nice optional extras - like HIDs or heated and cooled seats - that you couldn't get on a Mountaineer or Exploder.

https://houston.craigslist.org/cto/d/2004-lincoln-aviator-luxury/6340089514.html
https://houston.craigslist.org/cto/d/2005-lincoln-aviator-3rd-row/6342689287.html

Here's one in rick's favorite color:
https://allentown.craigslist.org/cto/d/2005-lincoln-aviator-awd/6332861589.html
 

Dumb headline is dumb. Given enough of a sample set everything is real. Real question is, "is it significant?" Is the reported data normalized to production numbers?

Looking at the data. Hyundai (the worst offender according to that chart) had 119 reports from 1995 to 2017. In that time frame, Hyundai sold around 8.6 million cars in the US (1995-2016 actually since 2017 full year data is not available, source). Even if only 1% of them had sunroofs (likely a low estimate), you're still talking about 86,000 cars. And lets say 3/4ths of the people who had the issue only went to the dealer and never complained to the NHTSA. That gives us a hypothetical 476 exploded sunroofs. Thats still a failure rate of about 0.5% which is not statistically significant at all.

Looking at Ford. 85 complaints. From 1995 to 2016, Ford sold 57.6 million vehicles in the US (according to this). Granted, most were probably fleet F150s and rental Focuses without sunroofs, so lets assume a 0.5% overall take rate on sunroofs (again, much much lower than reality, but playing devil's advocate here). Even at that low rate, that's 288k cars with sunroofs. And lets lower the reporting rate to only 1/10th of all real cases were sent to the NHTSA. Only 0.3% of cars with sunroofs had the problem.

Granted, these are all estimates, but point is, the article is garbage. There isn't enough detail on the reporting methodology or statistics. And they're making it seem like if you buy a car with a Hyundai with a sunroof, shits gonna break. No, there are many other systems that are more likely to break in your car. And there are many other factors in what caused the breakage. Did an owner drop put something heavy on his roof glass, damaging it and creating a stress concentration which finally gave out on a hot day? We don't know. Was the car parked under a tree in the middle of a storm and had a brand fall on the glass weakening it? Was the roof damaged while the car was on a transporter? We don't know. Until there is an investigation, you can't just say if this is a issue with the glass external factors.

Now I don't doubt there are cases of faulty sunroof modules that break out of the blue for no reason at all, but if this was, as they say, a real issue, there would've been a huge national campaign, investigation and recall by now since raining glass on people is kinda a big deal.

EDIT: The second part of that chart a little more interesting, though it still lacks details. 71 Scion tCs? Per GoodCarBadCar, 427643 tCs were sold totally (sidebar: who the hell is still buying tCs in 2017???). You'd still need to know how many had sunroofs to make anything useful out of that number, but that might show a better trend.
 
Last edited:
It does seem to be a low failure rate, but when "failure" equates to directly injuring the driver, low can be too high. Takata got in huge trouble for a tiny number of injuries relative to their production.
 
Who cares? Let rick have a sunroof. This is still what we're on about yes?
 
Yes, I am making fun of him for it though :p

Fun fact - when I was first thinking about ordering my Mustang, the glass roof was pretty high on my list of options to tick on the order sheet.

KZ54shgl.png

u0WYqtyl.png


Ultimately cost kept it off my final order. But that didn't matter since I ended up canceling that order anyways because the dealer was terrible and ended up with a car that was already on the lot at a different dealer.
 
Are you calling Crz a snowflake?
 
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

I'm with you on car promos and BS headlines though ;)
 
Fun fact - when I was first thinking about ordering my Mustang, the glass roof was pretty high on my list of options to tick on the order sheet.

KZ54shgl.png

u0WYqtyl.png


Ultimately cost kept it off my final order. But that didn't matter since I ended up canceling that order anyways because the dealer was terrible and ended up with a car that was already on the lot at a different dealer.

To each their own I suppose I personally don't get the point. I actually DON'T want light in the cockpit of my car.

- - - Updated - - -

Are you calling Crz a snowflake?

He is a millennial :p
 
I can see the advantage for touring. With how small the windows have gotten on many modern cars, the glass roof is a nice way to take the world around you.

Or just buy a motorcycle.
 
Top