are such cunts.
A lot of weighty noms recently and absolutely nothing wrong with that. On a lighter note modern motor cars are such cunts. I’m not talking EVs here. The downsides of those are legion and known universally now which is why they are unsaleable. But the junk that’s on proper cars which ranges from pointless and irritating to positively fucking dangerous beggars belief. Fucking systems which try to take over the steering and braking, hill start assist, ESP which comes in hard when you’re in a position my thirteen-tear-old grand-daughter could handle, do fuck off. I retired in 2020 but even before then I was accustomed to spending an hour in the handbook of a new company hack finding out how to disable all this shit. Annoyingly, some of it had to be switched off each time you started the car. And top of the heap, touch screens! Which moron with a sub-saharan IQ and no driving licence thought that one up? I even had a company car which had what was described by the manufacturer as a haptic pad. This was a pad by the handbrake on which you were expected to draw letters as you were driving! I confess I hadn’t the nerve ever to try it.
Then we come to the engine and transmission. The politicos brought in incentives to persuade people to switch to diesel engines. They realised later that diesels are inherently dirty. Rather than lose face and admit they fucked up they gave us those inventions of Satan himself, the diesel particulate filter and the dual mass flywheel. Short term fix and a longer term route to a repair bill which will have you in tears. Then they fitted DMFs to petrol engines. FFS why? The other device now almost universal is the turbocharger. That combined with direct injection which causes your inlet valves to coke up saves you small amounts of petrol. When you get the bill for fixing the damage caused you will wish you had never seen the fucking car.
I recently replaced my ’51reg Mondeo which I had run for fifteen years and which had finally succumbed to the tin worm, with an ’11 reg Focus. Do I feel like the poor relation or hard done by? What do you think?
Nominated by arfurbrain.
I don’t drive, but my daughters both do, and have fairly new hybrid cars.
I can’t help that feel that a lot of the “features” are more Emperor’s New Clothes than driving experience enhancing, and really just gimmicks to catch the unwary.
8
My first car was a 1963 Mini.
Nothing on it that I couldn’t fix myself.
That was back in 1972.
Freedom.
I used to enjoy driving.
Cars, now, are debt and expense on 4 wheels.
It is now getting to the point that you need to go to the dealership to get air fitted to the tyres.
I gave up owning a car 17 years ago, having set my life up so that I was close enough to work that I could walk or cycle. On the rare occasion I need a vehicle, I can rent one.
Kept me fit, out of debt and saved me a fortune.
Then there’s the fact that they are just another tool for the tax man and the police to extract more of your hard-earned.
They used to be fun, now they are a pain in the arse, mostly.
5
I like all the screems ‘n shit. Like owning Knight Rider minus the turbo boost (jum). Yeah it’s all superfluous crap, but it’s a muscle-memory by now to turn the key and turn off x, y & z (lane stability etc.).
The USB fed stereo and remote control heated windscreen(defrosting) ARE 2 for the plus column over years past.
Thr fact the cunts are recording (and in some cases relaying)everything you do, on the sly, is a whole cunting of it’s own, though.
7
In Knight Rider, both KITT and Michael Knight seemed to flirt with each other. They were both grooming each other.
You never saw them Duke boys trying to bum the General Lee.
13
Hey, pal … 😄
7
Kitt was definitely a botter.
10
wet belts Arfur.
who thought that up?!!
id been daydreaming about getting a Ford Ranger Raptor
My mate works at a Ford dealership
said hed do me a good deal on one,
put it through the books as a business vehicle.
I mentioned it to the mechanic when at the garage having new tyres on the van.
” don’t do it. it’ll cost you a fortune.
they’re a bag of shit.
wet belts.
have to strip the engine to fix it.”
modern vehicles are full of electrics, sensors and all kinds of stuff that can and will go wrong in a expensive way.
13
And wet clutches Mis, more common on motorcycles. My old Mini suffered with a wet clutch, but only after the main oil seal leaked oil all over the plate.
8
There are some nightmare vehicles out there with virtalluly inaccessible spark plugs, usually transverse V6’s where quotes have been given for 2+ hours labour. My mini was transverse & it could all be done in about 5 minutes, that’s progress for you.
9
On that particular point Lord S, my Mondeo was a V6, transverse of course. Ford said inlet manifold had to come off to replace the rear plugs. The front plugs had been replaced at some time but not the rear ones. I replaced them without touching the manifold simply by using a socket with a rubber insert to grip the plugs and mixing the right combination of short half-inch extensions on the torque wrench.
6
The smaller plugs on more modern cars have been known to strip threads or snap during removal. I have learnt that it’s always best to take them out when completely cold, especially from an aluminium head, which seems to defy logic, & certainly use a rubber protector as you do Arfur.
6
The mechanic knows his stuff Mis. Replacing the wet belt as a precaution will give you a bill well into four figures. If you leave it until it breaks the engine is scrap metal and the bill will be halfway to five figures.
7
yeah, I realised that Arfur,
suddenly lost all interest in them.😁
3
*jump
1
Off a multi storey?
Don’t do it, Cuntemall!
You can talk to us, we’re your friends.
I’ll talk you off the ledge.
For £100.
10
Please. I lost closer friends the last time I was deloused …
8
As my dear old dad used to say “What’s not on there can’t go wrong.”
13
Absolutely right Guzzi …
I bought a new Jazz in 2014 and it’s just turning 20 000 miles.
There are buttons and knobs and buzzers and bells that I still don’t know what the fuck they do !!!!
6
I’m an automotive design engineer by trade and have to deal with modern suprcars day in day out; they’re horrific in not only their complexity but trying to ‘get into’ them using any other than manufacturer’s software and hardware is the very essence of frustration. I’m always happiest when designing what I design for a pre-2015 supercar.
There’s also a good reason why I choose to drive significantly older cars (09 plate Audi A3 TDI, Rover 45 diesel and a rusty old Cortina).
I can do almost all the work on them myself.
Modern cars are indicitive of modern society: unnecessarily complex, expensive and designed to fuck over the regular guy.
Good morning to one and all.
20
I can turn off lane control on my car, but I have to do it every fucking time I start the thing.
I can’t imagine that anyone uses lane control on any car.
The car decides to make a noise if it thinks that I am not braking quickly enough for the car in front, or if it thinks that I am getting too close before I overtake.
I can’t turn that feature off.
I blame vegans and students.
It seems that younger people just can’t be bothered to drive a car with a clutch and a gear lever.
They want more than just an automatic, they want a car that will do everything for them.
Years before I was old enough to drive I had a car which I used to tinker about with.
A Ford Anglia if I remember correctly.
I learned about basic mechanics by fucking around with it.
Modern cars with all their features can’t be fucked with.
You need a computer to do anything.
Good morning.
14
I posted once before Arty that I had our elder driving my 2.9 Granada round Asda’s car park one bank holiday when she was still in junior school. I was impressed how quickly she took to it even feathering off the brakes as we came to a stop. She wanted to drive us home! Can you imagine what the charge sheet would have looked like?
6
You’re a man after my own heart arfur. Excellent nomination.
Earlier this year we were looking for a replacement car for Mrs Twatt. Nothing fancy, just a small runaround for going into town, but even they seem to be filling up with unnecessary electronic shit nowadays. And it’s nearly always the electronics that goes wrong and costs a fortune to put right.
In the end I got her a 3-year-old Kia Picanto. Apart from the Infotainment thingy that neither of us use anyway, there’s no touch screen bollocks at all. It’s all buttons, knobs and sticks, nice and simple.
Why can’t other car manufacturers figure out what their customers want?
13
Damned right, GT…for the heater controls, it needs to be 3 dial knobs: temperature, speed and direction, that’s it.
How the fuck people are banned from using their phones behind the wheel yet have to plough through 3 touchscreen menus to increase the blower speed is ridiculous.
20
Maybe that’s what the lane-control feedback and audio proximity warnings are actually FOR .. ”look up from the fucking touchscreen!” … 😄
13
You would think that with today`s technology they could somehow adapt the now almost redundant cigarette lighter with a device which you could firmly attach to your member so that it gives you a blow job, thus providing added driver comfort and satisfaction. Of course, Mrs Twatt will always has the gear stick.
🚗
10
Buying new tyres for more modern vehicles is a scary business nowadays.
Even some Fiat 500’s have wheels so large that you’re looking at £250 a corner.
A fucking grand to replace all 4 on a little puddle jumper like that?
The world’s gone mad.
10
I have an Abarth and Continental sport contacts are £120 a corner, fitted and balanced.
Sticks to the road like shit sticks to a blanket.
4
Damn right Odin, that’s what I run on, Y rated. A game I like to play when it’s wet is to dice with someone who’s driving something four or five years old with 250 or 300 bhp on board, my focus is only 128. By that age they’re running on Chinese tyres because they’re cheap. Best fun is when I overtake them on a roundabout.
My wife says I should act my age. Naah.
5
Good on you Odin, I have an Abarth 595 Competizione and having a decent set of tyres is paramount to exploring the thrilling boundaries of these little angry jelly beans. I always carry a spare pair of underpants for emergencies. Done some minor mods she puts down 220 hp. A big positive for this little car is very few pointless additions. What I find amusing is my 2005 diesel merc estate on 164239 miles has no dipstick for the oil. You check the oil via the computer. Oh for simple cars.
A happy bank holiday to you all.
6
No dipstick BB? That is unforgiveable. The simplest cannot fail protection for your engine. Why FFS?
4
https://share.google/TV4drHK3MY9tx16KS
Ford F600
my dream car.
big and simple like me.
winch, no fucking wet belt, v8 engine.
the yanks make great cars.
cost a fuckin fortune to run though.
7
Morning MNC…here’s the perfect example of your dream truck:
https://share.google/iI11FdDqMgyKc5Om5
4
Nice.👍
Although not the easiest to park at Aldi eh?
id Just park it side on over 3 disabled bays…😃
7
I was always lead to believe that continually starting & stopping a piston powered combustion engine was bad for it, so I always press the override button because I don’t want to damage my battery, or my big end.
8
Spot on Lord S. ALWAYS disable the stop/start function.
6
I have been thinking about putting up a similar nom myself.
Bought a brand new van earlier in the year and was horrified to find the fucking thing yelling away at me if I crept over the speed limit by three miles an hour. Then when I swerve to avoid a pothole the cunt takes over and tells me I’m drifting out of my lane and steers me straight back into the fucking pothole (although it also steers me back into cyclists so it’s not all bad). A WW2 klaxon goes off if I’m approaching a stationary object and it thinks I don’t have the eyes that have, up until that point, allowed me to get that far without driving into stationary objects. The fucking handbrake is a button that you have to press about a hundred fucking times to turn on and off, and then wait half an hour for a message to appear on the screen to let you know whether the cunt has reacted to the instruction as opposed to just pulling a lever and knowing exactly where you stand. An all digital display that on its own whim suddenly changes to a km/h read out and everything’s in French, or, even better, the fucking thing goes completely blank so you have no idea what speed you’re going or how much fuel you have left. A sat nav that randomly switches itself on and decides where you’re going, and you have to navigate through a touchscreen and an impenetrable layer of illogical layers to find out how to switch the cunt off. Or the ventilation controls, again touchscreen, which are impossible to precisely adjust to your requirements (unlike with a simple manual dial), which have you mounting the pavement and ploughing into a young family while the fucking controls veer all over the place under the imprecise shaking of your fat fingers.
Meanwhile, in the mire of all of this fabulous technology that the lefty nannying pro-Europe cunts who’ve mandated it on modern vehicles and which you cannot permanently disable, they’ve removed as standard equipment the reverse camera and the vehicle alarm, which I had to have retrofitted and which are absolute fucking shit compared to the older models I have in the fleet.
And the engine is a heap of lethargic ME-suffering shit, with no fucking power or torque. Pulling out in a hurry from a junction has numerous times resulted in near-miss t-bones, as I’m reminded the useless heap of shit needs to have the tits revved off it to get it to pull away in anything resembling a hurry. The same 1.6 litre diesel we’ve always had on our vans, which I’m not expecting to beat a Ferrari off the line, but our older vans can actually shift to a serviceable level throughout the rev range but this low emission heap of crap could be outperformed if you replaced the engine with pedals. Oh and good for the environment? Bollocks! Our older vans we fill up once a fortnight, get a good 600 miles out of them, the dial hardly moves. This one it’s at least once a week, 300 miles off the same amount of diesel – what a fucking sham the supposed emissions and clean air bullshit that have ruined these engines is.
I still, whenever I can, take out one of our 10 year old vans. Everything is analogue, it fucking moves when you instruct it to, it has a manual handbrake, everything is operated by dials, and it doesn’t feel like you have the Labour front bench telling you what to do and how to drive the whole time.
Cannot concur more with the nom – modern vehicles are a bunch of Lefty Remainer treacherous cunts and should all be put in the crusher along with the cunts who built them.
20
Give me a nice 1990’s Transit 2.5DI any day
10
Modern cars with their unnecessarily complex control systems and mechanics which actively prevent home maintenace, are simply designed to fail.
Manufacturers don’t want you maintaining one of their spangly boxes for a decade; the idea is that the vehicle will be recycled after 7 or so years and you’ll buy a new one in good time prior to then. The electronic handbrake switch in the centre console of my Volvo has failed. Because of the way it is manufactured, the interior needs to be stripped out, including carpet to change this switch. Oh, yes at a cost of £600 +VAT. Fuck it, the car is going back to the lease company shortly – it can be their fucking headache.
I run a 2001 Rover 75 estate. The last of the generation of cars you can spanner with at home.
12
Morning PM…did we already memtion Rover colours?
I can’t remember.
My 45 is dark green…what about your 75?
As I get to work really early, I park my 45 or Cortina in a spot where our supercar customers have to park next to me whilst their car is booked into the workshop…they love seeing a ’69 Cortina…even more ‘cos it’s a super rare 1.3 rather than the ‘common’ 1.6.
7
Hi Thomas. My 75 is Wedgwood Blue, the light blue metallic – a real eyecatching colour. I’m lucky in that the previous owner paid to have the Personal Line trim option – blue leather seats, blue carpet, dashboard and door cappings.
The MK2 Cortina was the best of the run IMHO. My uncle had a red 1600GT in the 70s. That was a scorcher!
6
All us old guys reminiscing on here today. Mate of mine had a ’67 Mk2, pre-crossflow, but another mate had a Mk1 Lotus Cortina. DOHC belt driven, no cover over the belt at the front of the block. Could inspect properly in five minutes at any time but I’m sure the elf and safety people these days would have fucking apoplexy.
5
And of course, you could replace the belt in half an hour. Those were the days!
4
NOTHING will ever beat my first car, a 1952 Standard Vanguard Mark One – built like a tank, comfortable, smooth a real beauty. I had to sell it when the RN sent me on a long trip, and when I returned to shore I got an Anglia 103E – it was a toy compared to my Vanguard. Cars got even worse after that. Now they all look as if they were shat out of Von Leyden’s undercrackers – allboring Euroboxes. Nuff said. “oh call back yesterday, bid time return!” as Shakespeare had it in Richard ll (O’m after the Radio 3 audience again)
8
I seem to recall that HMG bought thousands of those Standard Vanguards and mountains of spares for them so as late as the early 1970s one could buy one cheaply and be confident about getting spares for them.
5
Certainly they were still gettable in the 1960s when I left the RN, but I didn’t have the money for one having got married and with our son on the way, getting a house took up most of the money – my little sage green Anglia cost £75 and a lot of time to do it up. I know the RAF had a fleet of Mark 1s into the sixties, a mate of mine was a staff driver, but the Mk2s and 3s were apparently terrible, so the whole series got a bad name, but that first one – I just can’t describe how good it felt, drove and looked.
5
When I am approaching a tunnel my car displays the message on screen, “Blocking outside air for your comfort”.
I can’t say that I have ever felt more comfortable when it happens, I actually couldn’t care less.
But as this feature can’t be turned off and outside air is going to be blocked regardless, why bother telling me every fucking time?
It’s like the car is showing off.
The flash cunt.
8
Morning TAC…cars in England need this feature when driving through Bradford or Slough.
13
The only vehicle that’s safe for white man to drive in Slough is a chieftain tank, Thomas.
That way you’ll come out best when some stinking, uninsured park key drives into you and then feigns lack of English when you ask for their insurance details.
10
My vehicle is of the old fashion type where you still need to stick out your arm to indicate which way you want to turn. But it is a smooth runner.Two wheels have mounted the pavement from time to time, but nobody seems to mind. So long as it is the cheapest in the world to run, it suits me and I don’t even have to stop off at a garage to fill her up.
8
The eccentric makers of my vehicle have told me never to reveal their name and in doing so, I’ll never need to pay a single payment of life insurance.
3
The six other annual payments are brushed aside also.
4
About 12 years ago, I was working at a Volvo dealership.
This was around the time that technology in cars began to get out of control.
Some fella came down from Volvo UK with the new XC90 to give us a few demos.
It had what was basically an iPad on the dash which replaced nearly all conventional switches and the sound and sat nav systems.
It could park itself, it could stop if you stepped out in front of it, it would prevent you steering left or right if something was in your blind spot, it had a tow bar that stowed itself away behind the bumper if you waved your foot under the offside rear, it had a self opening and closing tailgate. And that’s just a small list of the unnecessary, controlling and hideously expensive to repair gimmickry.
Not long after launch, the gremlins started to make an appearance.
Top of the list were electronic steering locks that jammed and heated steering wheels that got so hot, you needed oven gloves to drive the cunt.
So what was fundamentally a fucking good car under the skin, was blighted by cheap and nasty Far Eastern electronics and questionable software.
Why fucking bother with all that shit?
13
Hahaha 😆
spot on.
modern car someone twats your mirror,
auto electrician to fathom the rats nest of wiring and replace new mirror.
old car , £20 from scrapyard.
replace yourself in 15minutes.
Fuck Technology.
8
Talking of mirrors, Mis.
Years ago we had a Porsche Cayenne come in, requiring a new drivers mirror glass.
This was a light reactive type with a liquid crystal display for warning lights.
Nigh on £500 with the VAT.
What the fuck?
7
Chinese subcontracted small components mech / elec, have ruined most Western made car’s and motorcycles..!
8
Yes sub standard electrical components are to blame for many problems today
5
Don’t have one,was a biker 🏍️ for many years and loved the feeling of pure power just underneath your ballsack 😁 and the acceleration away from the tin boxes at the lights 🚦…🖕… as an aside both daughters run Kia’s, they swerved my suggestion of a honda or Suzuki 750 😩
7
GE, I ran a R1200GS for a few years without a BMW laptop fuck all could be fixed..!
5
Mr Beau`s name has been on the waiting list for the Bugatti Tourbillon hypercar now for several years. We intend to sell most of our children’s internal organs to pay for it.
🚀
6
It’s not necessarily, Sam Beau to go to such lengths. You shall need your children to be fit as a fiddle. All you need is a whip and a carriage for them to drag you along and you also won’t have to pay all the 7 annual payments the lazy car drivers need to do, just to travel a cock stride.
5
I think car technology peaked in the 90’s in terms of reliability and practicality. I ran a few BM’s. You could still do your own maintenance too. Even my Transit Custom needs a kid with a laptop these days – just for an empty box on wheels. We can blame the governments for that.
8
Modern cars are just like luxury watches.
The upfront cost isn’t as important as the servicing and parts availability,all controlled as much as possible by the manufacturer.
An accountant’s wet dream.
The wicked cunts.
Good morning.
5
My steering wheel has more fucking knobs and switches than an F1 steering wheel, the only one I ever use is the radio volume up/down.
No idea what the other do 😂
7
I prefer 3 spokes and a horn button
3
Watch these lads repair modern vehicles, gone are the days when you could fix them outside your house with some tools from Halfords..!
https://youtu.be/BxXPiO-6YdM?is=xQogDZc0jjupw6IF
2
My 04 Golf TDI had a stupid coolant level sensor that would perform a big red STOP light every time it triggered. The point here was that there was no imminenrmt danger, but for a young inexperienced driver, maybe falling for it on the outside lane of a motorway & slamming on the brakes.
5
But my biggest gripe of all has to be electric windows, which over the years have cost me a small fortune. Mk 4 & Mk 5 Golf’s had issues with regulators that would give up dropping the window down to a point where you almost had to take the door appart to reach it. I remember a couple of cold spells where any electric window use was completely out of bounds. Yes give me back my wind down windows any day!
7
To widen your point Lord S, electric windows add significantly to the weight of the vehicle which is the bane of modern cars. Our old Capri only turned out 138bhp, nothing special by today’s standards, but it would rate as a fast car even today almost fifty years on due to not lugging around all the junk on modern cars. Worst offenders are of course EVs where small hatchbacks are pushing two tons in weight. Also manual window winders are much faster and reliable.
3
MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH…!
8
Just replaced my TV, a Samsung. Setting up, auto tune.
Over 200 fucking channels.
Like the nom, to much shit that you just do not need or want..All I need is:
GB news.
Bangers and Cash.
World at war.
TPTV.
10
I can’t wait to see their tantrums when all the Guardian readers’ EVs start switching themselves off because they’ve exceeded their Carbon Credits. “But, but, Philomena needs her Waitrose Finest Gooseberry and Ibex Milk Yoghurt after Gymkhana!!”
7
Great nom.
As others have said, totally unnecessary levels of complexity, supposedly to save the environment and improve safety, but just a load of expensive shite that doesn’t achieve what was intended and ends up breaking. Sums up our civilization. Millions of expensive bureaucrats needing to make work for themselves and everybody else by inventing problems and stupid solutions to them.
I loathe stop-start. There is no way that is saving fuel or pollution. Just means more expensive batteries and wearing stuff out quicker. So a net environmental cost as well as a financial one.
I recently bought a 2014 Toyota with 30K on the clock. I’m hoping it will last me for many years. No lane assist, stop-start, or other such wank. It beeps at me if I haven’t shut the door properly and try to lock it. That’s fine by me and as much as I want to hear.
I dread having to buy a newer car at some point.
6
Remember when buying a new car was something exciting? They take the joy out of everything. A sunny day, a cigarette, a holiday, a hamburger, a new car… it’s all got to be turned into mither with these cunts.
9
Don’t, just don’t with the ‘green’ Stop-Start utter tosswank 🤬🤬🤬
I tell my car what to do, NOT the other cunting way round. I will never drive one of these computers on wheels. Current motor is 2016 on 140k clock. Next will be similar year.
6
I suppose that the car that you drive has got to match your lifestyle.
It’s not unusual for me to make a 6 or even 8 hour journey, spend an hour with a customer and then make the same journey home.
A mix of very quiet motorways (totally dead if they are toll roads) and very busy cities means I need an automatic.
It must be comfortable with a good entertainment system to keep me awake and it must have a roomy back seat for when I can’t stay awake any longer, so I pull in somewhere for a kip.
Unfortunately a sport’s car no longer fits the bill.
3
Thanks Artful for the advice Model t Ford matches my lifestyle
4
I wonder what your experience is of autos Arty? Have you driven old-school torque converter autos? I must say that modern autos I have driven, Ford and Skoda, disappointed. They seem to stop and think for a while especially when pulling away from a standstill. They are in fact of course manual boxes under electronic control. Our younger has a torque converter auto and our Granada was a torque converter job. They may burn a bit more fuel but boy do they work. The Granada in particular, my wife swears it’s instant kick down and response saved her life on one occasion.
3
I haven’t got a clue about the different types of auto transmission Arfur.
I just hit the big pedal to go.
The car that I have is a hybrid diesel.
It goes quickly when I boot it.
2
O/T – admin, I have put up a nom that has gone into moderation for the usual no good reason if you wouldn’t mind releasing it when you get to it, much appreciated
4
My current vehicle is a VW T5 , 15 years old, euro 5 engine, wind up windows, 120000 miles on the clock.
This morning the DPF light came on, so a good brisk 30 mile run down the motorway cleared that one.
6