• @buran
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        66 months ago

        That vehicle had a recall out to replace the badly-designed shifter. It was ignored.

        The fix would have been free.

        • @[email protected]
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          126 months ago

          That doesn’t excuse the fact that the design was clearly idiotic in the extreme from its inception.

          • @buran
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            6 months ago

            It was bad, yes. Not debating that, and I’m glad that the design was changed and existing owners could get the shifter replaced at no cost to them.

            However, it’s frustrating to see that people so often ignore recalls and then are injured or killed in a way that would have been avoided had they done the free recall. I usually feel sad when I think of deaths like that because the death is just so final and was easy to avoid.

            People have recently died to exploding airbag inflators, even though the Takata recall has been in the news for years, and even if a vehicle has had multiple owners, the publicity means that chances are that the current owner has seen at least a headline about it. Yet clearly people aren’t getting the recall work done, and they’re dying because of it.

            Is it a hassle to take a car in for repair? Yep. Had to have mine serviced due to a recall for something that hadn’t manifested on my car in my own use. But given that the alternative could have been very bad (the car’s software was updated to ensure that it would shift into park more reliably when there was a rollaway risk, if the driver didn’t do so manually), I dealt with having a loaner for a day when the update took longer than expected.

            Designers sometimes make bad choices. Regulations are written in blood, it’s said, because it’s often tragedy that leads to changes. But I don’t think it very likely that shifters like that will make it past design reviews again. It’ll be some other bad decision that causes the next big recall.

    • @garretble
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      136 months ago

      Man, that’s a yikes.

      I hate those knobs, but I’m also lucky to just drive a simple standard car right now. It has a touch screen for sat nav (Carplay/Android Auto), but volume and climate controls are all physical.

    • @slumberlust
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      -386 months ago

      The one clearly labeled volume?

      • bluGill
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        416 months ago

        Labels are not safe. Drivers need to keep their eyes on the road.

        Maybe you are right, but it better not be because of a label

      • @moriquende
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        146 months ago

        Bro, sorry to say this, but you should think a bit about what the actual point is the person you’re replying to is trying to make, and reconsider whether you really are that much smarter than everyone else.