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The engine coolant light flashed on and then went out but I thought I would check if it needed topping up. This was on the 'crap car' I keep for use to carry my bikes and art stuff around so I don't spend too much time fettling it. I was still surprised when I popped the bonnet and couldn't immediately see the engine coolant reservoir.
It turns out that it is hidden behind the battery and under the windscreen scuttle.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/y5tJcJrjAeWMb8sGA
It was hard enough to find, difficult to actually remove the cap but I guess I am meant to use a teaspoon to top it up!
As the thread title “Great car design” - I had several Citroen BX variants and the hydro-gas suspension was superb, very comfortable, self levelling with the ability to raise the ride height with a lever.
Not so good when I experienced them when on fire, those five spheres didn’t half make a bang!
Great car design: Volvo V70 mk3
Bulb changes - pull out the tent pegs and boom the light unit is releases.
All fluids top up and check easily reachable.
Timing belt change - has 'flaps' in wheelarch to enable access.
The rear seats fold flat without catching the seatbelts - they are stored off to the side when left retracted.
Dashboard is not just illuminated from behind (so glaring at you) but illuminated by a tiny 'spotlight' between driver and passenger, so whole centre of dash is gently illuminated.
DRLS are front AND rear at all times. When you turn on headlights, the dash lights actually dim a little and the 'spotlight' comes on.
and so much more...
The only two criticisms:
- handbrake lever is not in an obvious place
- the cupholders are in the way of changing gear.
Engineering is always a compromise.
One requirement will be to make every serviceable item easy to access.
Another will be to make it safe if you hit something or someone.
Another will be to make the aerodynamics meet a certain drag number.
Etc.
Someone will make a decision on which of these is the priority, which will be different for different makes/models.
I guess I am meant to use a teaspoon to top it up!
No, you numpty, you're meant to drop the engine out. Duh.
Crap - Ford's insistence on gluing on door seals, badly. If you even see a bit of rubber poking out the bottom of a closed door, I'd put good money on it being a Focus
Also crap - Stupidly complex lighting arrangements that cost mega money if needing replaced, may well involve software to do so, and take hours to do. You also might need a garage to do it for you (due to the aforementioned software)
Good - one foot driving in EVs is surprisingly easy to get used to
Changing a headlight bulb on a Ford Focus 🤬
Vag 1.9tdi.
Ramp yourself up for a shitting manky time changing the oil filter... Open the bonnet to find its right at the top in a plastic housing. Unscrew the housing by hand replace filter housing over new filter.
Maybe 2minutes all in?
Similarly the aux belt. Spanner on the special nubbin take off the tension loop the new one round. Release spanner. 5minutes in a halfords carpark while waiting for returning shopper.
But. Actual car design i am amazed doesn't exist... Rainwater fed screenwash reservoir. With screenwashdosing
I have recently bought a gen9 civic, to replace the van.... Anyway it all seems well laid out and well put together...apart from headlight bulb access. Difficult, tight access and I couldn't see into it to work out the bulb clips. Anyway, I slid a phone in, took a photo and all was good then and I knew what I was doing. But that's the compromise with a small vehicle I guess. You can't have everything in a compact package and expect great access.
Great design - the old Saab Night Panel.
Cool and useful!
Rover 600 series. Literally everything about the one I had was a terrible design, something I am sure contributed to it just failing at every level one day. The mechanic took me to one side and, in hushed tones, told me that he was not a greedy man and that, whilst he could fix all the things, it genuinely would not be worth it.
I sold it on eBay with a long list of the faults and the chap that "won" drove it home in third gear.
On older nissans the intermittent wiper speed wasn't several notched pre-set speeds, you just twist the stalk like a volume knob so you can achive the exact wiper speed you want when set to intermittent.
Volvo V50 front passenger seat would fold flat forward to give a level deck for long loads or a mid drive nap without compromising boot space
But. Actual car design i am amazed doesn't exist... Rainwater fed screenwash reservoir. With screenwashdosing
Yes, I've always wondered why this is not a thing. It would be very useful especially in winter.
Honda Jazz flippy up rear seats. Simple. Brilliant
One of the headlight bulbs on my car is relatively easy to access.
The other one requires half the engine dismantling. What kind of idiot designed that?!
I can never remember which is which so it just goes to the garage who fortunately are very good, very local and very experienced with that make of car.
I've done fluid burst testing of hydropneumatic spheres (with the gas charge in) and they can take a very high pressure and then eventually fail without ejecting parts. But that test didn't include fire.....
Old Vauxhall Nova / Astra / Cavalier where you could replace the clutch without removing the gearbox - that was genius.
Smart forfour has the fold forward front passenger seat back.
Great for when the youngest wants to go surfing or perhaps fit a 2m length of wood in the car.
I always liked the flip forward front bench seat on the T5 I had. Made a great table when I was out in it and something I miss with the current Citroen Dispatch.
That said, I very much prefer the seating in my dispatch, which gives me a lot of headroom and storage cubbies over the top of the sun visors. It also has a long item storage hole and mounting points in the ceiling for things that are longer than the read load area.
Smart forfour has the fold forward front passenger seat back.
Great for when the youngest wants to go surfing or perhaps fit a 2m length of wood in the car.
I had hoped my new to me combo life would have a flold flat passenger seat (and possibly even drivers seat)
Alas no. Why wouldn't it just be standard?! Half tempted to take the cover off and work out which bit to grind...
Poor - the airplane style handbrake on a Ford S-Max which blocked the cup holders in the centre console when the handbrake was applied.
Great - The curry hooks under the centre console on the Kia EV6 to stop your takeaway toppling over. Also the snooze button on the seats that reclines them fully in one touch and then restores them to the previous position with another touch.
In recent years I’ve been converted to South Korean cars due to the thoughtfulness that seems to have been applied to the driver experience. Lots of little touches that just make the whole thing a bit more pleasant.
Good
SMax middle and rear seat flexibility and the headlight bulbs can be changed in minutes. Plus the handbrake looks like it will engage the HyperDrive™.
Bad
Trying to get access to the battery when I needed to get a set of jump leads over to my wife's car.
Jag XK.
Good thoughtful design -when you undo the trim screws in the boot trim to get to the battery, one of them breaks the connection from the earth terminal to the chassis.
Infuriating design: not realising the advice, and spending a disproportionate amount of time trying to work out why a variety of fully charged batteries are not even showing dash lights on your neighbour's car you offered to take a quick look at
On my CLS
Good: The handling.. It's not sporty but on a windy road, you can go quite a bit faster than normal and still remain perfectly comfortable and composed, passengers completely comfortable. The more you drive it the more remarkable a feat it seems to be.
Bad: Aside from the sunglasses issue (which was fixable) there is no space under the boot floor to put the luggage cover! Why the hell not? There's plenty of space.
Timing belt change - has 'flaps' in wheelarch to enable access
BMW should learn from this. On a 320D it needs one side of the front suspension disassembling to get to it. Rover 25 2L diesel, with BMW engine, has one of the glow plugs behind the timing chain. Only ever changed three.
Porsche Boxter. Electric bonnet/boot whatever it is when it's at the front and the engine isn't, release catch. You have to use an electric release catch to get to the battery.... What could possibly go wrong?
I'm not sure they have handbrakes as such..?
S-max’s? I can very much assure you that they do.
I know this due the constant supply of cold, undrunk Starbucks campachoochoos that I would constantly find stuck in the bloody cup holders.
Rover 600 series.
I had an 800 as a company car. Did 140000miles in 3 years - flawlessly. Bought a high mileage 400 Tourer myself later and that too was great until the head gasket went and given the age and mileage it wasn't worth fixing.
Changing a headlight bulb on a
VW Golf. Did it the other evening with my son. Have to remove so many bolts! And! The wheel arch lining! Removing the wheel The grill! The front bumper (partially)! The headlamp unit! Only then can you get at the bulb housing. What a joke.
I had hoped my new to me combo life would have a flold flat passenger seat (and possibly even drivers seat)
Alas no. Why wouldn't it just be standard?! Half tempted to take the cover off and work out which bit to grind...
Do you need to upgrade to Berlingo spec for that? Careful you don't go into the lofty world of the Rifter though or you lose it again
OTOH, you do get cupholders that are capable of holding cups in a Combo
Saab 900 'cockpit'. Hands down still the nicest driving position and layout for me.
Saab's aren't all great though - my FIL's 9000 had the most number of buttons I've ever seen outside of Boing 747 for the climate control system😂
My Hyundai i30N
Airbox its just four little clips you can flick off - no screws. Filter is held in by a plastic wedge that just slides out, you can then just replace the filter completely tooless. Pretty good for a modern car.
Trying to get access to the battery when I needed to get a set of jump leads over to my wife's car.
Read the manual. Our Galaxy had some /one jump lead connection points in the engine bay.
Actual car design i am amazed doesn't exist... Rainwater fed screenwash reservoir. With screenwashdosing
Mouldy water ahoy.
Electric cars: work great and don't turn around 7 tonnes of fossil fuel into stinking exhaust gas that is killing thousands and CO2 that is making life really unpleasant for many in southern Europe this week and killing a few. People who are moaning about the heat just don't seem to grasp the connection between their gas central heating, ICE car and the miserably hot Summer.
Cars where the flick wipe is not two steps away from intermittent wipe.
No car I have ever driven has an automatic intermittent wipe that does not need the occasional additional wipe when in use. Hence the flick wipe should still be accessible when intermittent is activated. On my Merc and current Volvo the intermittent wipe is activated by either turning the stalk or by pressing a button on the stalk so the down press for flick wipe does not disengage the intermittent wipe. Most other marques have not thought of this including BMW with their hateful interior and iDrive system. And , while I’m ranting about it Mrs OS has just bought a BMW and they want to charge 10 ****ing pounds a month to activate the automatic dip beam function. Literal daylight robbery. Needless to say she will be using her fingers to switch the main beam off. I mean who the actual **** pays for these things that allows them to offer it with a straight face.
Foot operated main beam switch on early Austin / Morris Mini. No need to ready your hand to cancel main beam with the stalk, just lightly rest your left foot on the floor button and tap it as the oncoming headlights are about to appear. Way better than modern auto dip systems that wait until they have burned the oncoming driver's retinas before dipping.
Citroen oleo pneumatic suspension. Aside from being smoother than Connery in a casino, the whole car could be raised when driving through floodwater.
Curry hooks.
Gas rams on heavy tailgates. So good you forget they are there.
Little V shaped dents in outer sills to show where the jacking points are.
Much of the modern safety kit that developed from past tragedies. Bonnet stays that stow across the front slam panel to avoid kebabbing occupants in a head on. Anti submarine seats, convenient inertia reel seat belts, now with pretensioners. De-coupling steering columns, burst proof locks, crumple zones, laminated glass, soft visors. Various electronic systems that keep road and wheel speed consistent. Airbags of all types; progressive, double width, leg, even centre ones to keep occupants apart. We never give safety features a second thought until it all goes Pete Tong, then they just work and we walk away instead of dying. Yes lane departure warnings are a right PITA but they will have saved a good few lives.
Bad -Jaguar X-Type RH headlight bulb. Clip is impossible to release (almost) and bulb change requires a child sized hand or willingness to scrape enough skin off to make your hand that small. Clip fixed by adding a cable tie as an extension.
Good - Citroen Hydropneumatic suspension for raising car for flood water
Bad - Citroen Xantia with such suspension drawing air from the bottom of the wheel well...
Citroen GS - 3 spark plugs easy, 4th impossible without the special double jointed plug spanner. Easy after that!
Gas rams on heavy tailgates. So good you forget they are there.
Gawd, I replaced both struts on my tailgate as they couldn't hold the weight of the boot anymore.
Now I've got the opposite problem, I have to mind I don't get my teeth knocked out when I open the boot!
I had hoped my new to me combo life would have a flold flat passenger seat (and possibly even drivers seat)
Alas no. Why wouldn't it just be standard?! Half tempted to take the cover off and work out which bit to grind...
Do you need to upgrade to Berlingo spec for that? Careful you don't go into the lofty world of the Rifter though or you lose it again
OTOH, you do get cupholders that are capable of holding cups in a Combo
Nah it was an option. And in lots of the vans. Aswell.
The dash holders in the combo are ace. They're as ace as the ines on the floor are shit.
Actually not actually car design.
But the owners manual... **** me it's long and contains every option and variation. Then you have to go to the back and work out what options come with your trim level.
Good design. The Nissan Cube. A ridiculous amount of space in a small package. I can vouch for the thoughtful design touches on many a Volvo, too. One that I appreciated is the large screenwash reservoirs that they have. Get the low screenwash indication, buy a big 5l bottle and chuck the lot in.
Bad design. Wet belt engines.
The dash holders in the combo are ace.
but they’re the ones we all share aren’t they? Even a standard 500ml will launch itself out of them if you’re not careful. They are very nearly on my bad list, only saved as they are quite good with the travel mugs I have
Had a second (third or fourth more likely) hand Renault Espace (7 seater) years back.
The back two rows of seats were on rails and hence could be slid to vary leg room vs boot space.
The 'gauge' on these rails was such that those for the rear two seats coincided with some of those of the three in the middle row.
All rear seats were removable and interchangable, so, together with swivel front seats, it would have made a fantastically versatile' holiday car / day van' for a family of four.
Really well thought out.