First world problems...

"WilliamsSW" (williamssw) 10/11/2018 at 14:25 • Filed to: Rant

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So, I own 3 cars. All 3 of them have a stalk on the right side of the steering column. 2 of the 3 RH stalks are for the wipers - and of course they move in opposite directions.

The RH stalk on the 3rd car is the gear selector. Here’s hoping that Mercedes has a lockout preventing me from shifting the car into Park at 40 miles an hour when it starts drizzling. I’m pretty sure it does, but I’ve grabbed it several times already and caught myself before I moved anything.

Also - I can’t wait for the elections to be over.  We’re drowning in flyers for every candidate running for office around here.  We get 4-6 every day - and 99.9% of them say NOTHING about their candidate - it’s all just horrible attacks on their opponent - and I’m pretty sure much of it is at least stretching the truth, if not outright lies.  SMDH.

bob and john > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 14:29

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thats what I hate MOST about elections. fuck off, I HATE the spam

WilliamsSW > bob and john 10/11/2018 at 14:31

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Seriously!   Most of the shit we get ISN’T EVEN TRUE.  Bunch of fucking liars - and yeah, that’s both parties (although 1 is a bit worse than the other).

OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 14:32

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That’s why I own 3 Lexus(for now). They are all the exact same.

nerd_racing > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 14:33

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Registered independent, I get almost no election mail or calls. 

E90M3 > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 14:34

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Having to remember different control interfaces did factor into my choice to get my 328i.

WilliamsSW > OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars 10/11/2018 at 14:35

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This is where my desire to sample everything becomes a negative - plus my desire to keep everything, too, I suppose.  I hardly drive the BMW or the Nissan, but I’ve owned them for 18 and 12 years, respectively and driven them a total of 280,000 miles - so their quirks are pretty ingrained.

fintail > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 14:36

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MB has put the wipers on the left since the dawn of time, I believe since the control moved from the dash to a stalk . You will get used to it, like the cruise control lever, it becomes muscle memory.

Regarding politics, I live in  the Seattle metro area,  and the ads here are hilarious only for their pointlessness. This place has voted blue for most of my life, and that won’t be changing with this go-round. Why even bother?  

Urambo Tauro > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 14:38

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I wouldn’t mind a little standardization in this area. So far, every vehicle that I’ve owned (all ’80s and ’90s GM and Ford products) has had the wiper switch on the multifunction turn signal stalk, left of the steering wheel. The only right-hand stalks have been  automatic shifters.

shop-teacher > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 14:41

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GM Unistalk > ALL :)

WilliamsSW > nerd_racing 10/11/2018 at 14:41

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Around here (Illinois) you just register as a voter - and primaries are open, although you can’t vote in both (AFAIK you have to choose one ).

They are getting my address from the registered voter list, I’m pretty sure - it’s all addressed to me (long story but my wife isn’t registered at this address).

I bounce back and forth on primary voting - I vote in whatever primary has contests that interest me.

Also, it depends on how contested the races near you are - - if you’re in a very solidly blue or red area, you won’t get much mail.  If the contests are close, you will.  And we have a reasonably close Governor’s race (battle between two billionaires, FFS), and my congressman is apparently facing a stiff battle, based on what a shitshow that race has become.

WilliamsSW > fintail 10/11/2018 at 14:45

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Yep! Problem is that I have BMW/Nissan muscle memory - and the two are pretty similar, other than the wiper stalk going in opposite directions.

I presume that Washington is like Illinois, in that the cities are super blue, while the rest of the state is hard red? If so, then winning a state-wide race is all about motivating your people to get out and vote - that’s what is happening in our Governor’s race - and Illinois is split enough that we convict elect Governors from both parties.

WilliamsSW > shop-teacher 10/11/2018 at 14:46

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Lol - I’ve owned a few cars with that Unistalk - it was kinda nice, TBH! 

shop-teacher > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 14:48

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I genuinely do like the unistalk, and the consistency across the years has been really nice.

WilliamsSW > Urambo Tauro 10/11/2018 at 14:50

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Yeah, the old school column shifter wouldn’t bother me, because it’s so different from a wiper stalk. This shifter is all electronic, so it feels about the same as a wiper stalk.

Standardization would be nice, but the automakers can’t even agree on which side to put the fuel filler door, so good luck with that. :)

WilliamsSW > E90M3 10/11/2018 at 14:54

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I could see that - and heaven forbid I ever own a manual transmission car where reverse isn’t left/up.

Chariotoflove > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 15:17

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Another lovely thing about elections is that no one comes around to take away all those signs when all is done.

WilliamsSW > Chariotoflove 10/11/2018 at 15:23

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There’s a stop sign near my house with a Ron Paul ‘08 sticker on it.

That said, the signs do disappear around here fairly quickly - I’m literally 2 doors from our polling place.

Chariotoflove > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 15:26

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The polling place ones go quickly, and the ones on people’s lawns.  It’s the ones in no-man’s land that hang around after the candidate has dies of old age.

WilliamsSW > Chariotoflove 10/11/2018 at 15:30

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True - I think I just spend almost all of my time in suburbia these days, so there isn’t much ‘no man’s land’ around.

Also, that reminds me - there’s an old barn along I-94, just south of the Wisconsin state line. The roof of that barn was painted with an advertisement for some candidate (John Anderson for President maybe?  Somewhere in the late ‘70s/early 80s ) for about 25 years after the election.  It eventually got repainted, but it was always funny to drive by it.

Urambo Tauro > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 15:34

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Eh, I never really let the filler door thing bother me all that much, but if it came right down to it, I guess I w ould have a preference for the driver’s side .

But I wouldn’t expect filler door location to become standardized first anyway. That’s more of a convenience thing, while the stalk issue has the potential to be more than just annoying when it screws with your muscle memory.

Chariotoflove > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 15:48

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Google image would have been amusing.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 15:59

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I’m that grumpy about cruise control . I have 3 cars with cruise control, all 3 have it controlled by a stalk below the main ones. Two are on the left, one on the right. The two on the left have completely different meanings assigned t o all the basic stalk movements, and the o ne on the right is basically the same as the o ne on the left except that “disengage” and “go faster” are swapped.

Why can’t functionality of this basic shit be standardiz ed? I get the LH vs RH indicator stalk thing, there’s a rea so n for that. But there’s no reason why everyone needs to reinvent the wheel on all the other shit.

Re gearshifts, m y 01 XJR had a Merc gea rbox and the J ag “J” gate setup. It h ad a lovely “ feature” where if you forgot you’d moved the lever back f ro m manual to auto and went to downshift, you’d wind up grabbing reverse. Fortunately it DID have enough smarts to not actually obey, but instead it’d go into neutral and refuse to change until you’d turned the engine off and on. Really bloody useful if you were having fun on a windy road, not.

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 16:08

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When I first started driving, I spent most of my time in my dad’s ‘ 88 Rabbit 4 speed. I still remember the time I jumped in the family Caprice, pulled away from the curb, and then slammed on the brake with my left foot.

WilliamsSW > Chariotoflove 10/11/2018 at 16:11

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Here it is now - it’s been probably 10+ years since they changed the message, and trees are blocking it now (which explains why I haven’t noticed it lately).

Chariotoflove > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 16:34

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It does have something about “vote” on the side.  Nice barn though.

WilliamsSW > Chariotoflove 10/11/2018 at 17:10

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“Vote Republican” - there’s an elephant at the top.

Doesn’t serve much purpose behind all those trees anymore--

WilliamsSW > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 10/11/2018 at 17:12

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It had a lovely “feature” where if you forgot you’d moved the lever back from manual to auto and went to downshift, you’d wind up grabbing reverse. Fortunately it DID have enough smarts to not actually obey, but instead it’d go into neutral and refuse to change until you’d turned the engine off and on. Really bloody useful if you were having fun on a windy road, not.

Ooof - I’m actually pretty sure that if I were to actually do something with the gear shift at 40 mph, it would just go into neutral.  Hopefully, it won’t require a re-start to go back into drive...

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn 10/11/2018 at 17:16

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Yikes!  I hear a lot of people saying they’ve done that, or almost did - but it seems odd to me, maybe because I don’t use my left foot at all in an automatic? 

rb1971 ARGQF+CayenneTurbo+E9+328GTS+R90S > ttyymmnn 10/11/2018 at 17:21

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Seconded!  I used to have an 83 Rabbit and one day when I drove my dad’s big Van - same thing.  He was in the passenger seat and was like “Everything OK there?”

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW 10/11/2018 at 18:10

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I don’t left-foot brake either. I was just driving on instinct, and my instinct was to clutch when I heard the revs hit a certain point. 

fintail > WilliamsSW 10/12/2018 at 14:49

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You’ll get it. The column shift gets to me, as both of my cars are column shift, so I g rab at air when I drive other cars (I think the column is a great place for an automatic selector, no need to have it in the console, it’s not a manual and not a sports car).

WA is like that in a way, yeah. There’s a big divide between east and west, which I sometimes think is funny as the west must have 80% of the population with the tax base included, while the east has infrastructure likely subsidized by west side taxpayers. I have lived on both sides, and they can be different worlds, although conservat ism in WA is maybe overall more purple than elsewhere.  So much of the population here is in the cities,and is the stereotypical liberal type, that there’s not much contest when it comes to gubernatorial races, but some lesser offices can be a contest.