General design stupidity

[somebodyelse]

Had a Renault Clio from new and the parking brake wouldn’t hold the car on even a slight incline.

Never got through an MOT then?

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Never got through an MOT then?

Never had one bought it new and its reliability was awful. Fifteen months old and the exhaust fell off, then going up the A1 on holiday there was a scraping noise from the front near side wheel bay the liner fell off and disintegrated. So didn’t keep it for three years. Renault in those days only gave a one year warranty, complained to them and they reduced the cost of the repairs. A local exhaust centre was still cheaper than the subsidised Renault price. How did I know? The Renault garage foreman told me, he was about to phone the owner of a two year old Laguna and tell him how much it was going to cost to put his car back on the road. A few years later bought a Peugeot GTI6 two years old and 18,000 miles on the clock the cam belt snapped a £4.5k repair. Don’t buy French cars any more.

 

[Propheticus]

I've used them when I park too. I haven't used them for starting up hills in conjunction with the clutch. I release the regular brake and release the clutch as I increase the accelerator pedal to start with no roll back.

This works on a slight incline but not on a (very) steep one. By the time the foot that left the brake reaches the gas pedal you already started rolling backwards. Good luck in narrow streets of south-european cities built against hills.
Of course most modern cars have hill assist doing a ~hand-brake start for you by keeping the foot-brake down for you.
Many cars don't even have separate parking brakes any more. The electronic parking brake mechanism is simply integrated in the rear disc brake callipers. The same mechanism is then used to implement the hill-assist.
The advantage: lower BOM and less space required; no separate brake, no steel cable. Also more fool-proof because it automatically disengages.

I don't really like them. The auto (hill) release waits a fair bit until you build 'pressure' and then lets you go with a jolt. (at least in the Volkswagen group rentals I encountered)
The manual handbrake allows for a more subtle hill start release.

 

[Propheticus]

Don’t buy French cars any more.

The Peugeot diesel engines were famous for their reliability lasting several tons of km and were often used by other manufacturers as well.
But the electronics in Peugeot cars... my goodness.

Must admit my last real experience with French cars dates back to my parents station car (or break as the French call them) some 15y ago.
A recent co-drive in a Renault reminded me again why I don't drive a French car myself.

p.s. brands from the Volkswagen group don't do much better in reliability figures of recent years by the way.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

The Peugeot diesel engines were famous for their reliability lasting several tons of km and were often used by other manufacturers as well.
But the electronics in Peugeot cars... my goodness.

Must admit my last real experience with French cars dates back to my parents station car (or break as the French call them) some 15y ago.
A recent co-drive in a Renault reminded me again why I don't drive a French car myself.

p.s. brands from the Volkswagen group don't do much better in reliability figures of recent years by the way.

It had a petrol engine. Living in Libya for many years the most popular brand were Peugeot, the 404 pickup. 405, 504 and 505, rugged and needed little maintenance. Think they lost their way with the later models? Another thing with the 306 GTI6 was how bad it was on icy or gravel roads. When you braked on an icy road the ABS sounded like a hammer and the car would just skid on. The tyres were good Pirellis changed them for Michelin no difference.

 

[Speedskater]

I have been driving stick shift cars since 1960. Never once used the hand brake when starting, neither on a hill or on the flat.

 

[Blumlein 88]

This works on a slight incline but not on a (very) steep one. By the time the foot that left the brake reaches the gas pedal you already started rolling backwards. Good luck in narrow streets of south-european cities built against hills.
Of course most modern cars have hill assist doing a ~hand-brake start for you by keeping the foot-brake down for you.
Many cars don't even have separate parking brakes any more. The electronic parking brake mechanism is simply integrated in the rear disc brake callipers. The same mechanism is then used to implement the hill-assist.
The advantage: lower BOM and less space required; no separate brake, no steel cable. Also more fool-proof because it automatically disengages.

I don't really like them. The auto (hill) release waits a fair bit until you build 'pressure' and then lets you go with a jolt. (at least in the Volkswagen group rentals I encountered)
The manual handbrake allows for a more subtle hill start release.

I can do it on some very steep hills. Maybe a 2 or 3 inch roll back. I did drive dump trucks for a time years ago. I think on the test for that license you were limited to 6 inches or less roll back on a steep incline. But that was a long time ago.

 

[Propheticus]

Sure one can. So do I, but with those anaemic (petrol) rentals you smell some clutch plate by the time you get going.
Perhaps the difference here is (sub) 1 litre European cars versus multi litre US ones? Or in the case of dump trucks, high torque diesel vs tiny 3-cylindre petrol.
aaaanyway, we can agree the hand brake start is seldom needed -if ever- depending on where you live.

Never once used the hand brake when starting, neither on a hill or on the flat.

You never have to wait long before an open bridge or train crossing and use the hand brake so you can put the car in neutral and release your clutch & foot brake for a while?
For parking you just put the car in gear instead of using the hand(/parking) brake? Or do you always bring these:

 

[Propheticus]

Back on topic of design stupidity:
I just bought a Logitech G Pro wireless mouse to replace a corded (gaming) mouse that started double and triple clicking..even after cleaning attempts with contact spray.
I already had a unifying receiver dongle for the MX master keyboard. I also have a MX master 2s wireless mouse, but the latency on it makes it inadequate for playing games.

Now the problem: the G pro radio dongle interferes with the unifying receiver, resulting in a flaky keyboard connection with the dongle in the pc underneath my desk.
Putting the dongle in the USB hub of my monitor resolved this, but the extra hub 'hop' causes the keyboard not to be recognised during (BIOS) post so pressing 'DEL' to get into the BIOS setting doesn't work. Sometime the keyboard doesn't even work on the logon screen necessitating the use of the on-screen keyboard.
Guess I need to buy a USB extension cable to be able to put the dongle on my desk while still directly plugin into the back of the PC. The G Pro wireless came with such a cable because for best performance the advised distance between mouse and dongle is ~20cm.

I understand a different dongle is needed to support the low latency connection and high polling rate up to 1000Hz. It's just strange they did not design their own dongles so they don't interfere.