Automotive Fakery

Author
Discussion

SkodaIan

725 posts

87 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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I don't understand what it "fake" about an electric parking brake - the button really does apply the brake.

What would be fake would be to have a handbrake lever in a car with a fully automatic electric handbrake. The handbrake would apply itself anyway when required, but there would be a lever people can pull up pointlessly to "add driver involvement".

Returning to fake exhausts, are there any EVs which have fake exhausts because the ICE version of the same car has one? That would be really silly, and even more so if they fitted a small kettle and fan behind it to produce realistic looking exhaust steam on a cold morning....

Don1

15,965 posts

210 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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Mr_Megalomaniac said:
I'm with you on this. It's insincere and disingenuous.
I flat out refuse to buy any car with fake exhausts or the cabin noise. It's a deal breaker for me.
Agreed.

Dave Hedgehog

14,587 posts

206 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
quotequote all
Don1 said:
Mr_Megalomaniac said:
I flat out refuse to buy any car with fake exhausts or the cabin noise. It's a deal breaker for me.
Agreed.
UIltimatly what stopped me buying an M4. a shame but BMW love fake engine

Limpet

6,354 posts

163 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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Dave Hedgehog said:
UIltimatly what stopped me buying an M4. a shame but BMW love fake engine
It can be coded out. If that was the most serious dislike, you could have got it sorted relatively easily and cheaply.

emperorburger

1,484 posts

68 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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Limpet said:
Dave Hedgehog said:
UIltimatly what stopped me buying an M4. a shame but BMW love fake engine
It can be coded out. If that was the most serious dislike, you could have got it sorted relatively easily and cheaply.
And now you own a car that has its very own fake fart sound app.

vikingaero

10,520 posts

171 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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"We" are not the target market.

Dem yoofs on PCP who love chintzy tat and branding are taking over.

Shrimpvende

864 posts

94 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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It’s because everyone wants something that looks fancy/sporty, without the disadvantages that they bring in the real world like the noise, hard suspension and poor fuel economy. It’s just an extension of what BMW started with ‘M Sport’ trim available on their smallest engine models, which must have worked as every manufacturer is at it now. You need a fairly long beard to be able to tell a 1.0 Fiesta ‘ST Line’ apart from the real thing, and although I hate it too you can’t really blame car companies for making products that people want to buy.

At first I really hated symposers, but turbos and gpf’s have made even performance cars so quiet that they’ve had to find other ways to get around it. My hybrid Range Rover with the crappy 2l petrol sounds like a V8 when I floor it which I don’t mind so much. In fact it sounds quite good…It’s better than whatever the real noise would be and if I wanted to hear real V8 noises all the time in my daily driver I’d have bought the SVR instead (I don’t). One thing I do really, really hate is pop and bang remaps (or maybe standard factory fit?) usually on (knackered) VAG cars or old ST’s, which juvenile drivers love to show off in any built up area. They should be doomed to a Prius for life as penance.

The antidote is simple. Mine’s a modified track focused Clio 182 Trophy, which is loud, bumpy, rattly, smelly and makes the gf instantly car sick. It’s brilliant.


jamieduff1981

8,030 posts

142 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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GroundZero said:
More to add to the list of fakery and silliness is the electronic handbrake when a manual handbrake was always sufficient, engine stop-start 'technology', rev-hang on manual gearboxes, push-button engine start along with de-pressing of clutch before push-button engine start can activate, keyless entry etc.

OK rant now fully out of my system, over to you guys smile

I'll go back to shouting at clouds for the rest of the day!
I think you just enjoy whining. Electronic hand brakes frees up a lot of space on the centre console for cup holders, power points, and means there doesn't need to be several hundred grand's worth of injection mould tooling for both left and right hand drive centre consoles with the handbrake relocated each time.

Stop-start is because people buy on MPG and tax (i.e. emissions figures). Rev hang is because of emissions (i.e. tax band).

Push button start is because there's no need for a key blade since security has driven everything to transponders now, and there's no need to have something dangling in the cabin over the driver's knee.

Clutch to start is because people are morons and crank the engine in gear and shunt walls or other parked cars etc.

Come on - this isn't difficult.

J4CKO

41,764 posts

202 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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Women (and some chaps/other gender identities are available) wear make up, wonderbras, spanx etc.

People wear shoes to make them taller.

Am looking out of a fake leaded window.

The world is full of fakery, artistic license and whatever, wouldnt worry too much about it.

I did remove the "Symposer" from my car, once modified it amplified every daft noise the engine was making into the passenger footwell.


thewarlock

3,240 posts

47 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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jamieduff1981 said:
GroundZero said:
More to add to the list of fakery and silliness is the electronic handbrake when a manual handbrake was always sufficient, engine stop-start 'technology', rev-hang on manual gearboxes, push-button engine start along with de-pressing of clutch before push-button engine start can activate, keyless entry etc.

OK rant now fully out of my system, over to you guys smile

I'll go back to shouting at clouds for the rest of the day!
Clutch to start is because people are morons and crank the engine in gear and shunt walls or other parked cars etc.
My 'daily driver' (that I have no need to drive daily anymore) needs the clutch pedal to be pressed before the engine can be started.

It's 15 years old, with a manual gearbox, 2WD, no turbos, a viscous LSD, a simple TC system that gets turned off every time I get in the car, and very few other mod cons.

I don't think the clutch to start thing is particularly new.

Icehanger

394 posts

224 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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Have you seen what happens to carbon fiber when it breaks?, glad the stuff in my car is fake TBH

kambites

67,683 posts

223 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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Any sort of side-skirt/diffuser/anything else which is meant to mimic an under-body aerodynamic device on a mainstream road car.

Limpet

6,354 posts

163 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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emperorburger said:
And now you own a car that has its very own fake fart sound app.
?

Byker28i

61,081 posts

219 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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DodgyGeezer said:
Fake vents? Mustang in the 60's had them
Sequential lights? Mercury Cougar in the 60's (Mustang too?)
Capri Mk1 fake vents
TVR Sagaris wing vents filled in...

Four Litre

2,026 posts

194 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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I'm with you on this, I've always thought do it properly or don't bother. I find the fakery rather cringeworthy.

I see a lot of this fakery as a just a follow on from the Ghia, Vanden plas, GLS, GTX badge snobbery of the 70's and 80's.

"Yeah I got them quad exhausts bro, with a 'carbon' (plastic) diffuser, you only got a double!"

Cold

15,270 posts

92 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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The other week I changed the bonnet vents on my Range Rover to something I find more aesthetically pleasing.
I wasn't overly concerned about the possibility of the new ones not performing the job of air extraction as good as the factory supplied units. biggrin


Dave Hedgehog

14,587 posts

206 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
quotequote all
emperorburger said:
Limpet said:
Dave Hedgehog said:
UIltimatly what stopped me buying an M4. a shame but BMW love fake engine
It can be coded out. If that was the most serious dislike, you could have got it sorted relatively easily and cheaply.
And now you own a car that has its very own fake fart sound app.
never needed it with my missus lol

Zoon

6,725 posts

123 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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jamieduff1981 said:
Clutch to start is because people are morons and crank the engine in gear and shunt walls or other parked cars etc.
It's also to stop small children accidentally starting the car.

WCZ

10,567 posts

196 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
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Court_S said:
The fake vents and exhausts less forgivable.

Nice rant though, and you even managed to get a dig in at lease / PCP too.
all completely forgivable imo, it's what the customer wants so that's what they are providing

jamieduff1981

8,030 posts

142 months

Wednesday 16th June 2021
quotequote all
With regards to "fake" vents, quite a number of them, especially on front wings above the skirts, are not vents at all but sharp edges to give clean separation for boundary layer control. People who know a lot less than they think they know will decree it as fakery, but they serve a fully functioning purpose - only that purpose isn't what the Dunning-Kruger-afflicted self-professed expert assumes it's there to mimic.