Topic: What did you do to your car today?

[warp]

That is correct. I discovered that the culprit is the PDA - pro active driving assist. And it can be turned off permanently, does not come on by default on a re-start. I wonder why they even have it, it's actually misleading because the literature states that it will help reduce speed on corners etc. if using Dynamic Radar Cruise Control. It says nothing about the fact that metaphorically it's like training wheels on a child learning how to ride a bicycle, sharply applying brakes if it sees another vehicle 100 feet ahead at 40 kmph. And frankly it is redundant because the full speed Adaptive Cruise Control actually brings the vehicle to a complete halt, at least in urban driving, that I have tried it and if you then tap the throttle or touch Resume it accelerates back again to the set speed. With the PDA turned off and the PCS - pre collision system aka Anti collision automatic braking set to it's lowest intervention level, the GH is a pretty normal vehicle to drive and actually allows you to drive pretty aggressively if you choose to without intervening.

Case closed. Thanks for the follow-up. It would be nice of Toyota to include a blu-ray with a quick start video where all these new features would be explained, instead of 10,000 page manuals which no-one is ever bothered to read.

Doesn't help that they love acronyms so much, especially when it seems every manufacturer has different ones for the same function

https://www.toyota.com/safety-sense/

https://www.mazdaworldcar.com/wc-mazda-technology-quick-guide/

  - what they should have used for PDA  or maybe a wheelchair emoji? 

 

That PDA forces you into the driving style of a 95 year old Florida retiree!!

[EV Dan]

That is correct. I discovered that the culprit is the PDA - pro active driving assist. And it can be turned off permanently, does not come on by default on a re-start. I wonder why they even have it, it's actually misleading because the literature states that it will help reduce speed on corners etc. if using Dynamic Radar Cruise Control. It says nothing about the fact that metaphorically it's like training wheels on a child learning how to ride a bicycle, sharply applying brakes if it sees another vehicle 100 feet ahead at 40 kmph. And frankly it is redundant because the full speed Adaptive Cruise Control actually brings the vehicle to a complete halt, at least in urban driving, that I have tried it and if you then tap the throttle or touch Resume it accelerates back again to the set speed. With the PDA turned off and the PCS - pre collision system aka Anti collision automatic braking set to it's lowest intervention level, the GH is a pretty normal vehicle to drive and actually allows you to drive pretty aggressively if you choose to without intervening.

Case closed. Thanks for the follow-up. It would be nice of Toyota to include a blu-ray with a quick start video where all these new features would be explained, instead of 10,000 page manuals which no-one is ever bothered to read.

Doesn't help that they love acronyms so much, especially when it seems every manufacturer has different ones for the same function

https://www.toyota.com/safety-sense/

https://www.mazdaworldcar.com/wc-mazda-technology-quick-guide/

  - what they should have used for PDA  or maybe a wheelchair emoji? 

 

That PDA forces you into the driving style of a 95 year old Florida retiree!!

That's not so bad for as long as it can detect tempered glass of the storefronts 

[BWII]

Took the Fusion to Wpg on the weekend, figured I should check the oil life.  Hmmm...20%...time to change it.  So yesterday I changed it.  Went to my spread sheet...yikes, 10,283 km since the last change. 

In August. 

Of 2021. 

[EV Dan]

Took the Fusion to Wpg on the weekend, figured I should check the oil life.  Hmmm...20%...time to change it.  So yesterday I changed it.  Went to my spread sheet...yikes, 10,283 km since the last change. 

In August. 

Of 2021. 

Good thing it's not a Kiundai 

[ktm525]

Took the Fusion to Wpg on the weekend, figured I should check the oil life.  Hmmm...20%...time to change it.  So yesterday I changed it.  Went to my spread sheet...yikes, 10,283 km since the last change. 

In August. 

Of 2021. 

Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future.

[BWII]

Took the Fusion to Wpg on the weekend, figured I should check the oil life.  Hmmm...20%...time to change it.  So yesterday I changed it.  Went to my spread sheet...yikes, 10,283 km since the last change. 

In August. 

Of 2021. 

Good thing it's not a Kiundai 

Yup...km's have gone down!  lol    Had I continued to work in the office, I'd have well over 300k by now (and I have no doubt it'd go 300 more).  I'll soon be low mileage!   

[Blueprint]

Took delivery of Mrs. Hire's new '24 Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve.

2024 is a weird year because they discontinued the Hemi on the regular Grand Cherokee models, so the only engines available re the 3.6L Pentastar and the PHEV (2.0T+hybrid). The slick new Hurricane motor won't be here till MY2025. I ordered the Pentastar as the lesser of two evils, but for a $90,000+ truck, it's just not enough power. Feels like it runs out of breath at passing speeds on the highway, and it has to rev fairly high to tug around in the city.

I love the thing, just about everything about it, but the 3.6L just isn't enough for my needs. We'll swap it for a Hurricane before this time next year.

The PHEV is more powerful / faster than the V6, probably has better resale value too.

[warp]

IIRC, I remember the PCS intervenes if there's no braking detected at all. So if you're never pushing the brakes/very late braker, I can see it intervene.

I have to seriously wonder if:

1) it's defective/needs calibration.

2)  it's how you drive.

Reviewers in both print and online would be losing their facking minds if Toyota's PCS behaved as you describe.

I have seen the very occasional complaint about VSC being too sensitive in very spirited driving, but nothing about PCS.

Most reviewers write puff pieces because they are terrified of being cut off by manufacturers, witness Motormouth and the Hyundai battery saga. Savagegeese is a unicorn. Having said that watch the review of this vehicle  by The Straight Pipes specifically what they say about PCS...from 9m30s onwards. They are pretty scathing about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFUr8dzVByw&t=571s

That is nuts. I know the feeling when I'm on cruise on the 400 series and I rarely use the adaptive cruise because it can't keep a consistently small gap and people begin to cut in. Having this "feature" as part of my everyday driving would be annoying to say the least. It's like their engineers messed up the code and assigned a good feature but to the wrong driving mode. Like I said, fingers crossed for a prompt software update.

I hope so too. Fortunately the GH can get Over the Air Software Updates. Having said that, The Straight Pipes review was 5 months ago and my vehicle has a manufacturing date of January 2024, so clearly nothing has been done for at least 2-3 months after the problem has become apparent. And that other video I posted earlier from the Toyota tech in the US is an indication that the problem has been brought to the attention of Toyota dealers at the minimum. I wonder whether Toyota will roll out a fix before they are  prompted by the US Transportation Safety Board. I don't have much hope that our toothless Canadian regulator will be able to get anything done.

Someone in the comments to the straight pipes' video says this feature is called PDA - proactive driving assist and can be turned off.

On a completely different subject relating to the GH, it's the ICE 2.4 turbo with the 8 speed transmission and AWD. I had thought that the AWD system would be the typical slip and grip i.e. all power to the front wheels until traction is lost and then power is shunted to the rear. But to my pleasant surprise that is not the case. Under conditions of most throttle inputs, even as low as 10% throttle travel, torque is sent to the rear axle. As you scroll through various menus in the instrument cluster, there is an icon of the 4 wheels and the crankshaft with the display changing constantly depending on throttle position with bars indicating torque delivery to each axle. Very cool!!

[PJungnitsch]

It could be that learnings are not just going one way in the Toyota/Subaru partnership

[warp]

It could be that learnings are not just going one way in the Toyota/Subaru partnership

Sure, the big draw of the Toyota hybrids is the fuel efficiency. But I much prefer the mechanical AWD system found in the ICE variant with a proper crankshaft and as I discovered,  in practice it's virtually a full time AWD system, with torque sent rearward on a completely dry road on a sunny day with barely imperceptible throttle inputs. Yep, I guess Toyota is learning a few things from Subaru in their partnership.

[ktm525]

So what did I do to my car today?

Continued the replacement of the Ridgeline's original suspension piece by piece. Honda or not joints and rubber wear out. I had an awful squeak which was traced down to the rear passenger stabilizer link. Not exactly easy but 1 hour of heat and swearing it was off and the new Honda OE went on in 2 minutes.  It was such a bear I only did the one, getting old.  . I will replace the other when I eventually tackle the rear struts.

[TheHire]

Took delivery of Mrs. Hire's new '24 Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve.

2024 is a weird year because they discontinued the Hemi on the regular Grand Cherokee models, so the only engines available re the 3.6L Pentastar and the PHEV (2.0T+hybrid). The slick new Hurricane motor won't be here till MY2025. I ordered the Pentastar as the lesser of two evils, but for a $90,000+ truck, it's just not enough power. Feels like it runs out of breath at passing speeds on the highway, and it has to rev fairly high to tug around in the city.

I love the thing, just about everything about it, but the 3.6L just isn't enough for my needs. We'll swap it for a Hurricane before this time next year.

The PHEV is more powerful / faster than the V6, probably has better resale value too.

PHEV is negligibly punchier in the city, but weak sauce on the highway and sounds terrible in all environments.

[Dante]

So what did I do to my car today?

Continued the replacement of the Ridgeline's original suspension piece by piece. Honda or not joints and rubber wear out. I had an awful squeak which was traced down to the rear passenger stabilizer link. Not exactly easy but 1 hour of heat and swearing it was off and the new Honda OE went on in 2 minutes.  It was such a bear I only did the one, getting old.  . I will replace the other when I eventually tackle the rear struts.

Don't you typically have to do an alignment when you replace suspension/steering parts? Not stabilizer links or shocks/struts, but control arms, ball joints, tie rod, etc...If you do it piece by piece how do you handle that?

[rrocket]

Took delivery of Mrs. Hire's new '24 Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve.

2024 is a weird year because they discontinued the Hemi on the regular Grand Cherokee models, so the only engines available re the 3.6L Pentastar and the PHEV (2.0T+hybrid). The slick new Hurricane motor won't be here till MY2025. I ordered the Pentastar as the lesser of two evils, but for a $90,000+ truck, it's just not enough power. Feels like it runs out of breath at passing speeds on the highway, and it has to rev fairly high to tug around in the city.

I love the thing, just about everything about it, but the 3.6L just isn't enough for my needs. We'll swap it for a Hurricane before this time next year.

The PHEV is more powerful / faster than the V6, probably has better resale value too.

PHEV is negligibly punchier in the city, but weak sauce on the highway and sounds terrible in all environments.

Really?

So when you're loafing along and just driving normally, the sound proofing is so bad that the engine noise is intrusive to the point it sounds bad all the time??

[ktm525]

So what did I do to my car today?

Continued the replacement of the Ridgeline's original suspension piece by piece. Honda or not joints and rubber wear out. I had an awful squeak which was traced down to the rear passenger stabilizer link. Not exactly easy but 1 hour of heat and swearing it was off and the new Honda OE went on in 2 minutes.  It was such a bear I only did the one, getting old.  . I will replace the other when I eventually tackle the rear struts.

Don't you typically have to do an alignment when you replace suspension/steering parts? Not stabilizer links or shocks/struts, but control arms, ball joints, tie rod, etc...If you do it piece by piece how do you handle that?

Yeah tie rods and control arms require alignment but none of the other stuff.

Last year I did the :
1) Sway bar bushings, front stab links. No alignment required
2) Front A-arms and outer tie rods. Alignment done

This year:
1) rear sway bar bushings and one stab link.
2) Sometime this fall or spring 2025 I will get around to installing the rear strut assemblies I bought and do the remaining stab link. The rears are not really adjustable (toe only) so if it looks off or tracks bad I'll pony up for an alignment. This suspension business will stretch out over half a decade lol.

[aquadorhj]

Washed Lexus.

Found front fender plastic trim that was replaced from accident I had year ago, adhesive is coming apart so there’s space between fender and trim piece….

Gonna have to call insurance.

Sucks.

[bridgecity]

Washed Lexus.

Found front fender plastic trim that was replaced from accident I had year ago, adhesive is coming apart so there’s space between fender and trim piece….

Gonna have to call insurance.

Sucks.

Shitty. I would just call the body shop.

[WP v3.32]

the lexus battery is dead again, cant hold a charge, it sat for too long.  I had to drive back home on limps mode. hopefully yhe hybrid battery is ok

[rrocket]

the lexus battery is dead again, cant hold a charge, it sat for too long.  I had to drive back home on limps mode. hopefully yhe hybrid battery is ok

Yea, the one in my Prime has been doing the same. 7 years old...So it's time.

[WP v3.32]

the lexus battery is dead again, cant hold a charge, it sat for too long.  I had to drive back home on limps mode. hopefully yhe hybrid battery is ok

Yea, the one in my Prime has been doing the same. 7 years old...So it's time.

the one in the highlander is still original