How a car works (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: How a car works (2012)

#31

Post by bluetomcat » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 10:31 AM UTC

marincounty wrote: post #24

realusername wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is other countries which are using cars other than the United States (shocking I know !) and I have a car which has one.

Good for you! I will never understand the mostly American tradition of buying a new car every few years? Cars that are so complicated; the owner is forced to bring it to the shop for every hiccup. A lot of cars/and trucks from the late 80's to around 2008, are pretty easy to work on, and with the proper maintence can last 300,000 miles. And if your not afraid of getting your hands dirty--you will never have to pay a…

It's due to the perceived wisdom that every car suddenly becomes a lemon after hitting 100k miles. The "low social status" attributed to driving an older car is also at play.

Here in Europe, it's not uncommon to see cars in good shape which have over 400k miles on the clock. If you think about it, a European or Japanese mid 90's car with no rust and a rebuilt engine will give you more trouble-free miles, for a fraction of the money.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#32

Post by douche » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 10:42 AM UTC

Lorento wrote: post #3

Seems to be very dated. Plenty on adjusting carburetors, in fact adjusting all sorts of no-longer-needing-adjusting parts.

Carburetors are still prevalent on a lot of other small engines - think lawn mowers, tractors, snow-blowers, chainsaws, etc.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#33

Post by JshWright » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 10:55 AM UTC

noipv4 wrote: post #21

Nicely done. Man you should really add a section on the Tesla Model S and possibly the Roadster.

Or... y'know... any car from the past couple decades (this material is pretty dated).

Re: How a car works (2012)

#34

Post by giancarlostoro » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 11:02 AM UTC

I always feel so uncomfortable about my car considering how old it is, and I know nothing about it or how it works. Everyone around me just cracks open their hoods and fixes their car, swaps tires, etc. I can't just move stuff around without actually understanding what anything is. I honestly have been wanting to learn more about cars. It also helps keep up with mechanics when they tell me things I don't fully understand, I don't imagine they want to sit around all day answering my questions, they probably have other people to work for. I only vaguely understand the things that have gone wrong with my car and the symptoms.

Thanks for such a beautiful website, and for everyone else sharing some interesting links. Being computer savvy is not entirely helpful when it comes to the mysteries of cars (not entirely anyway).

Btw I would love for there to be an Android app if possible. :)

Re: How a car works (2012)

#35

Post by teh_klev » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 11:02 AM UTC

Previous discussions:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=how%20a%20car%20works&sort=byP...

Re: How a car works (2012)

#36

Post by bloat » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 11:09 AM UTC

nicboobees wrote: post #28

gregpilling wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM stopped putting carburetors in vehicles in 1985 for the US market, which is 30 years ago. When can we let go of old tech?

People will always use "old tech". "Old tech" often just works. Flawlessly. I have a dumper truck I borrow from next door. Crank handle, diesel. It just works. Starts every time. No battery, no crap to go wrong. "new tech" is often designed to last 5 or 10 years maximum. After that is anyones guess as to whether it'll work.

I was going to moan at you about how an old car would produce much more pollution than a newer car. But then I looked it up:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring/11187483/...

Re: How a car works (2012)

#37

Post by otis_inf » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 11:26 AM UTC

AlexMuir wrote: post #19

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

Great work! two points of criticism:

1) The site still talks about carburetors and has no mention about fuel injection systems, while in Europe all cars sold must have a fuel injection system for quite some time now, so this looks quite outdated

2) Diesel engines of course don't have spark plugs, but you don't mention diesel engines.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#38

Post by higherpurpose » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 11:28 AM UTC

AlexMuir wrote: post #19

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

Maybe do a "How an electric car works" site/page in the future. I imagine it would have quite a bit less content, though.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#39

Post by mrspeaker » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 11:42 AM UTC

AlexMuir wrote: post #19

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

Hey, I think this site is amazing and certain appeals to my "hacker aesthetic" even though I'm not a car person! One thing that I'd like to see is some kind of guided tour - I got to the page and instantly saw "how heating systems work" and then "the engine - how power is created" and this confused me a bit. It made it seem like the first thing you need to know about cars is how the heater works!

Then I realized there wasn't rhyme or reason about the order of the Basics and I kind of got a bit of the tyranny of choice and then came back to the Hacker News article.

I feel if there was a path for first time visitors I would have taken it and been lost in engine parts for the rest of the day ;)

Re: How a car works (2012)

#40

Post by rgbrenner » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 11:44 AM UTC

marincounty wrote: post #24

realusername wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is other countries which are using cars other than the United States (shocking I know !) and I have a car which has one.

Good for you! I will never understand the mostly American tradition of buying a new car every few years? Cars that are so complicated; the owner is forced to bring it to the shop for every hiccup. A lot of cars/and trucks from the late 80's to around 2008, are pretty easy to work on, and with the proper maintence can last 300,000 miles. And if your not afraid of getting your hands dirty--you will never have to pay a…

mostly American tradition of buying a new car every few years

The average car on US roads is 11.4 years old: http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs-automotiv...

The average car on EU roads is 8.6 years old. In fact, in the EU only Estonia and Finland keep their cars longer than the US on average. http://www.acea.be/statistics/tag/category/average-vehicle-a...