I wonder, what does this red button do ...
https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw?t=107&si=4QwhQuKlWY3QAlla
What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
471–480 of 525 posts
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
Among other stuff, there was a bunch of Italian modernist art from the 50s-70s. It was literally decomposing in there, and my mother sold a few pieces at auction at about the 25 year point, which was then used as a reference point for the value of the collection as a whole, and as evidence that she was acting maliciously, that she knew the value of what was in there. The owner died in the early 90s - the folks who ro…
I'm really shocked that 'soon' can be considered 30 years. So you agree to store someones stuff for a short time, and then you are locked in for 30+ years? I thought america had crazy lawsuits...
Oh, French property and tort law is nuts, and largely founded in egalitarian ideals from the revolutions. Quite the case of “be careful what you wish for”.
There was recently a case in the press where person sold “old junk” to an antique dealer. Antique dealer sells it at auction for fortune. Antique dealer is then forced to hand over full sum to person who sold old junk/priceless antique.
Squatters rights are incredible. A friend had their house occupied one winter while they were away, 16 years ago. The squatters had a baby. They are only legally allowed to remove them this year, when the child turns 18.
The napoleonic code. This is why France is full of abandoned properties, stuck in probate for all eternity, as finding and getting hundreds of heirs to unanimously agree on a sale or whatever is… hard.
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#473Earlier quoted context omitted.
Among other stuff, there was a bunch of Italian modernist art from the 50s-70s. It was literally decomposing in there, and my mother sold a few pieces at auction at about the 25 year point, which was then used as a reference point for the value of the collection as a whole, and as evidence that she was acting maliciously, that she knew the value of what was in there. The owner died in the early 90s - the folks who ro…
> but that wasn’t the agreement, and French law treats a verbal agreement as a contract True, but the thing with verbal agreements is that it's very difficult to prove what was agreed upon. Your mother should have just lied.
Hindsight is a bitch. In short, she had no idea what kind of rake she was stepping on, and so saw no need to dissemble. She matter-of-factly told them they were welcome to take what remained, which was about 1/5 of what had been there — and then she got the letter from their lawyers, by which time it was too late.
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you here. I have an 89 BMW (which is old enough to have an actual servo motor attached to the intake manifold for cruise control) and an 83 Land Cruiser (whose most advanced feature is that it controls its emissions using vacuum controlled pneumatic circuitry). I'm very glad I've put in the time to learn how to work on cars because I have zero interest in the tech direction of modern vehicles.
Right there myself. One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive. Front wheel can remain gas with transmission. Add more generating current capacity, and have that dumped into the rear drive system batteries. With my current car, the V6 gets very good economy at speed, and poor economy in town or in traffic. An assist from the rear can tackle the poor economy cas…
> One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive. Front wheel can remain gas with transmission.
It can be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2agCqW6ntc
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll bite. Why not?
Loss of keys. If you expect the vehicle to be used by multiple different shifts then a lost key removes a vehicle from service unless you can reprogram it. Some cars let you program new fobs up to a limit then you need a dealership unlock to continue doing that. Easier is just to key all the fleet vehicles with the same standard non chipped key. Then any key operates any vehicle which removes a ton of operational fri…
Seems like a solvable problem, the trivial solution is to have the dealership program multiple fobs identically.
I guess maybe not solved yet because:
- The trivial solution also means multiple cars respond to e.g. "unlock" if they are parked adjacent.
- Anything more complicated means custom electronics for a niche market.
By contrast every small town in the world has a fundi who can duplicate your physical key.
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#476You have to ask about the little red button though.
The only thing I find odd is that the dealer didn't notice this and remove or plug it.
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can make an ICE run on wood gas which is arguably more apocalypse proof than electric.
Generators can run on that to charge an ev that is also chargeable by solar panels, wind mills and water mills.
All combustion engines, generators included require maintenance. Having n+1 requirements doesen't sound like a benefit to an apocalypse. In general consumer cars really don't fare well without well-mainained roads though, so they'd not be that useful to begin with.
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, its the same stuff that I've been told for decades now. TBH, it is probably less true with a lot of EVs than it was with the gas cars. ECUs are pretty strict and sometimes hard to hack. Meanwhile, third party motor controllers for Tesla motors exist, and the batteries aren't exactly magic. There's really nothing about electric drivetrains that makes anything vastly more locked down.
Yeah if the world went in the direction that prepper types seem to get wet dreams about petrol ICE cars would only be usable for a year or so - petrol has a shelf life, and you ain't running your own refinery. A lot of diesels can run off of any vaguely fuel-like liquid you decide to put in them, so I'm sure sufficiently knowledgable people would keep those running, machining parts for them etc. But electric vehicles…
>But electric vehicles are by far simpler than both of those
Electric engines might be, but battery tech for sure isn't. Building a combustion engine + fuel vs. building an EV battery is a whole different game.
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you post an example of one of these products? I've been dabbling in this space and I'm having a hard time finding any data service under about $2 - $4 per month.
I'm having trouble finding what I remember seeing maybe 4 years ago. It was an all in one cellular component with an esim. This is the closest I can find to what I remember seeing. It may lead you to some other solutions. https://1nce.com/en-us/1nce-connect/10-dollars-for-10-years I remember seeing stupidly cheap prices for cellular chips, and when I looked into it, it looked like they had bought up a bunch of bulk b…
I hadn't seen that before. Thanks for taking the time!
Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
#480"Why did you touch that button? What if it would make the car explode?" - my father.
I never touched an undocumented button again, nor understood why someone would add a button that exploded the car when clicked.