American engineers

American engineers have lost their way. they hear all kinds of confusing voices. save the planet give us more do more with less run Lean make me Rich, stuff like that.

so I bought an American car. after being completely convinced that it was necessary to buy a Toyota Corolla or Camry it turned out to be an American car. which to some degree is unfortunate, the gear shifter broke before the car had 15,000 miles on it. and leave it to Good ole American ingenuity to cause the headlights to stay on if the shifter breaks. let's think that through, if the gear shifter breaks then the headlights should stay on until the battery goes dead. I'm sure there's a reason for that but hopefully I'll never find out what it is. anyway the next problem is they fixed the shifter but they didn't actually get the shifter to work right. there's a little button on the top that you can toggle with a plus or minus on it. this button is supposed to allow you to set the top gear manually. so for instance if you're going down a steep grade you can set the top gear to 3. then the engine helps brake the car. well guess what? the little button on the top of my shifter does nothing. so the brand new American car is still broken. and now as the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob through his son Jesus Christ would have it we're in the middle of a pandemic. so apparently this is causing some confusion down at the car dealership. anyway here's the next problem. actually this is the real point of this post. all this other stuff has just been whining and griping about the fact that a brand new American car doesn't work right. and frankly it would appear that they're fighting a losing battle. and so let's move on to find out why they're fighting a losing battle.

so this American car has 5 different gear selections. Park reverse neutral drive manual. it's an automatic transmission so when the car is going the vast majority of time the gear selector is intended to be in drive. drive is the gear selection that normally makes the car go. the way automatics work is you put the car in drive and you don't have to change any gears unless you need to back up or unless you want to turn the car off. it's automatic, get it?  guess what these guys did? they wanted to be super smart and I guess prove to somebody that they're trying to save the planet. and maybe they're trying to make the car seem more competitive with electric cars. whatever the reason they came up with a very bad idea. one guy was talking to another guy one day (we're just pretending here.) the one engineer says to the other engineer think of all the gas we're wasting sitting at stop lights. the other engineer says yeah let's figure it out. so they do some quick calculations and I'm sure they come up with billions of gallons of gas per year would be saved if engines were not running at stop lights. regardless of whether it's true or not. anyway the next thing they think about is, well gee let's see here, what gear are you normally in when you're stopped at a stoplight? well they say to themselves there are five possible selections. Park reverse neutral drive manual. but you're most likely to be in drive. so if the car comes to a stop and is in drive, let's turn the engine off. please stop for a second and think about how stupid this is. the car is in drive, so let's turn the engine off. I mean is there really any other country that would come to this kind of conclusion? so this is an incredibly irritating feature. every time the car stops the engine turns off automatically. but it's not one hundred percent guaranteed to turn off. there's about a million features they built into the thing to determine if while the car is in drive it should turn off the engine. for instance if the engine is warming up leave the engine running. if the air conditioner is running, if the temperature is below a certain degree outside and the heater is turned on full blast leave the engine running. think of the incredible amount of engineering that went into deciding when to turn off the car at the stupidest time possible. so, my goal has been to outsmart the stupid engineers who came up with this ingenious idea. one of the incredible features that they built in is that the engine will remain running in any other gear. yeah you're stopped at a stoplight and you want to keep the engine running? just shift into reverse. that baby will keep right on running. of course if you forget and step on the gas you'll smash into the car behind you. maybe that's not a good option. another option is to shift into neutral, not bad. or park. interestingly enough if you shift into manual the engine will also keep running. the problem with that is it shifts you into first gear. so everything sounds pretty good up to about 20 miles an hour and then the engine whines up to about 6,000 RPM. because you have to shift manually when you're in manual. anyway that's not a bad option.

but after playing around with it, there appears to be another option. as you roll up to the stop light shift down into manual quickly slide the selector up into neutral and when you come to a complete stop shift back into drive. this can be done in one smooth motion and appears to keep the engine running in drive no matter what.

now there is one other way which is unofficially out on the internet. once again it goes back to the incredible genius of these bozos. if you get in the car and open the hood then start the car, get out of the car, close the hood and get back in the car, for the rest of that driving session the car will remain running in drive. if you turn the car off then you must go through this process again. yes it actually works but after doing it a couple of times it gets pretty old. I mean whoever heard of having to get out of your car and close the hood every time just to go for a drive.


next time it's gonna be a Toyota.










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