My work ride is a 2023 Tahoe. Overall it's a pretty decent vehicle, but a few things have changed since my '03 Suburban and '01 Silverado.

On my older trucks, the windshield wipers sit up on the windshield, right over top of where the defroster vents come out of the dash. This keeps them free of snow and ice in the winter, and is a perfectly logical and functional design.

Sometime between 2003 and 2023, some mental midget decided to redesign them so that they sit about inline with the top of the hood, and well below the front of the dash. I don't know if this was an aerodynamics/fuel economy decision, or if soccer moms just didn't like looking at them, but it's retarded. The wipers now park in an area of the windshield that's well below where the defrost vents come out, and if temps drop below freezing they never warm up. It's below freezing about 4-5 months out of the year here, so I'm constantly having to get out and bust ice/snow/slush off of them just to get them to work at all...and even then you can imagine how effective hard frozen rubber blades are at clearing the windshield, as opposed to pliable warmer ones.

What kind of idiots are we hiring who take an effective design principle that's been in place for years and totally un-do it?

Preach, it Brother.

“Don’t text or use your phone, it’s dangerously distracting!”
But we’re going to make it impossible to do something as simple as turning on the inside heater by feel as we could for a century or more and require you to take your eyes off the road to find the touch screen control.

100% agree about the touchscreen controls, too. Thankfully this 2023 still has knobs and buttons for most of the important stuff. My buddy just got into a 2025 that's all screen.

I can't remember which rental it was, but one of them the wiper blades could not be pivoted to remain off the windshield (i.e. could only temporarily lift off windshield).

From my Alaska and Canada days, one of the key techniques to extend wiper life in the winter is to lift them off the windshield when parking in an outdoor parking lot during the winter. It eliminates the tearing from pulling off windshield and eliminates uneven wear if you're smart about starting defroster and fully clearing windshield prior to using wipers.

I couldn't believe some genius removed that feature. Probably a UofM grad

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
My work ride is a 2023 Tahoe. Overall it's a On my older trucks, the windshield wipers sit up on the windshield, right over top of where the defroster vents come out of the dash. This keeps them free of snow and ice in the winter, and is a perfectly logical and functional design.

I've never owned a truck, but aren't the vents on the dash designed to defog the windshield on the inside, and not to melt any snow or ice on the outside?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Preach, it Brother.

“Don’t text or use your phone, it’s dangerously distracting!”
But we’re going to make it impossible to do something as simple as turning on the inside heater by feel as we could for a century or more and require you to take your eyes off the road to find the touch screen control.

Another of my favorite (not) "improvements". I can't even select between defrost/dash vents/floor vents on my RAV4 without looking.

At least I can still turn up/down the heat and fan speed with old-fashioned knobs.

quote:

Originally posted by Rawny:
I've never owned a truck, but aren't the vents on the dash designed to defog the windshield on the inside, and not to melt any snow or ice on the outside?

It's not just trucks, it's any vehicle. The vents blow warm air against the inside of the windshield. This heats the glass which in turn defogs the interior and also melts any frozen matter on the outside. Both are critical. The problem in this particular case is that the wipers sit below the level of the dash, so that portion of the windshield is blocked from the warm air coming out of the vents and doesn't heat up enough to melt the ice off.

quote:

Originally posted by Rawny:

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
My work ride is a 2023 Tahoe. Overall it's a On my older trucks, the windshield wipers sit up on the windshield, right over top of where the defroster vents come out of the dash. This keeps them free of snow and ice in the winter, and is a perfectly logical and functional design.

I've never owned a truck, but aren't the vents on the dash designed to defog the windshield on the inside, and not to melt any snow or ice on the outside?

It does both in every vehicle I've ever had.

I was poking around in the engine compartment of my new Subaru Forrester and was actually kind of pleasantly surprised at how much more wide open it feels compared to previous cars I've owned. Actually feels more laid out like an old school car engine compartment with actual room to move around and not having to disassemble 1/4 of the compartment to get to things.

Also heard that in a bad crash the engine is designed to drop and slide UNDER the passenger compartment and not come crashing in like most cars.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I was poking around in the engine compartment of my new Subaru Forrester and was actually kind of pleasantly surprised at how much more wide open it feels compared to previous cars I've owned. Actually feels more laid out like an old school car engine compartment with actual room to move around and not having to disassemble 1/4 of the compartment to get to things.

Also heard that in a bad crash the engine is designed to drop and slide UNDER the passenger compartment and not come crashing in like most cars.

I changed out my BIL's wheel bearings on his Subaru a couple months ago and I was pleasantly surprised how accessible everything was, especially for an AWD vehicle. I've done the same job on other vehicles that made it much harder. Nice to know some companies are still using their brains.

My previous Jeep was a Cherokee. The sales dude made a big deal about it having heated windshield wipers and how great they were in a Yoop winter.
I did not look over the wiper system before the purchase but later at home I did. I was amazed to find that there was only one heating element for the wipers. And it was for the passenger side wiper! Now... Common sense would dictate that the heated wiper should be on the drivers side of the winshield, right? So what brilliant visionary came up with this idea?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: YooperSigs,

Car makers: ENOUGH WITH THIS SHIT. Stop interconnecting components like this.



All that corroded connector - and how did it get like this in the first place? - should have taken out was the camera itself, not the whole damn car.

GM has a nice feature on our EQEV, a rear hatch that can open as you approach it with your arms full of whatever, you just turn on the feature, and walking up with the fob will open the hatch

Only, it also opens if you have the fob in your pocket and just happen to walk behind the vehicle after parking to go in the store, or walk behind it while the cars in the garage and you have the fob with you, up it goes.

So anytime you walk behind it with the fob the damn thing opens. It's better though than the old system where you carried your load of stuff and then had to stand on one leg, arms full and try wave your foot under the bumper and not fall over LOL

I just keep it off, since you can't walk behind the car without opening the hatch.

You can have all your gadgets. If a a car/truck isn't old enough to have an ash tray, I don't want it.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
GM has a nice feature on our EQEV, a rear hatch that can open as you approach it with your arms full of whatever, you just turn on the feature, and walking up with the fob will open the hatch

Only, it also opens if you have the fob in your pocket and just happen to walk behind the vehicle after parking to go in the store, or walk behind it while the cars in the garage and you have the fob with you, up it goes.

So anytime you walk behind it with the fob the damn thing opens. It's better though than the old system where you carried your load of stuff and then had to stand on one leg, arms full and try wave your foot under the bumper and not fall over LOL

I just keep it off, since you can't walk behind the car without opening the hatch.

Our Expedition, you kick your foot under the center of the bumper for hands-free opening/closing.
I definitely wouldn't want walk up activation

quote:

Originally posted by Rawny:
I've never owned a truck...

What kind of commie shit is this?

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
What kind of idiots are we hiring who take an effective design principle that's been in place for years and totally un-do it?

I'm an engineer. I'm a car nut. And I'm severely disgusted/disappointed with some of the recent designs/trends/mechanism in the automotive industry. In fact, I'm glad I got out of automotive.

Anyway... I think in this case -- as with many others -- the goofballs who design these things don't actually have to use them. So they don't know (and don't listen to others) just how crummy some of this stuff is.

My opinion, and worth every penny you paid for it.

- - - - -

I'll add, though, that my Toyota has defroster strips down low on the windshield, right where the wipers rest.

Yeah pretty stupid.

If they're going to design the wipers to park below where the defroster blows they should incorporate heating elements in the bottom of the windshield.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
Yeah pretty stupid.

If they're going to design the wipers to park below where the defroster blows they should incorporate heating elements in the bottom of the windshield.

That would be one way to do it, although more complicated and expensive than necessary. Would really suck to have to pay the markup for a heating element every time you took a rock to the windshield, especially when they could have just mounted them a couple of inches higher.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by Rawny:
I've never owned a truck...

What kind of commie shit is this?

Well I do live in Commiefornia so that explains it. Anyone here driving pick-ups and not in a trade are posers.

All my cars turns on the AC to blow cold air when in defog mode. No way it's melting anything outside of the windshield.