Technophobes: How Scared Is Too Scared?

[Jake_zx2]

No, only you honed in on that with whatever definition you decided "tech" was. And if you do an honest assessment of this video,
you can see it is not "nothing". Electronic module is larger, appears metal cased (vs module under console appears plastic cased) with heat sinks.
Screen is certainly larger and also seems metal encased vs 4" screen that is clearly plastic cased, extra harness, extra USB outlet.

Electronic module appears about the same size, if not SMALLER than the calculator screen module. Both modules are encased in metal, while the small screen module seems to have plastic overlaying the largest surface areas (I imagine as some sort of heat buffer). Harnesses appear aftermarket, but even if not, that's perhaps 2oz of additional weight. Weight of the larger screen is counteracted by the weight loss of the additional plastic cut out of the bezel. So that leaves us with simply the casing, which when comparing ABS plastic vs EXTREMELY thin aluminum, chances are the aluminum will weight the same, or could possibly be lighter

So we're talking about a potential increase of AT MOST a quarter of a pound... so, as I said, negligible and ultimately won't make a difference

And weight placement matters. 50-100 lbs in the roof is a huge game change with moonroofs, sunroofs, or Panamaric's.
Even moving that plastic module from center console to metal module higher up behind radio is more that just the weight itself.
A lot of the other tech has sensors and wiring or other small parts of hardware. Again, they weren't the main components that add weight,
but they add some weight (and again cost thousands) for a lot of crap that is unneeded, if you just get off the friggin phone and pay attention
(or learn how to drive).

Of course weight placement matters, but when we're talking a couple ounces at ever so slightly above the cG in a 4000+lb car, it's not going to make any sort of difference that can be noticed by ANY human short of a placebo effect. Of course the additional weight in the sunroof is going to make a fairly significant difference, but if you really consider a sunroof "tech", then we have a deeper conflict at hand. Besides, we're talking about the Bronco here... we want all the modules and such as high up in it as possible, regardless of whether they're made of plastic or metal

And just because you are young, possibly inexperienced, and/or just flat out incompetent, that you can't feel the difference in performance
200 lbs makes in a sports sedan, doesn't mean you should try to drag down those that can.

It has nothing to do with youth or experience. I don't care if you're Michael Schumaker or Jill Stein, you simply cannot feel a 1lb difference in a midsize sedan. That's a weight difference of about .00025%... that's not going to make any discernable difference

To close, I would be much less worried about weight in a new bronco than things that are not going to be environmentally friendly to very
harsh conditions. IE, believe Wrangler can be had without power seats, which are not going to be happy with even mild swamping.
In a good bit of the country, mudding and deep water is all the offroad many places have, so swamping (at least up to or a bit over floorboards)
is still going to happen.

Honestly, I would be surprised if the Bronco isn't offered without power seats... hell, my 2018 Mustang doesn't have power seats in it

And one more thing.
New SUV Buyers by Age Group
Age 24 and younger less than 1%
Age 25 to 54 43%
Age 55 to 64 26%
Age 65 and up 31%
https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2019/01/new-car-buyer-demographics-2019/

That is because THEY (45-50+) have the money, so ignore their opinion at your own peril, Ford...........
(I can't believe 31% of new SUV's are being bought by people even I consider old, LOL!!)

As already stated by another member, this is confirmation bias at its best. Of note, the average age for a person to have their first kid in America is 27. People without kids have no need for SUVs and typically go for smaller crossovers or cars. So this is more like:
People without kids 1%
People with kids and an established career 43%
people with no expenses and grandkids 26%
people with social security checks and nothing to spend them on 31%

The percentages would likely be a lot closer if the age groups were "under 30, 30-45, 45-65, 65+", and even at that, the age spread will still be favorable to older folk

Yes, that literally is what we're talking about. There is no "hand crank sunroof" for this option to weigh less than. The alternative is that it doesn't exist at all, and the sheetmetal and headliner weighs less..

As I said previously, if you consider a sunroof to be "tech", then there's a deeper conflict at hand. Get rid of the sunroof, and the ACTUAL tech would make very little weight difference

You act like this is a conversation about "technophobes" but that is a purposely obtuse fallacy. Just as it was from the beginning. No one here is illogically afraid of technology -- there's a good chance some of us have been working and living with 'technology' longer than the peanut gallery has been alive..

I mean, the first word in the thread is "technophobes", so there's a fairly good chance this is a conversation about technophobes. And there certainly ARE people who are illogically afraid of technology... the Bronco startup screen thread perfectly displays that

I for one just don't want a bunch of extra **** that will add cost and increase the list of possible causes of the vehicle being disabled in remote locations. Even if they are not accident prone, they're not invulnerable either --- more parts = more points of failure..

As already stated, the "added cost" argument is moot. At this point, it would cost FAR more to develop the systems for manual locks and crank windows than it would to just use the power motors and modules from another car in the lineup... cost which would ultimately be passed onto the consumer. And the "more parts + more points of failure" is yet another poor excuse. What you MEAN to say is that the amount of features has surpassed YOUR preference, and therefore you (illogically) do not like it. If you REALLY believed this, you wouldn't want anything with a removable roof, more than 1 gear, more than 1 cylinder, more than 1 camshaft, more than 1 opening door, and so on. More POINTS of failure doesn't mean more LIKELYHOOD of failure

Technophiles have been far more likely to ruin things by driving the cost of what could have been a simple device way up. The ability of extra stuff to actually provide more capability or satisfaction is usually overblown. That's why the next new shiny thing is always needed. "If the new model has more, it must be better -- I'll be happier if I get that one" --- is rarely true.

I'm not by any means a technophile. I don't know the first thing about computers, programming, wiring is a real thinker for me, and so on. But extra stuff certainly CAN provide more capability and satisfaction. Hell, the digital dash in my Mustang is one of my favorite features of the car because it's so satisfying, yet it also has a shift light that I can set to any RPM, it'll track my lap times, it'll read out all sorts of mechanical parameters of the car, and so on. Adding all that to a completely analog car would not only be costly, but would add significantly more weight than a simple digital gauge cluster does. And I can tell you, that Mustang is far more capable, far more satisfying, and far less prone to failure than any of my other cars with manual door locks, crank windows, analog clusters, cable throttles, distributors, and so on

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[BroncoBoy22]

Just because a person is older doesn’t make them against technology. As a matter of fact most of the vehicles elderly people buy are filled with creature comforts.

the bronco will be no different

 

[BroncoMike]

I for one just don't want a bunch of extra **** that will add cost and increase the list of possible causes of the vehicle being disabled in remote locations. Even if they are not accident prone, they're not invulnerable either --- more parts = more points of failure.

I agree that simple is better. And complications - as in, an electronic display that runs a solenoid that turns an actuator that mechanically moves the hub lock into position - introduces multiple potential fail points in exchange for a modicum of convenience. If those fail points can be bypassed and the system operated in a manual mode should it fail, I'm good with it... but not so much if I can't.

That said, the other example I can think of is transfer case shifting. I've never had an electronic shifter fail, but I've had issues with mechanical shifters. For me, the mechanical shifter is no more field-servicable than the electronic system - I don't carry a servo as a trail spare, but I'd be equally unprepared to delve into the shifting mechanism of a manual case also. Perhaps I'm just not familiar enough with trail failures of tech that would not have been a failure if it were a manual system.

You act like this is a conversation about "technophobes" but that is a purposely obtuse fallacy. Just as it was from the beginning. No one here is illogically afraid of technology -- there's a good chance some of us have been working and living with 'technology' longer than the peanut gallery has been alive.

Technophobia is the fear or dislike of advanced technology or complex devices, especially computers. Although there are numerous interpretations of technophobia, they become more complex as technology continues to evolve. The term is generally used in the sense of an irrational fear, but others contend fears are justified. <Wikipedia>

My girlfriend makes fun of me not liking her Explorer's infotainment screens. Like all aversions, they come in degrees. I'm not "afraid" of the screen, I just don't like the way it is laid out and I feel it is inconvenient. But there ARE people who ARE afraid of the technology - as I laid out in my first post. I would argue that people who refuse to include technology in their lives due to fears of government control or hacking are in fact technophobes - what this moniker pivots on is rational vs. irrational fear. Who knows, maybe someday the Russians will trigger the airbags on my 2022 Bronco, and at that point, the people who I call technophobes will be vindicated. But from my perspective, that scenario and others like it seem irrational. We're balancing privacy, convenience, and security - nobody has the perfect balance, probably never will. But I find it much more likely to be betrayed by my phone than my car, and I'm not giving up the former either.

I'm not out on the trail as much as many here are, so can someone give me an example of a trail failure attributable to modern vehicle electronics that could have been avoided with the substitution of mechanical systems? And I mean a mechanical system that could be marketed in a modern vehicle that has to pass safety and emissions requirements, something that a person would use as a daily driver and not a purpose-built trail rig. Drowning would seem to be the most likely scenario to cite, but I'm sure there are others. What I'm after is, absent the realm of what I consider to be irrational, what are the real-world downsides of actual - not theoretical - modern 4x4s using modern tech?

 

[Carolina Jim]

filled with creature comforts.

Its always hard to tell whether what you are seeing is an outlier or the beginning of a trend. But 'downtown' transit seems to be moving away from creature comforts in a big way. Now...I fully understand these are not 'cars'...but they DO get you from A to B...and they are becoming ubiquitous in urban US settings. Walk out of a building & pick up an e-scooter; abandon it anywhere you like. They are dockless and electric, meaning they rev up to about 15 mph and can be left virtually anywhere for the next rider. All it takes is a smartphone app to start a relatively inexpensive ride, which costs a $1 flat fee and 15 cents for each additional minute. You see old and young riders in equal numbers.

Recently back from spending time in Germany, where rail rules the day. At the rail center parking lots, you typically see 10X more bikes parked & locked than autos. And its quite common to see 70-year-olds carrying their bikes up 2 flights of stairs to the boarding levels.

In my mind, the US auto manufacturers will inevitably move toward spartan to Some degree. Teched-up vehicles might become as out of vogue as the old 'boats' of the 1960s.

 

[BroncoMike]

Its always hard to tell whether what you are seeing is an outlier or the beginning of a trend. But 'downtown' transit seems to be moving away from creature comforts in a big way. Now...I fully understand these are not 'cars'...but they DO get you from A to B...and they are becoming ubiquitous in urban US settings. Walk out of a building & pick up an e-scooter; abandon it anywhere you like. They are dockless and electric, meaning they rev up to about 15 mph and can be left virtually anywhere for the next rider. All it takes is a smartphone app to start a relatively inexpensive ride, which costs a $1 flat fee and 15 cents for each additional minute. You see old and young riders in equal numbers.


Recently back from spending time in Germany, where rail rules the day. At the rail center parking lots, you typically see 10X more bikes parked & locked than autos. And its quite common to see 70-year-olds carrying their bikes up 2 flights of stairs to the boarding levels.

In my mind, the US auto manufacturers will inevitably move toward spartan to Some degree. Teched-up vehicles might become as out of vogue as the old 'boats' of the 1960s.

These are short-ride, last mile transportation devices. They are for people who don't need a car, but don't want to walk. Like everything, there's a tradeoff - comfort/cost/convenience. It's effectively disposable, but it won't work for longer distance or inclement weather. I think automotive transportation will always have comfort, but entertainment and communication is becoming a single-device world - I never understood the desire to sync a phone with my car other than to play the music on my phone. And for that, I'd prefer just a wireless connection to an amp and speakers with a volume and fader/balance knob. That's my idea for more spartan.

So the thing I marvel at is the $3000+ audio systems rolling down the road in new cars, while 3 of the 4 occupants are listening to their phone music through earbuds. A high dollar stereo in a modern vehicle is, to me, one of the biggest wastes of money in the industry. I could do without it entirely, and the NAV systems as well - I already have a moving map/GPS on my phone that is at least the equal of most automotive systems available today - and it moves with me from vehicle to vehicle. Leave me a spot to mount my phone or iPad and I'll be ecstatic.

 

[Carolina Jim]

I wasn't suggesting e-scooters will replace autos...or that they'd be fun for rock climbing. But no other transportation experience (except first-class air) affords the features & luxury associated with personally-owned autos. I think as people experience & become accustomed to alternative transportation experiences, attitudes will change about vehicle accoutrements. Add that to the personal device redundancy you mentioned, and the change could be significant.

 

[Jake_zx2]

A high dollar stereo in a modern vehicle is, to me, one of the biggest wastes of money in the industry. I could do without it entirely, and the NAV systems as well - I already have a moving map/GPS on my phone that is at least the equal of most automotive systems available today - and it moves with me from vehicle to vehicle. Leave me a spot to mount my phone or iPad and I'll be ecstatic.

I liked my Shaker system in my 2005 Mustang so much that I opted for it in my 2018 as well. I can't say that I'm necessarily an audiophile, as I know very little about sound systems. I'm just simply a music enthusiast and appreciate a more vibrant sound when listening to music.

As far as nav goes, I'd much rather have integrated nav. Don't have to worry about battery life, don't have to worry about closing out your map and essentially being blind just to change songs, the audio directions play though the car speakers, the visual directions can be integrated in the gauge cluster as well as to not divert the eyes too far from the road, and typically, the in-car nav systems are simply more accurate

or that they'd be fun for rock climbing..

Now THAT would be a sight to see LMAO

But no other transportation experience (except first-class air) affords the features & luxury associated with personally-owned autos. I think as people experience & become accustomed to alternative transportation experiences, attitudes will change about vehicle accoutrements. Add that to the personal device redundancy you mentioned, and the change could be significant.

I feel that if we do truly move away from personal transport and towards public transport, you'll start to see public transport add in more creature comforts. Hell, when I was younger, every public bus I was on had hard plastic seats and nothing else. Now it's rare to find a bus without some sort of padding in the seat

 

[TeocaliMG]

Wow, this thread got LOOOOONG, the added electrons in my RAM have made my laptop too heavy to carry at the moment

maybe in 10 years we will just have a neural uplink where we can upload our own personalized off-road experience. Everyone wins!

 

[Jalisurr]

So the thing I marvel at is the $3000+ audio systems rolling down the road in new cars, while 3 of the 4 occupants are listening to their phone music through earbuds. A high dollar stereo in a modern vehicle is, to me, one of the biggest wastes of money in the industry. I could do without it entirely

Perhaps, but I think high-end stereo is still one of the things that is generally an option added onto a base model. For me I will absolutely spring for it. I do 5 hour each way trips every other month and longer ones frequently, there's no way I'd want to be without a good sound system for those.

However, I have absolutely no need for a cd functionality, so they can go ahead and remove the entire mechanism to save weight and complexity. On older vehicles I've retrofitted (like my 09 vette and 97 mitsubishi) I've used mechless systems that are much smaller than the old system with the CD player in it while having a larger and nicer screen.

I could do without it entirely, and the NAV systems as well - I already have a moving map/GPS on my phone that is at least the equal of most automotive systems available today - and it moves with me from vehicle to vehicle. Leave me a spot to mount my phone or iPad and I'll be ecstatic.

This is one of the reasons I love apple carplay (or android auto if you prefer) and it would be nearly a dealbreaker for a new vehicle to not have it. My phone will always be a better GPS than a built in one, but I like having the ability to make my phone's gps display on the nicely integrated, larger screen of the car, and as an added bonus I don't need to take my phone out of my pocket and mount it somewhere.

Like the CD changer, I'd be perfectly happy if they removed the GPS antenna from the car, but I want the integrated functionality to use my phone in a nicer way.

 

[Jalisurr]

Do Ford units not have wireless carplay yet? The kenwood aftermarket head units I've used have that already. That's definitely something I'd like to see Ford pick up then, yeah.

 

[BroncoMike]

I think some are missing the point - I'm not saying that I don't need a stereo, and I'm not saying that I don't want nav through the speakers or the music to "duck" when a call comes in. I'm saying the storage, receiver, and 96 different ways of manipulating the sound isn't necessary (for me) on the dash or on a display - I have all that on my phone, and the display is adequate (if not luxurious) for the task. Quality digital audio is reliant on the sample rate of the media and the amplification/speakers; keep the decent speakers and amp, delete the rest.

Ditto for the nav - it still plays through the car speakers, the phone and nav still interrupts the stereo and comes through the car speakers if you want it to, all that. As for working on a display, I generally don't do it: I tell the nav to take me somewhere, I look at the screen to ensure I'm routed the way I want to go, and start driving.

Long ago, a friend of mine posted his daily activities via Apple/Siri when it first came out. He gave this long description of checking his appointments and moving some around, getting directions/nav to his appointments (salesman), getting the phone number for and calling a restaurant to make dinner reservations, some other stuff... none of it earthshattering, pretty simple Internet-Fu. Then he revealed that he did it all after he pulled out of his driveway on his motorcycle in the morning, with his phone in his back pack, via his Sena headset - no display, no hands on the screen.

That prompted me to buy a Parrot Bluetooth interface and set it up directly to the aftermarket amp in my pickup. It worked great: I could play and control music, phone, nav, everything I wanted to do. There were two issues; I would have liked a volume control on the dash (they're out there now), and a loud "thump" through the speakers that happened every time the BT connected. It was a cobbled-together system not designed to be used in that way, so I expected some issues, but that one was insurmountable for me. A factory system would resolve that issue. There's a lot of redundancy between the $3000 audio on your dash and the $1000 worth of phone in your pocket, why not eliminate redundancies of non-critical systems?

Maybe that's too weird for some people. Maybe carmakers make too much money off the radio, CD, and storage. Maybe I'm an outlier in the auto consumer world, not worth marketing to - I can understand that. So then we return to the "options" discussion, and high trim levels generally mandate near top-tier infotainment.

 

[BroncoMike]

I have made many trail repairs over the years, but I have never had to fix a manual shifter, could you please elaborate on your situation? Regardless, you can get under your rig and literally shift a manual transfercase with your hand if your shift linkage suffered some sort of failure.

On the electric shift side, I have dealt with several failures on the trail. Usually it is the electric shift motor/mechanism that takes a shit. In most cases you can pull the motor and shift the transfercase with a screw driver, but then you have to put the motor back on to reseal the tranfercase from dirt and debris. You get to repeat this process everytime you need to shift.

I'm not certain that I see those two as functionally different. They're both a get-under-the-truck-and-manipulate-some-stuff scenarios. The manual transfer case issue I had (it's still there) is almost like an alternate shift pattern, the shifter doesn't move in the normal direction when you attempt to shift it, and doesn't engage anything. It also frequently pops out of 4-low, unless you hold the shifter forward. I'm sure it's a case of worn bushings, easily repairable at home, but on a trailside in 100* plus heat, I'm probably not going to be doing it unless there isn't another option.

As for more examples of tech failure on the trail, vacuum hubs and center axle disconnect have been much more problematic in my experience than manual hubs and especially drive flanges.

I have no experience with center axle disconnects, but the 4x4s I've had with vacuum hubs have had a manual override. As I've made clear previously, such a critical system should have a manual backup or it isn't an "improvement". Either way, vacuum hub issues are easy to diagnose and repair (though not usually trailside) and failures are usually the result of deferred maintenance (as is likely the case with my transfer case shifter). Most of the hardcore wheelers I know replace their hubs with upgraded manuals units.

Hell, just this past weekend, a JK I was on the trail with was having ABS issues and almost couldn't stop in the sandy washes because the system was freaking out and cutting the brakes.

I agree that ABS has very limited application on the trail. Long ago, I learned to unplug a sensor wire to restore manual control when I anticipated doing something potentially tricky. Dual-sport and adventure motorcycle manufacturers have learned to offer ABS options - varying degrees of intervention, front wheel only modes, or entirely off. But here is a good place to introduce this theory: the problem is not with the technology, but with the federal requirement that mandates it to be in place, even where it doesn't belong. Just like the backup camera screen in the middle of the dash that will be omnipresent for the forseeable future in new vehicles, ABS isn't optional.

The big thing people are missing here is that "technology" doesn't exclusively apply to electronics. Mechanical systems are also technology. Most higher technologies come with added cost and complexity, but they can also result in improved simplicity. Also as was previously pointed out, more complexity/higher tech doesn't necessarily equate to increased failure rates as many think.

All that said, I prefer simplicity, but will accept increased cost and complexity if there is a perceived benefit that outweighs it.

My big gripe about "technology" is we are seeing more and more integration between systems that makes them much more interdependent and harder to separate or change. For instance, if you change the tire size or gear ratio on a '12+ Wrangler, it will go into limp mode until you reflash the computer system, which someone had to crack at one point. Also, I hate screens, especially touchscreens. I find them extremely distracting while I am trying to drive. I want controls with haptic feedback that don't require me to turn my attention from the road to operate. I want to just glance down and see pertinent information instead of having to navigate through menu structures.

Yes, yes, and yes.

I'm looking forward to trying out the technology on a modern 4x4 - maybe I'll get stranded because an electron should have gone left at Albuquerque, but it won't be the first time I've had to walk...

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