Rant: Current car commercials
 

Lately I have noticed a new trend in car commercials, many luxury brands, but even some non luxury brands. The idea that they are developing new software & hardware to prevent accidents. Now I am not against the idea of technology progress or the idea of preventing accidents, but why are companies spending so much money on new technology without upgrading current tech?

Brakes:
-A good upgrade for any car and through racing and other sciences have developed some major forward steps. Pads, current pad technology is great in that we can have great bite with low dust and no noise. Calipers, bigger calipers and proper design helps in cooling and making sure your brakes perform the same time and again.

Tires:
-A optimal upgrade which OEM manufactures could easily pick up. It might sacrifice a bit in noise or tire life, but with how much sound control and noise reduction built into cars an average driver would not even notice.

Heavier is better:
-Not sure how this became such a prominent thought in the industry, but you have cars which are very light weight (sub 3500) which stop better, just as good crash ratings and have solid real world results.

The reason for some of these points is that, you reduce stopping distance, you eliminate many accidents. Both on the highway, red lights or stop signs, etc.

One of the main commercials which has set me to write this post is a Mercedes commercial. They have 4 or 5 people talking about how they were falling asleep, drifting lanes, person in front of them stopped short. Why is Mercedes having to fix a human error or not provide better stopping abilities in their cars. Instead they want to develop nanny controls which stop for you or pull you back into your lane to correct your drift.

I agree and i've noticed this trend too. put more emphasis on driver aids that help a driver's inability to control their car, and less emphasis on helping the driver control their car.

you mentioned tires. it's a commonly held belief that summer tires/high performance tires/low profile tires are more expensive to produce. that is false. they only reason it costs you more to buy a 285/30 series tire than a 215/55 tire is because of the economies of scale that producers can achieve because of the volumes in the high profile, passenger tires. more people buy them, they produce more, the cost is less per tire. Same goes for tread compound. if your average run of the mill car demanded a better tread compound, tuned for grip and less so for tire life/road noise etc, then a better handling tire would become less expensive.

heavier is better really pisses me off. like, i'm really glad ms soccer mom feels safer with her 5000 lb suv because its heavier. the fact of the matter is, heavier is safer, only if everyone plays by that logic. a 5000lb suv is going to annihilate a corrolla, not because a corolla isn't as safe, but because of simple physics. and the fact of the matter is, theres always a bigger fish. you feel safe in your big SUV? lets see how it fairs against a semi-tractor trailer or a dump truck....

instead of engineering cars to give their drivers a better ability to avoid accidents, there is this notion that if a hazardous situation is to present itself, you're probably gonna crash, so just brace for impact. its like their whole message is "hey... accidents happen, and we know that you probably aren't paying attention to driving, so if we can, our car will help avoid accidents by keeping your car in its lane, and when it can't, you'll crash, but you'll be ok because your car is heavy.:ugh2: oh, what was that? you want to be able to avoid an accident by braking? oh, no your car can't stop quickly enough because its too damn heavy. Have fun now!"

Bump.

I hate the whole heavier thing. They make cars small and light when gas went up a while ago and now that they get better mpg (20+) they just start making them huge again. One of the major downfalls of the Z34 is it's weight.

Z31 - 2900-3000lbs
Z32 (2 seater) - 3200lbs
Z33 - 3200-3600lbs
Z34 - 3250lbs

The 240Z was only 2355lbs lol.

My 240SX at ~2700lbs felt very quick with it's mere 155fwhp

Yes, but at least the Z34 is lighter than the Z33. It's part of what made me look at the car. "Nissan made the Z lighter and more powerful? I would like to know more."

But agreed, I hate how bulky autos have become. They're flat out huge. I also hate the "crossover" trend. Conceptually, there is not much difference between old station wagons, minivans, SUV's, and crossovers. They all haul groceries and get kids to soccer practice.

Saw this add last night and totally agree. Are people really that bad at driving now, that it's become acceptable to admit "well yeah I was half asleep/not concentrating while I was driving, but thank goodness I was in a Mercedes, so now I can carry on not concentrating/sleeping or whatever I was doing, cos my car will just save me every time"

Exactly, I am all for the lane changer warning light or proximity sensors, but when my car is starting to drive for me because I fail to perform the duties required of me I need to get off the road.

"I had just polished off a bottle of jimmy bean on my way home from the bar. I was totally wasted, but thankfully, my Mercedes Benz wasn't."

"I had just snorted 5 xanyx before leaving my friends house. On the way home, i looked down to load some meth into my pipe, and i didn't realize that the truck in front of me had stopped. I was about to take a hit of meth, but thankfully my mercedes benz wasn't"

:icon18:
We need to make this commercial right now!

What equally offends me are the commercials that encourage the buyer to not think about what amounts to a very serious purchase. The Lexus commercials with the Xmas bow, the Volvo slogan "Volvo, because there is more to life than a Volvo", the Toyota "peace of mind" commercial. They want the target demographic to show up, pay MSRP plus extras, and then leave in a subpar automobile, just because they "shouldn't have to think about a car purchase". Their target demo are the group who see a vehicle as a means of conveyance and nothing more, or what I refer to as "d1ckweeds."

every time i see that commercial i laugh. its like they are proud to say the people that drive their cars are totally aloof and can't drive. why would that attract someone to buying a mercedes. it would be like if Ford had commercials where idiot kids drag race their mustangs and get pulled over by the police, but they get away because their mustangs are so fast.

I had another good one for Hyundai:

So there is a lot full of Mercedes, Acura's, BMW's, Infiniti etc, all of the cars that Hyundai rips off the designs from. And all of the cars are missing bumpers, hoods, grills, tail lights etc. Then the camera pans over to a bunch of fully assembled hyundai's.

Ugh, I couldn't agree more. I drove my inlaw's last-gen Land Cruiser for about 700 miles over the weekend and that thing is intolerable. Arguably a very well built SUV - it has a moderate curb weight, decent enough engine, wide *** tires, etc. It should handle and drive decently.

No.

1.) The steering - 8 turns lock-to-lock is not acceptable on any vehicle except a f*cking tugboat, Toyota! That terrible steering ratio made me miss the Z terribly.
2.) The weight and center of gravity - ugh... you think almost 300 bhp is a lot until you stick it in a 5000 lb SUV at 10,000 ft above sea level. Not to mention how the thing rolls into corners. I let my wife drive for part of the mountain passes and I almost threw up because of how this thing just barreled through each curve.
3.) The sheer lack of power - seriously, I've never driven such a slow vehicle. Not even our old 2005 Civic DX-VP. End of story.
edit: 4.) And the brakes. OMG it felt like trying to stop a train with a handbrake. Terrible, terrible brakes. Literally no braking feedback, and no initial bite because the power assist SUCKS.

Driving that relatively nice and well-powered SUV for a couple days truly made me realize how much of IDIOTS people who speed around in their Suburbans are. You literally have NO control in panic-type situations past a certain speed threshold (basically 50 mph in this beast), no matter how good of a driver you are.

I told you a while ago, Jeff, but you should be in marketing.

:bowrofl::bowrofl::roflpuke2::roflpuke2:

The worst drivers I see are the texters.. I'd rather have some tweaked out meth addict or some coke snorting douche in traffic than a stupid teenybopper texting messages.

:rofl2:

And I discovered Hyundai's are totally still pieces of sh*t over my vacation as well. The lady we were staying with had a nicer '07 Hyundai Santa Fe and it was barely out of warranty and multiple sensor were failing. It had a complete transmission failure during its warranty as well. This is all on a dealer-maintained well-cared-for vehicle. On top of that, the interior was the worse combination of fake wood grain plus painted silver pieces that I've ever seen :icon14:

GG Hyundai! :ugh2:

*Cue somebody coming in to argue devil's advocate for Hyundai...* :wtf2:

I'd rather have any of the above than ANY teenager driving on the same roads as I. I haven't been exposed to how poorly this age group drives until recently, but it's just horrendous. I have no idea why they let some people drive to begin with. It ought to be an even more exclusive "privilege."

Well, the Mercedes commercial is for a car that has: great brakes, excellent tires, etc. One of the things you mentioned is people falling asleep...the nanny senses your head drooping and sounds a warning chime, not something you're likely to see on a cheap car. I haven't seen a commercial yet for a cheap car that touts things like performance tires and brakes..it's all about skinny tires with less rolling resistance for fuel economy.

haha, unfortunately i hated marketing in college. i don't know if its the way the teachers taught or what, but it just always seemed like such ethereal bs. marketing concepts are like breathing
'speak directly to the consumer, show you understand, offer a solution to their problem.'

blah blah blahh value blah blah blah blah G37 blah blah blah warranty blah blah hyundai assurance blah blah i'm gay blah blah i'm trying to make myself feel better about my stupid purchase blah blah blah.

We all had to start somewhere, though.

Texters are a huge problem, BUT, the real problem is that people don't pay attention to the road. It's been an issue since well before MMS. Road maps, lipstick, hamburgers, coffee, laptops, passengers... :ugh:

MD legislation is in order right now that states that holding a phone to your ear while driving is against the law. However, it's ok to use a wireless head set. What this has effectively done is drive the market up for bluetooth headsets while doing nothing to fix the problem. Whether you hold the phone to your ear, talk over bluetooth, or hold a conversation with the passengers sitting next to and behind you, it doesn't f*cking matter. The problem is that you should be focused on the road. So the State of MD officially endorses spending excess money on a bluetooth gismo that you don't f*cking need, while the accident rate stays the same.

What you don't mention is that much of the added weight is due to Government-mandated safety features. Without the mandated features, the Z34 would have come in much lighter than the Z33!

The best marketing minds don't go to school for marketing!

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

Great brakes? Excellent tires? I would like to believe that, but I had to go look for myself.

From a C300 SPORT Sedan:

Single piston floating calipers, small rotors, presumably crappy brake pads to reduce noise.

Nothing about an all-season tire coming from an OEM says "performance."

People who buy C class Benzes are delusional. They're utter pieces of crap, from a performance and handling perspective. And the above is on the SPORT Sedan. Even for the C350 - a $40k base price car - the rotors are just larger in diameter up front with the same crappy 1-piston floating calipers and sh*tty tire package. That's pathetic.

Ah, but C class is the entry class Benz, which means "I'm paying for the badge alone."

They actually aren't that bad. They are just expensive for a small sedan.

We have a CLK500 and it's pretty badass. :tup:

:iagree:

And the best marketing minds didn't become marketing professors either :icon17:

I agree. Not to generalize, but most of the marketing majors in my school were ditsy girls and gay guys. Management was the other major that kind of annoyed me. I think a good manager, first and foremost, has to know a lot about the field in which they are a manager. you can know all the 3 letter management jargon in the world, if you don't know anything about Steel, you won't be a good manager in a steel manufacturing company. Same thing with marketing. While there is definitely something to be said for ad agencies etc which come up with brilliant ideas of how to sell a product, i think a good product sells itself. Of course, a good product will sell more with good marketing, but if you paint turd gold, its still turd. and the people i met in those majors had this attitude of like 'oh it doesn't matter if i don't know anything about the specific field i plan to enter or anything about its products, i'm a hot shot, i can sell/manage anything.

finance<3:tup:

Marketing is such a slimy and dishonest profession by its nature.

Totally agree. And I'll add that people who buy C-class Benzes can't afford a decent Benz. They'll do anything to get that coveted 3-point star so they can pretend they are wealthy. And "Sport Sedan" is an oxymoron, unless it's an EVO lol

But it gets better. Go check the specs for E-class and CL-class Benzes. Same sh*t recycled on $60-120k models. The CL600 - a $155,000 car - literally has the same rear brake package as a C300, with some budget 4-piston fixed calipers up front. How pathetic is that? I can't imagine how terribly balanced that braking system is. :shakes head:

:tup:

Managers have to be somewhat technical, but also know how to manage people properly and leverage their available talent pool. I've had managers who do one well but fail spectacularly at the other. And most of the ones I've had that do both well either get burnt out by it or get stabbed in the back by one of their "colleagues".

SO true. i think its more true than in any other field. i can see a former CFO or Hedge fund manager who always had a passion for teaching, end up retiring young, and deciding to go become a professor in accounting or finance. What i don't understand, is why on earth i should be listening to a 27 year old professor teach me about marketing.

Ha, and the CL550 - a $110,000 "sports" car - has 255-width All-Season tires all around stock. That's kind of pathetic, TBH.

Finance <3 indeed. We make money off the morons who think they can actually do ****. :icon18:

Since when was a CL class a sports car?

The good Mercedes are autobahn or 1/4 mile whores. :D

How is a $110k coupe with a 400 bhp engine not a sports car?

lol and did you know the 600 bhp CL65 AMG has a curb weight of 4940 lb. WOW what a pig.

Like I said, the good Mercedes are autobahn and 1/4 mile whores. :tup: