Piston Slap: Car Design Grab Bag!

TTAC Commentator Towncar writes:

I have some piddling little aggravations and head-scratchers, and it appears those serve to entertain the B&B as well as anything.

1. Black Pillars: When and why did the black B-pillar take over the world? Presumably it’s to make you think it’s not there and the car’s a hardtop, but there’s never been a single case where that worked — not one. Even on a black car, the finish is sufficiently different that you can tell the pillar is present.
2. Colors: Why are there no good interior colors anymore — red, blue, green? The only current one I know of, fairly recent, is the Rhapsody in Blue interior on the new Continental, and you have to buy the ultra-highline Black Label edition to get it. Which brings up the question: why do so few interiors really match anymore? It used to be that two-tone interiors looked designed that way, but now they just seem to have been put together from parts for different cars.
3. Gas Fillers: Have any of the fool engineers who put gas fillers on the passenger’s side ever tested this concept out by going through a gas line backwards? (By the way, this pertains to the G6 convertible you advised me to buy about four years ago, and belated thanks, it’s generally great.)
4. Wipers: Why has the old-fashioned opposed (clap hands) style come back of late years? I saw some kind of little Ford with this lately, and I think a Honda or two. And pertaining to the newer parallel style, what determines which side the wipers “point” to? It’s almost always the passenger’s, but I can think of two cars having them point the other way — the suicide-door Continentals of the ’60s and the Avanti. Why?
5. TPMS: OK, this is actually semi-serious. How good are these things? The G6’s dash display gives pressures, but seldom agrees with my trusty tire gauge at the best of times, and changes in temperature and even bumps in the road sometimes trigger the warning light. Can the sensors be adjusted and/or calibrated for accuracy? And are the retrofit kits you can buy for older cars any good?

Sajeev answers:

Your queries are well explained, so let’s get my answers out of the way so the Best and Brightest can also chime in, in a timely manner.

1. Blacked out pillars give almost any car (save for pre-’98 Town Cars) a sleeker, less architectural look. Snazzier cars benefit from chrome B-pillars to integrate the greenhouse’s chrome perimeter. It’s a good thing to integrate the DLO (daylight opening) with integrated pillars, especially when the space between the glass is thin. (i.e. not the initially crappy long-wheel base Town Car)
2. At some point, the market for old-school levels of color saturation — where everything from the headliner to the carpets were Ivy Green, Porno Red or Turd Brown — will come back. But we need to see such saturation elsewhere before the car business takes note. If bright colors show up in fashion, product design, etc., it will eventually come to more vehicles than the mega-blue Continental.
3. Many of my cars have filler necks on the passenger side, and I fail to see the problem. Maybe a government-mandated location would help, but is that necessary? For me, Houston is nicely spread out, so it’s usually very easy to find an open pump on the “other side” of the station, sans backing up to one.
4. The “Clapping” wipers are probably back because windshields are super long in today’s age of cab-forward design and super rakish rooflines, and probably because I reckon they clean more surface area directly in front of the driver’s line of sight, compared to the other style on vehicles you mentioned. To wit, the “parallel” style wipers must point to the passenger side to ensure there isn’t a huge semi-circular space of glass right in front of the driver’s face that remains unwiped.
5. I had a TPMS sensor warn me of a slow leak on the highway, ensuring I was not surprised when parked/left/returned to a flat tire. I think these things are great, if annoying for the reasons mentioned.

Your thoughts, Best and Brightest?

[Image: Shutterstock user MJgraphics]

Send your queries to sajeev@thetruthaboutcars.com. Spare no details and ask for a speedy resolution if you’re in a hurry…but be realistic, and use your make/model specific forums instead of TTAC for more timely advice.