Piston Slap: Car Design Grab Bag!

Sajeev Mehta
by Sajeev Mehta

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.

Sajeev Mehta
Sajeev Mehta

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  • Hooligans Hooligans on May 12, 2017

    Hi guys. I'm coming in late but just have to ask... So much of this commentary has centered on gas fillers. I live in rural Alaska and have never experienced "gas lines". Is this common? I've also lived in Austin, Texas and didn't experience this, but perhaps that's because I gassed up at corner stores as oppsed to waiting in line for cheaper gas. Just curious..

  • Namesakeone Namesakeone on May 13, 2017

    I think I can answer all of these, if someone hasn't already: 1.) It's cheaper to paint all the B-pillars in black (rather than in different colors); it also does fool people some of the time into thinking it's a cleaner look. 2.) It's cheaper to have only one interior color that kind of goes with everything--grey, beige, black--than to have several. 3.) Actually, from Consumer Reports, I remember reading that a collision is less likely on the right side (in America) than on the left. Maybe this isn't because it's cheaper. 4.) It's cheaper on models sold in both left- and right-drive markets (like the Ford Fiesta, Focus and Fusion/Mondeo) to have only one wiper setup rather than two for the same car. 5.) I have no idea. It's cheaper on the cars that I have owned not to have tire pressure monitors. See a pattern?

  • Dartdude The bottom line is that in the new America coming the elites don't want you and me to own cars. They are going to make building cars so expensive that the will only be for the very rich and connected. You will eat bugs and ride the bus and live in a 500sq-ft. apartment and like it. HUD wants to quit giving federal for any development for single family homes and don't be surprised that FHA aren't going to give loans for single family homes in the very near future.
  • Ravenuer The rear view of the Eldo coupe makes it look fat!
  • FreedMike This is before Cadillac styling went full scale nutty...and not particularly attractive, in my opinion.
  • JTiberius1701 Middle of April here in NE Ohio. And that can still be shaky. Also on my Fiesta ST, I use Michelin Pilot Sport A/S tires for the winter and Bridgestone Potenza for my summer tires. No issues at all.
  • TCowner We've had a 64.5 Mustang in the family for the past 40 years. It is all original, Rangoon Red coupe with 289 (one of the first instead of the 260), Rally Pac, 4-speed, factory air, every option. Always gets smiles and thumbs ups.
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