Piston Slap: Submit Your Questions, Keep The Lights On

My supply of reader-submitted Piston Slap queries is running low! So in the coming weeks, please help re-fill the coffers. Just about anything goes! (Purchase queries go to Ask Bark.)

Email sajeev@thetruthaboutcars.com lest I spend the rest of my days updating everyone on my passion project, a Fox-body 1983 Continental Valentino restomod.

While you brainstorm your questions, let’s discuss headlight upgrades — because there’s a right and wrong way!

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Piston Slap: Foiled by a Dome Light?

Peter writes:

I drive a 2010 Toyota Prius. From top to bottom, I’m thoroughly impressed by the technology in this car. And yet this engineering marvel is so easily disabled by its inferior owner leaving a dome light on overnight and draining the 12V battery.

Is there any technical reason cars allow the 12V battery to be drained down beyond the point where the car will start? Who needs that extra 6 hours of dome lighting?

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Your Car's Headlights Are Probably Terrible: IIHS

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has started rating headlights, and just released a report that takes a dim view on the performance of most midsize cars.

Only one vehicle out of 31 testers earned a rating of “good” from the road safety nonprofit, with the bulk of midsize vehicles earning a rating of “marginal” or “poor.”

The results are even less dazzling when you take into account optional lighting packages, which pushed the number tested to 82. Even then, it was only the LED-equipped advanced technology package on the Toyota Prius V that earned the IIHS’s acclaim.

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Ford Patent Filing Shows Exterior Lighting Trim, Future is Here

Future Fords may have decorative exterior molding or body panels with built-in lights, Carscoops.com (via FocusRSClub) has uncovered in patent filings.

The filings detail luminescent panels and moldings that would light up to accent portions of some of Ford’s vehicles.

Or you know, the stuff aftermarket shops have been offering for years now.

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Piston Slap: Traversing the World of LED Retrofit Bulbs!

TTAC Commentator MWebbRambler writes:

Sajeev,

Your recent Piston Slap on HID lights reminded me of a problem I had with replacing tail lights on my wife’s 2009 Traverse. One of the OEM bulbs burned out, so I decided to replace both brake/tail lights with LEDs.

The LED lights worked great and were brighter than the OEM bulbs, but there was just one problem–the turn signals would blink rapidly, just like they did with the burned out bulb. After I went back and RTFM I learned the rapid blinking or “hyper-flashing” occurs when a bulb is burned out OR the system is drawing little to no current. Since the LEDs use a lot less power, the system thinks the bulb is burned out.

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Is That An Illuminated Mercedes Logo, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
For an extra $550, Mercedes-Benz owners will now be able to enjoy the latest in LED lighting technology, now that a customed LED-illuminated Mercedes logo is…
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Review: 2013 Audi S6

Audi first tossed us the keys to its S6 with the SuperBowl mega-ad “ Prom”. Premise: dateless kid gets handed Dad’s super-sedan for the evening, kisses the prom queen, gets punched by the prom king, snorts around town with a big grin on his face.

The message was clear: buy this car, put a little excitement in your life. What a load of cobblers.

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Avoidable Contact: LED, Follow, Or Get Out Of The Way.

According to the nice entertainers at Top Gear the “Sub-Zero Fridge Coolest Car” at the moment is an Aston DB9. That makes perfect sense because the display on my Sub-Zero at home keeps going out and I anticipate the same fate is likely to strike every display screen on the DB9 much more quickly than the nine years it took my Sub-Z to start showing the freezer temperature as “88” all the time. When the speedometer on the DB9 gets to 88, you’re going to see some serious shit, man. Like a $3000 repair bill.

I’m willing to accept TG‘s verdict on car coolness because I have no idea what makes a car truly “cool”. I do, however, have some opinions about what the most uncool car on the market might be. I’m thinking the Toyota Venza is certainly among the podium finishers there and possibly worthy of the top (bottom?) spot. Why is it uncool? Well, it’s a Toyota, and Toyotas are the vehicles of choice for uncool people around the world. Along with the Avalon, it’s one of the Toyotas most obviously aimed at old people, and old people are rarely cool unless they are murderers turned blues musicians. It’s a jacked-up fake-SUV station wagon that replaced the very cool Camry real station wagon. It’s the most forgettable-looking vehicle on the road, which makes it less cool than the rolling freakshow competitor known as the Honda Crosstour. It has a standard four-cylinder engine and front-wheel-drive. I can’t think of any way in which the Venza could suck it harder than it does right now. It’s the most cynical, depressing, worthless entry on the market.

Uncool, brother. But the DB9 and the Venza, eternal opposites on the cool scale, have one fairly uncool thing in common, don’t they?

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Piston Slap: LED, Not For Me?

TTAC Commentator John R writes:

What’s your opinion of aftermarket LED bulbs for signal/brake/reverse replacement?

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  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?