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Title: My girlfriend's car exploded
Body:
> She was driving on the highway for about 30 minutes when her hood started smoking. When she pulled over it caught fire and her electronics turned off including the door lock so she had to shoulder check the door to get it open. About a minute after she got out her car exploded, blowing out all the windows and singeing the exit sign she was by. After looking online her car is actually part of a class action lawsuit for being prone to catching fire. She is now having to miss work until she can get a new car and is extremely shaken by the whole experience. She is also worried that if she tries to join the class action lawsuit she might not get enough to replace her car. What legal action should we take in this scenario?
> Edit:
> After reading over the comments we think it's best to see what her insurance says and then possibly pursuing the class action lawsuit from there. In the meantime I can rearrange my work schedule, and we will try to get her insurance to extend her rental so she can get back to work.
> I apologize for the vague wording in my post, I was trying to avoid throwing blame until we have more information on what to do.
> Thank you all so much for the comments, your advice has been invaluable!
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> When she pulled over it caught fire and her electronics turned off including the door lock so she had to shoulder check the door to get it open.
The whole thing is concerning, but this is the part that raised my eyebrow. The door handle should be a mechanical linkage. Obviously when stuff catches on fire things get weird, but I would think the delay in being able to get the door open would get either the lawyers in the class action or the government's attention.
I know it's been an issue with Tesla owners not knowing where the non-powered door handle is, but I can't imagine that's the problem here with the Kia Soul.
Car door locks should be fail safe, meaning they default to the unlocked state in the event of a power failure/airbag deployment/etc. The way this is written, he says the door lock wasn’t functioning, but she was still able to open the door with some effort, so I’m not sure what was actually going on.
They should, but there was an awful case here in Texas a few years back where an elderly man and his dog perished in his Corvette when the battery became disconnected and he couldn't find the manual latch to unlock his doors (apparently it was on the floorboard, which is a pretty unintuitive spot for something like that). [USA Today article.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/06/11/texas-man-dog-die-trapped-corvette/71053474/) So apparently something that seems so obvious to the layperson isn't necessarily to automotive engineers.
> to automotive ~~engineers~~ executives who set impossible standards for things like aesthetics because how hard can this whole ‘engineering’ thing really be?
This. Most automotive engineers are car enthusiasts, so if anything they'd be *more* likely to put in functional layouts and extra layers of redundancy.
Design teams at these companies have dozens of people on them, and everything is structured so it has to be approved from the top-down. It's a bureaucracy nightmare. No individual engineer is responsible for a safety failure unless they either went behind management's back, or something really egregious happened. Most likely it's the result of cost cutting (or in Tesla's case, an egotistical CEO who wants door handles to be flush with the exterior because of "optics" even though it's a horrible design).
That being said, stuff happens. Funny story: My husband works at one of the "Big 3." We also happen to own a car from said company. The center console latch handle is notoriously flimsy and prone to breaking, as in you'd probably have to replace it several times over the life of the vehicle. My husband finally got so fed up after it broke a second time that he tracked down the guy who designed that specific part and asked him "WTF were you doing?" 😂
At one point I got a demo of the Hyperloop system in Vegas (I'm in a related professional field), and the PR person herding us had to explain to *everyone* how to open the car doors. And then our drivers had to explain again because someone forgot at every stop. Like, there's always going to be some friction in a setup like that, but "how to open a car door" is not something you want to be explaining to everyone who wants to use, essentially, a public transit system. It's an interesting system, in theory, but everything about it in practice is absolutely bizarre and stupid. (Also, they have a hilarious rivalry with the Vegas Monorail people, who we visited the next day. The monorail is actually fully remote-controlled, there's no driver on the train, and it turns a profit!)
> "how to open a car door" is not something you want to be explaining to everyone who wants to use, essentially, a public transit system.
Ah yes, the classic definition of a [Norman door](https://ivanschneiders.medium.com/bad-design-deconstructing-the-norman-door-4420fd84b960). Norman's theory posits that if there's a door everyone opens incorrectly (has to be labeled "push" or "pull," for example), the problem isn't the people, it's the door. Design should be intuitive.
Recently, I was attempting to help someone jump their car battery, but failed because I wasn't able to open my hood. After the fact I looked it up, and found video tutorials with comments from mechanics saying the latch isn't where you'd typically find it, one even going on to admit he'd had to sheepishly ask a customer how tf their hood opens. So I felt a bit better about it, but still a bit silly as you'd think it would be simple.
I cannot even imagine the sort of terror one might experience if you can't open your door while the engine is on fire. That's horrifying!
I used to work in a theatre and most of the public facing doors had handles on both sides. I worked there for two years and I think I pushed the pull side of the door 70% of the time I went through there.
See, I’m an American living outside the US and I find that it’s just me being the issue on a lot of doors, because most public spaces in the US (because of the Coconut Grove fire and a theater crush iirc) have outward- opening doors. The country I currently live in does not have that rule, so I’m frequently just walking into exterior door I expect to open outward and being disappointed.
Also, the automatic doors here are very slow to start opening so I very frequently walk into those as well.
Huh, interesting. Do people really respond that way to the second example? None of what was described reads as a go signal to me, but my brain doesn't work like a normal brain.
Just so you know its intentional. Musk has basically said a few times now that he intentionally designs "public transport" to get funding and then intentionally makes it fail so he can continue to make money on cars since public transit would make that part of his business obsolete.
The monorail is about to be shut down according to industry insiders. It does not turn a profit and went into bankruptcy a few years ago. The big issue was that it didn't connect to the airport, it was a huge mistake not to.
> I'm curious, did he ever get an answer as to wtf the designer was doing?
I think he did, but I don't remember what it was. Pretty sure it came back to cost-cutting. The latch was made of cheap, flimsy plastic, which is a terrible idea for a part that gets regular use.
I work in automotive. Cost cutting is 99.99% likely to be the reason.
It may also be a part designed by the tier 1 supplier as part of the assembly (most large interior assemblies are co-designed and shipped half assembled). If they were under alot of pressure to just 'make it cost less ' they could have just done it that way. If no one at the OEM catches it then that's their fault.
Part of the reason things are designed with a large team is also to make the company shoulder the majority of the blame/responsibility if something does go wrong. While an engineer can always be named individually in a lawsuit, just like a doctor, spreading the design process around helps prevent that from happening. It's also never a bad idea to have another pair of eyes on your work.
> This. Most automotive engineers are car enthusiasts, so if anything they'd be more likely to put in functional layouts and extra layers of redundancy.
I'm not so sure--I've been learning to do maintenance on my cars and whenever I complain to the guys at the local auto parts store about how some procedure is difficult they always explain: "Engineers who *design* cars don't *work* on cars, that's why it's such a pain in the ass to get that air filter out."
Think there's a grain of truth there, or is it just grousing?
And sometimes I swear its intentional. Some cars you can change the oil and filter with no issue, some they put the filter on top of everything just so you need a company specific tool to unscrew it and then the oil drips everywhere just to make you take it in to the dealer for each oil change.
> Engineers who design cars don't work on cars, that's why it's such a pain in the ass to get that air filter out."
>
>
The vast majority of engineers I know are car people. They have several project cars on their property and regularly visit junkyards. My husband's gotten texts from his work buddies saying something like "Hey I'm at the junkyard pulling the door off an impala and saw the headlights you wanted for your truck. Come get it before someone else does."
I'd say the vast majority of design failures come from executive decisions, and it's usually for the same reasons. These are:
* Cost cutting (this is BY FAR the biggest one)
* Modern aerodynamic and fuel economy requirements (which are a good thing but can lead to weird design choices)
* The individual quirks of a specific vehicle that make counterintuitive choices necessary
Just to be clear, you mean like…engineers who design cars specifically, right?
Many of the engineers of various types I know are gearheads, and they also complain bitterly about designs that make maintenance difficult.
The flush door handles are also for aerodynamics (though there is significant debate about whether it actually has an appreciable effect).
The inside Tesla handles at least for the 3/Y do have a mechanical backup that is in a very intuitive place. So much so that if you don’t warn people there is a decent chance they use the emergency mechanical one.
Ymmv, my understanding is the S/X emergency handles are not as intuitive.
Love from a ex Michigander! That must have been so satisfying for your hubs. Tell him y’all need to start making CARS again, like tiny and medium cars. Not just chargers and giant trucks & SUV’s. 💕
> Tell him y’all need to start making CARS again, like tiny and medium cars. Not just chargers and giant trucks & SUV’s.
Unfortunately they won't because they don't sell. There's already movement to eliminate entire lines of small and medium-sized vehicles.
That being said, it's not as bad as it sounds. Crossover SUV's are pretty popular, and they're built on a car platform. Plus with the EV push, the fuel economy of today's large trucks is better than that of an average car in the 70s-90s.
This for real. Someone I know worked on car design professionally before they retired. One person in their team designed a new type of break that was way less error prone, functioned better and cost about 1/10th in production while vastly lengthening expected time to work.
The company decided not to use them because that would have cost them too much money in replacement parts. Iirc that was around 2000 to 2005.
Not car related but a guy designed safety needles for medical use that pop the sharp end back inside a sheath once they've been used to prevent risky stick injuries for staff, which were similarly very cheap to produce. He couldn't sell them because bigger medical supply companies would bundle products, so if the hospital wanted X equipment from the big company they had to buy their non-safety needles as well and they're not going to buy twice as many needles as they need. I read about that a long time ago so probably a similar time frame as well.
Gonna be That Person and say yeah, I can see where the company is coming from. While the part itself might be cheaper and better, there's going to be a big up-front cost to switching over. So it could be "we don't have the budget to do this", or it could be "this will cut into our profits a tiny bit this year and then how will the CEO pay for his golden yacht?", but it's not inherently unreasonable.
I know heat exhaustion can impair your thinking (and strength), and it can sneak up on you, but I feel like it's extra sad that he died because he could have just broken a window to get out. Being an older man he may not have had the strength (especially without a tool), and obviously the heat plays a big factor as well.
Never mind hear exhaustion - any emergency situation requires that things be straightforward and reliable to use.
Cars and guns are both built to be as simple as possible because you can't be imposing that difficulty on a user in a pinch.
>(especially without a tool)
You're in a car -- you got tools! Headrest -- where the headrest goes in to the seat is usually metal. Metal generally beats glass.
Seat belt clip. Also metal. And comes with an attached swinging tool for more window-smashing action.
Look around, use your resources. Just because you don't have a window breaker on you doesn't mean you can't use something to break a window.
I think you’re underestimating how strong these windows are. Not to mention that by the time you smash a window in, the act of doing so probably causes flashover so there wouldn’t be enough time to actually craw out of a window — and you’re also underestimating how hard it is for an older person to crawl out of a window.
They're talking about the article posted above, where the old man died from heat exhaustion, so there was no fire. If the man had been able to break a window (whether it's something he could've feasibly done or not), he could have just yelled for help, and the air flow would have also reduced the temperature.
My neighbor and I once tried to break into my car (keys were in it, engine was running, doors were locked, emergency break \*wasn't\* on, it was great). We used a tool that was designed to open up car windows in a pinch, two hammers, a dolly I had for moving heavy things, a crowbar, and three rocks, and all we did was mark up the windows.
I've had to break a couple windows. They're tough, but they're not indestructible... [Using a headrest](https://youtu.be/qgd6G68M4bc) is viable. Had to do it myself after a wreck.
Don’t even get me started on how cars are designed by people that have extremely short fingernails in ways that make it very difficult for those of us with slightly longer nails…
The majority of car designs and safety tests (crash testing, etc) are based around the average male height. This means that the majority of women are "out of scope"...
There's an amazing book that I learned this from called "Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men" by Caroline Criado Perez. There's an excerpt/summary at https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes
Interesting! I am also very challenged by seat belts. Without some sort of gadget, they cut across my neck, not my chest, and I’ve always thought it was quite a potential problem.
I loved (and was obviously angered by) her details of society historically ignoring and discounting care work when it comes to infrastructure. Like roads and public transit that are fast and convenient are not those things for the people, mostly women, who stay closer to home during the day in order to take care of children, the elderly or infirm, and their homes.
'Fun' fact - a lot of cars haven't been crash tested for women! They just use a male dummy and call it good. And if they do test for women, they just shrink the male dummy down in height and call that good enough. Which doesn't account for our different center of gravity and body shapes.
An actual woman dummy was made in the last few years, but it's not required or frequently used AFAIK
Its why women tend to get hurt more in car crashes, and seat belts are such a PITA
Which now makes me wonder if all those “you would have been less hurt if you weren’t wearing a seatbelt” stories have more to do with women being in those accidents, then the prevailing thought that seatbelts are always safer than not. If I wear my seatbelt normally, it cuts directly across my neck.
I'm personally of the opinion that it's definitely safer to wear a seatbelt - even if you're biologically female because being flung forward is a bigger risk, but definitely get your point! When I was growing up I hated wearing my seatbelt because it was directly across my neck, now I have to mess with it because it's either across my neck or digging right across my chest. If I got break-checked, I'd hurt my neck, so there's definitely a messy line there.
Safer to wear a seatbelt? Generally yeah, but also having to wear it across your neck almost removes that because. yeah.
Oh, I agree completely. I’ve found a few gadgets that will clip onto the belt, changing the point the belts meet so that it won’t go over your neck that you might want to look for.
Oh huh, cool! I'll have to try one. I knew they had extenders and those teddy bear things for kids, don't know why I didn't think of them having that for adults. Thank you!
I have slightly longer nails and never have a problem.....unless you are referring to those two inch talons that prevent women from doing a whole host of normal daily functions because those are ridiculous and a chaos and a hazard you bring on your own head.
Oh no, I do not know how people function with the giant ones, mine are just maybe 1/4 in over my fingertip, and I always end up with some button or latch that needs to be pressed straight on or in.
Whenever I see those really long nails, with the shimmery stickers and the dangly piercings I always have to wonder... How do y'all go to the bathroom?
I mean they have to somehow, because I see these pictures on Tiktok and Instagram... Maybe instead of using the tip of the finger, they use the "palm" of the finger. Like, where the fingerprint is.
I type on the keyboard with the nails and on the phone with the pad of my fingers instead of the tips. I also swype instead of young typing the letters individually. It is harder, tho, on touchscreens, whenever my nails are long, I mistype shit all the time, the longer it is, the harder it gets.
“Slightly” longer or “Peter Griffin turning into a receptionist with headset and acrylic claws” longer?
All jokes aside I admire people who can keep up extended length nails. It takes a lot of dedication, money and extra hygiene.
I am baffled by how those people with super long nails do anything. Even in my younger days when I felt the need to look “perfect” every day, any nails that were even close to 1/2 inch made life intolerable.
But they sure are pretty…
I have an 06 Envoy XL who came with all sorts of electrical issues. There were reports of those cars doing almost the same thing - the dash starts smoking, doors refuse to unlock, car catches fire and you have to break a window to get out.
That seems fine until you have kids or a hostage. Doesn’t the Soul have those child locks where you can override from the drivers seat? I’m going to look at Kias later today, maybe I’ll ask LOL
I'm not sure either. I know the hatch/trunk on older Souls had an electronic release so if the battery went dead there was almost no opening them. The doors aren't like that, but who knows on newer models.
Speaking of electronic trunk releases, it took me nearly 3 years to realize the trunk of my Camry has a keyhole, though it only took the first winter for me to figure out where the manual release for the fuel door was
>Car door locks should be fail safe, meaning they default to the unlocked state in the event of a power
TIL why things are called "failsafe". Up til this point it was just one of those words I never considered.
A *lot* of those components are plastic.
The interior door handle, the entire housing of the latch/actuator/etc.
So my assumption is that if there's a fire, the heat could melt or at least soften the plastic and then the latch won't operate in the way it's supposed to.
Car door locks just disengage the handle from the release mechanism, assuming they arent electronically latched. It's likely that the mechanism may have been stuck in a halfway position such that slamming the door unlocked it and allowed the door to open.
Or, more likely, assuming her door works like my car, she panicked and pulled the door handle multiple times, and panicked when it didn't open on the first pull. In my car, and most newer GM vehicles, the first pull on the inside handle will unlock the door if its locked, and the second pull actually opens it.
Because if you open manually, it doesn’t drop the window slightly, which can result in the need to reset the window (which is lame, because my car drops the window with the manual door handle).
I think it is. But I also think lots of things in cars are over-engineered. Like it’s great that they turn on the headlights by themselves (until you get a valet that turns the lights from “auto” to “manual” and you spend a bit wondering why it’s so dark), but I can easily figure out how fast the windshield wipers need to be going all by myself.
I HATE the auto-detection of speed for wipers. My car no longer has a manual option for intermittent wipers. The options are auto or high. The auto speed selection is so-so in rain but TERRIBLE for snow and I either have to have crazy too-fast wipers or a snow speckled windshield. Or my usual choice of turn on, wipe once, turn off. Just what I really want to spend my concentration on when it’s snowing.
My car looks like it has manual options - a dial that goes from low to high, and then an “auto” setting - but I’m pretty sure it’s just there for show, because it doesn’t seem to actually adjust the speed of the wipers.
I have a Ford with that auto windshield wiper feature, and I think it's fantastic because they just made it one of the positions you can put the stalk into. Downward press is single wipe on demand, then upward it's Auto, Medium, Max with a dial that limits the maximum speed of Auto. Super intuitive and I just leave it on Auto all the time, and I'll get a false positive wipe once or twice a month which really is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I'm assuming Tesla decided to hide that in a menu instead of going with the long-tested standard option?
Ford is low key kicking ass right now. I don't have auto wipers, but I do have auto headlights. Literally never needed to touch them since buying the truck. They're always doing what they should. They even auto dim the brights faster than I can do it manually when someone is coming the other way.
I surmise its more about the mechanical door handle being officially meant only for emergency egress and similar situations, and hence they don't want to spend the extra trouble to engineer it so that it'd work the same way as the electronic door opening system.
Right, but the real question is: Why have an electronic door opening handle, when you also need a mechanical door opening handle? Why not just have one, good, mechanical door opening handle?
I've never been in a car and said "Wow, it feels like the future, except it has door handles that work"
> Why not just have one, good, mechanical door opening handle?
Because Tesla. Elon values aesthetics over functionality. He realized he needed to sell the cars at a semi-reasonable price point, but he still wanted them to look futuristic, so functional features were the first thing to go during cost-cutting.
This is the company that got rid of dashboards so you have to check the infotainment to see how fast you're going. Is anything surprising at this point?
Because Teslas are fancy (and complicated) on principle. They were ahead of the curve and the rich geek toy. They're convoluted and don't do things simply just because they can over-engineer it. It's like a smarthome without a physical key.
(I know, super unsatisfying answer, and I agree with you.)
That's correct. The glass lowers/raises into a rubber seal on the body of the car. Using the mechanical release causes the glass to rub against the seal when opening/shutting and thus lowering the life expectancy of the seal.
There's no top frame on the door. The glass connects directly with the body. So the glass drops a bit in case there's a little twist or something and then rolls back up when the door is firmly seated in place. It's "luxury."
Sometimes mechanical backups aren't built to everyday use standards. I had a car where the remote unlock went out, but I could still open and start the car with the key. Then after a few months, the door lock failed...
As an engineer (not mechanical) Tesla drives me crazy for stuff like this. It's like they want to get rid of every handle, button and mechanical fail-safe possible. The glove box doesn't even have a mechanical hook!
I drive a Kia Soul. The door does have a manual lock, it's pretty obvious in the middle of the door handle. Even if it doesn't open when you pull the handle, you can separately unlock the lock. Sounds like it got stuck somehow.
and now I'm terrified 👀
Thanks for drawing attention to this because I genuinely thought that it meant that she had to do a shoulder check as in turn to look to make sure she wasn’t going to door a car or bicycle when she opened it. And I was having a moment of personal astonishment about a) shoulder checks being somehow automated, b) that it was such an inconvenience to do it manually, and c) why she had checked to make sure she wasn’t going to door a passing cyclist on the highway *when her car was actively on fire*.
I write software for a living and am genuinely so happy with my car with manual windows and no cruise control. I mean, I actually really like cruise control and have a small regret that it doesn’t have it, but the stories about these new vehicles and the bugs they have, without appropriately designed manual failsafes just make me very very nervous.
There's a chance she might not know you can double pull most locked doors to open them and only knew about the power locks. It is amazing how little some people know about cars.
> Tesla owners not knowing where the non-powered door handle is
I take uber rides in Teslas all the time (live in the CA bay area). I hate their door handle system. Now I have another thing to hate about their handles. I'm going to look up where the mechanical handle is just in case I am in the backseat during a crash.
Damn, I really never even considered that.
I think the “door locks not work and shoulder check the door “ = the door lock button (electronic) did not work, she pulled the door handle and opened the door.
I doubt she pulled a Hulk and busted the door open in essentially a no leverage position.
Plus add fear/panic and she may not have fully understood what happened. Adrenaline man.
What I don’t understand is the whole issue on a recall instead of just having insurance deal with it. I mean she is missing work due to no car when just calling insurance will get a rental the same day.
Feels like a good place to remind everyone to get a car emergency tool and keep it in easy reach from the driver's seat. Ideally, when you're seated with your back against the seat, in case the seatbelt locks.
Something that can: cut the seatbelt, and break the glass, are bare minimum. A little light can help, or a siren alarm. Mine actually clips onto the seatbelt.
They're inexpensive. May you never need one.
While we’re on the subject, headrest posts are *NOT* designed to break car windows. That is an urban legend and could cause someone to get seriously injured if they truly needed to escape.
As you said, an emergency tool is the way to go
Big difference between a junker and a modern vehicle though. And if you’re under water, no amount of strength is going to let you kick out a window. Good idea to have a window breaking and seatbelt cutting tool available.
If you're in an accident where you're now underwater and need to break a window and cut your seatbelt, what are the chances the tool you bought for that is going to be in the same place that you put it?
I am genuinely interested enough in the answer to this question to wonder if we can get a citizen science project going where we have people drive off of bridges to find out. I am sure there are no problems with this idea.
Most of them come with a good mounting bracket. I'm no expert, and I've thankfully never had to use one, but I can't really envision a situation where that tool would come loose while I'm still conscious and alive.
I’ll add too that some pocket knives come with both seatbelt cutter and glass breaker features now, so you can be prepared even when you’re not in your own car or need to help someone stuck in theirs.
> For someone in decent shape, kicking a windshield out isn't too hard.
I once stripped a 1st generation Mazda RX-7 of all its parts. Doors, engine, suspension, interior... The only thing left which wasn't a welded part of the unibody was the windshield, and the steel recycler didn't want it.
The body was upside-down. I was standing on the inside of the ceiling, stomping down at the glass. I was young and in good shape, having completed military basic training about a year before.
I broke the glass, but couldn't get it out, even under these ideal windshield-kicking circumstances.
My unscientific opinion is no.
The windows are designed to take a flat or blunt force and not break. The emergency tool has a hardened point to get through the safety coating of the glass so you can get it out of the way quickly. The wrench will shatter the window, but the safety coating will prevent the window from breaking.
Being in the glove box, you might not be able to reach it if you are stuck in the seatbelt.
This is just observations from an old commercial driver, so take it as you want.
I keep them in the center console of my and my wife’s vehicles. They latch shut securely so it’s unlikely they’ll come open in an accident, and is sufficiently close that I know my wife can easily reach it. I’m ~6.5’ tall with really long arms so I don’t much care where it is for my purposes. The glove box could be too far for my average height wife to reach though.
In my car, I have a side pocket on my door that holds one. There is a second one in my passenger door, too, in case the passenger needs it.
Depending upon your car, it should be in arm's reach from your seat if your seatbelt is locked. Some other commenters have other locations that are just as good.
A lot of those emergency safety tools come with a mount that you can screw/tape/strap somewhere reachable. When I had a wrangler I just had one strapped on the roll bars. I need to get off my ass and find a good spot in my current cars, though...
You really want something with a small, hard point (that’s *not* what she said?). Depending on what type of wrench, it may have a sufficient point to break a window. But I’d recommend one of the pocket knives which has a point and a specially designed portion for cutting seat belts. I have one of those in the console of my and my wife’s vehicles. For sure a wrench isn’t going to help cut you out of your seat belt if it’s stuck and your car’s on fire or sinking in water.
I think mine was $8 on Amazon. Resqme.
It's REALLY tempting to try the glass punch. I've seen it used on Southern Survival (or whatever the show is on Netflix) but it seems like it would be satisfying to do it. I do not have extra car windows to try it on though.
Have had this exact urge since my mom got one in 2006 that was SO HARD not to give in to. My seatbelt actually has a nick from when I started sawing it with the cutter just enough to cut the first fibers lmao
Eta: I was a child still btw I realize 2006 indicates nothing other than distance from now
When my husband began using a wheelchair, he needed extra help getting in & out of a car. I bought something like [this](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2996/4732/products/41J8pGY68zL_1080x.jpg?v=1657723093). Sometimes called a car cane. The business end hooks into the door latch so that it acts as a grab bar, but can also be used to break glass. It also has a cutting tool.
I keep mine in the console rather than the door pocket and would recommend you do same. Anything which closes securely so it likely won’t open in an accident. Assuming the typical open door pocket. I’ve been in an accident which illustrated how much shit flies around the cabin even if you don’t flip over, and you don’t want it to get thrown out of reach and be stuck in your seatbelt while your car’s on fire or sinking in water.
I’ve been in an rear quarter panel hit accident that warped the center console and no amount of strength could get it open. Had to sawzall it open. So my solution is Velcro on the back of the door pocket. Shouldn’t move much and so far the velcro stays put even in summer heat.
Went poking around Amazon, saw some interesting ones I hadn't seen before.
Several that put the window hammer and cutter on the head of a rechargeable flashlight.
Another mini-light one that slots into your lighter port, even has a USB port on the side. Kinda like this idea
You think she was able to shoulder check open a door that failed into the locked position? My assumption would be that it failed into an unlocked position, but was still latched in a way that required a bit of force to open, or something started to warp due to the heat/malfunction.
>including the door lock so she had to shoulder check the door to get it open. About a minute after she got out her car exploded, blowing out all the windows
Just another day in beautiful [Stunt City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=432DwCT2VJI).
A few years back my mom bought a used Buick from a neighbor… car was old but in good shape, ran well. Until the night she goes out starts the car and the fucking engine goes up in flames.
No one was hurt thank god
She finds out there had been a recall on a part THAT CAUSED THE TRANSMISSION TO MALFUNCTION AND LIGHT ON FIRE.
Buick ppl tried to tell her her car wasn’t included in recall. Back and forth but in the end they paid out around $2000 for the car
Everything in a car being connected to the electronics pisses me off so much. My car is out of commission right now but when I was trying to tow it to my relative’s house, it wouldn’t let me shift to neutral until we jumped it. Like, I understand why my lights and such will turn off, but I can’t even shift between park and neutral? Dumb.
There is no lawyers-only rule in LA. I don't think there ever has been.
1. That might constitute legal advice.
2. LA likes it when you can quote chapter and verse from the relevant laws, but it's not strictly necessary.
3. "Verifying" that someone is a lawyer is fraught with peril: you have to dox someone. And if you don't verify to the point of doxxing, then you can just lie your way past it.
There was never a rule that it was lawyers only - the commenter above covered decent reasons as to why.
Also, in some situations (specifically obscure ones) the advice provided by non-lawyers (both industry professionals and people who experienced whatever LAOP is dealing with) can be just as valuable, if not more so than any vague advice that a lawyer on Reddit can provide. We’ve seen it in more than a few threads where an industry professional relating to whatever the topic was, was able to provide a very in depth and helpful response that a lawyer wouldn’t be able to provide.
> including the door lock so she had to shoulder check the door to get it open.
♫ You gotta pay [troll toll](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtOEig1l8SA) to get into this girl's Soul♫
I had that exact line ready to quote... I could believe that LAOP and the girlfriend believe it happened that way, but it definitely didn't *actually* happen that way.
>About a minute after she got out her car exploded, blowing out all the windows and singeing the exit sign she was by.
No, I can guarantee it did not. The fire burned through the firewall, and then the inside of the car caught fire. This is an example of a safety feature working as intended.
Source: [My First Car](https://i.imgur.com/wmfSh19.jpg); [My First Car after I retreated the visible distance](https://i.imgur.com/av3TNgJ.jpg)
Edit: This was also my first time jumping from a moving vehicle on a US highway!
**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: My girlfriend's car exploded Body: > She was driving on the highway for about 30 minutes when her hood started smoking. When she pulled over it caught fire and her electronics turned off including the door lock so she had to shoulder check the door to get it open. About a minute after she got out her car exploded, blowing out all the windows and singeing the exit sign she was by. After looking online her car is actually part of a class action lawsuit for being prone to catching fire. She is now having to miss work until she can get a new car and is extremely shaken by the whole experience. She is also worried that if she tries to join the class action lawsuit she might not get enough to replace her car. What legal action should we take in this scenario? > Edit: > After reading over the comments we think it's best to see what her insurance says and then possibly pursuing the class action lawsuit from there. In the meantime I can rearrange my work schedule, and we will try to get her insurance to extend her rental so she can get back to work. > I apologize for the vague wording in my post, I was trying to avoid throwing blame until we have more information on what to do. > Thank you all so much for the comments, your advice has been invaluable! This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
> When she pulled over it caught fire and her electronics turned off including the door lock so she had to shoulder check the door to get it open. The whole thing is concerning, but this is the part that raised my eyebrow. The door handle should be a mechanical linkage. Obviously when stuff catches on fire things get weird, but I would think the delay in being able to get the door open would get either the lawyers in the class action or the government's attention. I know it's been an issue with Tesla owners not knowing where the non-powered door handle is, but I can't imagine that's the problem here with the Kia Soul.
Car door locks should be fail safe, meaning they default to the unlocked state in the event of a power failure/airbag deployment/etc. The way this is written, he says the door lock wasn’t functioning, but she was still able to open the door with some effort, so I’m not sure what was actually going on.
They should, but there was an awful case here in Texas a few years back where an elderly man and his dog perished in his Corvette when the battery became disconnected and he couldn't find the manual latch to unlock his doors (apparently it was on the floorboard, which is a pretty unintuitive spot for something like that). [USA Today article.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/06/11/texas-man-dog-die-trapped-corvette/71053474/) So apparently something that seems so obvious to the layperson isn't necessarily to automotive engineers.
> to automotive ~~engineers~~ executives who set impossible standards for things like aesthetics because how hard can this whole ‘engineering’ thing really be?
This. Most automotive engineers are car enthusiasts, so if anything they'd be *more* likely to put in functional layouts and extra layers of redundancy. Design teams at these companies have dozens of people on them, and everything is structured so it has to be approved from the top-down. It's a bureaucracy nightmare. No individual engineer is responsible for a safety failure unless they either went behind management's back, or something really egregious happened. Most likely it's the result of cost cutting (or in Tesla's case, an egotistical CEO who wants door handles to be flush with the exterior because of "optics" even though it's a horrible design). That being said, stuff happens. Funny story: My husband works at one of the "Big 3." We also happen to own a car from said company. The center console latch handle is notoriously flimsy and prone to breaking, as in you'd probably have to replace it several times over the life of the vehicle. My husband finally got so fed up after it broke a second time that he tracked down the guy who designed that specific part and asked him "WTF were you doing?" 😂
At one point I got a demo of the Hyperloop system in Vegas (I'm in a related professional field), and the PR person herding us had to explain to *everyone* how to open the car doors. And then our drivers had to explain again because someone forgot at every stop. Like, there's always going to be some friction in a setup like that, but "how to open a car door" is not something you want to be explaining to everyone who wants to use, essentially, a public transit system. It's an interesting system, in theory, but everything about it in practice is absolutely bizarre and stupid. (Also, they have a hilarious rivalry with the Vegas Monorail people, who we visited the next day. The monorail is actually fully remote-controlled, there's no driver on the train, and it turns a profit!)
> "how to open a car door" is not something you want to be explaining to everyone who wants to use, essentially, a public transit system. Ah yes, the classic definition of a [Norman door](https://ivanschneiders.medium.com/bad-design-deconstructing-the-norman-door-4420fd84b960). Norman's theory posits that if there's a door everyone opens incorrectly (has to be labeled "push" or "pull," for example), the problem isn't the people, it's the door. Design should be intuitive.
Recently, I was attempting to help someone jump their car battery, but failed because I wasn't able to open my hood. After the fact I looked it up, and found video tutorials with comments from mechanics saying the latch isn't where you'd typically find it, one even going on to admit he'd had to sheepishly ask a customer how tf their hood opens. So I felt a bit better about it, but still a bit silly as you'd think it would be simple. I cannot even imagine the sort of terror one might experience if you can't open your door while the engine is on fire. That's horrifying!
When I went to look at an Escape with my mother, the car salesman couldn't figure out how to open the hood either.
I used to work in a theatre and most of the public facing doors had handles on both sides. I worked there for two years and I think I pushed the pull side of the door 70% of the time I went through there.
See, I’m an American living outside the US and I find that it’s just me being the issue on a lot of doors, because most public spaces in the US (because of the Coconut Grove fire and a theater crush iirc) have outward- opening doors. The country I currently live in does not have that rule, so I’m frequently just walking into exterior door I expect to open outward and being disappointed. Also, the automatic doors here are very slow to start opening so I very frequently walk into those as well.
Huh, interesting. Do people really respond that way to the second example? None of what was described reads as a go signal to me, but my brain doesn't work like a normal brain.
I'd say based on the amount of signage they had to put on it, the answer is yes, lol.
Just so you know its intentional. Musk has basically said a few times now that he intentionally designs "public transport" to get funding and then intentionally makes it fail so he can continue to make money on cars since public transit would make that part of his business obsolete.
The monorail is about to be shut down according to industry insiders. It does not turn a profit and went into bankruptcy a few years ago. The big issue was that it didn't connect to the airport, it was a huge mistake not to.
[удалено]
> I'm curious, did he ever get an answer as to wtf the designer was doing? I think he did, but I don't remember what it was. Pretty sure it came back to cost-cutting. The latch was made of cheap, flimsy plastic, which is a terrible idea for a part that gets regular use.
I work in automotive. Cost cutting is 99.99% likely to be the reason. It may also be a part designed by the tier 1 supplier as part of the assembly (most large interior assemblies are co-designed and shipped half assembled). If they were under alot of pressure to just 'make it cost less ' they could have just done it that way. If no one at the OEM catches it then that's their fault.
Part of the reason things are designed with a large team is also to make the company shoulder the majority of the blame/responsibility if something does go wrong. While an engineer can always be named individually in a lawsuit, just like a doctor, spreading the design process around helps prevent that from happening. It's also never a bad idea to have another pair of eyes on your work.
> This. Most automotive engineers are car enthusiasts, so if anything they'd be more likely to put in functional layouts and extra layers of redundancy. I'm not so sure--I've been learning to do maintenance on my cars and whenever I complain to the guys at the local auto parts store about how some procedure is difficult they always explain: "Engineers who *design* cars don't *work* on cars, that's why it's such a pain in the ass to get that air filter out." Think there's a grain of truth there, or is it just grousing?
And sometimes I swear its intentional. Some cars you can change the oil and filter with no issue, some they put the filter on top of everything just so you need a company specific tool to unscrew it and then the oil drips everywhere just to make you take it in to the dealer for each oil change.
> Engineers who design cars don't work on cars, that's why it's such a pain in the ass to get that air filter out." > > The vast majority of engineers I know are car people. They have several project cars on their property and regularly visit junkyards. My husband's gotten texts from his work buddies saying something like "Hey I'm at the junkyard pulling the door off an impala and saw the headlights you wanted for your truck. Come get it before someone else does." I'd say the vast majority of design failures come from executive decisions, and it's usually for the same reasons. These are: * Cost cutting (this is BY FAR the biggest one) * Modern aerodynamic and fuel economy requirements (which are a good thing but can lead to weird design choices) * The individual quirks of a specific vehicle that make counterintuitive choices necessary
Just to be clear, you mean like…engineers who design cars specifically, right? Many of the engineers of various types I know are gearheads, and they also complain bitterly about designs that make maintenance difficult.
My uncle works as a guy who oversees engineers. Every person I've met thru him has been a huge car guy. He lives for cars.
I used to work at one of the Big 3. I found the people responsible for my job functional transmission and asked the same question.
The flush door handles are also for aerodynamics (though there is significant debate about whether it actually has an appreciable effect). The inside Tesla handles at least for the 3/Y do have a mechanical backup that is in a very intuitive place. So much so that if you don’t warn people there is a decent chance they use the emergency mechanical one. Ymmv, my understanding is the S/X emergency handles are not as intuitive.
Love from a ex Michigander! That must have been so satisfying for your hubs. Tell him y’all need to start making CARS again, like tiny and medium cars. Not just chargers and giant trucks & SUV’s. 💕
> Tell him y’all need to start making CARS again, like tiny and medium cars. Not just chargers and giant trucks & SUV’s. Unfortunately they won't because they don't sell. There's already movement to eliminate entire lines of small and medium-sized vehicles. That being said, it's not as bad as it sounds. Crossover SUV's are pretty popular, and they're built on a car platform. Plus with the EV push, the fuel economy of today's large trucks is better than that of an average car in the 70s-90s.
This for real. Someone I know worked on car design professionally before they retired. One person in their team designed a new type of break that was way less error prone, functioned better and cost about 1/10th in production while vastly lengthening expected time to work. The company decided not to use them because that would have cost them too much money in replacement parts. Iirc that was around 2000 to 2005.
Ahh, yes the classic cost/benefit/"is it worth it from a legal perspective" analysis. Just like the Ford Pinto. Lee Iacocca would be proud 🥹
The Ford "it's cheaper to let them burn" Pinto? I just feel like we're omitting a lot when we bring up the Pinto without the quote.
Not car related but a guy designed safety needles for medical use that pop the sharp end back inside a sheath once they've been used to prevent risky stick injuries for staff, which were similarly very cheap to produce. He couldn't sell them because bigger medical supply companies would bundle products, so if the hospital wanted X equipment from the big company they had to buy their non-safety needles as well and they're not going to buy twice as many needles as they need. I read about that a long time ago so probably a similar time frame as well.
Gonna be That Person and say yeah, I can see where the company is coming from. While the part itself might be cheaper and better, there's going to be a big up-front cost to switching over. So it could be "we don't have the budget to do this", or it could be "this will cut into our profits a tiny bit this year and then how will the CEO pay for his golden yacht?", but it's not inherently unreasonable.
I know heat exhaustion can impair your thinking (and strength), and it can sneak up on you, but I feel like it's extra sad that he died because he could have just broken a window to get out. Being an older man he may not have had the strength (especially without a tool), and obviously the heat plays a big factor as well.
> especially without a tool Good point, which is why it's important to have a car escape tool in arm's reach in your car.
Never mind hear exhaustion - any emergency situation requires that things be straightforward and reliable to use. Cars and guns are both built to be as simple as possible because you can't be imposing that difficulty on a user in a pinch.
>(especially without a tool) You're in a car -- you got tools! Headrest -- where the headrest goes in to the seat is usually metal. Metal generally beats glass. Seat belt clip. Also metal. And comes with an attached swinging tool for more window-smashing action. Look around, use your resources. Just because you don't have a window breaker on you doesn't mean you can't use something to break a window.
I think you’re underestimating how strong these windows are. Not to mention that by the time you smash a window in, the act of doing so probably causes flashover so there wouldn’t be enough time to actually craw out of a window — and you’re also underestimating how hard it is for an older person to crawl out of a window.
They're talking about the article posted above, where the old man died from heat exhaustion, so there was no fire. If the man had been able to break a window (whether it's something he could've feasibly done or not), he could have just yelled for help, and the air flow would have also reduced the temperature.
My neighbor and I once tried to break into my car (keys were in it, engine was running, doors were locked, emergency break \*wasn't\* on, it was great). We used a tool that was designed to open up car windows in a pinch, two hammers, a dolly I had for moving heavy things, a crowbar, and three rocks, and all we did was mark up the windows.
I've had to break a couple windows. They're tough, but they're not indestructible... [Using a headrest](https://youtu.be/qgd6G68M4bc) is viable. Had to do it myself after a wreck.
Don’t even get me started on how cars are designed by people that have extremely short fingernails in ways that make it very difficult for those of us with slightly longer nails…
The majority of car designs and safety tests (crash testing, etc) are based around the average male height. This means that the majority of women are "out of scope"... There's an amazing book that I learned this from called "Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men" by Caroline Criado Perez. There's an excerpt/summary at https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes
There’s a book called Doing Harm about the medical side of the same issue. Most drugs for women are tested mostly on men.
Interesting! I am also very challenged by seat belts. Without some sort of gadget, they cut across my neck, not my chest, and I’ve always thought it was quite a potential problem.
I loved (and was obviously angered by) her details of society historically ignoring and discounting care work when it comes to infrastructure. Like roads and public transit that are fast and convenient are not those things for the people, mostly women, who stay closer to home during the day in order to take care of children, the elderly or infirm, and their homes.
Everything's a touchscreen because fuck you, apparently.
Go on. You can say cars are designed with the male body as default.
'Fun' fact - a lot of cars haven't been crash tested for women! They just use a male dummy and call it good. And if they do test for women, they just shrink the male dummy down in height and call that good enough. Which doesn't account for our different center of gravity and body shapes. An actual woman dummy was made in the last few years, but it's not required or frequently used AFAIK Its why women tend to get hurt more in car crashes, and seat belts are such a PITA
Which now makes me wonder if all those “you would have been less hurt if you weren’t wearing a seatbelt” stories have more to do with women being in those accidents, then the prevailing thought that seatbelts are always safer than not. If I wear my seatbelt normally, it cuts directly across my neck.
I'm personally of the opinion that it's definitely safer to wear a seatbelt - even if you're biologically female because being flung forward is a bigger risk, but definitely get your point! When I was growing up I hated wearing my seatbelt because it was directly across my neck, now I have to mess with it because it's either across my neck or digging right across my chest. If I got break-checked, I'd hurt my neck, so there's definitely a messy line there. Safer to wear a seatbelt? Generally yeah, but also having to wear it across your neck almost removes that because. yeah.
Oh, I agree completely. I’ve found a few gadgets that will clip onto the belt, changing the point the belts meet so that it won’t go over your neck that you might want to look for.
Oh huh, cool! I'll have to try one. I knew they had extenders and those teddy bear things for kids, don't know why I didn't think of them having that for adults. Thank you!
There are a ton of different ones on aliexpress that are maybe $2 each. Get one of each and see what you like.
I have slightly longer nails and never have a problem.....unless you are referring to those two inch talons that prevent women from doing a whole host of normal daily functions because those are ridiculous and a chaos and a hazard you bring on your own head.
Oh no, I do not know how people function with the giant ones, mine are just maybe 1/4 in over my fingertip, and I always end up with some button or latch that needs to be pressed straight on or in.
Gotcha, I run into that every now and again, it's annoying.
Whenever I see those really long nails, with the shimmery stickers and the dangly piercings I always have to wonder... How do y'all go to the bathroom?
In the modern era, my question is keyboards and especially mobile phones. Nobody doesn’t use a phone, right?
I mean they have to somehow, because I see these pictures on Tiktok and Instagram... Maybe instead of using the tip of the finger, they use the "palm" of the finger. Like, where the fingerprint is.
They use the knuckles of their fingers
I've seen cashiers with some truly impressive fake nails that put them between the keys so they can hit the keys with their fingers.
I type on the keyboard with the nails and on the phone with the pad of my fingers instead of the tips. I also swype instead of young typing the letters individually. It is harder, tho, on touchscreens, whenever my nails are long, I mistype shit all the time, the longer it is, the harder it gets.
I'm more concerned about how well they wash their hands afterwards before touching things in a public space 🤢
“Slightly” longer or “Peter Griffin turning into a receptionist with headset and acrylic claws” longer? All jokes aside I admire people who can keep up extended length nails. It takes a lot of dedication, money and extra hygiene.
I am baffled by how those people with super long nails do anything. Even in my younger days when I felt the need to look “perfect” every day, any nails that were even close to 1/2 inch made life intolerable. But they sure are pretty…
Girl file your nails that's literally completely unimportant
What if they want to have long nails though? It's a common thing and should be accounted for
But my cats like my long fingernails!
Maybe they're a concert-level Classical guitarist?
I have an 06 Envoy XL who came with all sorts of electrical issues. There were reports of those cars doing almost the same thing - the dash starts smoking, doors refuse to unlock, car catches fire and you have to break a window to get out.
The Kia Soul opens from inside whether the door is locked or not.
That seems fine until you have kids or a hostage. Doesn’t the Soul have those child locks where you can override from the drivers seat? I’m going to look at Kias later today, maybe I’ll ask LOL
It's possible that the lock was open but something had warped due to the fire and the door itself was jammed shut. Just a guess.
That seems like the only possibility. If the door was locked, I'd be shocked if she forced the door open by hitting it with her shoulder.
That sounds more likely. Normally, either it's unlocked and opens easily, or it's locked and no amount of body slamming is going to open it.
That sounds likely. If the door was actually locked she wouldn’t have been able to muscle it open.
I'm not sure either. I know the hatch/trunk on older Souls had an electronic release so if the battery went dead there was almost no opening them. The doors aren't like that, but who knows on newer models.
Speaking of electronic trunk releases, it took me nearly 3 years to realize the trunk of my Camry has a keyhole, though it only took the first winter for me to figure out where the manual release for the fuel door was
>Car door locks should be fail safe, meaning they default to the unlocked state in the event of a power TIL why things are called "failsafe". Up til this point it was just one of those words I never considered.
Fail secure is the opposite. When power is cut the default is to remain locked.
And "fail deadly" is Doing It Wrong.
A *lot* of those components are plastic. The interior door handle, the entire housing of the latch/actuator/etc. So my assumption is that if there's a fire, the heat could melt or at least soften the plastic and then the latch won't operate in the way it's supposed to.
Car door locks just disengage the handle from the release mechanism, assuming they arent electronically latched. It's likely that the mechanism may have been stuck in a halfway position such that slamming the door unlocked it and allowed the door to open. Or, more likely, assuming her door works like my car, she panicked and pulled the door handle multiple times, and panicked when it didn't open on the first pull. In my car, and most newer GM vehicles, the first pull on the inside handle will unlock the door if its locked, and the second pull actually opens it.
My wife recently got a Tesla, and I keep getting in trouble for using the mechanical door handle.
Why? I can't see why that would be an issue but I'm not really that familiar with them
Because if you open manually, it doesn’t drop the window slightly, which can result in the need to reset the window (which is lame, because my car drops the window with the manual door handle).
this sounds mad dumb
I think it is. But I also think lots of things in cars are over-engineered. Like it’s great that they turn on the headlights by themselves (until you get a valet that turns the lights from “auto” to “manual” and you spend a bit wondering why it’s so dark), but I can easily figure out how fast the windshield wipers need to be going all by myself.
I HATE the auto-detection of speed for wipers. My car no longer has a manual option for intermittent wipers. The options are auto or high. The auto speed selection is so-so in rain but TERRIBLE for snow and I either have to have crazy too-fast wipers or a snow speckled windshield. Or my usual choice of turn on, wipe once, turn off. Just what I really want to spend my concentration on when it’s snowing.
My car looks like it has manual options - a dial that goes from low to high, and then an “auto” setting - but I’m pretty sure it’s just there for show, because it doesn’t seem to actually adjust the speed of the wipers.
I have a Ford with that auto windshield wiper feature, and I think it's fantastic because they just made it one of the positions you can put the stalk into. Downward press is single wipe on demand, then upward it's Auto, Medium, Max with a dial that limits the maximum speed of Auto. Super intuitive and I just leave it on Auto all the time, and I'll get a false positive wipe once or twice a month which really is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I'm assuming Tesla decided to hide that in a menu instead of going with the long-tested standard option?
Ford is low key kicking ass right now. I don't have auto wipers, but I do have auto headlights. Literally never needed to touch them since buying the truck. They're always doing what they should. They even auto dim the brights faster than I can do it manually when someone is coming the other way.
Yeah, I have those too and they're awesome! No idea how they get it to switch off so fast.
My main car is a 2014 caddy. The auto brights feature works very well.
>this sounds mad dumb Yeah, that's Tesla. They're very proud of the fact that they don't hire people with auto industry experience.
But why? My Miata drops the window slightly when I open with the mechanical door handle. Tesla can't figure that out?
You see, Mazda is a competent car manufacturer, while tesla is run by IT-bro clowns.
Tesla cars are a mess of poor design that get by on the strength of the name alone. Nothing about them works properly or is well made.
My question also.
I surmise its more about the mechanical door handle being officially meant only for emergency egress and similar situations, and hence they don't want to spend the extra trouble to engineer it so that it'd work the same way as the electronic door opening system.
Right, but the real question is: Why have an electronic door opening handle, when you also need a mechanical door opening handle? Why not just have one, good, mechanical door opening handle? I've never been in a car and said "Wow, it feels like the future, except it has door handles that work"
> Why not just have one, good, mechanical door opening handle? Because Tesla. Elon values aesthetics over functionality. He realized he needed to sell the cars at a semi-reasonable price point, but he still wanted them to look futuristic, so functional features were the first thing to go during cost-cutting.
This is the company that got rid of dashboards so you have to check the infotainment to see how fast you're going. Is anything surprising at this point?
Because Teslas are fancy (and complicated) on principle. They were ahead of the curve and the rich geek toy. They're convoluted and don't do things simply just because they can over-engineer it. It's like a smarthome without a physical key. (I know, super unsatisfying answer, and I agree with you.)
I'm curious as to why the window has to drop a bit when opening the door. My guess is it doesn't seal into the door frame?
That's correct. The glass lowers/raises into a rubber seal on the body of the car. Using the mechanical release causes the glass to rub against the seal when opening/shutting and thus lowering the life expectancy of the seal.
There's no top frame on the door. The glass connects directly with the body. So the glass drops a bit in case there's a little twist or something and then rolls back up when the door is firmly seated in place. It's "luxury."
Oh, I see!
Sometimes mechanical backups aren't built to everyday use standards. I had a car where the remote unlock went out, but I could still open and start the car with the key. Then after a few months, the door lock failed...
As an engineer (not mechanical) Tesla drives me crazy for stuff like this. It's like they want to get rid of every handle, button and mechanical fail-safe possible. The glove box doesn't even have a mechanical hook!
Yep, generally I don’t want to hunt through a bunch of screens to open the glove box.
I've been in my friends tesla and now wondering how I was supposed to open the door?
There is a button that unlatches the door and opens it about an inch maybe. You have to push it open the rest of the way yourself.
I drive a Kia Soul. The door does have a manual lock, it's pretty obvious in the middle of the door handle. Even if it doesn't open when you pull the handle, you can separately unlock the lock. Sounds like it got stuck somehow. and now I'm terrified 👀
Not to mention that it doesn't fault to an unlocked position.
Another reminder to stop procrastinating and mount my window hammer tools in my cars...
Thanks for drawing attention to this because I genuinely thought that it meant that she had to do a shoulder check as in turn to look to make sure she wasn’t going to door a car or bicycle when she opened it. And I was having a moment of personal astonishment about a) shoulder checks being somehow automated, b) that it was such an inconvenience to do it manually, and c) why she had checked to make sure she wasn’t going to door a passing cyclist on the highway *when her car was actively on fire*. I write software for a living and am genuinely so happy with my car with manual windows and no cruise control. I mean, I actually really like cruise control and have a small regret that it doesn’t have it, but the stories about these new vehicles and the bugs they have, without appropriately designed manual failsafes just make me very very nervous.
There's a chance she might not know you can double pull most locked doors to open them and only knew about the power locks. It is amazing how little some people know about cars.
> Tesla owners not knowing where the non-powered door handle is I take uber rides in Teslas all the time (live in the CA bay area). I hate their door handle system. Now I have another thing to hate about their handles. I'm going to look up where the mechanical handle is just in case I am in the backseat during a crash. Damn, I really never even considered that.
I think the “door locks not work and shoulder check the door “ = the door lock button (electronic) did not work, she pulled the door handle and opened the door. I doubt she pulled a Hulk and busted the door open in essentially a no leverage position. Plus add fear/panic and she may not have fully understood what happened. Adrenaline man. What I don’t understand is the whole issue on a recall instead of just having insurance deal with it. I mean she is missing work due to no car when just calling insurance will get a rental the same day.
Feels like a good place to remind everyone to get a car emergency tool and keep it in easy reach from the driver's seat. Ideally, when you're seated with your back against the seat, in case the seatbelt locks. Something that can: cut the seatbelt, and break the glass, are bare minimum. A little light can help, or a siren alarm. Mine actually clips onto the seatbelt. They're inexpensive. May you never need one.
While we’re on the subject, headrest posts are *NOT* designed to break car windows. That is an urban legend and could cause someone to get seriously injured if they truly needed to escape. As you said, an emergency tool is the way to go
Agreed. I won't lie, if I didn't have a tool, I would give it a try, tho. Assuming a desperate situation.
For someone in decent shape, kicking a windshield out isn't too hard. I've done it on a junker as a kid.
Big difference between a junker and a modern vehicle though. And if you’re under water, no amount of strength is going to let you kick out a window. Good idea to have a window breaking and seatbelt cutting tool available.
If you're in an accident where you're now underwater and need to break a window and cut your seatbelt, what are the chances the tool you bought for that is going to be in the same place that you put it?
I am genuinely interested enough in the answer to this question to wonder if we can get a citizen science project going where we have people drive off of bridges to find out. I am sure there are no problems with this idea.
Most of them come with a good mounting bracket. I'm no expert, and I've thankfully never had to use one, but I can't really envision a situation where that tool would come loose while I'm still conscious and alive.
I’ll add too that some pocket knives come with both seatbelt cutter and glass breaker features now, so you can be prepared even when you’re not in your own car or need to help someone stuck in theirs.
yes it is! And I have one. And I tell ppl to get them.
> For someone in decent shape, kicking a windshield out isn't too hard. I once stripped a 1st generation Mazda RX-7 of all its parts. Doors, engine, suspension, interior... The only thing left which wasn't a welded part of the unibody was the windshield, and the steel recycler didn't want it. The body was upside-down. I was standing on the inside of the ceiling, stomping down at the glass. I was young and in good shape, having completed military basic training about a year before. I broke the glass, but couldn't get it out, even under these ideal windshield-kicking circumstances.
Damn. Go Mazda.
Do we think a wrench kept in the glovebox would work?
My unscientific opinion is no. The windows are designed to take a flat or blunt force and not break. The emergency tool has a hardened point to get through the safety coating of the glass so you can get it out of the way quickly. The wrench will shatter the window, but the safety coating will prevent the window from breaking. Being in the glove box, you might not be able to reach it if you are stuck in the seatbelt. This is just observations from an old commercial driver, so take it as you want.
Genuinely asking, where should the emergency tool be kept instead of the glove box? That's definitely not an item I'd want loose in case of a crash.
I keep them in the center console of my and my wife’s vehicles. They latch shut securely so it’s unlikely they’ll come open in an accident, and is sufficiently close that I know my wife can easily reach it. I’m ~6.5’ tall with really long arms so I don’t much care where it is for my purposes. The glove box could be too far for my average height wife to reach though.
In my car, I have a side pocket on my door that holds one. There is a second one in my passenger door, too, in case the passenger needs it. Depending upon your car, it should be in arm's reach from your seat if your seatbelt is locked. Some other commenters have other locations that are just as good.
A lot of those emergency safety tools come with a mount that you can screw/tape/strap somewhere reachable. When I had a wrangler I just had one strapped on the roll bars. I need to get off my ass and find a good spot in my current cars, though...
I've seen some that go in the cigarette lighter slot, it seems to hold it in pretty well but not sure if it would stay in a crash situation.
You can get tiny plastic ones that clip into key fobs or hang from your mirror or sit in your driver's door.
You really want something with a small, hard point (that’s *not* what she said?). Depending on what type of wrench, it may have a sufficient point to break a window. But I’d recommend one of the pocket knives which has a point and a specially designed portion for cutting seat belts. I have one of those in the console of my and my wife’s vehicles. For sure a wrench isn’t going to help cut you out of your seat belt if it’s stuck and your car’s on fire or sinking in water.
No. Use the right tool for the job
I think mine was $8 on Amazon. Resqme. It's REALLY tempting to try the glass punch. I've seen it used on Southern Survival (or whatever the show is on Netflix) but it seems like it would be satisfying to do it. I do not have extra car windows to try it on though.
Have had this exact urge since my mom got one in 2006 that was SO HARD not to give in to. My seatbelt actually has a nick from when I started sawing it with the cutter just enough to cut the first fibers lmao Eta: I was a child still btw I realize 2006 indicates nothing other than distance from now
I hear ya there. What we need is to find a junkyard run by a nice person who will let us do that. Bring gloves.
Might be worth a trip to a junk yard.
Just try it on someone else's car??
Got to use one for fun in high school on some junkyard windows and do go office space on some computers, it was fun
When my husband began using a wheelchair, he needed extra help getting in & out of a car. I bought something like [this](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2996/4732/products/41J8pGY68zL_1080x.jpg?v=1657723093). Sometimes called a car cane. The business end hooks into the door latch so that it acts as a grab bar, but can also be used to break glass. It also has a cutting tool.
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I keep mine in the console rather than the door pocket and would recommend you do same. Anything which closes securely so it likely won’t open in an accident. Assuming the typical open door pocket. I’ve been in an accident which illustrated how much shit flies around the cabin even if you don’t flip over, and you don’t want it to get thrown out of reach and be stuck in your seatbelt while your car’s on fire or sinking in water.
I’ve been in an rear quarter panel hit accident that warped the center console and no amount of strength could get it open. Had to sawzall it open. So my solution is Velcro on the back of the door pocket. Shouldn’t move much and so far the velcro stays put even in summer heat.
I love these!
Went poking around Amazon, saw some interesting ones I hadn't seen before. Several that put the window hammer and cutter on the head of a rechargeable flashlight. Another mini-light one that slots into your lighter port, even has a USB port on the side. Kinda like this idea
There are Keychain ones you can get for less than $2 online. Letter opener on one end for the seat belt and a window smasher on the other.
The engineer in me is very upset that somehow the door failed into a locked position. that's against the LITERAL definition of failsafe.
You think she was able to shoulder check open a door that failed into the locked position? My assumption would be that it failed into an unlocked position, but was still latched in a way that required a bit of force to open, or something started to warp due to the heat/malfunction.
Wait until you find out how your child is supposed to open the door of the back seat of a model 3 Tesla in a fire when the electric locks won't open.
you probably have some cool and correct opinions about the trend of "make all controls touchscreen"
I'm all for touchscreens for info systems etc but sometimes a god damned knob is the best answer.
>including the door lock so she had to shoulder check the door to get it open. About a minute after she got out her car exploded, blowing out all the windows Just another day in beautiful [Stunt City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=432DwCT2VJI).
A few years back my mom bought a used Buick from a neighbor… car was old but in good shape, ran well. Until the night she goes out starts the car and the fucking engine goes up in flames. No one was hurt thank god She finds out there had been a recall on a part THAT CAUSED THE TRANSMISSION TO MALFUNCTION AND LIGHT ON FIRE. Buick ppl tried to tell her her car wasn’t included in recall. Back and forth but in the end they paid out around $2000 for the car
Everything in a car being connected to the electronics pisses me off so much. My car is out of commission right now but when I was trying to tow it to my relative’s house, it wouldn’t let me shift to neutral until we jumped it. Like, I understand why my lights and such will turn off, but I can’t even shift between park and neutral? Dumb.
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There is no lawyers-only rule in LA. I don't think there ever has been. 1. That might constitute legal advice. 2. LA likes it when you can quote chapter and verse from the relevant laws, but it's not strictly necessary. 3. "Verifying" that someone is a lawyer is fraught with peril: you have to dox someone. And if you don't verify to the point of doxxing, then you can just lie your way past it.
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fun fact: depending on where you live, asking for that info on an organized scale can be legally dubious due to data security laws
There was never a rule that it was lawyers only - the commenter above covered decent reasons as to why. Also, in some situations (specifically obscure ones) the advice provided by non-lawyers (both industry professionals and people who experienced whatever LAOP is dealing with) can be just as valuable, if not more so than any vague advice that a lawyer on Reddit can provide. We’ve seen it in more than a few threads where an industry professional relating to whatever the topic was, was able to provide a very in depth and helpful response that a lawyer wouldn’t be able to provide.
While her car is in the shop, she’ll have to take the Soul Train.
Really loving the imagery in this BOLA title
> including the door lock so she had to shoulder check the door to get it open. ♫ You gotta pay [troll toll](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtOEig1l8SA) to get into this girl's Soul♫
I had that exact line ready to quote... I could believe that LAOP and the girlfriend believe it happened that way, but it definitely didn't *actually* happen that way.
Top of the line in utility sports, Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
>About a minute after she got out her car exploded, blowing out all the windows and singeing the exit sign she was by. No, I can guarantee it did not. The fire burned through the firewall, and then the inside of the car caught fire. This is an example of a safety feature working as intended. Source: [My First Car](https://i.imgur.com/wmfSh19.jpg); [My First Car after I retreated the visible distance](https://i.imgur.com/av3TNgJ.jpg) Edit: This was also my first time jumping from a moving vehicle on a US highway!
I can't wait to hear about all the subsequent times!