Car wash activated sliding door on new Chrysler Pacifica

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by cronk
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by cronk
I call this bad engineering on Chrysler.
They spent millions to engineer a car and didnt factor in someone taking it through a car wash! Really!
There are pretty much only 2 types of automatic car washs, high pressure jets, and rotating brushes. No one at Chrysler thought about this?
This is why when we bought our Quest, I made sure to get a base model without power sliders. To much to go wrong, finicky technology, and expensive to fix.

So it's bad engineering from Chrysler, but you explicitly state that this is why you bought a base model Quest without power sliders. So it's bad engineering from Nissan too then?

There's a button that disables the feature. She didn't push it. So obviously they did factor in situations that would require the disabling of the system, it simply wasn't used.


No it was not actually Nissan that turned me off from power sliders, it was Chrysler. When I worked at a used car lot repair shop, seeing 3 year old Chrysler and Dodge vans needing $600 power slider motor and cable mechanisms really turned me off from ever owning one.


That doesn't counter my statement though. Your desire to avoid power sliders, despite previous experience being with a different marque as you now claim, indicates you had no faith (bad engineering) in Nissan's system either.

 

[DoubleWasp]

Originally Posted by cronk
Originally Posted by DoubleWasp
People: Cars are not made for car washes. Car washes are made for cars.

The wash has the responsibility to make sure it is safe for the car, and not the other way around.

Should Chrysler also be responsible for the brushes destroying the finish? Acid based wheel cleaners destroying the PVD chrome? Rollers scratching the wheels? Other parts ripping off wipers left on?

When I was young, I saw many car washes that had signs advising persons to lock their doors. That was at a time when there were still cars on the road that had handles that could be pulled by objects, resulting in the door coming open.

This wash should have had the same advisory. Had the wash or the driver used a bit of sense, none of this would have happened.

Sliding doors that can open easily is a customer driven feature. Most power sliding doors are a giant pain in the backside to open if ones hands are full.


By that logic, every car wash in the world is supposed to reengineer their equipment for every finicky new car design?
Cars are supposed to be engineered for regular conditions that the average consumer would encounter. Most consumers use automatic car washs. Most car washs built in the past 30 years use a similar design.
To not build your car to withstanding the car washes in use everywhere is foolish.
You engineer a product to work in the existing world, you cant expect the world to change to suit your engineering.


That's exactly what's been going on since the first car hit the road.

You do realize that there are a lot of passenger vehicles that cannot even enter an automatic wash without being damaged, right?

Suppose all this manufacturers should be put out of business because they didn't limit their designs to make sure they'd work with automatic washes?

 

[Jarlaxle]

There should be a warning in the owner's manual to never use an automatic car wash for those vehicles.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted by DoubleWasp
You do realize that there are a lot of passenger vehicles that cannot even enter an automatic wash without being damaged, right?

There are also far too many people on the road that cannot pull into a parkade, a car wash, or a drive through without causing catastrophic damage to their vehicle or someone else's equipment.

 

[tiger862]

Originally Posted by Jarlaxle
There should be a warning in the owner's manual to never use an automatic car wash for those vehicles.

There probably are. My 2018 has 9 warnings about auto carwash and or pressure wash pressure. After I bought it I seen warnings and will not take mine through one. Also states not covered by warranty if damage is done by carwash. My 06 Vue had similar warning in owners manual.