auto high beam lights

[landsurfer]

On my Ford Ranger Pick up truck the replacement of a rear bulb took 3-4 hours, if lucky.
Remove hard top.
Remove pickup bed liner.
Remove access panel.
Remove and replace bulb.

Re-build !!

Oh .. and 2 people.

[Mick F]

We have a reversing camera on our Yaris.
It's better to look out of the back window. I could drive as fast backwards as going forwards

Those Cornish lanes and years of practice!!
The Londoners aren't as good!!

Yes.
Spot on.

When we were looking to replace our elderly Clio, the very first thing both me and Mrs Mick F did, was to sit in the driving seat and turn round to see if we could see to reverse.
Mazda3, Honda Jazz, Suzuki Swift, all failed at the first hurdle.
Our Yaris is ok. Not brilliant, but ok.

The main issue with cars these days, is that the rear windows are becoming more and more obscured and smaller too. We see people these days having to reverse on these lanes and all they can do is weave from side to side trying to see where they're going using their door mirrors. It's painful to watch.

[thirdcrank]

I learned to drive in the original type of Mini. It was possible see the road surface out of the back window from the driving seat. In those days, the driving test included reversing round a corner then lining up the car with the kerb. In a Mini, it was easy to line up the join in the middle of the bottom of the rear window seal with the kerb a bit like a gun sight. It worked a treat for me and I passed first time. I'm pretty sure that a Mini of that type offered much less protection in a crash than a modern small car, which is why it's so much harder to see out of the windows. I've owned a couple of Yarises and in common with many modern cars, it's not even easy to see the front of the bonnet. There's technology available such as reversing cameras and sensors. Why on Earth shun it?

[al_yrpal]

After reading this thread and discovering that many recent cars have auto high beam lights I consulted the 334 page manual of my 2017 SEAT Ateca and discovered that it too has this feature! I wasnt aware of it and have never tried to use it. I am sure that there are other features I am not aware of. It does have a reversing camera which I find very useful not being very good at reversing (I once felled a street lamp reversing). The best thing is that you can attach your phone to the car and running Android Auto on the phone Google Maps voice controlled sat Nav appears on the cars screen offering constantly updated traffic data and you can play music by voice command on the phone through the cars speakers and of course make hands free phone calls. The most annoying thing is the cars Auto stop start feature which I always switch off.
For sheer driving pleasure I prefer my 1980 VWT25 air cooled Camper, top speed 60mph, magic… Downside 18mpg.
Total annual milage of both only 3250 miles

Al

[squeaker]

Reversing:
Look where you're going.
Turn round and look out of the back window.

I understand that some cars aren't so good at being able to see backwards.
If so, don't buy one.

From what I observe, many drivers are incapable of

Turn round and look out of the back window.

regardless of how good the view out of the back is!

[thirdcrank]

Some of the comments overlook the existence of commercial vehicles whose drivers have to rely on mirrors for reversing.

[meic]

Reversing my transit style vans with the external mirrors was a lot easier than reversing the Passat with a rear window.
The issue is height, from the vans you are looking down, so can see the floor. In the car you are looking horizontally and cant see anything below window height for many yards behind, if you are on a slope it is far worse.
The obvious exception to this is that the van has a blind spot just behind it, this can be checked before getting in (though on rare occasions people can sneak in rapidly when your back is turned to climb in).

[thirdcrank]

Some commercial vehicles are just a car with the rear windows not glazed; others are huge. I regularly see the drivers of big artics reversing with great precision using only their mirrors. We know there may be problems with blindspots on large vehicles: the point I'm trying to make is that plenty of vehicles don't have a rear window so you have to use mirrors.

[Mick F]

Having driven many vans and a few minibuses, reversing is easy on the mirrors.
The height of them and the fact that the mirrors are designed to be used for reversing make it simple.
Car mirrors OTOH are designed for seeing to the rear and sides, not for reversing.

The rear view camera on our Yaris is great for getting right up to the end of parking bays or keeping an eye out for stuff you can't see at low level. As TC says, the Mini saloon was perfect for reversing as you could see nearly as well backwards as forwards.

As for the Mini vans and estates where looking back was problematical, they had bigger mirrors.

[thirdcrank]

I see that there's an Audi E-Tron on the way without wing mirrors but more rear-view cameras.

[Mick F]

Where's the screen to display all these camera views?

The screen showing the rear on our Yaris is centre and below the front window line of sight. Door mirrors and the rear-view mirror in the car are at positions that you can still see forwards when looking in the mirrors. Same as "normal" cars.

[Airsporter1st]

I can't help thinking that those who complain about these 'new fangled inventions' are those who have never used them long enough to appreciate their worth.

[Bonefishblues]

I can't help thinking that those who complain about these 'new fangled inventions' are those who have never used them long enough to appreciate their worth.

...but happily use old-fangled inventions that were once railed against by earlier generations, perhaps?

[Airsporter1st]

Where's the screen to display all these camera views?

The screen showing the rear on our Yaris is centre and below the front window line of sight. Door mirrors and the rear-view mirror in the car are at positions that you can still see forwards when looking in the mirrors. Same as "normal" cars.

Most vehicles I've seen that use cameras in lieu of rear-view mirrors, place them in a similar position to the mirror itself. Where the camera is an enhancement to the regular rear-view mirror, its position is not quite so critical. I have driven high mileages in several vehicles equipped with cameras in addition to regular mirrors and found them to be a very valuable extra source of information when reversing. Of course, if you reverse with yours eyes glued solely to said camera, you're an idiot - just as if you reversed solely with your eyes glued to a rear-view mirror.

[Bonefishblues]

I'm not sure dash-mounted is similar to RVM, is it, unless I've missed cars with high-level screens? In which case, why bother, I wonder, if adjacent to the mirror itself?