I’m very happy with my 2007 Ford Freestyle, but there’s one major design flaw that drives me nuts. It’s only a problem in the winter, though, which makes me wonder what the hell the folks in Detroit are smoking.
If you look at the picture, you can just make out the antenna, on the passenger side of the windshield. It’s attached to the car just an inch or two from the lower right-hand corner of the windshield, seen from inside the car.
Now, take five seconds, and think about what you would need to do, and where you would need to stand, in order to remove snow or ice from the windshield. Do you see the problem? If so, congratulations, you’re smarter than an American car designer…
Putting it further forward would be so … ugly. And putting it on the roof, and then running all that cable to the radio, would be so … expensive.
And besides, chances are that all the stylists have garages.
Brilliant!
Really, it’s good for you–think of all the increased flexibility you’ll gain by having to contort your body around to reach the windshield.
Admittedly, it’s not intelligent design.
One solution, at least for at home, is to make a step up from the dinky snow brushes/scrapers that most folks use. Buy a push broom, one with plastic bristles. All windshield and hood snow removal can be done from the driver’s side, and in far fewer passes.
Even worse: flimsy little flip-up car-door handles that only release the door and do not allow you to PULL on the door. Great in a showroom, not so great after an ice storm when the door is stuck.
My ’65 Dodge had a real car door handle you could put some serious pull on. Oh, and an antenna that got in the way of cleaning the windshield too.
Antenna placement ceased to be a problem for me after last winter, when a solid sheet of compacted snow slid down my rear windshield and snapped the thing off at the base.
Since then, however, radio reception is definitely a problem.
And besides, chances are that all the stylists have garages.
This sounds like a front-runner for the causative factor! The designers should have to spend a year in the moccasins of the potential owners as a requisite to getting their official designer pencils! LOL!
Dave Briggs :~)
Correct:
It snows in Detroit, but it does not snow in the parking ramp used by the engineering staff in Dearborn. Cars parked on the street in Detroit (not to be confused with its suburbs) usually have a coathanger in place of the broken antenna.
Over the years, there have been many examples where it was quite obvious the designers did not “live” in the interior of some of the cars (usually on the low cost end of the spectrum) that they worked on.
But Chad, you really should stop using your faculty ID to scrape the windows. That car is big enough to carry a quality snow removal tool like #3 suggested.
But Chad, you really should stop using your faculty ID to scrape the windows. That car is big enough to carry a quality snow removal tool like #3 suggested.
The snow isn’t as big a problem as the ice. We get ice here that needs to be physcially scraped off the windshield (well, that or I have to start the car a half-hour early to melt it off).
Why isn’t the antenna simply run along the right windshield post? No reason for it to stick straight out like that.