In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 5 Mar 2019 09:36:20 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Tuesday, March 5, 2019 at 12:09:34 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 5 Mar 2019 11:07:30 -0500, Pat
wrote:

On 3/5/19 10:48 AM, danny burstein wrote:
In micky writes:

What do you call the thing that's in the front right corner of my rental
car's dashboard, just below the window, at the far corner of the
dashboard, that looks like an analog wris****ch with the hands** pointed
at 4:37. It beeps a lot, sometimes when I'm doing something wrong, but
also when I'm not. It may make other noises. Sometimes symbols flash
on the face of it, but the rental company didn't say what they mean.

Maybe there is a standard meaning and if I knew what the thing was
called, I might be able to find out!

"driver lane assist" perhaps?

Maybe. I never heard of that, but I'll look.

The trouble is that that's a generic term. I should have known since
you didn't capitalize anything. I was hoping to find the actual device,
and what all it does**.

For example, does it keep a record of every time it thinks I violated a
rule and will it tell the renter, Hertz, and will Hertz hold it against
me, especially if there's an accident, OR if I want to rent from them
next year, will they charge a higher rate if i had too many "beep
events"?



**But taking your words and looking for images of them, I found "Lane
Keeping Assist" whose graphic is a lot like the one in my rental car.

"Slightly pulling the wheel will disable the lane keeping assist on most
cars" Well I'm sure t hat doesn't happen, because it 's an add-on and
wasn't built-in.

That's the first time you included that important detail, that it's not
part of the car, but something that's been added on, likely by the rental

This is only my second post in the thread. If people had actually seen
what I'm talking about, the first post would almost surely have been
enought to recognize it.

car company. Also missing was that you're apparently in a foreign country.
If it's an add-on, in some foreign country with more nanny laws than we
have, who knows what it is, but it's unlikely to be a lane assist device,
now that we know it's an add-on.

Often, one of the times it beeps is when I go over the middle line, even
if I do so to avoid someone stopped on the side of the road.

See Hertz's promotional statement in the next line:

I also used your terms and the word Hertz to try to find it, and all I
got was promotional material about Lane Detection Systems....Forward
Collision Warning.

This is what Hertz says it has, and it's just what I have, but there are
no details of how it works. The beeping I can pretty much figure out
but there are various things, drawings, that appear on the little
screen, and I haven't been able to figure out any of them.

I think mine beeps for other reasons also, and I
know it beeps when I doing nothing wrong, and that is gradually causing
me to ignore it.

Maybe if she gave us a hint like the make, model and trim package of the car.

I think it was added by the rentacar company. I had one just like this
last year in a different make of car.

It may make other noises. Sometimes symbols flash
on the face of it, but the rental company didn't say what they mean.

Trader said:
No owner's manual in the glove compartment?

Yes, but it's in a language I can't read.

I'd expect it's available online.

Not all manuals are online btw. Last year I couldn't find the one I
really wanted.

Yes, but in English only, it's over 700 pages,

This means it will take a long time to find whatever I'm looking for.
The index is not detailed and I keep running into other parts I should
read. For example, the regenerative braking system is interesting.
And it says to use the foot brake just before applying the hand brake.
I wonder if they mean for this to apply on flat ground.

But a problem is that for a lot of things there are Type A, Type B, and
sometimes Type C, and it's never clear which one the driver has.

Here is something relevant to the original question:
" i-ACTIVSENSE is a collective term covering a series of advanced safety
and driver support systems which make use of a Forward Sensing Camera
(FSC) and radar sensors. These systems consist of active safety and
pre-crash safety systems. " This starts on page 4-101.
It's clear the car has some of the sensors or the "watch" in the
corner woudlnt' work, but it's also clear it doesn't have all these
things and for most of them, a driver wouldn't know if it has them or
not.

There is an array of 6 places for buttons to the left of the steering
collumn, and if the car had Lane Departure Warning System, there would
be a button there to turn it off. But there's not so I don't have that
from Mazda, even though Hertz seems to have provided it (with no ability
to turn it off).

There;s no pleasing you. The one in the car is in a foreign language,
the one online is in English. If this is stuck on aftermarket, isn't
there some identifying information on it?

Aha, my roommate has rented cars and he knew the answer. Mobileye:
http://www.c2sec.com.sg/Files/UserManualMobileye6.pdf

AFAICR, it explains all the images on the screen. The 2.5 that I
would see sometimes, which I thought represented car lengths, actually
represents seconds before, going at the speed I'm going, I hit what's in
front of me (assuming he isn't moving forwards also).

Today on an xway, we were going 60mph and I was at least 10 car lengths
behind (short car), but the device said 2.5 seconds. Maybe that's true,
but it assumes the car in front will stop on a dime.

Apparently it reads traffic signs, like speed limits and Do not Pass,
and displays them too, plus it beeps if you go over the currently noted
speed limit. It has settings from 0 to 30kph greater than the speed
limit, though I don't know what this car is set for.

Got in the car again and today the light shone from a different angle,
and I put my glasses on. It's Mobileye.



How long is War & Peace?
I looked at chapter 4 and today I'm going to look at the radio chapter,
which I think is 5. But that's to learn about other stuff, like how to
set presets and how to pair the phone with the radio. This device
won't be there because Mazda didn't provide it.

Last year on one trip in one city I had 3 different cars ;-) , a Nissan
iirc, a Hyundai, and a Honda. Only one had the device but none was a
Mazda.