I've been noticing lately a lot of cars on the road with defects ranging from tyres with nearly no tread left or half deflated, brake lights not working, one front light not working (I'm guessing this makes them non roadworthy).
It's come to a point where I feel obligated to stop next to them at a traffic light and express my concern by telling them what's faulty.
I always check my lights, tyres, etc before I start my trips everyday. Why are people so careless?
Is "high yield vehicle" a polite way of saying either showoff car or a person with NO money sense?
yeah to flex on social media about buying XYZ. all these drones think about now is if they do X they can post it on social media.
That's a very drone-like sentiment
This thread is Ozbargain Lore. I think we need a wiki page for all of them haha. Do we already?
That thread just confirmed my sad view I have on people and society…. /feelsbadman
I know a repo guy who used to collect from people like this, he told me the majority of cars he repos are $50k-$80k utes from apprentices who thought they'd be making big bucks right out of TAFE…
Like most things with strong marketing, poor persons idea of a rich person.
Gotta have that new iPhone 15 Pro Maxxx 2Tb model on release day… Don't worry, the bald tyres, that suspension clunk and those oil leaks will wait until next year…
Sounds right to me !
Most people would trust mechanics more often if they didn't over sell so much and abuse the clueless public
If your brakes are metal on metal, and you have steel belts hanging out of your tyres, they need replacing. People will still fight having to replace them.
👆👆👆👆 this right here.
While that's likely true in many cases, people are struggling for money right now.
I find it quite ironic that on a cheapskate site that there isn't the social awareness of how tough people are doing right now. Cost of living is insane and car related expenses are even worse.
I know it doesn't make it right to whizz around in an unsafe car.
Agree with this. I put off servicing my car for 2 years cause I was driving it minimal due to covid/WFH. Had a service done recently, $1,799. It's a 10 year old VW CC so nothing over fancy.
New cars in NSW (assume the same in other states) do NOT need a pink slip for the first 5 years and as such you get people who never check.
Also allot of new cars only "need" to get get serviced once a year for warranty purposes.
Combine the two items above and you get more cars with issues on the road.
My cousin can make you a pink slip over fb messenger lol
you can get blue slip over the phone for death traps for a price
@zombie hunter: Any real repercussions for people who provide these certificates without the required due diligence ?
YouTube is full of these videos, cars with >50,000kms with oil sludge from owners who never took them in for servicing, driving around with crumbling brake rotors / damaged wheel hubs / flat tyres / exhaust dangling…
In QLD, after the car is registered, a roadworthy is not required for renewing the rego. Only when starting a new one or transferring it.
As long as the police don't catch them, then they don't care. The car still starts, they drive it. Unless people are forced to, i.e with a defect notice, then people will ignore the issue.
Also, money.
It's pretty easy to miss a not working low-beam or brake light on your own car. Sensible to check once every week or so.
I bet some people don't even notice. They gradually saw these things deteriorate, you suddenly saw them. They probably noticed no change at all.
You check those literally everyday before a trip? Go round checking all 4 tyres getting in the car, turning the lights on, getting back out, walking around again and getting back in?
Once a week or once a month for certain things sure… but every trip? Unless your some boomer with no responsibilities then I highly doubht it also
I check at night , easier for lights
Tyres in the morning.
Really not worth a $400 fine and 3 points
If you get pulled over by a cop, the excuse of checking once weekly wont cut it.
10 sec a day will save you a ton of money
Not sure why this is being downvoted? I mean, it seems overkill but good on you for doing it!
Not sure why someone doing the right thing would get downvoted to hard.
Wow… Why the downvotes? None of you passive aggressive neggers want to add to the conversation?
I am always doing walk around checks on my cars and trucks. When I take a motorcycle out, I dont even start it till I have checked tyre pressures, lights, brakes, chain and tyres.
I didn't neg, but I suspect some of those people who did might be suspicious about how well you can check your vehicle in "10 seconds".
A mirror or two in the garage would allow you to check all your lights in less than 10s. Just need a mirror you can see out the rearview mirror: front lights can be seen from the driver's seat (or if not, another mirror)
Tyre depth could be just as quick, as long as we don't need to bring out the tyre thread depth tool. Tbh I only check tyres when I check the pressure. Which is about once a month or 2 fill ups for me.
@moar bargains: Don't really need huge mirrors. Some people are as large as whales but could still use small handheld mirrors to check they're still human.
Tyre depth could be just as quick, as long as we don't need to bring out the tyre thread depth tool. Tbh I only check tyres when I check the pressure. Which is about once a month or 2 fill ups for me
This is what I do, just check the bump within the tyre to see how much tread is left.
@CMH: brake lights - I don't use mirrors but I always reverse park into the garage so I know if my brake lights don't work right.
tyre tread - this one I don't check everyday, I check after I fill up my petrol or weekly when the mechanic tells me I need to watch for it (twice a year service on a car that does ~6000 km a year).
front light - I don't check everyday but every time I drive at night or early in the morning, I make sure it looks right as I drive out of the garage (before the door opens). I know how it looks when one has gone out.
Agreed this is not worth the down vote. Very sensible advice especially if you use your car a lot. Since I don't drive much, my lights checks are basically built-in with how I go in and out of my garage so if I'm on holidays or parked differently I might forget to do this unfortunately.
This! I think the real reason for the negs.
You only need to check tyers when you service your car or during the wheel rotation. Which should be at least once a year / ~10k (oh no Tesla/Electric owners need to put a reminder in their calendar). Most defects are due to lack of money or change in priorities.
So you’re saying only check tyres once a YEAR? What about slow leaks, nails etc caught in tyres, uneven wear due to driver ability or lack thereof? I check mine every time I fill up with petrol, usually at most takes 5 minutes if all need inflating to correct tyre pressure. If you’re not checking these things you are putting yourself and your family at unnecessary risk because you are cheap
What if a light busts mid-journey?
While it's good to check tires pressure (even eye-gauging it) daily, do you really need to check the thread too? It doesn't wear out that quick
It's all about priorities.
Carton of cigarettes or car service?
Cigarettes win every time.
If people paid in priority, Cougar bourbon would be out of business.
why the (profanity) would you check tire wear & brake lights every single day? what a waste of time lmao. not like your tires are gonna be defective in one day. People give no shits about cars, most people use it as a tool and if it still gets them from A to B then who cares but people driving around on cheap, nasty tires & that are bald or balding are the reason for most crashes imo.
Defective lights are i think around $400 fine and 3 points
Its easy to get nail punctures . I drive 100km+ per day
Unless you're a hole when the police stop you, you won't get that fine. Best they'll do is waiting there to see someone pick you up and leave the car there.
You will get fined.
Cops are becoming less leniant .
I have a few freind cops at the gym and they are told to issue fines for traffic infringments and safety issues
Money. Not enough of.
When money is tight it's spent in this order:
1) Urgent things.
2) Important things.
3) Wants.
So when those tyres are flat or police call you out, etc, it's now urgent and they'll get replaced.
Regardless of how important something is, it's typically its urgency that moves it to the top of the list.
Everyone's situation is different.
This needs to be said more. People who claim broke but still go out and blow money on trinkets and nights out are AHs but there are genuinely broke people struggling to just survive.
express my concern by telling them whats faulty.
It would be the same as me expressing concern in the lack of punctuation within your post.
There are at least 9 errors. Ten if you include the lack of punctuation in the title.
I've been noticing lately alot of cars on the road with defects ranging from tyres with nearly no tread left or half defalted, brake lights not working, one front light not working (I'm guessing this makes them non roadworthy).
It's come to a point where I feel obligated to stop next to them at a traffic light and express my concern by telling them what's faulty.
I always check my lights, tyres, etc before I start my trips everyday. Why are people so careless?
Why are people so careless?
Why were you so careless with the above? It's all about priorities.
Take care on the information superhighway.
It would be the same as me expressing concern in the lack of punctuation
I would say "expressing concern about the lack of punctuation".
Also, I'd change non roadworthy to "non-roadworthy".
"half defalted" should be "half deflated", or "half-deflated" if you use it to modify a noun.
"etc" also requires a fullstop. It should be "etc.".
That makes sense. Cheers
I prefer half-inflated
Incorrect grammar does not affect the safety of others or yourself though whereas car defects can potentially kill you or others.
Incorrect grammar does affect the safety of others
I'm glad you agree.
Edit: you were quicker than me. Nice!
I realise i forgot to put "not"
check out "oxford comma"….that can seriously affect your financial health!
alot
*a lot
It would be the same as me expressing concern in the lack of punctuation within your post.
Thanks for pointing this out, my family were seriously injured from OP's careless grammar and punctuation.
Uncle Jack will never be the same.
Why are they people so careless?
Because they don't have a lot of money, and they don't want to be carless. They choose to take the risk that they won't be booked, or that the defect will cause a crash, and they spend what money they have where its more important and urgent to them.
I stop people and tell them when its a serious flat or completely flat tyre that's dangerous or being damaged by being driven on. Anything else its their own business.
Thing is defective break lights are dangerous.
The person infront of you can break and you will never know. If you rear end them because of this, you are at fault unless you have a dashcam
Break lights are an alert for person driving behind you. If you neglect them, you put the driver behind you and yourself at serious risk
Brake
Lol , bloody auto correct
Thanks spelling police
Do you see both brake lights out, or just 1? I can agree that having both out is extremely dangerous, but is that common? Maybe I'm not paying enough attention.
Ive seen 2 cars with both defective brake lights this week alone.
@easternculture: Last week I was behind car that has both brake lights out in a congested freeway, I was quick to change lanes and move in front of it. No way to let them know when you're driving at 100 km speed limit.
If you need to visibly see the brake light of the front vehicle to brake yourself then you shouldn't be driving in the first place.
So how would you know if someone infront of you suddenly breaks due to a hazard.
Seeing the brake light gives you time you react appropriatly.
Maybe you should educate yourself
https://www.wheels.ca/news/never-underestimate-the-importanc…
If you dont need brake lights, why dont we just turn left, right and even change lanes without the need to indicate. Do i really need to visibly see a light to know a person is changing lanes.
@easternculture: You are as dumb as I had expected. It was a rhetorical statement, implying your road sense should be strong enough to mitigate or minimise the risks posed by the front vehicle.
@Pudina Chutney: Actually you statement implies that you are dumb and an unsafe driver . Hence i sent you a link to read hoping you would have slight intelligence to comprehend the content. Obviously you dont .
You are a P plater for sure
It was a rhetorical statement,
Good effort trying to change the perspective of your statement. Ill give you that
@Pudina Chutney: This is a bit of victim-shaming? LOL.
Based on your statement, if a car hit you on the road and they're (by law/road rules) at fault, you should be paying them to fix their car because your road-sense was obviously not strong enough?
There are many different road users on the road, some have driven for a long time and know to stay away from said car(s) and some are on red P-plates. Each road users should be responsible in communicating what they intend to do on the road so other road users can anticipate and adjust accordingly. Newer road users may not have a good judge of distance yet, that's why the 3-seconds rule exist. Some cars also can't brake as hard as others. Road conditions can also change unexpectedly, from high visibility to low (around mountainous roads, for example, or dark-coloured debris on asphalt). In summary, road-sense comes from being on the road often enough so at all times there will be a mixture of road-sense levels on our roads. Even with 'strong enough' road-sense, you can still end up in an accident.
You are at fault if you hit them - brake lights working or not. You shouldn't be following so close and should be paying more attention. Why are you following so closely?
Not really an issue with just one light out but I had a very unfortunate crash where someone had all of their brake lights out and they slammed on their brakes right as I was performing a head check for a lane change, when I turned my head back I braked as I saw the car in front of me miraculously at a dead stop but with no brake or stop lights and I end up hitting them (1996 Corolla, mechanically looked after, good brakes and tires), and I am that annoying friend who brings up stopping times when others drive and frequently count ‘Mississippi’s’ or ‘bananas’ to measure stopping distance when I drive, so I didn’t understand how I could not stop the car in time, I was betrayed by my own head check safety measure which I believe I never would have attempted to do if I had seen any brake light which I came to understand I relied on often to determine if a car was braking. Especially in the case of a 3 second stopping distance which is what I was taught… average driver takes 1.5 seconds to stop in emergency, my head check would have taken just over 1.5 seconds to turn around, observe traffic and turn head back, we would have been doing about 30-40km/h when I started the head check after having already checked the mirrors and indicator is on. So I stop just in time to make it just a small crack to his rear plastic bumper (less than 10cm) and some scratches, but my front bumper has been smooshed in and the radiator slightly pushed because he had a tow bar on a Kia sorento and my car was a lower hatchback. He lied about having insurance (after many phone calls I discovered he had none, not even third party property), he lied about his brake lights, he lied about being injured and unable to work as a result of this. No dashcam so I arrange with this guy to have a mechanic I trust sus out his car to confirm that his brake lights are out, surprisingly he agrees. All his brake light bulbs are long burnt out, and we even check the fuses and electrics with multimeter, they are working and the only cause for the lights not working is determined to be the bulbs not being replaced. My insurer (NRMA) refused to acquire any street cam or traffic light footage and tells me that’s my responsibility, I call police and other places trying to hunt down this footage but ultimately I am not allowed access and as far as I’m aware no police report was filed as when the accident happened I prioritised making sure the man was okay and he could not have been more certain that he was completely fine and it was no issue, we swapped details and he said he was going straight to work from there in his car. I had many phone calls with NRMA and they refused to put any effort into finding him even partially liable (they knew he didn’t have any insurance, and additionally one of those ‘not at fault free car rental’ places made many phone calls to me threatening legal action and demanding that I pay) even though I had a mechanic confirming that his brake lights had long been burnt out and his car was not roadworthy. They charged me the excess on my third party property, I had to scrap my car because the damage to the radiator on such a cheap car wasn’t financially worth repairing. The guy lived just two streets from me along where I would regularly go for walks so I could see that he used his car frequently afterwards. He went through with a compensation claim for injuries and claimed he couldn’t work. I was not able to buy a new car as I was having the most stressful year financially as a university student who had to constantly dip into any savings from huge periods of sickness from colds and flus preventing work throughout that year so I ended up having to end my lease and briefly move to cheaper accomodation through family who lived in a place with better public transport. Anyway, now in a better place, fair to say that I have since acquired a dash cam and never gave NRMA any further business.
Reading this, @easternculture, maybe this is why people don't replace their brake lights? They're waiting for someone to run into them and pay for the replacement.
I guess my approach so far when seeing cars like this has been good: stay far away, get away from behind them if it's an option and overtake when possible.
Wut. Crash detection radars literally fixed this decades ago…
A) They don't care
B) They're broke
C) Both A and B
I always check my lights, tyres, etc before I start my trips everyday
I find this very hard to believe, except maybe if you’ve been employed in a mine somewhere and picked up the daily check habit. I have no doubt you check regularly, but doubt it is before you start every day
Some people if the car goes forward when it’s in gear, then that’s enough. Others will spend hours on the weekend washing and servicing. Most are in between and don’t want to get caught out with something unroadworthy.
I’m kinda glad that NSW has annual inspections. Helps reduce some of the unroadworthy cars on the roads. Not a perfect system, but I believe it helps. Yes, your mate can give you one without the check but that’s a minority I’m sure and many of those would be vehicles with some semblance of regular maintenance anyway.
Police are more likely to target people with modified cars and defect them for things like suspension being too low, exhaust too loud or whatever other modification The irony is those people are sometimes """car enthusiasts""" who spend a lot of money on their cars - thousands on tyres, brakes, wheels, aftermarket coilover suspension etc etc. Cops/Highway patrol will often ignore the neglected Kia Carinval with smashed head light, wobbly ball joints, no brake light and bald tyres cruising down the freeway at 70km/h with zero situational awareness. Some say it's for revenue raising, catching "hoons" or road safety. I dunno.
I get pulled over all the time for that reason. Lucky I have a piece of paper signed by a random mechanic that never worked on the car to say it's completely legal. I would be a dangerous hoon on a current affair otherwise.
There was a police operation in miranda the other day, randomly ulling people over and checking cars.
Saw a policeman and a guy standing behind a car and arguing about tyres, another guy arguing about bike rack
I see these operations at least twice a week.
I bet they never pick up the bro-dozers with 35" muddies, 4" lift, 10 million lumen light bar, gutted DPF, blanked EGR valve etc.
They get them on weekends going to popular offroading places, seen heaps of people get done, lots of it posted in fb groups etc.
Around long weekends and school holidays they're getting heaps of people for non-engineered mods.
@91rs: Well that's good to hear, getting sick of them tailgating and generally driving dangerously with their bullbar at my head level.
The biggest vehicle defect in Victoria would seem to be indicators - the vast majority do not seem to work!
Just checked the BMW, they work perfectly, in fact they look like that they have never been used.
Because they don’t used them and fail of non use
username checks out?
the worst defect in terms of risk to life/health has to smoggy/polluting vehicles.. yet once registered there's no requirement for further tests (in qld).. prob causes more health issues/premature deaths than all other defects combined.. and then some.
The worst and most common birth defect in QLD is being born a Queenslander. Not sure how related that condition is.
(Signed, a queenslander)
lol one of my emails is minimumchips@… it seems there is some contagion here :)
No need for preventative maintenance when you can drive it till it breaks, then NRMA/RAC/AA will sort it out for you.
What state?
In NSW need a pink slip every year, so those things get picked up.
NSW.
However, if your drive a vehicle its your responsibility for the day to day operation of it.
You cannot blame the mechanic for a defective tail or brake light if you get pulled over. And no sane magistrate would give you any leniency if you took it to court for ypur own stupidity.
People prioritise spending money on garbage, over safety items like brakes/tyres etc. When I was working in cars, this was very frustrating to deal with. People would rather stretch themselves to make payments on a "high yield vehicle" than get something they can actually afford to run.