If you want a new car, instead of a used one, I'd try that same pattern: low end, low trim. Honda almost certainly sells a Civic without too many digital gimmicks, other automakers probably have the same.
It's a dying breed though, complicated "driver assist" systems are becoming standard or even mandated :(.
I’ve learned a lot by working on it, but I do have the say that the plastic engine protector is a travesty. Clips were originally broken during a commercial oil change. Ever since, I’ve just been using self tapping screws to reattach it.
It is quite OK to run w/o an engine cover, it is a worthless piece of plastic.
But yea, completely non-functional. Remove it if the clips are broken. You aren't missing anything.
They reduce wind noise, increase mileage particularly in colder weather (and speed up engine warmup time), protect the engine from road debris/road salt/water, and reduce lift generated at highway speeds.
"Trapping heat in" isn't a problem in almost any modern vehicle.
https://www.forgemotorsport.com/Hyundai_i30NVeloster_N_Carbo...
this is worthless, and better to keep it off.
It saves lives, even if the systems are not 100% effective.
Small cars with low hoods and good visibility don't need those systems nearly as much as large SUV's with dangerous hood designs and poor side/rear visibility. I think we should focus on the total safety of the vehicle instead of pushing everything to be bigger and more expensive which makes car ownership hard for poorer people.
edit: talking about non-highline models. hondas, fords, hyundais, dodge, etc.
Driving is just too big of a distraction from playing with instagram...
Child crying in the backseat, car malfunctioning, animal crossing the road, object hitting your windshield, a car accident occurring next to you, being fired from your job and your wife divorcing you when you find out you have cancer, a meteor hitting the earth, a big sneeze, I could keep going.
Regardless of your skill, or the skill/expertise/attentiveness of any individual driver, drivers as a collective remain dangerous to themselves and pedestrians. How did I come to this conclusion? I reviewed data, here's a couple of sources:
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-fatality-data-show...
https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
By all means, if you have data that shows people are inherently becoming better drivers, or that there's a method to improve _all_ drivers systemically -- let's talk about it.
Regardless, your datas mean nothing -- They are only guaranteed to be incorrect for each individual case.
You say collectively drivers are dangerous, but the implication is that we would apply the same rule to all in the interest of 'fairness' or some other such subjective nonsense.
So it's 'Drag everyone down to the same low level?' Is that the solution?
NO.
You are allowed to make mistakes in a free country and pay the price. Saying you are not free to hurt others implies you would do so -- even in the face of a lifetime of safe driving and non-criminal behavior.
Those bodies compiling the statistic you quote exist for the sole purpose of bureaucratic enrichment through the creation of rules -- whether they are ever really needed is irrelevant to them.
I'll end with a quote from a man much wiser than any of us on this board.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
Regardless, it seems like you prefer the idea of anarchy to order on the roads. Especially since order can only come from groups which exist for enrichment through creation and enforcement of rules. I'm sure your decades of experience have proved to you that a road without laws and bureaucracy is best for all. After all, tyranny is super bad, so less tyranny is always more good!
I'll sign off with my own C.S. Lewis quote.
"One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts."
-- C. S. Lewis (2010). “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”
Well at least you used a CS Lewis quote. That made me smile.
Like, "let's get rid of all the checks and punish people after they cause damage"?
I’m not sure what conclusion you’re deriving from that, but the data seems to support the counter argument that these technologies are of dubious value.
Am I misunderstanding something?
Been driving cars with blind spot detection and front collision for years. Never had a "malfunction". I live in Canada. When it's snowy, the system turns off (and the driving experience is worse).
Seems downright crazy to not want these features. If you think "real drivers" don't want these things you don't spend enough time on the road. Commuting is not about "the driving experience". Most accidents are caused by people not paying attention, which is what these features solve.
So do I -- and I drove all the worst highways for years in winter without these useless intrusions. Often in the middle of the night to get to a ski hill in some part of BC for the next day.
You are not exceptional. You are maaaaybe in the top quintile of driver competence. Very likely not if you've been driving for forty years- your reaction times are trash compared to a twenty year old. These driver assist features would help you be a safer driver.
Actually that is Governments. Most in the 20th century at least for sure. Probably all time.
I'm on the opposite side of this. All the new safety & driver assist features are the best part about getting a new car. I wouldn't buy a new daily driver that doesn't have blind spot monitoring, collision avoidance, lane keep assist, etc. Once you have these features and you are accustomed to how they work, you can't go back.
I drive a 2019 XC40 and these safety features are my favorite part about it. Being able to turn on Pilot Assist on the highway makes driving so much more comfortable, it's like having two people driving at the same time! I don't let my guard down completely of course, but it definitely takes the edge off. I don't find these features getting in my way.
The collection of driver behaviour, and GPS, data is not
And I don't like them. But only one of us has the government taking away our choice by making them mandatory.
I wouldn't mind them if it wasn't for the fact that they universally seem to be points of failure that shorten the lifespan of the car.
Alternatively, computer control of real world systems (e.g. acceleration and braking) can lead to actual accidents, totaling the vehicle. There was that lady who claims her Tesla's software caused a crash, and, without commenting on if that is true, it's plausible.
One example is Anti-lock braking (ABS), which they made mandatory in 2004. If you bought a car without it in 2003 and have it inspected in 2013, no problem. If you bought a car with ABS in 2004 and the controller for it breaks in 2008, you will fail the inspection - even though your braking is no worse than the 2003 car (ABS was wisely designed to fail safe..).
Abs actually very slightly reduces the stopping potential of your brake system. But being able to steer and control your car is a bigger benefit under these circumstances.
I certainly agree that you want ABS, it's just to illustrate the pitfalls it creates when you have these additional systems. You can tell much the same story around emissions controls; newer cars pass stricter emissions standards and require extra parts and technology to achieve them.
That‘s not true. Going in a straight line, blocking wheels will stop you in less distance than with active ABS.
However ABS allows you to brake and go around an obstacle without losing control of your vehicle.
From Wikipedia[1]:
> Kinetic friction, also known as dynamic friction or sliding friction, occurs when two objects are moving relative to each other and rub together (like a sled on the ground). The coefficient of kinetic friction is typically denoted as μk, and is usually less than the coefficient of static friction for the same materials.[40][41]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friction&oldid=10...
Most certainly not. The sliding coefficient of friction of a tire is quite a bit less than the static coefficient of friction. Shortest stopping distance is achieved by keeping the tire rolling, just on the very edge of lockup, for the entire braking distance.
Early ABS systems had slow pulse cycles and couldn't control wheels individually, so a good driver could outbrake them but the ones from the last 20 years are quite good.
ABS is one rare example of a safety technology that doesn't have much drawbacks. Very much unlike newer technologies like lane assist and self braking, which have benefits but also clear drawbacks.
Even for ABS though, there are edge case dangers that a non-ABS car wouldn't have (like ice mode disabling brakes when not on ice).
There's no magic answer with tehcnologies. Every time a system increases complexity, it increases failure mode potential as well.
Since most people don’t know how to panic stop without ABS I think it’s reasonable that it cause an inspection failure.
I’m not aware of a jurisdiction where you would fail an inspection because your rear park assist or lane departure warning didn’t work.
And how many more cars are going to be produced and bought because of "planned obsolescence" when electronic systems in modern cars start to give up (eg. electric cars and their engines should be able to last for a really long time)? Are they going to keep getting security updates for 20, 30 years? Or will we start seeing people doing something to fool their sensors so they crash?
While I like all the technology, it's short-sighted to think that the alternative is desired simply because people don't care about potentially hurting someone with their cars. Like everything else in life, this issue is multifaceted too.
Everyone thinks they're a great driver.
Automatic braking will prevent you from rear-ending the car in front, yes. Although an attentive driver should also be doing that.
Society doesn't allow people to say that they're good enough to opt out of safety mechanisms designed to protect us all.
This is why 'I don't wear a seat-belt I can brace myself' also doesn't cut it.
A seatbelt is a safety mechanism.
Driving assist functionalities encourage unsafe behaviors of drivers more than safety. Why should I pay attention to the road if my car will automatically brake for me? Well, until the one time it doesn't and someone dies.
Was literally an argument people made against seat belts.
(I'm old enough that seatbelts weren't a thing when I was a kid, so I remember well the arguments when they became common and later required.)
https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/08/people-once-complai...
> trapping people in burning cars or causing drowning or preventing rescue personnel from being able to free those who are injured
> belts cause internal damage when an accident causes the wearer to slam forward
> folks wear them incorrectly, across their stomachs rather than their waists, where they will do more harm than good
For example ABS increased crash rates for a good while when it was new, contrary to all expectations.
From this NHTSA report: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
"Analyses of data from the early 1990s showed significant increases in fatal run-off-road crashes with ABS, on the order of 28 percent. The increase was baffling, given the success of ABS on the test track. However, at that time, many drivers did not yet know how to use ABS correctly."
I observed this effect first hand, because from the late 90s to the late 00s I was frequently a car control clinic instructor. One of the exercises of these clinics was to teach panic braking. In the earlier years most people showed up with non-ABS cars so this was a great exercise in teaching proper braking control.
As ABS cars became more and more prevalent we (the instructors and the school) thought that this exercise can go away since there is no skill to learn braking if you have ABS, just mash the pedal.
Alas, no! It is difficult to believe, but approximately nobody that came to these car control clinics with an ABS car was actually able to initially brake hard enough to even activate the ABS. Sometimes it took many many runs through the braking exercise to finally get it: just press hard on the brake pedal.
Although, I'm dubious there would be enough time in that scenario to help much. The typical case is someone running a red light and intersecting a car from the other direction, both going full speed. By the time the tbonee car enters the field of the tboner car front sensors they are very close and less than a second from impact. So it'd reduce speed a bit which is good, but won't prevent the hit.
An attentive driver on the other hand, can see far wider than the sensors and has more opportunity to avoid the incident entirely. If paying attention, of course.
Meanwhile, any driver worth his salt should be checking cross traffic when nearing any intersection. I've avoided several accidents by examining potential cross traffic at intersections.
Accident avoidance should be drivers ed 101, but for some reason, especially in these conversations, no one seems to know how to look for and avoid potential accidents.
There are arguments to be made both ways, but there definitely isn't a clear solution.
Automated system would have advantage there only where it can better "see" things (eg. LIDAR in pitch dark conditions, or maybe positioned at the roof of a vehicle and seeing over other vehicles that a driver can't).
My point was that for attentive drivers, "safety features" are more a nuisance than help in their own car (the worst you can do is have frustrated drivers behind the wheel). If that results in drivers disabling them, we are not better off at all: technology does not get developed and never matures enough not to be a nuisance. I keep them enabled, but I can understand that not everybody wants to go through these rough edges.
It's by no means perfect (and the city beta is kind of a mess), but the highway safety bits are very functional and useful.
Reaction time in all the car-braking studies is usually measured at 0.2-1s.
That's indeed the time a computer can use to their advantage, and maybe Teslas do, but many in-car systems today are not that fast, and esp not the one in my Volvo. All the things it does it seems to do them slightly later than I'd like to for a seamless, defensive drive.
It's all a matter of cost of per-unit hardware (processing power), development time and state of the art.
We'll get there, but we are not there today.
The automatic braking seems to be the most dangerous one so far, at least on Teslas. Countless incidents of the car slamming on the brakes at highway speeds for no reason whatsover. Brake checking people at highway speeds is highly dangerous road rager action, now cars are automating behaving like this.
Things like auto lane control seem more benign, but they do suffer the same dangers as the so-called autopilots, in that they lull the driver into paying less attention which will always be more dangerous until true AI level 5 self-driving exists.
I don't trust the features to work well enough to rely on them. And I think other people having them is dangerous.
Meanwhile, they all can be toggled off, so I still won't be using the feature. It's just another point of failure shortening the lifespan of a five-figure environmentally costly purchase.
They're not there for you to like - they're there for the people you might kill with your car.
> the government taking away our choice...
...to plough into people with your car.
Good for you. But society disagrees and requires them.
Do you have a source for this?
JK!
These system do save lives though. Driving is a privilege, not a right. So I’m fine with these mandates as they don’t really get in my way.
Why is that?
- in some situations you can lose control of the vehicle, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCObYDxa3Do
- if you crash, your body will be flying freely in the car, creating danger for other occupants of the car
All the other times, it's causing me frustration and pain. It signals a collision as I am avoiding potholes in a tight one-way street and cars parked on both sides of the road (yep, I am going to slam into that parked car for sure — at least it did not forcibly brake which would definitely cause cars behind me to slam into me).
It brakes when I am backing out of a parking spot into a street and vehicles appear from the other direction (a lane I was not getting into) — this happens so frequently that I am tempted to turn it off.
Pilot Assist on the highway seems to wait too long to slow down as I approach a car in front of me and then it abruptly slows down, yet it requires me to use the turn signal way too early if I want to overtake someone I caught up with: my drive was much more fluid with a simple stay-at-this-speed cruise control of my previous car.
I keep all of the "helpers" on (those that can be turned off) just in case I lose focus and because crashing once might be once too many, but I worry how much unpredictable behaviour is going to mess with other drivers causing them to make mistakes instead and crash into me.
Perhaps it works well for US roads, but European old-town driving is way too complex for safety features to keep up (esp as Volvo is considered to be among the best manufacturers for safety features, including these new-fangled ones).
Edit: and blind spot monitoring — the sales guy was so high on it, yet I don't see the purpose: it's right there flashing on your side mirrors so you have to look at them, yet side mirrors are large enough and concave (like on all modern cars) that if you set them up properly, there's really no blind spot a car or bike can fit in. And I still prefer to look over my shoulder to top it off.
The only time I've gotten false positives on the collision avoidance was when I was going too fast for the situation. Now it's gotten me to drive slower on these narrow lane situations, which is a good thing!
> It brakes when I am backing out of a parking spot into a street and vehicles appear from the other direction (a lane I was not getting into) — this happens so frequently that I am tempted to turn it off.
I haven't experienced this personally, but a false positive here doesn't really have any downsides. Ideally every driver would be skilled enough to not back up so far and go into the other lane, but I do see drivers that back out further than necessary and get a corner of the car across the divide of the road. The cross traffic avoidance when backing up is one of my favorites, it's saved me plenty of times when somebody is going way too fast in a parking lot and I'm backing up slowly.
> Pilot Assist on the highway seems to wait too long to slow down as I approach a car in front of me and then it abruptly slows down, yet it requires me to use the turn signal way too early if I want to overtake someone I caught up with: my drive was much more fluid with a simple stay-at-this-speed cruise control of my previous car.
This situation sounds like you may be driving faster than the flow of traffic, or the follow distance is not set far enough. You can also do the simple stay-at-this-speed cruise control, or adaptive cruise control without the automatic steering capabilities.
I am on the west coast of the US so the roads here are well planned and well marked, so maybe that helps.
> Edit: and blind spot monitoring — the sales guy was so high on it, yet I don't see the purpose: it's right there flashing on your side mirrors so you have to look at them, yet side mirrors are large enough and concave (like on all modern cars) that if you set them up properly, there's really no blind spot a car or bike can fit in. And I still prefer to look over my shoulder to top it off.
Depending on the car, the driver, and how seating position and mirrors are setup, there can still be blind spots despite your best efforts, or have a driver in the next lane in a dark car at night with their lights off accidentally. Nothing wrong with looking at your mirror and still checking over your shoulder, but the blind spot monitoring is still very helpful. That's why the indicator is on the mirror anyways, because they know we are already going to look there before changing lanes.
From my experience the safety features are all supplemental to also having good driving habits, they don't replace the need for good habits entirely.
I find the braking is far too abrupt. I can see the car in front of me slowing down, but the system will continue accelerating until some magical distance threshold before it begins to brake.
In addition the follow distance doesn't seem to be dynamic relative to my speed. When I increase the follow distance, the car leaves too much distance at lower speeds, but increasing the follow distance causes tail-gating at higher speeds.
I may have been going too fast for the collision avoidance system, but not for the situation: cars are parked on both sides, and frequently one or two cars will stick out a bit more than the others (by eg. 70cm) — I wasn't going faster than 30km/h (20mph) in dry, daylight conditions. If you avoid a pothole that turns your car into that parked car sticking out which is a bit ahead (at least 50m), it could signal a collision. At least that was my guess what was happening, I never felt at any risk whatsoever.
> I haven't experienced this personally, but a false positive here doesn't really have any downsides.
Oh, it does. When it happens, I worry if there's something I missed, so I spend another few seconds re-evaluating the situation around the car. As I didn't miss anything, cars do show up behind me in the lane I was entering into, and since my car is stopped only third of the way into the lane, most drivers coming up behind me start "overtaking" my protruding car, and I am in a much worse position. In city driving in traffic-heavy streets, one's got to use any time they've got available or impatient drivers around you start making even worse situations for themselves and you.
> This situation sounds like you may be driving faster than the flow of traffic, or the follow distance is not set far enough.
The situation I am describing is actually from a very low traffic situation on the highway, so there was no "flow of traffic". When a truck going 100km/h decides to overtake another truck going 95km/h on the highway, my car going at the speed limit of 130 km/h seems unable to see that from way ahead like a driver does, and it maintains the speed until way too late.
Contrary to that, if you are driving 130km/h and approach a car driving 125km/h, it starts slowing down probably at the same distance, which is now too soon.
Not to mention that my experience on European highways is that the when there's a lot of traffic, the "flow of traffic" speed is ~140km/h on roads with 130 limit (when I was driving 110-130km/h, I'd be constantly slowing down and speeding up, making for a much more exhausting drive — you can probably go down to 95 km/h to achieve a similar "flow" behind a slow-moving truck). Pilot Assist, however, only works up to exactly 139km/h even on really well-marked roads — this is perfectly fine if you ask me (the limit might be too high even), but we are talking about the state of assistive tech.
> You can also do the simple stay-at-this-speed cruise control, or adaptive cruise control without the automatic steering capabilities.
FWIW, the behaviour I was describing is part of the adaptive cruise system that seems to behave the same whether Pilot Assist is turned on or off.
But sure, you can still turn most of these off. I was just commenting on how bad the current implementation is in my car (2019 high-specced Volvo sedan), and that I can understand why someone might not want any of these today.
Not in the US unfortunately. All my European cars had almost no blind spot. Then I moved to the US and was really surprised.
And here I am puttering along in my 2003 VW Golf with a manual transmission. :)
Unfortunately the rear-cross-traffic is very useful and I can't turn off one without the other.
There are actually quite a few these days, but I'm partial to Japanese cars, myself.
1) Mazda MX-5 Miata I own one. It's awesome to drive. Has few features and a simple dash. It's quite economical to operate (inexpensive to insure, gets over 35 mpg, very popular so lots of parts availability and lots of aftermarket parts, Mazda reliability and maintenance costs).
2) Subaru BRZ / Toyota 86 Also awesome to drive. This car is a bit more practical than the Miata because of its roof and trunk space. Less economical to operate: it's less fuel efficient and people speed in them so insurance is more expensive. The boxer engine gives it inherently better handling than most vehicles.
3) Honda Civic Type R This is my dream car.
4) Subaru WRX If you need all-wheel drive, this is pretty much it.
5) Nissan 370Z Nissans aren't my cup of tea but they go fast.
As for trucks, the only truck that interests me is the Toyota Tacoma, since it still comes with a manual transmission. I wish I could purchase a Toyota Hilux in the US. I also wish I could purchase a Suzuki Jimny here, alas. I'm not at all interested in SUVs, so I can't help you there.
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For this reason, I don't think there is any obvious parallel to vouching that you're trying to draw here. However, perhaps I am wrong. Can you point to a comment by @dang that would substantiate your opinion?
Their entire lineup offers a small set of effective and minimally intrusive digital/smart features. But, outside of that, they keep it simple.
The no-touchscreen is a much safer way to interact with the vehicle, and afaik they have stuck to the traditional 'car' formula. Most of their cars can be purchased in manual and have pretty good driving mechanics for a honda/toyota competitor.
The Mazda 3 Hatch, is IMO the best deal in cars right now.
Looks great, feels great, and all of the tech seems carefully considered and balanced. The closest thing to a complaint would be that I do prefer an analogue gauge cluster, but the digital display is tasteful and after driving I rarely even notice that it's on a screen.
Before purchasing, I was really looking for a hybrid or PHEV but nothing came close to feeling right in the same way. If Mazda offered exactly the same car that wasn't ICE, I would probably sell and buy again in an instant.
There's enough traffic where I live that former beeps every time I put my signal on before 11pm, while the latter is extremely useful.
+1 for Mazda.
It’s crazy out there right now.
A Saab 900 with an electric motor. Please make it.
A good candidate for a Tesla drive unit transplant, probably. Too bad I don't have the mechanical skills to do it myself (I have a non-running 1984 900 SPG in my garage)
But the big reason is that the Tesla units include the gear reduction to directly attach to the short axles. The 900 has a funny arrangement where the engine is part of a whole transaxle unit which sits on top of the transmission and oil pan, drives the transmission by a chain, and then the axles hang out the side of the unit. I think the Tesla units could drop right in there, just need new axles.
There's a couple Model S rear drive units hanging around in local classifieds. I've been tempted but I don't think I can justify spending $$ on yet another project I'd never finish.
Telsa includes the inverter in the drive module; the Eluminator requires an external inverter, unfortunately.
Quite the missed opportunity, because it would be nearly drop-in if it included an inverter. That's what is so great about the Tesla module. You feed it power and CAN bus commands and boom, you've got torque.
I suspect the inverter was not released with it because there is IP there that they cannot give away / sell. Tesla wouldn't either, you can only get that drive unit by salvage.
The only thing you'd need is a cradle and custom half-shafts.
Imagine if your tesla’s interior looked like this: https://youtu.be/oPAvyt9ZNrg?t=221
https://smallblogv8.blogspot.com/2020/10/oh-yeah-tommykaira-...
Current MiniEV ships with a display for instrument cluster, earlier ones had dials.
Genesis announced earlier this year that they plan to be all electric by 2025. And unlike most of these statements from most manufacturers, this one is actually believable. Hyundai/Kia have been pretty successful at selling electric cars in Europe; they have the engineering resources built up for EVs and Genesis should be able to take advantage of that.
The GV70 is expected to have around 250 miles of range. In addition to that I think they're also going to be releasing the electrified G80 (midsize luxury sedan) pretty soon.
Old cars. The problem is the lack of modern safety features which really makes me do a double take before considering them. I wish cannibalizing a new car and ripping out all of the useless electronics was common enough for there to be tutorials for some brands
Late 90's saab 9000's have TCS, ABS, Dual Air Bag, so your standard set of 2000's features, and are also very safe.
Unfortunately there seems to be a lack of good crash test data publically on older (older than 2004) cars.
I drive a 2007 base model Porsche 911. No GPS, manual transmission, built to crash with ABS, traction, airbags, cage.
Otherwise the rocker panels just rot out so quickly, and they are wicked expensive to get replaced. I was quoted almost $4000 to fix mine on my last vehicle (only 100k miles, otherwise near perfect condition), so I could get an inspection sticker. So I traded it and put that money down on a new one instead...
Personally I like physical UI controls (touch screens are hard to hit precisely, and don't give feedback when you're not looking) and definitely not baked-in AAA junk, but the rest I'm fine with. Lane-keeping often sucks so I disable it, but... it's disable-able, so meh. I almost never use the main UI for anything (my phone is infinitely more capable), so I don't particularly care how many features it has as long as I don't have to use it at all for most trips. My phone auto-connects, I hit play on Spotify and maybe start a navigation app, and I'm good. I'd probably deeply hate something that required button taps to start the car or shift out of park or something.
Base model mustang ecoboost is similar, you have to pay more to get the larger infotainment option but otherwise everything is manual including the hvac: https://www.ford.com/cars/mustang/models/ecoboost-fastback/ I assume the same would be true for the Camaro and Challenger
I would stay away from anything luxury. Family Haulers and Base model trucks are typically low-tech as well.
There are some downsides. Like the creepiness factor of owning a panel van as a large bearded guy, but most people warm up to it once I explain things. Also the commercial 7% interest on my financing plan. I'm used to financing around 1-3% interest on any car I've bought new, but at least in my state commercial vehicles carry a locked in interest rate.
Commercial trucks/vans also have shit for sound insulation so be prepared to do that yourself or pay a local stereo shop to quiet things down.
Other than that its hard to even find consumer cars with a manual transmission in my area, let alone a lack of electronic non-sense.
In general, look for vehicles that have a really old platform or really old 'redesign'. Eg: Look at model history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Express
I'm not sure of any way to look this up across brands and models? Perhaps a good opportunity for a microsite?
In general companies boast about how new their tech is, not how old.
Disclosure: I work for GM, this is solely my own opinion.
If you don't want OnStar or Satellite Radio, there are ways to disable it pretty easily.
How? Any pointers?
I would expect it to work to go to a credit union and have them write a consumer loan you could use to purchase the van. But they may refuse to do that if the typical loan an the type of vehicle is more expensive than the consumer rate.
1-2 year old cars with 5-8k miles are selling for the same price or even more than brand new models because of a confluence of the chip shortage and CPO warranties extending the total warranty length.
I liked WW2 jeeps and their simplicity, this seems like modern equivalent.
Dashboard is still the same analog as in the 80s https://static.lada.ru/images/press-releases/vaz_catalogue_n...
https://www.lada.ru/en/cars/niva-legend
There seems to be a UK dealer https://lada4x4.co.uk/
It would be impossible new without buying them for crash tests and I think maybe modifying the engine, and it gets very expensive (I'm not 100% sure but it's a tedious and very difficult and expensive process from what I remember). That's unless they're 25 years old in the US or 15 years old in Canada (eg. buy a really old model).
Isn't that the brand of car I usually see shatter like glass in a crash in dashcam videos from Russia?
They are simple, yes. So simple they don't care if the simplicity cost you your life, and maybe your family if you are brave enough to put them in that. But hey, you saved a couple of thousands when you bought it, so maybe it's worth it.
And the saddest part is that the new models have electric mirrors, rear cam, parking radar, a 7" display, electric windows front and rear... The whole package you specifically didn't want in your Lada.
Personally I’d recommend 2014 mid tier vehicles. Jeep, RAM, and GM trucks.
2014 is a good start for many body styles. 2018 saw regulatory changes and a lot of new body styles. A 2000-2010 is 11-21 years old now and they just don’t last that long.
I can tell you there was a massive change in quality right around the time 4G/LTE/WIFI access points were added. It meant we could finish software after shipping in many cases. I’m not sure anything but high-end had OTA in 2014-2016.
You aren’t going to get away from CAN busses unless you go back to 2005 or earlier. So get the ones that actually worked pretty well. There was a bell curve of shitty to good to overloaded and shitty again.
I’m provided vehicles by my work. But man, if I had to buy one… I’d be in the same boat man.
EDIT: Another poster had a good point. The commercial vans are really decontented. I only know Promasters and Sprinters, but yes, those actually do have less electronics. Iirc a recent Promaster city only has one or two data busses, instead of the typical 7-9.
The best you can do is buy a "fleet model" truck or something, but its still going to have a host of electronics and probably a GPS and cellular radio inside. Fleet models are designed to last, as not to anger large-scale fleet customers.
Yeah, you can find cars with more knobs and less touch screens, but in most cases, those analog-appearing knobs are just digital input devices to an (eg for Honda since at least 2018) low-end, cheaply-made Android device.
If you're sincere, your best bet is to buy a year and model with something that still has plenty of spare parts available (eg. 2000 era Honda, Toyota trucks, etc)
I'd paste the link to the technician's manual, but it's not public, though you can find it on less than ethical places.
A fun practice is to pull the fuse on the Android unit and try using your car. It will work, but it's... unpleasant.
PS: If you ever get the urge to root the Android device or install Honda Hack, don't bother on a car you rely on.
It will slow down, crash, and possibly break everything and require a full factory reset. The Android hardware installed is so puny, it can't handle more than what's factory.
It's definitely not bare bones, but I like that the screen isn't really needed for anything, and has knobs for every control.
Between 1996 and ~mid 00s, you had some of that stuff but really not that much. If you're willing to tolerate an ECM and some jankiness with factory radios controlling the security alarm and nonsense like that then you can avoid all the modern garbage.
Unfortunately governments are beginning to mandate some of those gimmicks. Even if a car company wanted to make a car that is just a car, without a rear camera or stop assist it likely wouldn't be able to be imported to anywhere in Europe or anglophone north america.
I purchased a 2021 vehicle, its a GM vehicle. Its my first GM product, my last was a Toyota but very basic model, no tech. This has everything and while I enjoyed it at first, a few things started to happen in the vehicle that made me realize that I don't want this vehicle anymore. Primarily the OnStar "feature", I get an ad like chime every so often, asking if I would like to sign up or that this vehicle has OnStar and I should activate it.
I get the world we live in and I get that everything has a subscription service attached to it but when that OnStar kicks in while I am talking to someone in the car it creeps me out. Its like when Siri asks how can I help you when you didn't ask for help yet its feels a bit more awkward. Can't explain why except I will be selling the vehicle very soon, just not sure what I will be getting next. Older, like 2000's, low miles and base model.
Its why I have not purchased an EV, while they don't all have subscriptions its started to feel like they are all going in that direction. I love tech but it has become a bit overwhelming in vehicles. If I paid for the car I really don't want to have ads while driving the vehicle (old school thinking I guess).
That truck had software bugs that’d sometimes run the battery down over night or cause the entire dashboard and onstar voice response system to freak out.
Alarmingly, a powertrain software bug caused it to behave unpredictability in parking lots. The Bolt had the same bug, but it manifested in a more severe way. Search “bolt unexpected acceleration while parking”.
Mine was a base model (only knobs; no touchscreens or even medium resolution displays), though it had rudimentary voice control and internet of some sort.
I don’t plan to buy a GM again, unless they can make one with zero computers for me, or maybe outsource their software development to a competent firm. The fact that they have a self-driving car division terrifies me.
Reliable as a brick. Drives like one too. But boy is it stupidly simple — no bluetooth even, chucked in a USB receiver and called it a day. No touchscreens, no fancy driver assist, no cameras, no nothing. Just an AC and motorized windows.
Paid around $10k for it. Worth every rouble.
Korean cars are very popular here in Moscow. Basically every taxi is either Kia or Hyundai, Toyotas are less common. Outside of major cities Renault (Dacia) and Ladas are prevalent because they're even cheaper.
Want a dumb car? Come to Russia. We have some.
I can't drive automatic transmissions without losing my mind. My guess is if you can find a car with a standard transmission, you can get it without "smart" features. If you can't drive stick, that's fine. I couldn't drive stick when I bought my first manual transmission. If I can learn, you can learn.
Even so, I had to get FORScan to disable the autolocking feature (very frustrating when you are just going around the yard and it automatically locks the tailgate on you) and tweak a couple other things
You could buy an older car like a crown victoria or similar models that were used as fleet vehicles from the same time period. The police models don't have TPMS, cruise control is disabled by default, no LCD screens, no bluetooth, no cellular connectivity, no voice controls, no ignition interlock, no cameras for lane keeping or early crash warning. HVAC is has dedicated controls. It still has an engine computer that controls the timing and fuel air mixture, cooling, turn signals, throttle by wire(after 04), and ABS. To really avoid anything digital you would need a car from the mid 80s or older for one with a solenoid for the turn signals, carburetor for fuel/air. And going back to the 50s to avoid an electronic fuel pump and ignition coils. An air cooled vw beetle for instance.
For new cars, a mazda 3 can be a good option. It doesn't use a touch screen and has a wheel/knob instead. The controls are more simplified, few to none of those electronic driving aids on the base models. Volvos stand out as having great physical controls as well, but they will come with all of the electronics. An f150, dodge challenger, grand caravan can be pretty light on the electronics for the lowest trim levels compared to the competition. And all of these are used as fleet vehicles by rental car cos and similar, so there are lots of parts out there
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335If not then I guess it's a lot different from the 2019 Mazda 6 I own. It's been great. Not what the parent is looking for probably but it has no gimmicks - I find every convenience usable. The adaptive lights, the active cruise, lane assist, automatic transmission, keyless system, seat memory, HUD, 360 cam. Yes, I know these are kind of basics now but still, I come from Mitsubishi Lancer 2010 land - all the gimmicks that car had was ABS ;)
Only knit pick I have is you can't turn off the radio, you can only mute it. Had the same feeling when I bought my first iPod and discovered that sleep was it's natural state... Got used to it somehow ;)
However, apart from the touch screen being optional, I think Mazda has a fairly driver-hostile user experience with their controls.
I have a 2020 CX-5, and it's still very opinionated about how I should be driving. For example, it will grumble at you if you touch a white or yellow line, or if it thinks you're too close to the car in front of you and not braking hard enough. I'm generally a fairly safe driver: close to thirty years with a license, all but two years of that being city driving, and never had an accident. You wouldn't know it from the way my car yells at me every time I drive it though.
Oh, and it asks me to agree to a legal disclaimer every time I start it up! Love being treated like that.
You're also right that it's pure CYA. However, since you don't actually have to agree with it to use the vehicle, I wonder whether it actually covers anything, or if it's just a meaningless hurdle you have to jump through. In any case, it's not for my benefit as the owner.
Basically the same cars, analog dashboard with knobs, just simple radio w/bluetooth and optional phone connection
https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/8-vw-e-u...
https://villanyautosok.hu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2019-11...
I'm intrigued by this because I think it would be pretty fun to drive a single seat car on the road, but maybe thats just me.
The problem with VW's lower market EVs will be the range though, not even half the range of a model 3. The ID.4/3 has better range but they ruin it IMO with screens for everything.
a nice future for all heavy equipment (cars included) would be an open standard for interfacing the heavy equipment with your own control technology, so you can replace and choose the tech yourself, and if the manufacturer stops supporting the software, the hardware remains usable for the remainder of its usually much longer life. i suspect though that this would have to be done via legislation, both to make the carmakers do it and to absolve them of liability in the event that a connected device causes an accident. (the future of machines will involve blameless teams and blameful software with trusted attribution of blame, methinks)
1. Is there a button for the thing I'm trying to do?
2. Does the button in (1) do what I expect it to do?
(2) drives me crazy. And I'm sure it's both a blessing and a curse as cars continue to pack tech under their hoods/into their dashes.
The climate system "Auto" function is my favorite nuisance. It used to be that you had temperate and fan speed and they operated rather intuitively. Now "Auto" does something. I'm not quite sure what. Is it reading my body temperature? Interior temperature? Exterior temperature? How does it determine fan speed? Passengers?
Even in a car with tech, I revert to barbaric adjustments: open windows when it's nice out (NYC metro area), seat heaters when it's cold (Northeast standards), and the Max A/C when the humidity is unbearable.
You know what's awesome? All of those things have, in my cars at least, buttons! I know what they do!
/End Rant
Edit: the above refers to the US specifically. As other commentators have pointed out, the situation is different in other regions.
From some quick Googling... The Ford Ka in Europe was carbureted (and pushrod!) up until 2000.
I believe the VW CitiGolf was carb'd until 2008.
Lada's maybe had carbs up until 2014.
I think Proton even had one until the mid 2010's also.
Interestingly. I thought that here in the US, we got rid of all carb'd motorcycles as well. But Honda is releasing the 2022 Navi, and it's carbureted! Especially weird since they have other 110cc engines that have fuel injection.
It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the newer “Sierra Classic” line (same body style; overlapped the new platform model years) had airbags and carburetors.
Unfortunately, the interiors of those trucks were made of plastics that started shattering a decade ago. Good luck finding one with a working seat and door controls, let alone radio, etc!
As long as you kept them below 80mph, they handled great. Above that, the speedometer was pinned, and tapping the brakes caused them to pull hard to one side. I miss that truck.
This might be a good option if you want to improve potential resale value.
Right? What would Wolfgang Langewiesche drive? Saab 9-5 Aero would be my guess.
- Zero* pollution.
- Big rebate from the government (6k + 3k)
- No fancy digital gimmics like touchscreen or digital distractions. I have to plug in my phone to listen to music and the knobs and physical buttons are much more ergonomic to me.
- Small and compact build for grocey runs and dropping kids to school
- 1/3 cost of charging compared to gasoline.
- Free parkings all over the city with chargers.
- Simple but superior technology. Driving an ICE is a chore for me now with so much vibrations and noise.
- Low maintenance, no engine oils to change and spark plugs/carburetors to tweak.
* I am aware that we offset the pollution to power plants, but I still feel this is better compared to ICE pollution.
P.S. I live in Berlin, Germany and we have top notch public transport here.
But there are lots of them in perfect state in Europe.
I would love something like a Tesla with a repl that I can program to do donuts; dynamically adjust the ride height from my Apple Watch, or just make the headlights flash in time to my music. Booting Urbit on the infotainment device is a bonus.
Basically a modern car for a hacker that still loves technology. Absolutely loved the Rally Motors concept as a kid. The Grenadier looks promising too. But I’m not aware of anything that’s computers + Hoonigan. The more digitization the better.
Anything where you can't flip a lever somewhere on the car to turn on your windshield wipers is a bad taste, to me.
(edit: added this sentence) Another area, and I have no idea if Tesla, or any car company, does this:
Anything that constantly phones home my speed or braking dynamics or gps or any other telemetry to *anywhere* - or even stores it for more than like an hour - is too much digitalization, to me.
I probably lean more toward the "less digitalization" crowd, but I think those are things that can be seen as "too much" by most people.
I agree: cars have way too many features. I loved my 2003 Honda Accord, but some dumbass totaled it when she rear-ended me at an intersection because she wasn't paying attention - probably on her phone. Most people I talk to don't know how to use their car's features.
Reasonably easy build, but you need a bunch of torque wrenches and a dolly (Is that what they call is? Thing that can lift an engine?). The tools aren't hard to get, but you want to rent the dolly for a day. Nobody can lift the engine block.
It's not really that hard to do, just quite time consuming. There's a heck of a lot of parts to put together. Of course you will need a locked garage to put it in, it can't just be thrown together over the course of a weekend. Took maybe a few weekends for three busy people with jobs.
Use it for? My colleague bought it and drove around in it. It's quite a basic car by modern standards. Feels like you are touching the road when you're driving it. Also the clutch is unforgiving. Tiny bit too fast and the thing dies, and you're sitting in a busy junction with people laughing at you. Also it's really a fairweather car. There's leather panels that will stop it being flooded but in rain it's quite uncomfortable.
It's also not a car that a lot went wrong with. What is there to break on such a thing? But to be fair it also wasn't driven much.
Surprised car makers haven't started trying to get ad revenue from displaying ads on cars' touchscreens
Kidding aside, I think customers can argue that such ads can be distracting to the driver.
That's that XM is for
My 'daily driver' (or at least, before I got my e-bike it was my daily driver) is 24, drives like it was made last week and will probably outlast me. It is not the most fuel economic car but it gets me where I need to go and is quite reliable.
Check out the interior here. https://youtu.be/3wrPT9buKkc?t=575
For example the 718 Cayman/Boxster supports Carplay so you get all the good aspects of digital, but climate control, drive modes, and everything else is physical. There are plenty of cars that are/were in this in between state like Mazda's lineup.
For grad school, I got a cousin of it, a 2002 olds. These w body, V6 GMs are so smooth!! So pleasant on the highway! And get 30 mpg? I can’t bring myself to get rid of the thing. In fact I’m a bit obsessive about keeping it nice. It’s so inexpensive to mantón and run, and it is a good, spacious, smooth car.
Not luxurious, but still quiet and smooth. Not sporty, yet it passes anything on the highway with ease. Not flashy, but neither am I. Not new, yet still, somehow, reliable. Not techie, yet wit a cellphone mount and a Bluetooth (wired) adapter, I can do just about every thing I want.
Like you, I couldn’t be happier with my old boat.
my dog ate part of the interior. it needed a new mass air flow sensor and water pump this year and probably a new traction control unit before the winter gets bad.
its supercharged, so the transmission is being run into the ground. it's started to not shift correctly, so that's probably gonna be curtains once that goes.
but overall and extremely smooth ride and up until recently had quite the pickup.
I'd get another, but they really don't make them like this anymore. I believe the newest column shifter/boat type thing you can still get is a 2013 chevy impala with a nice trim package.
After that it's floor shifters and touch screens. very sad.
I didn’t know how to drive a stick before I purchased this car; but had a strong desire to vote with my wallet stemming from the same emotions. I wanted less “technology” in my car.
I would recommend a Toyota, Honda or Lincoln Town Car from that era. They're reliable, cheap to maintain/repair/modify, lots of parts availability. Crutchfield.com has excellent guides on retrofitting modern audio systems into these vehicles.
The major caveat is safety. While you do get ABS brakes, airbags and seatbelts in this era the crash protection is dismal compared to a modern SUV. You must always drive attentively and defensively- I _never_ text or call using my car audio while driving for this reason.
No remote locking, stick shift, just a radio / aux input. Has reverse camera though, and hill start assist.
RWD, four cylinder (but enough power with the 4.10 rear end gearing). And good safety ratings.
It's quite weird in that it has good torque at low RPM, but revs to 7k RPM. Unusual for a truck, but fun.
I use it for towing a 4k lb trailer and the once a week run to the store. Nothing broke in five years so far.
I think they recently dropped the stick shift option but there are plenty on the market. Usually around $20k.
I average 20mpg. 25 on highway. 20 towing.
Downsides: I have the extended cab for the longer bed, so rear seats are tiny.
It does it frustratingly annoyingly intrusively and so on.
I think behind most nostalgia is a longing for youth.
Since you're in the states, you could consider something basic, like a Mazda 2 series or an MX-5. I also imagine that some lower trim Ford, Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, or Chevy models (Chevy Spark?) could be a good option.
It get's easier outside of the US. The VW Up is about as analog as you can get - the digital infotainment system is a smart phone app.
Pick the body style you like/can afford.
Remove the engine and all electronics and sell them.
Install crate engine and aftermarket electronics to taste.
To answer your question, it depends on what you plan to do with the car and how much you want to spend. Toyota, Honda, Jeep, Porsche, Ford, Ferrari, Chevy.
I think you will always need a trip to the dealership and it won't even always be an issue with your infotainment. The exception is if you know how a lot about cars.
Also, people don't need your car technology to track you. I know people who lost 10k of camera equipment in their car because they were targeted using other attack vectors.
I have tesla at the moment and it has a lot of digital gimmicks. I am thinking of going into porsche or c8 in the next few months.
You brought up a really good question about privacy. I'm seeking some wisdom about that too. I know that my location, supercharging, and trips are tracked. Prob even sentry might be watched by a content moderator at tesla.
Now, let's say i switch to a porsche or a c8. Wouldn't i still have privacy risks? The risks are, my cellphone, wifi, bluetooth, credit cards, data brokers, cookies, in-store purchases, transactions, or even more sophisticated attack like using people i know as another vector.
You can even track people on the blockchain. I think the exception would be something like monero.
So, I guess can someone more knowledgable share info about the issues privacy issues with tech gadgets in cars. How big of an issue is it if you are already completely integrated in modern tech society?
The fun factor should not be discounted, either.
* If you live in a place with hills, it will be annoying to drive. (Initially it might feel like it'd be a fun challenge to deal with the hills, but it gets old pretty quickly.)
* If you live in a place where you have to deal with frequent stops due to heavy traffic or multiple nearby stop signs, it will be annoying to drive. (No fun challenge here; this is just flat-out annoying.)
* If you want or need a friend to drive your car in a pinch (say you've had too much to drink, or you sprained your ankle on a hike), they likely will not know how (depends on where you live; I'm in the US, where most people don't know how). On the flip side, "oh, sorry, it has a manual transmission" is a great no-blame, no-awkward excuse if you don't want to let someone drive your car.
* Related, but your significant other, if you have one, might not know how to drive it, and might not be interested in learning (before anyone says anything: no, there's nothing wrong with this attitude; being able to drive stick doesn't give you some sort of moral superiority), and that could create some annoying logistical problems at times.
* Less of an issue if you're buying used, but in many markets (again, I mainly know about the US market), manufacturers are dropping the manual transmission options, or are only allowing them on the more expensive trim levels. Even if you're buying used, your available options may be many fewer than if you were looking for an automatic car. Then again, the used car market is nuts right now, and I don't know, but maybe that's making it easier to find a manual car, since they're not usually in high demand.
I'm tiptoeing into the market for a new car now, and as much as it will sadden me, I'm almost certainly going to go for an automatic transmission. Finding a manual is requiring more compromises on other features than I want to make, and some of the cons I've listed above have, over time, hit me kinda hard.
Hill-climb control, which leaves the brake applied until the clutch is engaged, is a common and wonderful feature now. Saved my butt before.
> If you live in a place where you have to deal with frequent stops due to heavy traffic or multiple nearby stop signs, it will be annoying to drive.
The Bay Area is obviously not a great place to drive stick.
> Related, but your significant other, if you have one, might not know how to drive it
I take offense that you'd impune my good taste in such a way. Jokes aside, this is very valid.
What I would love to see is:
- throttle
- battery status indicator leds (or similar low tech battery status feedback)
- pedal sensor
- battery management system
- charger
- reliable motor
What I would not like to see is:
- gps
- led display
- smart lock
- builtin cameras
- ...
Suggestions welcome!
Nowadays you won't find anything new that isn't full of electronics unless they sell Lada Niva in the US (might be a bit too bare for you though).
What's a 'digital gimmick'? Is stability control a gimmick? ABS? What about cruise control? Lane assist? Auto-breaking to avoid collisions?
If you are talking about things like touch screens to control basic functions, then it's understandable. Or maybe you want a car without GPS.
In general though, moving functions away from hardware makes things more reliable, not less. When was the last time you had to adjust your engine timing? Or disassemble a carburator to figure out issues, rather than plugging in a scanner and having the onboard computer tell you what's wrong.
Kind of wish I kept my 89 Caprice when the transmission seal went bad about 5 years ago.
* Caterham 7 super sprint
* TVR Griffith (or Chimaera)
* Ariel Nomad
I wish they'd ditch the EV thing, put a 300hp motor in the front and find a price point around 40k.
They'd sell a whole lot of them
You could probably get an 80's Camaro or something, but that's not really a "muscle car". That term is generally applied to models from the 60's and 70's.
I remedied some of that by adding a modern 5-speed, hydraulic clutch actuator, front disc brakes, dual circuit brakes, relocated upper control arms, traction bars, limited slip diff, a modern alternator, and modern H4 headlights to the convertible (which I bought already non-original). But it’s still a flexible, leaf-sprung, solid rear axle car with poor sealing and weak environmentals.
$10K isn’t going to happen and was unlikely 5 years ago, but way off the market for even a good driver-quality car today. (Odometer reading is not a major driver of pricing in the low [driver] end of the market. Many of the cars have a 5-digit odometer of questionable reliability anyway, so a car reading 25000 miles could have 25K, 125K, 225K, or 47K miles. It’s condition-based way more than miles-based.)
Are remote diagnostics a gimmick? Is the 20 year old CAN bus a gimmick? Automatic headlights? TPMS? ABS? All of this technology contains properties that identify your vehicle from similar vehicles WHILE making the roads safer.
If I want to sing or shout the entire way home without it being stored in 'the cloud' that is my right. If I want to change my own oil or tires, nothing should stop me. So much of this crap is jacking up the price of a basic conveyance and it just adds more headache, more proprietary parts, and more stuff to go wrong. God dammit I just want to ride to the store and back, stop pestering me like I'm some kind of incompetent child asking for unrealistic things. I swear to fucking christ almighty if I have to make a ticket for the Ford Genius Bar to get some basic shit fixed, I might just snap on the nearest nerd.
OnStar was a mistake, it all went downhill from there. Fuel Injection bros, you can come get some too.
This is simply not true. Things like touchscreens are cheap gimmicks and the roads do not get any safer by using them in a car [1]. Mazda recently announced its decision [2,3] to replace touchscreens with analog controls as they provide more tactile feedback and I hope more manufacturers follow.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26277965
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200335
[3] https://www.autoblog.com/2020/08/25/2021-mazda-cx-5-updates/