My rude-ass car
neverbeclever.org
neverbeclever.org
Mid nineties to mid aughts are the absolute high point for me, where you get all the technology but none of the heinous "you rent all your things" features that smear newer vehicles. The downside is dodging the mid-aughts quality hangover Honda seemed to have suffered in the period - really just fit and finish, but still annoying - and more importantly the long train of suck that was Hyundai Theta/Gamma family engines and derivatives. Hyundai reached a leeeetle too far in the late aughts, with some sci-fi internal combustion tricks, but oof, that was a hard pill after their fantastic Delta V6s.
I certainly wonder how repairable cars will be in ten years. Or will they further progress down the path where everything is cryptographically serialized and has incompatible firmware versions. So they can only repaired as long as OEM parts and tooling is available. And then nothing.
Ever notice that's when all the new sports cars started trying to look like muscle from the 70s? Just a tiny slice of what was happening in our collective brains in the 21st century.
The telemetry has long since stopped working but I’m left with is a car with adaptive cruise control and between 50-80mpg (imperial).
Record was 82mpg after following a lory on a 150 mile motorway run.
It’s still got useful satnav, infotainment systems and all the safety features I’m aware of.
It even has nice little touches like the self-dimming rear-view mirror, for when you’ve got a berk with full-beams on driving up your arse at night.
I’d miss that stuff on an older car.
I can afford to get a new car every year if I wanted but modern cars are annoying and creepy.
I have no idea what I’d replace it with so I just keep it running.
The only contrivance I could do without is keyless ignition, which provides an effective attack vector for thieves and the ability to lose the keys while driving.
A mobile phone in works well to augment the aging infotainment / satnav, the only issue being UK law is unclear on whether it's allowable to touch a phone in a cradle. The police say you cannot touch your phone when driving and lawyers say you are only banned from using a handheld device, which a phone in a cradle is not.
It is a diesel though so I worry a bit about the particle filter clogging, which can be somewhat expensive afaik.
...And then we bought a '47 Willys Jeep a year later. Which has 4 wheel drums. And the worlds least conveniently located master cylinder.
So instead I'm getting a really sweet new motor built for mine. Still the same 4.0, but with updated components and a focus on improved efficiency. My target is 25mpg highway. ...and a little bit of hooning around the desert racing circuit maybe. :-)
Even with a fancy motor (and transmission), it'll still be less money than a new replacement vehicle, and most importantly, it won't piss me off all the time. With already-upgraded suspension, steering, and some electronics, it's kinda fun and quite capable.
The only thing I'm really missing is safety. Jeeps are pretty terrible at the moose test to begin with, and 2001 was too early for side curtain airbags. I think I can retrofit 2004 side curtain bags into mine, and I'm redistributing weight in the vehicle that, along with some of the newer electronic suspensions, should improve its highway handling.
Same for my 1998 Honda Civic. It just keeps going&going. Cheap to fix when it breaks down. I'd say late 80s through the 90s were the high point for Honda. I just don't think there will ever be many cars that will be as good & reliable as Hondas from those years. They really set a high bar during that era.
I will inevitably end up with a Civic hatchback.
It'll be a dark day when it goes...
We ordered a Ioniq 5, and I hope it's better, but I'm not looking forward to it.
125K miles, 3rd suspension, zero problems, manual windows, door locks, seats mirrors, everything. The odometer seems to be digital. It even passes GA emissions now.
[1] It was so... liberating when we started buying Priuses and I discovered I could drive them like race cars and get 44mpg more or less reliably. X-country + urban miles almost all go there. The current 2015 is so comfortably very dumb.
I hope Toyota keeps making their cars as dumb as possible. The 4Runner had it's best sales year 10 years after it's redesign and I think that speaks to the market for "dumb" cars.
Then they started reducing the amount of material they could minimally require in order to still produce something resembling a chain. Newer chains are narrower, made of thinner steel, lighter in all aspects, you name it -- all in the name of reducing drag and friction, and thus the relative load on the chain increases and the strength of the links and pins decrease. Add in chain tensioners adhering to the same philosophy. Bang! We have timing chain failures.
If you want ultimate resilience, get a car with non-interference valvetrain. Doesn't matter if the timing breaks up, you'll just install a new chain/belt and continue.
I've owned several high mileage vehicles (over 300k) including Toyota 22RE, 3RZ, and Chevy LS with their original timing chain. Now that I think about it, does the LS even have a tensioner or chain guide?
For example, on BMW Minis, which all have timing chains:
- 1st gens Minis (2002 -> 2006 roughly), with Chrysler engines, have a bulletproof engine, and replacing the timing chain is a rare occurrence
- 2nd gens Mini (2007 -> 2013 roughly) with PSA engines modified by BMW have a suicidal engines, especially the pre-LCI (2007 -> 2009) engines, that are known to often break timing chain guides. The symptom for that is named "death rattle", which is chain slap.
- 3nd gens Mini (2014 -> 2022 roughly) with BMW engines are so far known to be pretty bulletproof. Note that some of them now have high mileage with no large-scale issues.
So a well-designed engine with a timing chain is preferable to a timing belt. But a timing belt is preferable to a problematic engine with a timing chain, which will break at the most inconvenient time and leave you with an unexpected large bill.
Buuuuut, there's also modern Opel engines where timing chain is guaranteed to kill the engine if not replaced every 100k km.
So it really depends on the engine rather being simple chain vs belt.
As with all things, the build quality and overall design will overrule single atomized design decisions. GM iron dukes have geared cams, which should be frickin' bulletproof, but they use a nylon spindle that tends to blow apart under variable load or just using weird fluids.
I call upon you all: reclaim agency over your driving experience, learn how a carb works, drive a cool classic and cut bullshit tech out of your life (while not contributing to the throwaway culture lithium ion has brought us).
I also know how modern cars are designed to survive collisions. You can keep 'em. I'd consider something like as a fun weekend car, but it's be relegated to rural backroads and track days.
I bought an relatively "bad condition", top of the line (at the time) 4Runner for well less than 10 grand, spent 40 hours of effort on DIY repairs and maintenance over the course of a month. Ended up with a "bulletproof" machine that not only passed inspection - it's a pleasure to drive, is modded to my liking. That 40 hours of effort would have been less than 10 for a seasoned mechanic, and the bill would have brought the total cost of the car to maybe just slightly over $10k.
Finding a physical copy of the service and repair "manual" (it's 8 volumes...) for the exact make, model and year of the car was easy and cost $100. Spent a few hundred on specialized tools, and about 1.5k on parts. The car is old enough that there are several old-school forums with a wealth of knowledge on everything from muffler replacement, rust-removal tactics, to transfer case repair - and those forums are still incredibly active!
Also, now that I'm apparently mind dumping, my personal advice for people living in rust-prone areas (the rust belt, northeast, etc.) - if you can, get a used vehicle from another area. If you can't - fine - but make sure you can inspect the frame rust, do the "hammer check", etc. Remove any rust you can, get an undercoating, and wash regularly (especially during winter). BUT don't be too scared of some frame rust, especially if the price is right. Lots of body-on-frame cars/trucks are actually pretty structurally repairable if you hire a good tech to do the rust cleaning, sawing, and welding. Also, a frame swap is actually quite doable for a few grand if you find a good shop (people do do it themselves but without experience and a full shop it's a pretty dangerous and hardcore endeavor) and are able to source a frame (often less than $1k plus a few hundred in shipping from a scrap yard in the south - or just buy a second used car that's "worthless" for all the reasons yours isn't, and swap that frame).
[0] My experience with cars of this era is mostly with Toyotas and Subarus - both makes are very user-serviceable (IME Subarus are easier, but on average the parts more bespoke and more expensive, Toyotas are more finnicky to work with on average but way cheaper part-wise and way easier to patch together in a pinch). I've worked on a Honda Pilot from that era, it was also a breeze - and tons of DIY-focused car people are "Honda for life". I know a couple people who swear by Nissans from that era, but they caveat that with transmission issues for certain models in certain years (I don't remember which).
You're saying that based on specs! To really appreciate a Scion, you have to drive one-- they're nothing special compared to EVs now, but for ICE vehicles they're pleasantly zippy.
Pretty soon I won't have to deal with valets because none will know how to drive it. WIN.
On a side note, one day I was driving along listening to a Cubs game on the radio when I realized I was hearing stereo... AM. Ford radios of that era were stereo-AM capable. Now they're getting rid of AM in cars altogether.
Oh yeah, today I had to get a new tire and the guy at the shop reminded me of the most offensive regression in cars yet: NO SPARE TIRE. This should be illegal. Nobody should accept this.
They had to get a janitor to pull my car around the next day.
I mean, it's a little unusual to need to push the stick down to go into reverse, but I guess it's like secret knowledge now days.
I really love that car. Who knows how things'll go. I hope it'll outlast me.
I'm jealous, because the manual has actual gears that will last forever.
(I should buy another one and garage it until this one blows up at 300K+.)
It's definitely bigger inside than the wife's 4Runner, but yknow . . I guess a 4runner is a "small" SUV these days, huh?
Honda Element is probably the closest thing to it I can think of, but it's a much bigger/beefier car, not the subcompact the xB is. I would love to get a Kei van if they could pull highway speeds.
Damn shame they ruined the xB post-2006, but ah well the writing would soon be on the wall for all of Scion in general. Poor Scion.
When I needed a car two years ago I purposefully looked for one that didn't even have a full screen, figured all those annoyances would be reduced that way (which probably annoy me even more than the OP). The radio/infotainment does have bluetooth and an aux port, but just a simple two-line digital display, perfect for my needs as someone who thinks showing album art to a driver should be illegal. The car ended up being a stick shift, which I had never driven before so I had to get a friend to pick it up for me and teach me how to drive it. So worth it though: made me a better driver and now I actually enjoy being engaged while driving.
I got a new bmw last year, and before I left the lot, some 20 yo "genius" from the dealership sat down with me and went through every menu in the infotainment to set it up how I wanted and turn off all the annoying driver assistance features. that took the better part of an hour, and to be honest, a slight twinge of buyer's remorse began to set in.
but since then, I haven't changed a thing (okay, I've changed the thermostat about once per season). I'm exactly the kind of person who loves to hate on this kind of thing, but I can't. the car behaves exactly how I want, and it's a lovely way to cruise around town, eat up miles on the freeway, occasionally tear up backroads, etc. the one minor frustration is that I can't permanently turn off the engine auto stop/start, but I'm guessing bmw's hands are tied on that one.
I rented a Toyota corolla cross a while back and it wouldn't even allow us (in my case my passenger) operate the touch screen while moving. I had to physically stop the car so my passenger could program in a new map location! What happens if you're on the highway and can't stop?! We found the way to circumvent this way to use the phone to operate Carplay instead. But it still made my blood boil being locked out of such critical functionality because the car thinks it knows whats safer in the situation than I do.
Want to reverse? DING DING DING DING endlessly.
And every single time we parked the car and i opened the drivers side door DING DING DING DING endlessly for the crime of turning off the engine until the door was closed. Every time I got out of the car I was pissed off from the sensory assault.
Despite the great gas mileage and great hybrid tech, it was unbelievable how annoying that Toyota was. Going back to my BMW felt like going from a noisy flea market to a quiet luxury hotel that doesn't judge you and let's you live your life.
I really don't get BMW. You're in Germany. You are going to drive on the Autobahn. It is likely you will spend most of your time going somewhere between 130km/h and 200+ on the Autobahn. Occasionally there is work done on the Autobahn. Then why the hell does BMW make driver's aids that needlessly create dangerous situations when it encounters double road markings? It's not like they are uncommon in Germany.
I wasn't aware that the driver's aids were even on. And suddenly the shitbox decides we had better follow the markings that lead into the guardrail so I have to yank the suicidal, teutonic, plastic battle tank off its intercept course and point it back on the open road ahead.
I don't think there is a regulatory requirement to keep it enabled. I have a fresh one ('23) and it remembers my last selection. The previous one I had to code to force it remember my preference. If it is that annoying consider coding - it got ridiculously easy to do.
- The doors re-lock after a remote unlock if you don't actually use the doors, but most cars with smart keys these days simply open without you needing to use the remote at all anyway (handy if you're wrangling groceries or children as the OP mentions), and the timeout is obviously less about being chased by thieves and more about keeping an accidental remote press from leaving the car unlocked indefinitely. - The slow closing action of a powered hatch is a fairly obvious safety decision (still fast enough in my experience to justify the tradeoff of having it open for you).
I have a relatively large sample size of drivers I’ve talked to about this. None of the careful, normal drivers complain about collision warnings because they never experience them. Several of my Driver™ friends complain about such warnings with passion.
I agree most of them are surprisingly good -- the forward collision warning system on my Golf R only made a few mistakes in the 3 years I owned it, and they were all "understandable" mistakes where the tech clearly didn't understand why it was 'wrong' -- eg, I refused to lift throttle because I knew the car in front of me was about to accelerate due to the light which had just turned green, or I elected not to brake because the car cutting in front of me was swooping across two lanes so it wasn't worth panicking about.
The system on my Model 3 is GREAT, but only when set to "late" ; my aunt's car was constantly hassling her until I found the setting and moved it from normal to late.
But there are other such annoying automated systems -- my Golf had a REAR collision warning which would fully engage the brakes if you were reversing down your driveway while a car was driving down the street behind you. I suppose it wanted me to wait until the road had NO traffic before daring to reverse on my own private property.
Also, some cars try to overthink things for you. I've driven vehicles where if you drive in a spirited manner, lifting off the throttle abruptly and engaging the brakes quickly but not aggressively, it decides you MUST want to perform a panic stop and doubles the brake pressure. I think most of us can agree that we want our machines to perform in a reliable and consistent manner and not have basic controls second guess us?
Moral of the story, the features are far from perfect, and I would prefer the number of times the car moves the wheel for me to be 0.
The two current cars in the family both have exactly the same bugs with their "collission warning" (and some unique ones). They both will consistently issue the RED-FLASH!+BEEP!!+BEEP!!+BRAKE (sometimes), when driving around a turn with a car or especially truck parked on the outside road shoulder. The car cannot figure out that I'm not going straight into the "obstacle", and so warns me. Too late for me to actually do anything about it if I were to actually be heading straight into the parked obstacle, but it goes right ahead. The only possible benefit is if it is also silently pre-tensioning the belts & priming the airbags, but it could do that without the histrionics.
Both cars also far too often will alert on mere cracks or patches in the road ahead, with no obstacles.
There are other times they mis-alert in their own ways or randomly, and it isn't often enough to dump the cars, but it is definitely bad. The warnings are also timed so as to be absolutely useless were it an actual emergency, and I say that as a qualified & championship-winning road-racing driver who has at least better than average situational awareness & reaction times. I can say absolutely that if this "warning system" were to be my first alert to an emergency, there is no way I could take effective action in time.
So I have no idea who are the clueless wankers designing and implementing it; it is evidently for only their own self-satisfaction to justify their existence. Sad.
In a traditional European city with lots of tight, one-way streets, illegal side-walk parking on them, or short time window available to merge into congested traffic, I'm seeing my 2020 Volvo constantly complain thinking it's about to have a collision with a parked car as you drive around potholes (and point a car slightly to parked car's tail), or abruptly breaking as you slowly reverse back into street from a parking spot because of incoming traffic (eg. other driver behind in the street slowing down to let you merge but not fully stopping, a pedestrian anywhere in the ~8m radius regardless of the direction they are going, or "cross-traffic" coming from the other direction not crossing your lane). I get automated braking happen at least few times a month (I started ignoring collision warnings, so I have no idea how common they are), and I don't even drive that much (35kkm over 3+ years).
OTOH, I did see it react and break properly at exactly the same time as I pressed on the brake pedal when another car unexpectedly cut in front of my car 2 times over the last 3 years: so I appreciate the system being there and I hope it will react even if I am not attentive enough, and I am not looking to turn it off.
But is it annoying and overall stupid? Yes. Could other systems be much smarter than the one in my car? Oh, yes, and I hope they are!
Nonsense. I live near a fenced parking lot next to a highway. When I gently back out of a spot at 2km/h, approaching the fence, my car slams on the brakes. Because a car is driving down the highway. Not toward me. Not on the shoulder. But almost two lanewidths away, and behind a fence.
No. I can't "slow down and leave adequate braking distance" to ameliorate this. I try to avoid that side of the lot, but sometimes I can't. I need to wait for a lull in traffic. Because the automatic system on my almost brand-new car is hot garbage.
But I still find there are still tons of issues. People also get used to some of the beeps and flashes and don't realize how it breaks their attention, or how long it takes to do simple stuff on a giant touch screen. And I don't want a giant center console screen on when I'm driving a night, but if that screen is the only way I can control, say, the temperature, well then I'll need to go through extra steps and extra distractions.
I can't count how many times I've ridden with someone in a new car, and they're like "I dunno..." Or I tell them about some feature they didn't even know the car had. It boggles my mind that you'd spend so much on some fancy vehicle and not try to get your money's worth.
That Saab made 210k miles, a good part of the three-times-to-the-moon distance I've driven throughout my life.
The power sliding doors and rear gate move slowly, but not to the point I’ve ever found it annoying. With kids getting in and out, I wouldn’t want it to be any faster. And unlike in the article, they don’t stop until they actually encounter resistance - which worked fine the one time my kid closed the door on me when I was fetching something out of the back seat.
The proximity sensors do beep pretty loudly every time I get near an obstacle - which is frankly more often than not when parking, and my wife does find it pretty annoying. But it’s a large car, and visibility around the front and rear corners is not great - so I appreciate having an extra audio cue when I’m approaching an obstacle. Often my goal is to get as close as possible to said obstacle when parking (wall, fence, etc) - so my cue to stop is when it finally plays the long sustained beep to let me know that impact is imminent.
I’ve only had automatic breaking engage a few times. Mostly when I back into a parking space too fast and it thinks I’m going to crash - which is easy enough to avoid by going a bit slower. Once it engaged while I was stopped at a traffic light due to a massive downpour which I guess confused the proximity sensor. That was annoying, and could have been worse if I were actually moving, but I just turned it off with a button on the dashboard and carried on.
I find lane keeping assistance (which engages automatically with cruise control) to be incredibly useful on highways, and while it does get wonky sometimes in heavy snow or around construction sites, the car is pretty good about disengaging the feature automatically when it gets confused and makes a ding to let me know. At that point I’ll usually just turn it off manually with a button on the steering wheel until conditions improve. The article mentions needing to keep applying force to the steering wheel even when stopped, but my car doesn't require that.
There’s also a lane departure warning that engages if I cross over a lane divider without signaling first, which plays two short beeps and applies some force to the steering wheel. But easy enough to override if I continue applying force, and most of the time it’s my fault for not signaling properly anyway.
Doors do automatically lock themselves again after a while, but it’s nowhere close to 15 seconds like in the article. It’s maybe happened once or twice and no big deal to unlock again. On the other hand there have been times when I have unlocked my car because I wanted to grab something, and then got distracted and never actually visited it. In these cases I’m glad to have it lock itself again vs. remaining unlocked for several hours.
My car does play a chime at startup, but it’s not unpleasant, and I’m so used to my now that I have stopped noticing it.
I don't have tire pressure sensors - but my mother had a car with this feature many years ago and they were indeed prone to false alarms. She took it to the dealer several times to fix it, and the dealer pretty much acknowleged that they were garbage. Not sure if she ever got it fixed permanently or just learned to ignore it.
Anyway - I know that a lot of this stuff varies by manufacturer and model, so I’m not saying my experience is universal. But for anyone asking who actually appreciates this stuff - I do. Staying safe is really important to me, and whatever annoyance the safety systems in my car cause is easily offset by their benefit. I certainly wouldn’t want to go back in time to before safety assistance features existed.
Yet it is possible to apply good interaction design to complex systems. Taking the example from the car itself -- the engine and transmission is a very complicated system, yet it's exposed to the user through simple and learnable controls like steering wheel, the gear shift, and the pedals.
In these examples it's painfully obvious that human-machine interaction and user experience design was either an afterthought, or developed by people who are simply not qualified to actually design interactive systems altogether.
After Steve Jobs died it became clear that Ive needed both someone to give him direction and to filter his outoput. Steve Jobs knew something about users. Ive demonstrably didn't and, to speak plainly, managed to lodge his head so far up his own behind that he completely lost sight of the user. As a result he managed to gradually alienate key demographics among laptop users. Including designing laptops that would gradually self-destruct due to completely careless design (like blowing hot air on components that really, really shouldn't have hot air blown on them).
You'd get something like this [1]. And I'm not even joking.
I've driven quite a lot of different cars over the years, and every one has had the same and different flaws like these.
My current car (Audi) has a system that connects with other Audi's in the neighborhood and warns for "dangers" ahead. It cannot be disabled, not even temporarily. Those dangers are completely normal situations, unfortunately. It warns for "limited visibility" aka there is some light fog, but in practice this warning triggers every time there is some sun shining in the camera sensor. Another warning is slippery road, which is triggered when you plant your foot down and lose some traction (aka classic Audi driver behavior in my city).
The result is that almost every drive, even with perfectly sunny weather, you get a loud beep (the same beep as an engine check light or a flat tire warning) and a warning about poor visibility or slippery roads, which completely distracts you. It's bonkers. Why can't I disable this? I've seriously thought about pulling the SIM card in my car to break all network-enabled features.
Parking it beeps all the time for tight spots - in two tones for front and back. It is so hard to concentrate on parking, or even knowing what it is trying to communicate with me that I would be better just with it off so I can peacefully try to park it.
Also, it gets me to log in to the interface every now and then. If I don't then I can't access navigation, android auto etc..
My other car, a 2011 European Ford, is the complete antithesis.
> turn off the forward collision warning so it doesn't scare the shit out of me when I'm going through the drive through
See, now we're talking. Every time I have a rental car it's like a waiting game to see if there's some sensor that's going to scream at me while I'm on a highway and concentrating. 100% agree that this paradigm could (and should) be rethought.
And this is why I'll never own a car newer than 2012 or so (give or take a few years depending on brand).
> And this is why I'll never own a car newer than 2012 or so (give or take a few years depending on brand).
Non sequitur.
I was driving a 2018(?) Golf GTI with automatic braking on an extremely hilly road. The car handled fantastically, and was an absolute joy to drive on twisty roads... until the automatic braking kicked in because it detected the sudden sharp rise of the road in front of me as a vehicle I was about to collide with due to my speed.
It only happened for about a second, but it scared the daylights out of me.
I sold it back to the dealership a few months into lockdowns due to car prices going nuts, but that episode of random braking was a factor for me as well (not to say it was all bad; it saved me from a few fender benders too).
A while ago I was considering replacing my 2004, but I see it's worthwhile to hold on
I always wondered why my neighbor's car always start at high revs (it's loud!) before dropping down after a minute (very quiet). Always startled me in the morning.
The only thing I can't disable is the ding when you start the car without first having your driver's seatbelt buckled, which does annoy the shit out of me because it's a turbo car and I want to give it a few seconds of warm-up before driving to be nicer to it, which I do while getting settled. I always wear a seatbelt, but I buckle it last before I start driving, not first when I first get in the car.
Otherwise it seems pretty great. It was very annoying off the lot, but 20 minutes with the owner's manual in my driveway and I made it tolerable while keeping all the advance technology.
Maybe I'll find additional annoyances over time, this is my first car I've owned with all the new-fangled safety technology designed for normies who can't drive properly.
DING.
Imagine if your iPhone asked you to enable some non-default setting every time you unlocked it. As if you had the audacity to change your devices’ behavior!
The seat belt chime is too damn loud and persistent. And it seems crazy that it chimes even with the car in park!
Does the car turn itself off if you're in park and undo your seatbelt?
I just don't understand how whoever approves this thinks it's a good idea. It seems to be this way across almost all Mazda models. There used to be a way to turn that off but Mazda removed that. So there are indeed people actively making this moronic behavior a thing.
My only gripe with it: Car Play crashes sporadically, while Android Auto works just fine, also why Wi-Fi isn't working for AA?
Not once have I used it as a touch screen or taken my eyes off the road to use a physical dial. You know where I did have to do it? In my Jeep that is only touch screen and buttons don't remember what I'm currently using unlike MX5. Also, those high wind warnings are far more annoying in Jeep than in Miata.
: If I'm using car's radio and Car Play's Google Maps - pressing the nav button will bring Google Maps and pressing the media button will bring the car's radio. While in some cars, it will always bring the car's version of utility or always Car Play/AA version.
The change lane warning was terrible. In a busy city it was totally wrong: approaching the line in anticipation of changing lanes is unavoidable. It also triggered when another vehicle behind was approaching still very far away. I tried to come to terms with the system, but I had to disable it all eventually.
I'm afraid of buying a new one. If all that crap is impossible to disable, I refuse to pay for it.
Does Mazda not disable the lane change warning when you use a turn signal?
The weather alert thing is super annoying, but it can be disabled. I had to re-disable it after the infotainment update, presumably because they disconnected the battery. I wish I remembered which random place I had to go in the UI to disable it... IIRC it was hidden in the settings for traffic or something?!?
Edit: It's buried in Sirius settings. I don't subscribe to Sirius, so I wouldn't have thought to go there, except I had exhausted all other options.
So consider yourself lucky to even have the option!
I personally think Mazda has the least annoying tech of any mainstream car - you can generally turn off annoying beeps (unless legally required), they've kept physical controls for everything, and they've managed to maintain some semblance of steering feedback.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/08/07/mazda-adds-touchs...
// Unlocking the doors...
The reason they auto-close again is (presumably) because with a remote control it's very easy to accidentally unlock either with the keys in your pocket or because kids are playing with them. You don't want the car parked unlocked all week w/o you knowing if that happens.
// Closing the trunk
I think this is a combination of "why is my rear hatch door automatic now" and "why does it move slowly." The answer to the former I think is so you can open your trunk remotely and then grab and carry the stuff, and also to enable the short/weaker folks to operate the taller hatch door (vs a lower-trunk, which isn't what you have...) And then the reason the automatic hatch closes slowly is to not injure you or your child if you happen to not get out of the way quickly enough.
// Starting the engine
I think that audio-ding exists to alert you if a child has touched the start button, which they can obviously do with key-less ignition.
// Using your turn signals
This is the one that sounds truly wrong - if your car alerts you of adjacent vehicles when it shouldn't, (a) you can probably turn off that assist and (b) you should tell the company because it literally sounds like a bug.
// Coming to a full stop
Ditto for hands on the wheel during stop - sounds like a bug.
// The goddamn tires themselves
Yes sounds like you have flawed pressure sensors, go take the car to the dealer.
I do have some complaints about modern cars, but damn, the safety features have saved my ass multiple times. Backup cameras and sonic warning systems are great. I've had people come out of left field at high speed in parking lots when I'm stuck between someones mega vehicles. The system watching from the rear can see what I can't. The turn signals while getting over (and lane detection in my car) is highly useful, especially in the multilane interstates where some jackwagon decides to do a multilane pass on the far right on the other side of a semi and then fly into the middle lane in one swoop while I'm attempting to get in the middle lane from the fast lane.
I mean, how likely is it that you are in the car, NOT sitting in the front seat and a kid is sitting in the front seat and fiddling with the starter knob? I mean, even if they press the start button, then the car won't start unless you've also pressed the brake pedal? And if you're not sitting in the car while the kid is playing in it, then ... the beep does nothing anyway?
Really, the constant beeping and maniacally locking the doors all the time is ridiculous.
Also, can anyone explain why in the US if I click unlock on the remote, it just unlocks the front door? This keeps happening on rental cars. You have to click twice on unlock to get all the doors to open. Of course if I want to put something in the back seat, that means first breaking my fingers while pulling on the handle, then cursing and clicking the open button the remote 10 times to makes sure the idiotic system has unlocked the doors. Which I wanted it to do in the first place.
Really, the author of the article is 100% correct. The UX on most new mid-range cars is ridiculously bad.
I don't have an answer as to why, but this isn't a new car feature in the US. It's been this way my entire life. In the US we've just been conditioned to press unlock twice.
If you want my guess of the intent, it's so you can get into your car without the possibility of someone sneaking into / stealing from the other side of the car.
If they're going off constantly, they're faulty, and should be replaced. That's not a design decision failure; sometimes parts are bad.
"Tell me you don't have kids without telling me you don't have kids." But seriously, this happens all the time - I am taking something out of the trunk or taking the baby out of the rear seat, meanwhile my toddler jumps into the driver's seat to play around with the steering wheel. 20% of the times he does that, he's gonna hit the big blue start button. I hear it because I am right outside the car, and it matters because this turns on the electrical system so leaving it that way will drain the battery.
// Really, the constant beeping and maniacally locking the doors all the time is ridiculous.
You can turn most of that off, and if you're doing normal things like starting the car the right way, you never hear them. EG, I only hear that beep when the toddler does his thing or on the very rare occasions when I intentionally turn on the electrical system w/o starting the engine.
// Also, can anyone explain why in the US if I click unlock on the remote, it just unlocks the front door?
Sure. I relate to this use-case less personally but it's a safety feature for when you're parked somewhere desolate and dark. The idea is that by unlocking only the driver door, you create less room for someone to jump into the car from the other doors and carjack you. Like I said, not something I encounter but I suppose it got created for a reason.
It's also a thing you can turn off. Here's the instructions for Toyota[1]. It's also obviously a muscle memory for cars you own, where you press once or twice depending on which doors you want to open.
// Really, the author of the article is 100% correct. The UX on most new mid-range cars is ridiculously bad
The author reports a couple of things that sound like straight up BUGS and I pointed those out as things he should really talk to a dealer about because they are so dumb that it might just be his car specifically. The rest of them and the ones you listed - are very reasonable features and sane defaults as I described. You may not be used to them in rental cars and obviously you aren't going to fiddle with the settings in those cars, but if this was your car you'd either turn them off, adjust your style to match the device (ie - what ARE you doing that you're getting that beeping all the time?) or maybe your life will evolve to a place where you appreciate some of these kid-focused features more.
[1] https://www.toyotanation.com/threads/remote-2-press-unlock.1...
This is the one which I empathized with, because it happens to me all the time (2022 Mazda CX-30). The "car next to you" warning doesn't come on randomly or anything, it's that the software can't distinguish between the scenario when I'm driving straight and about to make a lane change, or when I'm turning at an intersection and there's a car in the turn lane next to me. It is admittedly annoying that the car beeps at me in the latter scenario, but I have to imagine that it's hard to distinguish between the two.
But, only if you put it in neutral first, refrain from even thinking about touching the accelerator pedal, and fully depress the clutch (even though you just put it in fucking neutral)
I always put the car in neutral and press the clutch, before trying to start it, so wouldn't even notice if the car enforced that... my car only enforces that the clutch be pushed down, but taking it out of gear is a good best practice for extra redundancy, for instance to protect against the case where the clutch hydraulic cylinder had a leak so the clutch didn't fully disengage)
My vocabulary fails to adequately convey how useless that bug report would be. Who would you even contact to report the issue?
The dealer.
These are all almost reasonable.
You made my day with this. As the other guy said, just let the hate flow.
All legacy manufacturers seem to treat software with contempt, as some sort of unimportant annoyance that only needs to be implemented to minimum spec, and has no purpose other than getting regulators off their back, plus maybe looking pretty in the showroom.
Someone has probably written a checklist with "the car must beep whenever the seatbelt is not fastened", sent it to developers in the lowest basement level, they've checked it off checklist, and nobody has given a second thought about how dumb that is when taken literally.
Luckily there's a button that disables the system, which I need to remember to press if I need to get out of the car to open a gate or check I'm centered in a parking spot.
I am really trying to understand what problem the engineers at Fiat were solving when they implemented this functionality. What is the "problem" with the engine restarting when the key is in the ignition in the on position, when I'm sat in the seat, all doors closed, clutch depressed, while the car is still in neutral.
"Oh no! The driver is going to be really confused if they leave the key in the ignition, open the door for three seconds, then get back into the car, and the engine starts when they press the clutch like it would if they didn't open the door. Better brick the entire car until the key is completely removed and reinserted into the ignition."
I think the logic is that if the driver left the car, there should be no danger of the engine starting without a driver, in case someone or something accidentally pressed the clutch.
The car has 2 drive modes: "D" and "L". The "D" mode mimics an automatic ICE car--it creeps forward when one lets off the brake, and coasts for a long time when one lets off the accelerator. I always drive the car in "L" mode, which is the aggressive regenerative braking mode. When I let off the gas it slows to a stop quickly (assuming the battery is not near full charge). And it does not creep when I release the brake.
But there is one bizarre exception: If I power on the car and put it in "L" mode, but I haven't yet fastened my seat belt, the car will creep forward when I let off the brake, just like in D. This has caught me off guard a few times, but I've always caught it and hit the brakes before the car rolled into my garage door or a car parked in front of me.
I once brought it up on /r/BoltEV, and someone claiming to be a Chevrolet engineer told me this behavior was by design, but had no good justification for it.
I later replaced my Bolt with a Tesla Model 3 (yeah, I have a lot of complaints here too, but overall it's less annoying) purely for fast-charging reasons, but driving a Bolt again afterwards drove me absolutely insane with their L mode:
- have to enable it each drive
- doesn't work in reverse
- creeps when seatbelt comes unbuckled and sometimes RANDOMLY
- randomly decides it's not going to regen as much even when low on charge
The truth is Chevrolet never intended to allow you to use L mode to drive at all. They only added it in, so you can put on the parking brake, and tap down the gear selector repeatedly to switch between L and D, making your car bounce up and down. I don't know of any other car with an electric twerking lever, and for that reason, it still holds a special place in my heart.
1. Carseat in the back triggers the seat belt unbuckled beeping that never ends.
2. Collision avoidance slams on the brakes when grass is leaning into the road, especially while reversing (a common occurrence in rural areas).
3. Battery dies when doors or trunk is left open due to the car running its computer.
4. Less control over lighting. All the interior lights turn on after turning the car off and opening a door.
5. "Infotainment" that looks like it was made in the early aughts and has no customizability. Why pay for a screen you can do next to nothing with. I can't even replace it to get a real equalizer for audio.
This happens with less-smart cars as well. I've heard countless stories of batteries dying on picnics or camping trips because car doors were left open or lights were left on. The computer is just one more thing to drain the battery, but leaving your doors open has been a bad idea for a long time now.
The actual driving experience is awesome. It’s a great vehicle that I’d rate highly based purely on the most basic function of the vehicle. The rest is pretty awful compared to what it could be, I think.
The battery dying due to the trunk being open… I bring a booster everywhere, even on short drives, because the battery could die for such stupid reasons. My wife stops to listen to the radio and look at the city on a local mountain? Dead. Washing the car and leave a door open for vacuuming? Dead. One of the kids turns on the computer without us realizing? Yeah, totally dead. I’ve boosted this car more than a dozen times now. We don’t do anything that wasn’t totally fine with past vehicles.
Oh well. It runs. It gets us to point b 99% of the time. I wish the infotainment unit wasn’t so abysmally bad, but I’ve never had such an easy time driving in bad conditions or hauling things. I love that.
I suppose that the savings in manufacturing, part sourcing, and R&D costs would be non-trivial, but that you'd lose sales to people who actually do think that a slightly bigger touch screen or a yellow light that goes off when your passenger farts is important and will spend extra money on it. And that's one reason we're where we are today.
[1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/iihs-creates-safeguard-rati...
My wife's car is a 2015 Nissan. I get in, start it, and I'm out of the driveway and on the road before the infotainment system has finished booting, and I get to the stop sign before it discovers my phone and plays the podcast. And there's a 20% chance it fails to connect to my phone, and I have to stop at the side of the road and put it in park before I'm allowed to press the buttons to "forget" my phone and re-add it again.
OTOH, my Tacoma is just a two-seater, so if I have any groceries or a dog in the passenger seat, the seatbelt alarm bings at me for a solid minute of driving before giving up. I usually just leave it buckled, and empty, because I haven't bothered figuring out how to disconnect it in the 10 years I've owned it.
I never want this. I fill with rage when a car automatically starts playing things without asking. Yes, it's true, a week ago I listened to something. That was not an invitation for the car to start playing it now.
I was really glad to come home and get back in my 2016 Tacoma :). It has a couple of quirks but it really is a joy to drive every day. I definitely feel your pain about the front seat though, although I've got the Access Cab so groceries and dogs go in the back "seat".
I've rented lots of different cars. I've never had an issue getting my phone to connect to them, and whenever I start the car my phone has connected in a few seconds. Haven't noticed alarms and alerts beeping and popping up or any of that nonsense people are talking about here. Is it certain makes having these issues and I just haven't rented these makes?
You’d think BMW or Porsche would be the company to seriously invest in a Car OS, but it keeps not happening. I guess no one cares?
Oh, they care, all right. VW has tried, multiple times (see the whole Cariad debacle). Now GM thinks they can succeed where VW and others have failed.
Automakers simply don't understand the facts of life: there's a club consisting of technology companies who determine how consumers engage with their 'smart' devices, and they ain't in it.
Porsche at least shows some signs of understanding that. They have recently told their parent company to take a long walk off a short pier, and are opening talks with Google. VW AG's technological blundering has probably already cost Porsche billions... and counting.
Just let me flip up the screen and plug an SBC into some USB ports and a DisplayPort.
The closest thing I've encountered is mentioned here - the tire pressure alert is way too sensitive. Drop 1-2PSI below the nominal (which happens the moment the temperature drops) and it complains on startup. But it's brief and easy to ignore.
Otherwise, it's been great! It never whines at me and does what I want.
The lane keep assist still requiring input on stop is bizarre. Glad mine doesn't do that!
Also: Fwiw, I think most collision detection systems immediately turn off the lane-keep-assist if something like that is detected to be about to occur. Plus, it doesn't 'fight' you very hard, if you put in any force at all it overrides it - at least on mine.
That one annoys me to no end. I have a Renault and a Hyundai, but have tire pressure sensors that trigger when the weather changes, if you turn to fast or just at random. The pressure sensors have so many false alarms that I no longer believe them, so they've become pointless... well an annoyance. I've asked if they can be disabled, but no. It's actually kinda dangerous, I could be going 130kph and ignore the pressure warning, because the car has trained me to assuming that the sensor is wrong.
The Hyundai have another incredibly dangerous feature, a loud "BING" when road temperatures hit 4C. So again you're going 80 - 130kph and then "BING" all your attention is drawn away from the road. I know it's cold, it's cold for 6 month of the year. You're stealing my attention at the EXACT point where you know that the road could be icy, brilliant.
If it beeped I would've gone mad too.
So overall, it seems some manufactures integrated the new tech well, some did it poorly.
Otherwise I like the UI. The pair of thumb-menu navigators on the steering wheel are great, I basically only have to touch the touchscreen for GPS.
Also, can anyone explain why in the US if I click unlock on the remote, it just unlocks the front door? This keeps happening on rental cars. You have to click twice on unlock to get all the doors to open. Of course if I want to put something in the back seat, that means first breaking my fingers while pulling on the handle, then cursing and clicking the open button on the remote 10 times to makes sure the idiotic system has unlocked ALL the doors. Which I wanted it to do in the first place.
This is likely configurable. Instructions should be in the owner's manual. It is configurable for both my and my wife's vehicles, one via the touchscreen and the other by pressing and holding unlock for 5 seconds.
When you park the car and hit the pushbutton start/stop, it locks the back doors. Who thought this was a good idea?
You want to circulate air? (because you are driving by the dump or in traffic) Push a button. It turns back to outside air after a time. Maybe this is to deter people from gassing themselves. What's that say about Hyundai owners, yikes!
My mini cooper does the same -- the online consensus seems to be that it does that to prevent moisture buildup inside the car fogging up the windows.
But it sure is annoying during wildfire season when I'm trying to avoid poor air quality outside, I wish they had an override like if you hold the switch down for 5 seconds, it stays in that mode.
>That function is called "Automatic Ventilation". Anytime temp is below 59 degrees and recirc is selected for more than 5 min the recirc will automatically change to outside air. However this auto feature can be cancelled. There is a simple procedure outlined in owners manual. It's on page 4/86 in my 2015 Accent owners manual. It's one of those hidden features buried deep in owners manual.
Check your manual and there's likely a way to turn it off.
You thought you had a contract with them, then they made you a counter offer. Under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) I think you have the right to refuse and get your money back.
What I dream about is consumer protection laws mandating that the car owner can simply opt out of whatever 'services' the car offers and then not be nagged about it.
Just a large, friendly dialog box with the two options 'Sure, collect all the data you can about me, my passengers, my driving habits, the environs I drive in, and whatever inferences you may derive from collating data, including, but not limited to the above. The data will be sold to whoever are willing to pay us for them.' and 'Just leave me the heck alone!'
oh. mine has exactly 5,000 slots for mp3 filenames. Not seeing more. A 2022 top-model car. And that "supercomputer" boots in freaking 35+seconds.. Well, i have 35000 songs to listen to. so.. Bundle them together.. LP-sides-like.
Zuruck in zukunft?
Did enjoy renting a Tesla Model 3 but I can't stand the 'modern minimal apartment' driving experience, give me a Supra style wrap around cockpit or give me death.
What I came to say though, is this is making me want to restomod my way through the rest of my car ownership career, I'm almost done with a 1981 Mini but after that putting tesla motors and pi driven dashboards in cars exclusively from pre 2010 has a growing appeal.
I love that sentence because it explains exactly how I feel. It's a miracle if I can start my car without at least one message popping up. I've been driving since the mid-80s, just a few years after I started programming/coding, and as much as I love software, and I think there's a lot of benefit to software-enabled cars, I also see so much distraction. It's like the web in the late-90s, littered with pop-up windows, except it's my car, and I'm trying to drive.
Mine is a completely different car than when I got it in 2019, with far more features and fewer annoyances. Really the only annoyances left are the ones where software can't fix hardware design issues, mainly the awkward door handles and the lack of a sensor for the automatic wipers.
Are there any other brands people have had good (or not-bad) experiences with?
I also think Tesla is ahead, even after they removed the stalks. But they could do better. Maybe the UX engineers need a trip to Europe and expect having to use the blinkers in roundabouts.
The nice thing I love about my bmw is the coding apps that exist for it. The first thing I did was code the car to not chime at me for a seat belt and more importantly, not throw up a warning message on the infotainment system.
I've edited more things using that coding app too but having the ability to do that is important to me.
I have lived in the US my whole life and I hate this. In a world where you have to disassemble the trunk interior to change a bulb, burned out one’s often go unfixed. It’s a constant game of, “is that a left blinker or someone who’s right brake light is out and they are just pumping their breaks?”
Not only do they not do this, they have 0 capability to do this. You can buy a "new" bed for $400, same with doors. Bought 2 headlight assemblies for $25 recently. That set of repairs on a Rivian is $14,000.
For what it's worth, my fairly recently new car (bought new two years ago) has none of these problems. Not that it's perfect, but all these user hostile features might be more of a Kia issue than a new car issue.
I really love how it makes doing regular stuff more fun, sort of similar to my enjoyment of driving the small Smart cars, except I can park it pretty much wherever.
No entertainment system. Low-tech. Individual styling that has persisted since long after every car turned into a variant of the aerobubble. Put in the key, turn it on, and go.
Leave the car for rainy days, grocery trips, and ferrying your kids, and ride a motorcycle the rest of the time (i.e. commuting to work).
- Doors stay unlocked. Eventually the engine won't start without pressing unlock on the key fob again, but the doors remain physically unlocked forever.
- Trunk is manually operated.
- It doesn't ding when starting the engine if my seatbelt it on. And I have a programmer that lets me disable the dings when my seatbelt it off. There are no dings when turning the engine off.
- Blind spot warning is configurable: Off, lights, lights + chime. The chime warning doesn't seem annoying.
- No lane keeping assistant.
- Tire pressure monitors work well. They are accurate (same pressure as multiple physical gauges I've tried). Tire pressure increases slightly when driving due to heat. They have never triggered a warning.
- I don't recall ever having to accept terms of service. It certainly hasn't happened multiple times.
I have physical knobs for volume, fan speed, and tuner. Physical buttons for everything else. No controls use resistive touch buttons. No controls are via touch screen (touchscreen has information and setting like blind spot, but not actual controls that don't have physical buttons).
I also have a 1990s vehicle, with an aftermarket touchscreen installed to support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The current generation vehicle is no more annoying than the 1990s one.
My wife has a 2023 model year vehicle. Many of the complaints in the post are enabled by default (auto re-lock, blind spot chime that gets confused by multiple lanes). But many of the annoying things are also configurable, including auto re-lock and blind spot.
So it is possible to pick a vehicle that isn't annoying. And I suspect most of the annoying things can be disabled.
One of the first things I do with a new Toyota is pop open Techstream. Just don't break your engine by fiddling with things other than cabin light delays, car alarms, etc.
About the only major annoyance - and that's optional since the keyfob still has lock/unlock buttons - is that walk away autolock works about 9 times out of 10 - so you always always have to listen for the click of the locks - and that the touch sensors on the front door handles, which are supposed to toggle between locked and not, often decide that you want to lock your already locked car 3-4x in a row before finally unlocking. You could, of course, use the keyfob, but everything about the car trains you to just keep that in a zipped pocket.
The section titled "Using your turn signals" also matches my experience and pisses me off to no end. Have car designers never driven one of their own cars?
Hmmm maybe one shouldn't drive a car at all if in a sleep deprived state. This is so irresponsible.
> Six obnoxiously loud gong-like sounds reverberate through the interior of your car upon pressing the 'start/stop engine' button.
I stopped reading at this point because I knew he was driving a Kia.
I rented one over the summer and those inexplicable dings on startup made me want to scream. And also that the steering wheel obscured the speedometer. I will never own one.
My own Toyota beeps once to let me know it’s in “Ready” mode and that’s it. It’s got a clear dash, nice controls and I am going to drive it until it is unserviceable.
This is a disturbing trend though. The car has in cabin cameras to identify the driver. So if I drive it I’m recognized and the seat is adjusted automatically. Handy, right? However, they also have “features” like gestures to adjust the climate control where you make a fist in the air to adjust the temperature up. This is remarkably easy to false trigger. There is no way to turn it off except via the dealer who assured us at delivery that it could be turned off (I was certain this feature would be stupid and annoying during test drive and was right). However, it’s still on a year later because none of their stupid techs can figure out how to turn it off. We almost want to return the car over this. It’s very frustrating to be driving down the highway and having a discussion and suddenly the heat is set to 80F because you talk with your hands. Absolutely moronic design
I get a lack of ability to disable alerts and controls for the stuff related to autonomous driving/lane assist/acc/etc; I’m sure that’s rife with legal liability and allowing the system to work without alerts has some lawyer on their team all freaked out. But hvac control schemes?? Seriously??
I wonder how much of the aggravation is compounded by having a "busy" car (read: kids. I drive alone) that takes the annoyance and knocks it up more?
Some things haven't happened to me (system updates) but other things are normal now (lane assist being finiky).
Now, the sad thing is: this should be normal. And 20 years or so ago, this would have been just a normal car amongst most others. Today, compared with cars like the one in OP's rant, it's as if my dumb cheap ugly car is a feature for behaving the way it does. The other sad thing being that a lot of people don't seem to realize this. Like, waiting for your trunk to close is somehow a good thing. I'll probably won't get a car anymore when this one breaks down (yes, I know I'm lucky I can get away with that, stil..). I don't want to feel getting annoyed and dumbed down by something which should be my tool, not the other way around.
I had a 95 Camry that I loved to death until it died spectacularly on I70 outside of Vail. Then I had an Audi RS3 that was fun to floor from time to time but otherwise annoyed the hell out me. The tech was absolute crap, everything was overly complicated, just annoying. I now has a Model 3 and despite having the most tech of them all, it does it astonishingly well. I have all the climate controls set to auto and I have not touched them in three years. The car preheats/cools at a set time every morning so when I get in with the kids it's comfy. I never think about gas or maintenance. I don't even need to remember to grab a key. You literally get in with your phone in your pocket, put it in drive and go, using only one pedal to drive. In the weirdest way it's the best dumb car I've driven (and I was a freelance automotive reviewer reviewing 2-3 cars a week for almost 10 years).
Years ago when we got it (and a Toyota Matrix that we since sold) we had a friend that was a calibration engineer for various automotive companies, and told him we just wanted something that works and moves us around safely. He told us, "Toyota; they are basically automotive appliances". He was 100% correct.
I do love some of the new features of our newer cars, like the backup camera with radar alerts, the ability to see the the current speed limit on the speedometer, the HUD that displays some basic info, and bluetooth. But most of it I hate, like all the beeping and alerting and the stupid, dreadful tablet interfaces. I was pleased to see my sister's new car had a touchscreen, but in the center console you could completely control it using a spinner and set of buttons. So I'm hopeful car companies are swinging the other way on UX.
Many features can be disabled, and most allow you to do things the old way (e.g., closing the trunk manually), but some features either block you from doing things any other way or making it extremely difficult to do the old way, for example minivans with power doors make make it very difficult to open a door manually and refuse to open when the vehicle is not in park.
Old cars have their own drawbacks, but at least they're not bossy.
At least the software in your car did what it was supposed to do. Although it’s very annoying.
I had a much worse problem with the software in my new expensive vw.
The problem was that after a few minutes of driving, the whole entertainment system including navigation shuts down to reboot. That’s bad but if it only happens once in a while one can live with that. After a few weeks it got worse. Not only did it reboot once, now it shut down again one minute after the last reboot and got stuck in that loop of rebooting every minute forever. It was so bad, that we started to bring a Bluetooth box to our trips so that the kids could be entertained while driving.
Navigation was not useable at all, because you could bet on it shutting down in the moment you really needed the instructions.
The worst case was that during reboot also the parking assistant was not available. Which is also something that raises the stress level when it happens in the wrong situation.
Finally after 2 years coping with this problem we received a software update that fixed the problem. Now the experience of using the on board navigation system feels luxury!
It has a touch screen but it's strictly used for navigation and audio settings, but there are physical buttons for controlling audio and a knob for volume. It has carplay. I virtually never touch the screen because I set up music and maps on my phone before I get in the car. I would probably never buy a car without carplay/android auto.
My current car has a lot of these new features and works actually great. I drive a Skoda Enyaq (for US people think VW ID.4 but nicer)
The software also has its moments but they refrained from adding too many dings and dongs and messages. All mentioned features from the article work definitely better.
The only thing that ever went wrong with it was the exhaust system had to be replaced.
I miss that car. The fanciest features it had was fuel injection and power steering.
If this is what all modern cars are like I absolutely refuse to buy one ever.
Anyway I'm glad you got a laugh out if this. I stream-of-consciousness vomited this into a text file to test drive the mataroa blogging platform (highly recommended) -- I tried static blog generators (hugo, jekyll) but they were too clunky and took the joy out of writing. I discovered this solution through that person who posts all the spicy rants about the tech industry who's been pretty trendy on HN lately.
Most of these features do come with nags and messages, modern cars have those to encourage your behaviour towards being safe by default. That they annoy incessantly could reflect a lack of change towards that safe behaviour.
I'm no fan of internet connected software in cars, bitrot of software in cars (and the fact that computing in them will likely only be good in the 5y range whilst the car might survive in the 20y range), there is a lot to legitimately dislike... but so many messages in this thread seem very vitriolic against the safety features that, to me, seem entirely reasonable.
Although the other day it took my very technically competent friend over 3 minutes to open the glove box of his Tesla…
It just needs to look impressive when a potential buyers first checks out the car with cash in their pocket. Whether it makes sense in the long term everyday usage is of secondary concern.
When I was looking to buy a car, basically anything 2016 onwards is unbearable. Touchscreens etc. If I want to use an app, I can use a phone.
Cars are going the path of the phones - it's going to be an "entertainment" centre that happens to be able to move.
Shame.
So I got a 2001 VW Golf to drive over the winter, and same story, but less charm.
(both are 1.8 petrol)
1. Auto-lock is a feature to configure. I've never used it.
2. You can use the trunk button to slow-close or you can just close it by hand.
3. Starting the car does chime. Same as his.
4. You can turn off the blind spot detection if it's over-sensitive.
5. The lane-keeper stays on in traffic, but the auto-cruise will turn off.
6. Tyre pressure works fine.
7. If I open the door with engine running, it will chime. I want this. It also won't lock with the keys inside and will chime for that too. I want that too.
I need this. I got used to my hybrid just turning off if I open the door while parked.
Fortunately there are still plenty of cars you can buy brand new today that don't have this level of suck. No need to suffer with a 20 year old unsafe heap of a car.
Now I’m driving a Toyota RAV4, which drives about 25MPg or 11 km/l. It’s a great car from ‘99 I think.
The only maintenance costs I ever had where a new AC pump which set me back about €1000. Worth it this summer.
It's the whining, incessant beeping that got me.
I recently switched cars from a recent model Ford (basically a nervous beeper on wheels) to an ancient Jeep that does nothing but drive. It's 1000x better.
> THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
"WHOOP WHOOP pull up"
Yea, the car this throwing a fit because you're changing lanes without signaling. Your feeling the persons butthole via their bumper in front of you. You're flinging it backwards at 40MPH in the parking lot.
So many people have been conditioned to drive like such shit for years that it's surprising them that they should stay 40 feet back from the car in front of them when they are driving 70.
And "I'm sure 90% of all 2023 cars run on the CAN bus equivalent of a 10.000 line, 100 cell Jupyter Notebook that was last restarted in the fall of 2018." is spot on.
Every day I have to fight against my Tesla trying to kill me, with the "emergency" steering assist believing it's about to be attacked by some static object sitting to the right of the road, and coming up to the conclusion that before that tree might start running towards me to try steer me into the opposing traffic. And doing emergency braking because I have "left the road" due to having the guts to drive out of my garage. Or to believe the plants in front of my house are a traffic light. Or to believe that the "end of kid play road" inside the city means "all speed limits are ending" (I live in Germany, where, as you surely know, a "drive as fast as you want" road sign indeed exists. But no, not inside cities. No, it's not reasonable to accelerate to 200km/h / 125mph inside a city, dear "adaptive" cruise control). Or giving me phantom braking because the car 50 meters/yards in front of me is coming to a slow stop at an intersection, and I did not yet see the urge to hit the brakes for that.)
And because the "10.000 line, 100 cell Jupyter Notebook" "programmers" have a very high self-esteem and believe they actually are good at their job of course they reject the idea of giving the customer the option to TURN OFF their broken shit permanently.
All I want is an electric car that charges fast, has a reasonable range and build quality, and a good audio. I'd be so happy with my Tesla if they would just allow me to disable all of their features that are simply broken and unwanted. And the author is also spot on when it comes to doors: To open a Tesla model 3 door is a complex matter that takes most people to use two hands, which for the previous 120 years was done by everyone with a single hand in half the time.
[Side note in case I get replies from any "but in my Tesla everything works fine, Autopilot really works, and vision only, too": fan boys: How comes that everybody is able to upload videos to YouTube of Tesla cars doing insanely stupid things all the time, but none of the fan boys that claim Teslas software actually works is able to upload a video of stuff working? Is it really that hard to catch "the moment everything works fine" on video if you claim that this moment is "always"? I would love to see some videos of Tesla Model 3 automatic wipers actually doing something logical like "wipe if it's raining, but don't if it's not raining ) ]
) Videos of your Tesla correctly identifying and showing each and every garbage bin in your city at the exact correct position does not count. Everybody knows that Tesla has the best detection of sidewalk garbage bins on this planet. I understand that there is a programmer at Tesla who really is in deep love with garbage bins, but (rightfully) hates kids, which therefore are only detected in 30% of the cases of them appearing on the road.
An auto is complex and it's very hard, if not impossible, to figure out how nice or annoying it's going to be until you've really spent some serious time with it.
So automakers make these infuriating cars, and people buy them because it's hard to tell how infuriating they are, but by then it's too late for the customer, and so the automaker is never properly incentivized to make their things suck less.
I feel like instead of paternalizing cars to the point that a hamburger left on the front seat is enough sentience to get from point A to B, we should tighten up our licensing requirements to reflect the significance of the task of operating a vehicle in public.
My hobby: whenever anyone calls something an [adjective]-ass [noun], I mentally move the hyphen one word to the right.
Man, that's a rude ass-car.
Most modern cars are objectively better than older cars — we’ll see about the current crop of high pressure turbo powered eco-focused gas engines that are hitting the market now though.
Generally they are more efficient, provide more comfort inside and they're safer in a crash. Of course, all of these things have come at the cost of aesthetics and driver enjoyment (all of that safety and tech adds weight and of course complexity as it all has to be managed). Touchscreens had to be implemented because with so many functions in a modern car, you'd have 300 little buttons in the console if you didn't have a touchscreen. They tried this with some Ford products (little bubble buttons, oceans of little bubble buttons) and it’s was not great.
Their design has gone to utter shit because car designers seem to concentrate on 'futuristic' product features to compete with one another and then their companies tend to focus on pushing these changes as wanted features via advertising instead of just focusing on creating beautiful and usable vehicles.
Car designers are also pretty limited by the plethora of safety and tech that “has” to be installed in the car.
The root issue is the poor design languages present today, since it's not like there aren't any beautiful modern cars with very usable interfaces. They exist. The problem is they aren’t very sexy and they can’t compete on features or give the marketing department the photogenic interior car buyers are trained to expect in modern cars.
But most of them do a bad job integrating all these things. They chime with every traffic update, they close their doors automatically, they won’t let you put the car in drive when the door is open so you can’t adjust without hitting rocks at the camping spot, they freak out when hitting merge lines and slam on the brakes, their iconography looks like it was designed by Dale Earnheart’s newly minted graphic design firm, they have endlessly bright lights that blind oncoming users and destroy astrological observations in nearby mountains, and they have menu after menu of options that you can’t select when driving and have to pull into some sketchy parking spot to adjust them… it’s endless shit. And it makes me not love them.
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/hotel-showers-nate-barg... (behind paywall)
the designers of these things are not the actual users, hence feature creep and pointless gadgetry that impede the main function
And so he was.
“ If you're at a traffic light, in the rightmost lane with two lanes turning left, of course the demented tamagotchi on wheels thinks you are about to sideswipe the car to your left.”
Sincerely, Right side of the road driver