My wife recently fulfilled her long-time dream of owning a “gold Lexus.” What model did she want? She couldn’t tell you, nor did it matter. Any gold-ish, crossover-shaped Lexus would do, and in her case, twas a 2023 NX250 that fulfilled her dream. The little 250 is hardly the most feature-laden Lexus model, but as she was coming from a 2015 RAV4, it was absolutely loaded by comparison, and she loooves it. Mostly.
There are two features she does not like, and I mean really does not like: the lane departure system, and the stop-start system. Frankly, I don’t like them either. Make no mistake, I’m not against these features, but as executed in the NX 250, I (and my wife) would much rather do without them. In the case of the stop-start system, we do do without it; it’s now a muscle-memory thing to press the on/off button for the feature right after engaging Drive. I’d leave it on if the system stopped and restarted the engine more subtly, but I can feel the restart to a sufficient degree that it’s annoying, and it takes a beat longer than I’d like to restart.
As for the lane departure system, I keep that one on, as it is useful and a nice bit of added safety just in case, though it’s never engaged for me in the way it’s intended, as I’m a good enough driver to stay in my lane. Where it does engage, frustratingly, is whenever I intentionally move right to enter the turning lane at the 4-way intersection that I navigate on virtually every drive. Every time, the NX fights me and tugs the wheel left. I’m like, “I know what I’m doing, let me steer!” I suppose I could avoid this by swerving into the lane like a maniac, but that seems worse.
So I could happily do without those two new-car features. What’s on your list?
Top graphic image: Lexus
Moonroofs
Auto brake hold
I despise lane departure systems with all my soul! The goal when driving is to be as safe and smooth as possible. On secondary roads, giving other cars and drivers good clearance, and following the best and smoothest lines on curves, often involves crossing over the edges of road lines or center lines. If you don’t, you can find yourself unnecessarily close to the traffic in the other lane, parked cars, driveways, etc. It can mean the difference between avoiding an accident and getting in an accident – and I don’t want my steering fighting with me or second guessing my choices.
Its a little less of a problem on highways… until your car decides the faded lines from some older construction work are real and tries to swerve you out of your lane.
I consider it a hazard, something that should be banned. It only exists so already bad drivers can use it to justify paying even less attention while driving.
Start-stop and electronic door handles can go straight to hell. The latter of which is actively dangerous when emergency crews or passengers can’t figure them out when they don’t still work with a harder yank, and it’s an unnecessary complication anyway. Porsche in particular needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and get right with itself after throwing unnecessary door-boners on the 992.
I’m also one of the few people who can do without cruise control or automated driving features. I finally got to try out Super Cruise yesterday and holy crap, that’s an incredible system that will even make lane changes on its own, but its “hey, take over, stupid” notifications didn’t seem as urgent and loud as it ideally should’ve been when it caught traffic slowing down ahead. Like, it seemed to give me a pretty brief window between noping out and disengaging entirely. (But I digress.) Mostly, I usually just can’t stay awake and engaged even with regular cruise control on for too long. I don’t know how people do it. I usually just see if these things work because that’s part of my job, ooh and aah at how they do (or AAAAUGHHH at the don’ts), and then take back over.
I can’t wait for the “too much stuff on a touchscreen” trend to be flushed down the toilet of history, too. Again, this is a “feature” that’s really just a cost-cutting measure by manufacturers that ultimately makes us less safe. I’m here to drive a vehicle, not do sci-fi cosplay and eat a guardrail. If it has to do with driving or routine vehicle operation—looking at you, glovebox buttons, power rear-view mirror settings, all things HVAC, heated seats and steering wheels, defrosters, exterior lights, cruise-control gap settings, basic radio tuning and volume, turn signals, window operation, blinkers, and I’m sure I’m still forgetting something that’s been enragingly moved to or buried within a menu or put in an unintuitive location!!—put it on a physical button, switch or knob, and one in a traditional location that should be obvious to anyone who hopes in the car, you absolute knobs.
Slick-panels are an unacceptable stand-in as well due to the lack of separation between faux-buttons and the take-your-eyes-off-the-road precision needed to make sure you’re actually turning down the butt-burners instead of throwing on the defrosters at full blast. Capacitive-touch switchgear in general has no place in a car. Again, we need controls that aren’t just more intuitive, easier and safer to use, but ones that are easier to swap out if there’s an issue. Manufacturers need to pay more attention to long-term ownership and repairability, especially since new cars are increasingly more expensive, folks are holding onto them longer, and owners are getting rightfully angry about our right to repair being infringed by proprietary or hard-to-work-on tech.
tl;dr—you’ll have to pry my non-touchscreen 2010 reasonably priced cars from my cold, dead hands, I guess.
(Wow, that’s a rant. Guess the Sudafed is kicking in. Hi, my name is Stef, I also test cars for work, and I’m tired of almost running off the road because my rump is getting too roasted and the seat-heater control is on some microscopic chunk of screen that’s impossible to press at a brief glance out of my peripheral vision.)
Every recent rental I’ve gotten in Italy has had a chime when you exceed the speed limit, or at least what the car thinks is the speed limit. It can be disabled but on every power cycle. Not to mention, vision-based systems make quite a few minor mistakes, such as thinking the speed limit is still 70kph from the entrance ramp, when it’s actually 130.
Also, very few Italians drive the speed limit. It’s either someone in an old Panda doing 90kph, or a German car in the left lane doing 180+.
Oh my gosh, kill that distracting chime with FIRE. “Features” like this that don’t remember the driver’s preference—especially when they’re jarring or distracting to some of us—aren’t features at all.
A turbocharged 1.X liter engine
BIGAZZZZZZ Center Screen can go to hell. Totally unnecessary, and makes it really hard to brace your hand without touching the screen somewhere unintended when trying for the 5th time to turn the goddamned seat warmer off while flying down the bumpy freeway.
The “convenience package” of a Temu air compressor and a can of Slime in lieu of a spare tire in my Leaf. Bad enough getting by on just a donut spare in my other cars.
Electric door handles.
There is no reason for them to exist. Door handles were a solved problem, they don’t take less effort – normal doors take no effort – they come with safety concerns.
Vaguely fancy, completely unnecessary.
I enjoy a lot of amenities. I like Bluetooth, backup and dash cameras, auto climate control, power windows/seats/steering/brakes.
Honestly, I could live without them (and I’ve had plenty of vehicles without all of those), but they make my drive so much nicer.
But I drive cars that are >10 years old.
When driving a newer car, I turn off the lane change assist, never use the adaptive cruise control, and generally prefer knobs and buttons to work the climate control and interior features… when they’re incorporated into a touchscreen menu that is 3-4 layers deep, it’s annoying.
I drive a second gen tacoma 5 lug single cab. I do just fine without everything. No power locks, no reclining seat, no power windows, no anything. I added cruise control because it was already wired in and just required any toyota cruise stalk but I had the truck 6 years before I added that.