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
Backup camera, dash screen, ABS, traction control, lane keep assist, HUD, auto braking, blind spot alert, heated seats, heated steering wheel, power steering, power brakes, power seats, power windows
I want 4 seats, an engine, a radio, and vent windows, everything else they can honestly cut, I wouldn’t pay for most of it if it was optional
So, you want an old car.
Yeah, but new with a warranty
I seem to remember Nissan making *new* 1991 Sentras in Mexico until 2017 (lack of airbags killed it I think).
It was called the Tsuru.
I don’t want a 1980s Nissan, but a new 1930s Volkswagen would be just fine. Unfortunately 2003 was the last year for those
And sold by Temu. Lol
Frankly if you could get a new car with out all the new crap it would run forever. The old shit has been made bulletproof, that’s why auto manufacturers had to create new shit to entice and after it breaks convince you they are their with a warranty. I mean crank windows and a manual transmission what can go wrong?
I, like you, am The Best Driver Ever and therefore will never need ABS…..still glad it’s there.
2/3 of the cars I own now don’t have it, probably more than half of everything I’ve owned in my life. Like airbags, its one of those “nice to have” vs “must have” things. If it was a $2,000 option, you wouldn’t order it
eh, becoming a parent does weird things to you. I think I still would, if only for the peace of mind that I won’t one day get in an accident on account of saving $2K. But then again, it’s not like I’m limiting my vehicles to the ones with 12+ airbags…maybe I should be.
Providing upgrades to new cars built in is just a reason to raise the sticker price.
I remember reading oh, probably a Car/Driver article about the Jensen FF that had ABS brakes, perhaps the first implementation of them, and that struck me as astounding. And I loved the name they used. Dunlop Maxaret. Kind of Frenchy for a British Company.
My ’17 Accord has ABS and they have served me well, as I have told before, diving off a 75 mph two-lane in Texas in order to avoid a head-on collision, over rumble strips and into wet grass and staying completely stable. I don’t think it would have turned out so well without ABS.
But maybe you are The Best Driver Ever. I am not. 😉
I am thankful that I have never caused or subjected myself to air bag inflation.
I hope it’s clear I was not being at all serious–riffing off the idea that the majority of drivers rate themselves as “above average.” I have it for the same reason you do. Could I navigate around an unexpected truck tire blowing out right in front of me without ABS and TC? Who knows. Friggin stupid to rely on my ego and hope it works out.
I was going with your joke. No offense. Hence the winky emoji. I am not on this site to sling crap at anyone.
I kind of took your post as the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” kind of self-deprecation.
<phew> I was pretty sure we were on the same page
Speaking of blown out truck tires, I was riding a Suzuki 550 with a Plexi-fairing windshield on I-80 west of Sacramento, when a car kicked up a “road gator” (peeled truck tire retread, most often) and fortunately it hit the windshield, shattered it and not me directly in the chest. Without the windshield, I think it would have knocked me off the bike and only God knows what would have happened after that. All that stuff still hit me, but not nearly as hard. That was back in 1981. I’m thankful for all the years I have had since. Wow. Haven’t thought about that in a while.
Anyway, yeah. We’re on the same page. Take care.
More than you realize — I live a few miles from I-80 west of Sac. And I’m sorry that happened. I’ve had a few similarly close calls on my bike. You don’t forget them. Or, if you do, you should not be riding.
I was living in Davis (where I was raised) and commuting back from my job at TV40 back then,
Just dropped my kid off at Chavez. Small world. Back to the motorcycle: I do absolutely everything I can to avoid highways at night. Even going 65, by the time my headlights reveal a tire carcass in front of me, I’m either going to hit it or panic swerve into the next lane (occupied or not). Every time I’m in those conditions I genuinely feel like my life is at risk and there’s nothing to be done other than pray.
It was daytime and I saw it coming.
Don’t swerve. You’re riding on two gyroscopes that don’t want to deviate from their stabilizing forces. I rode over a couple of them and it’s not a big deal. Just another bump in the road.
But when you see one coming towards your chest, hold on tight.
I know that’s the advice and I remember hearing CHP train to ride over (through?) mattresses. But maybe that’s a myth.
But I do have a counterpoint: I was on the PCH riding at a responsible speed following a cluster of cars in front of me. Not enough time to do anything about the softball-sized rock that appeared from underneath the car directly in front. I hit it straight on with both wheels going around 35-40. Hit hard enough to bust the front tire and crack the rim. With far more luck than skill, I was able to keep the bike up and get myself to the shoulder, where I was stranded for hours trying to arrange a tow in the middle of nowhere. So maybe that’s why I’m extra nervous about running into things. To your point, a tire is not a rock and, with a good windscreen, will be unlikely to hurt you.
Yikes! That’s an impact!!
Ha! Chavez was West Davis Elementary School while I was going to North Davis Elementary School. Back in the mid-late 60s. From there I went to Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior High and then Davis Senior High.
When college came around, I wanted to get the heck out of Davis, because about half of my class was going to UCD, so I went to UCSD just to get as far away as I could. Mostly from my parents.
I’m actually currently at my parents’ ranch house between Davis and Woodland, trying to clean up my dementia-addled mother’s finances. Dad passed away 22 years ago. My mom is now 89 and still a very good conversationalist, but can’t remember it 30 minutes later.
I am heading back up north on Friday and for the next few months will be flying in to SMF and renting a car, rather than deal with the Siskiyous and snow and ice.
I have put 12K miles on my car since June going up and down I-5 between here and Tacoma working on this and other stuff.
Sorry to hear you’re dealing with all that. I’ve seen what dementia can do and it is often heartbreaking. I’m glad your mother sounds like she’s headed in the nice “direction.” I live in Woodland so I probably drove within a mile of you this morning. small world!
If you ever see the idiot riding around on a Ural with a german shepherd in the sidecar, that’s me!
I’ll keep my eyes open!
I like the backup camera, ABS, traction control, heated seats and power everything on my car. My car doesn’t have the other “safety” features listed, but so far, I haven’t needed them. Not a big fan of the touch screen interface for some things, but at least the HVAC has intuitive buttons. And there are volume buttons on the steering wheel, so I don’t have to deal with the touch screen for that. Or moving from one preset to the next.
I used to laugh thinking about a heated steering wheel, but I have to admit, on a chilly morning it feels nice. And my wife was overjoyed when I showed her how to activate it in the MDX we bought to replace her X5. My ’17 Accord doesn’t have that, but I can deal. I didn’t even have A/C until my ’86 Accord.
I’m not saying cars shouldn’t have those features, I’m saying you should be free to pay extra to have them and I should be free to pay less to not have them
The backup camera has been federally mandated since 5/1/2018, so you’re not going to avoid that one. Unless RFK Jr. is suddenly placed in charge of NHTSA. And a camera is pretty useless without a screen.
You haven’t heard about all the negative health effects of airbags? Of course you haven’t b/c the MSM won’t tell you!
Ha! I guess Takata gave them hush money.
Almost all of them honestly. Heated seats can be nice but everything else not related to go/stop/turn would be easy to skip.
If we could have Premium Fabric seats again (like we did in the 90’s) you wouldn’t need to heat those oh-so-cold and compulsory leather seats.
Leather SUCKS and big leather can’t keep my mouth shut!! Its a stupid ass material!! Hot in the summer and cold in the winter. “Oh but you can heat and cool them!” Great, now you have a seat that weighs 100 damn pounds and its own control module and harness!! Madness!
Leather also doesnt stretch and tears out all the stitching by 100k miles if you dont rub a stupid goo on it every full moon. 90% of cars with leather seats that weren’t tucked in bed with warm milk every night look like a bomb went off on the seat.
Premium cloth ROCKS! It lasts so long! Its always the right temperature and is soft! If it tears you can patch it back up! I’m sick of feeling like an insane person for hating leather seats, especially in convertibles.
Wool FTW!
The vinyl driver’s seat in my 504 split a seam and I bought a couple of sheepskin seat covers and they were great except little parts of leaves and stuff would get caught in the wool when I drove around with the moon roof open. Great temperature management though.
Sheepskin is a different experience from wool fabric though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a plaid sheepskin although I’m sure the Scot clans have tried.
This however makes me wonder how linen would work out as automotive upholstery. Linen is also supposed to be great in hot weather. I know it wrinkles easily as clothing but would that be such an issue stretched out over foam?
Or how about silk? Oh… probably too slippery around corners.
Only in Bordello red.
The last time I saw Bordello Red was on the walls in a hotel room in Nevada City, CA. The place felt like a fire trap, and I was so happy to only be there for one night.
Yeah but how was the in-room entertainment?
Ha! There wasn’t any that night. But I did think about what those walls might have seen.
I’ll be honest I’m sold on the lane departure for long highway drives. But the implementation on the two cars I’ve owned with it is awful.
You know what I don’t need 2024 Honda civic? You beeping at me every 90 seconds when rain , fog, or snow obscures the cameras i m not currently asking you use. Why can’t I disable the whole safety suite or safety suite notifications? It’s maddening. And dangerously distracting in low visibility conditions. I hope someone smarter than me has a solution for turning off the safety suite warnings.
The button on my equinox is right on the steering wheel so I guess it’s easy enough to disable. It rarely gets mad about the camera conditions, but it yells at me all the time about keeping my hands on the wheel. It’s a nearly new car with perfect alignment and I’m driving on a straight road. My hands are on the wheel, dummy, I just don’t need to turn because you’re doing a good job of driving straight.
2023 Honda Pilot deactivates cruise control if the front radar gets too dirty and it can’t figure out adaptive distances. Love the vehicle and it’s only happened like 3-4 times in real slushy snow but still maddening I can’t at least just use the regular ol-fashioned cruise control!
My i3 shuts off adaptive cruise basically whenever it’s sunrise or sunset (or fog, or rain, or sometimes just for fun). This led me to do a little digging and it turns out if you hold down the “increase distance” button for like 3 seconds it shifts into dumb cruise control mode. Sharing since maybe your Pilot has some similar cheat code. (but it’s also more than a little dangerous b/c if you are so used to your car slowing down on its own, you have to constantly remind yourself you’re gonna ram that car if you don’t do something).
I’m so glad you said this – it didn’t occur to me to see if it’s possible to shut off the ACC on my Crosstrek and it is! So happy.
yay! just maybe put a post-it reminder on the windshield for the first bit so you remember the car isn’t going to slow down for that Prius in front of you.
Excellent point. Yesterday at work my computer was having an epileptic fit. I put in a Jira ticket, the IT guy figured out I accidentally hit a button that changed my CFM from duplicate to extend. I had no idea that was an option. If it is so easy to turn on/off or changing the operating system with no idea you’re doing it, it is not safer.
The adaptive cruise control on our ’18 MDX was so bad/abrupt that I almost never used it.
weirdly, I found the one on my Pacifica to be flawless. It was the first car I really spent time in that had it so I didn’t appreciate it until I realized how annoying it could be in other cars.
It was surprisingly bad in the MDX. I rented a Pacifica to drive down from MIA to Key West with another couple back in 2021 and it was such a perfect and pleasant vehicle for that purpose. Great seats and just really nice to drive. You know, as a limo driver, because that was my purpose. But it was an easy vehicle to drive gently and coddle everyone. I think they’re under-rated. I’d rather be driven in one of those than an Escalade, any day. But I’m retired now, so I do all of my own driving. Or get a Lyft.
Now that I think about it, I don’t think I even tried out cruise control in the Pacifica.
Hot diggity dog… it’s actually the same sequence on the Pilot. Will have to try that next time! Totally get being used to adaptive and having to be a little more cognizant of going to regular but something > nothing!
This is one of those cases where I completely understand (and I think agree) with OEMs not making it easy to switch between modes. The folks who will take the time to find the cheat code are probably the same folks who will be more vigilant about using it.
My 2018 Volvo V60 has the same feature. You use the cruise control in “dumb mode” after jolding the button in for 3sec then the radar stops working due to heavy downpour or to much snow getting stuck to the front.
My new Crosstrek does this as well, and it’s very annoying.
Would you want it to stay on in conditions it doesn’t work in? Just saying to me it sounds like a good idea.
nah and I definitely understand why it doesn’t. I guess in my head the car would throw up some big warning and say something like “radar dirty, adaptative cruise turned off; normal cruise to take over”, but I’m good with the workaround hack I now know anyhow; easy enough, just a bit hidden!
Lane assistance is for bad drivers, same for most of modern features. An extra $2k on every car you buy and haven’t had an accident where they ever helped. Pay attention is the best safety device
Stuff I would happily do without, a non-exhaustive list:
A lot of that list I agree with except memory seats. It’s great if you ever loan your car to anyone and they move stuff around. Just hop in and press a button and all your settings return. For me, the auto-parallel-park thing is useless. I know how to park a car and of the three times I used that “feature” it hopped the curb twice.
Anyone who doesn’t like memory seats is either unmarried or found a spouse of similar height.
They are indispensable in the hetero marriage of statistically typical people.
Memory seats are fine WHEN THEY WORK SENSIBLY. The ones in the midlife crisis Panamera do not work logically. If they don’t also store mirror positions, they’re also not very useful.
I have a hard time believing a Panamera doesn’t have memory mirrors… Every modern Porsche I’ve been in has this feature.
Is it possible it’s broken or not working properly?
The mirrors are allegedly memory, but the settings for the mirrors and seats don’t store properly.
I hope it didn’t mess up your wheels.
My car is not new enough to have some of those features. But I do like the speed sensing volume adjustment. My car has it. As have dozens of the rentals I have had over my career. I thought of it and patenting that when I was in ninth grade. Several years before it actually was. I was also thinking about noise cancellation technology in cars around then. How did I not end up working for Bose?
And I just can’t own a car without a sunroof anymore.
As close to a perfect list as I could conjure. Well done.
Speed Signs: I rather like speed-sign reading in my namesake vehicle. We often travel through unfamiliar towns and the speed warning has alerted me at least a dozen times that I’m over the limit. It’s a safety device, as well as a ticket citation avoidance feature.
Sat Nav: We can live without built-in sat nav, but it’s not uncommon for us to use our vehicles’ sat navs as a sanity check to Apple or Google on our smart devices. We pull over and figure out which route seems to make the most sense when devices disagree.
Except the speed sign readers often get it wrong and then freak out when you’re on the freeway and it thinks you should be going the frontage road speed.
I guess it depends on how out of date the vehicle satnav maps are. On my 11 year old car, they’re pretty useless.
Our Subaru and Sprinter seem to read the signs optically, and don’t have internal databases with speed data. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
My 500e reads them optically, and most of the time, it’s right, but there are definitely times when it is very not right. The MLC Panamera pulls them out of a database, and it’s often wrong, and I can’t get it to NOT display them.
OR, they’re programmed so the whole on-ramp is 35mph and it doesn’t kick up to 65 until the merge point.
Oh, no, this is “fully-ass on the highway for miles and it sees a sign and suddenly it’s saying I’m 40 over the limit”
No I get that–I was just adding my own somewhat related gripe. I mean both situations can get you killed, but I agree your example gets you killed much more.
Depending where you live but most NA/Western Europe has great coverage of catalogued data via the maps that is much better than the sign readers. The only potentially useful sign reader is temporary work zone signs.
But that only works if the streets and limits haven’t changed. 11 year old data has some real holes in it.
Hence my geographic caveat. I don’t know who submits these survey things (actually the OSM data has a user name of who did it) but bless them for the work they are doing. In my experience speed limits straight from maps have been more accurate than the readers on my car.
I can’t agree with all of those, buy the color changing interior lights on my Ioniq 5 are pointless. Fun to play with the first week, hasn’t been changed yet. I’m not trying to match the color to my mood. My mood is I need to go somewhere, let’s go.
The f***ing electric handbrake on our ’18 Accord. It’s a manual shift car, and it requires that you push in the clutch and have the handbrake engaged before the engine will start. I’ll get in the car, push the clutch in and hit the handbrake button a half second before the start button, and then get the annoying voice telling me that I must engage the handbrake before starting the car. So I re-engage it, and then I have to push the start button a couple more times to cycle through and start the car. Mumbling “fuck you, car”, the entire time. I also dislike the orange “BRAKE!!” indicator that flashes up on the dash while I’m braking. I guess it’s thinking I’m getting too close to something in front of me while not decelerating sufficiently, but it’s very inconsistent and therefore, annoying.
Engaging a handbrake in a snowy climate is such a bad idea, the people at Honda who required this should live with such a vehicle in snow country for a winter to refine their thinking on this subject.
Handbrake to start, really? That seems like a shockingly stupid choice.
I guess there are people who use parking brakes 100% of the time, but I’ve never been one of them.
Our ’15 Honda has plenty of things that irritate me, but the reliability helps me keep my mouth shut.
Handbrake to start because people park their cars in gear. So start button means “the car will lurch forward and the resulting injuries will sue”
But you already need to have the clutch pressed in to start.
Oh good point. Though I wonder if they’re also worried about people putting the clutch in and the car rolling away (i.e. on a hill).
It’s a lawyer feature, that’s all.
In an auto sure but in a manual? I would think releasing the handbrake after the engine is started is the expectation.
Though Saab’s reverse lockout for the key release would probably want to have a word about all this though.
It was such muscle memory for me over the first 20+ years of driving, all manual (with actual handbrake):
Clutch out, foot on brake, release handbrake, start car.
I could see how starting then releasing handbrake would also be logical, but IMO it shouldn’t be an ignition lockout. Maybe just a warning message.
I always just accepted that manuals had less room for error in general. My first car, my first year, I used to leave it in neutral with the handbrake on (I would start it without depressing the clutch, that was just my habit as the sole driver — learned from my dad, who parked in the garage and was always paranoid about wear & tear).
One day I’m picking it up from the shop and it lurched forward and stalled, missing the back of a brand new 911 by inches.
That was the day I learned that MOST people park their manuals in gear. And I felt like such an idiot, but nobody told me.
Yeah, I don’t know that you need an ignition lockout because like V10 said, the clutch has to be depressed to start. But as I think about it some manual+pushbutton setups I’ve driven required foot on the brake too to start (test drove a gen2 Jeep Compass like that).
I’ve never thought of releasing the parking brake until after starting as unusual, now I wonder if that should be a QOTD or something to see if people have different sequences. To me that seems natural but maybe it’s generational, having learned to drive on autos and amid all the interlock systems. With an auto, I wouldn’t release a foot/hand brake until the engine’s running and brake depressed (which you have to do for the brake-park interlock) and ready to shift in gear, maybe not til after that even.
Even the manuals required the clutch fully depressed to start, but the parking brake would cover the hold here. Like you I was always a neutral+park brake person unless on an incline. The clutch start override on Toyota trucks always intrigued me for that reason too even though it’s an off-road oriented feature.
Are we worse drivers because of all the aids, or do vehicles have all the aids because we are worse drivers?
Yep.
Right. All these aids that seem like they should be making us all safer, yet crash and injury rates continue to climb.
Definitely a certain degree of “illusion of safety” going on. We let our guard down a little bit because we figure the car will take care of it.
Classic “moral hazard.” There’s this semi-serious idea that if we took all the safety systems out of our cars and drove around with sharpened metal spikes on our steering wheels aimed at our heads, we’d have far fewer accidents.
Part of the problem is those jackasses weaving through traffic doing 110 understand they are a second from instant death. They just have the ego to think it’ll never happen to them. My guess is most of them aren’t even wearing seatbelts.
Anyway, I do think there’s some truth in what you say. Especially because far fewer of us know people who were disfigured or killed in car wrecks today than 50 yrs ago. Instead we know people who got their wrists sprained from the airbag or what not. So driving certainly *feels* less risky than it is.
People used to all do that! Hell I did that! My TR3 had a non collapsible steering column that would have lanced me all the way through had the worst happened.
Did knowing that make a bit of difference? Nope.
Yup. that theory only works if you believe humans are logical creatures. And, well, not sure there’s much evidence for that.
If humans were logical creatures we’d have a lot more public transit, bikeways and walkways and a LOT less truckbutt.
This would be a better article if it was “What Commenter-Maligned Features Are Good, Actually?”
I can’t wait for 500 people here to talk about hating touchscreens again.
Anyways, my controversial answer is Carplay/AA. I use it when wireless, but Bluetooth was and is fine overall.
I’m with you. Carplay doesn’t bother me, though, because I just don’t use it.
The time and effort required to get every little setting right would not make up for its usefulness, IMO. Because we have multiple drivers, it’s much easier to KEEP EM SEPARATED!
(Lithium and 90s are my presets #1 and #2)
Uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco cinco, seis!
Great article suggestion, and I think The Autopian should run it.
There are a ton of great tech/features in modern cars that get maligned just because they’re “new tech”
AM/FM receivers have been unnecessary since the invention of smartphones. Give me a Bluetooth receiver and an amplifier, period.
If you’re going to give me a screen, give me a built-in OBDII code reader with a human-readable text output.
Electric window regulators are superfluous. I gotta admit automatic transmissions are nice at times in certain vehicles.
Only if you have all your content downloaded on your device. With a name like overlanding sprinter I’m guessing you’ve spent plenty of time where there is no cell service, but can still get at least AM if not since FM radio.
Yep. We always assume no network. It’s not unusual for us to have no AM or FM reception due to both the rural location and the depth of the canyons where we like to camp.
This is off-topic-ish, but that’s why we carry a Zoleo satellite communicator so we have a panic button to summon search & rescue, and for SMS comms with family to let them know where we are, when we expect to return, and so on.
As came up yesterday in the Bolt SuperCruise article: rain-sensing wipers.
Wireless phone
cookercharger.Wireless CarPlay: IME, laggy and I don’t need to be that connected in daily driving. Fine with plugging in as needed.
Walk-away door locks: had that in a Honda, thought I might’ve liked it, don’t miss it at all. Didn’t offer any real improvement to a proximity key system to outweigh the nuisance of “beep! beep!” every time a door was shut, or remembering to not fully shut a door so it wouldn’t lock everything and then have to unlock all over again when loading or unloading a carful.
SiriusXM. I know it has its fans, and there are folks annoyed that some OEMs have taken it out (Honda has been doing so).
Audio cues for blind-spot monitors. Add more distraction when merging or when in the outer lane of a double turn lane.
We panic bought a manual transmission civic because it was the last car we could reasonably expect to own with a stick shift. And like every single convenience and safety feature except abs, CarPlay, and airbags is a legitimate nightmare. The car constantly locking and beeping at me. The beeps the constant beeps. I’ve turned some off but most seem hardwired in.
Instant regret.
Are you me? I impulsively jumped on a loaded CPO Civic manual last year, wanting to keep a manual + gain back some creature comforts + warranty. I ended up trading it for a DSG GTI a couple months ago, not because of the annoyances but because I just didn’t really bond with it and the manual didn’t really do a lot to make it fun enough.
Despite the VWness I’ve been surprised that the driving aids all seem to work better than the Honda, and a lot of other things are just more flexible to adjust or turn off.
I do think the walk-away locking and some of the beeping can be turned off on the Honda, I just never bothered myself – guess more from apathy to the car.
We kept my wife’s matrix, thinking we might give it to one of her nieces. I’m in the middle of a 2zz swap instead. And I suspect the next time an interesting car shows up locally we’ll trade the civic.
If you use the turn signal when you change lanes, lane departure won’t hassle you. Just sayin’
Non-kerosene headlamps, transmissions with more than 2 gears, brakes that AREN’T me throwing a log on a rope out of the carriage window, steering WhEeLs (tillers worked FINE).
On a more real note: Electric parking brakes, ANY sort of yank the wheel from me assists, nannies in general.
I’ll add: replacing a physical latch/handle with a button. Yes, they are pretty reliable, but I don’t want my goddamn trunk to need the battery charged to open.
Mr Fancy Pants riding around with his TRANSMISSION.
Continuous loop leather belt drives are where I draw the line. I don’t understand the science of Gutta-percha. You won’t catch me making the switch boy-o
Any drivers aid beyond ABS and maybe traction control. But I would like off switches for both. Actual mechanical switches.
“Smart” cruise control that abruptly jams on the brakes for stopped cars on the shoulder, parked on the curb, or rusting on cinder blocks in a hoarder’s yard.
Amen!
In no small order:
I almost added auto brights after seeing it on your list. I’ve grown indifferent to them in the couple applications I’ve used but would be perfectly fine without them, there are some roads that are otherwise lit where I’ll still hit the brights without other cars around for extra visibility (ex. for any critters that might run in the road), but the auto system won’t do that because of the road lighting.
Yeah every car I’ve had the last few years likes to tell me, with seeming urgency, that it has shifted from 38 to 37 degrees. Thanks car. Since I park in the garage, this inevitably happens every morning for a good chunk of the year.
The automated braking when you are reversing, sometimes its so sensitive that something on the floor triggers it and brakes the car like you hit a wall. The other day I made an “illegal” U turn and I got stuck trying to reverse, I ended driving over the shoulder into the grass and looking like a maniac.
Powered hatches and doors. They take so long to operate that they’re an inconvenience feature.
THIS. Happy they exist for the people that need them, but I wish they were somehow bypassed when not in use. When I forget and yank a powered hatch open or closed they make such a noise I feel like I’m going to break it.
I always disabled start/stop in my F150. Beyond anything else, I wince just thinking about all that additional journal bearing wear on every restart until oil pressure comes back up.
Any connectivity to the vehicle at all, lane keep assist is a close second. My 2021 Jeep Cherokee HATED Woodward Avenue’s lane markers, which are totally fine for humans. I disabled it after a week of fighting against it.
Anything past heated seats/wheel, Android Auto, and a bumpin sound system is superfluous to me (cruise and A/C have been standard for decades, so I omitted them).
Voice commands (in car, not Google); three cars, and it hasn’t worked reliably yet.
Auto start-stop is really the only answer here. Since that was called out in the article already, I’ll have to go with, umm, Nope. Still auto start-stop..
bluetooth text/calls and anything they try to put in a subscription.
Anything you’re gonna make me subscribe to, I will all of a sudden not need at all.
I could do without the iPad glued to dash. My 2008 BMW, Bangled as it was, at least integrated the screen within the dash. Give credit to Bangle for bringing a binnacle!
For me, it’s automatic emergency braking. The only times it’s activated have been from invisible, fabricated obstructions. It’s basically a surprise code brown.