Yes, they’re expensive to repair, but these are also one of the reasons that new cars have gotten so ridiculously expensive. I don’t need a heads-up display, or a large LCD screen. Give me knobs.
23 thoughts on “New-Car “Features””
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And switches or buttons that actually work…
I love the HUD in our Mazda CX-5, likewise the radar cruise control and synthetic top down camera view for parking. Could probably lose the rest although the Mazda engineers have done a great job of integration and the other features aren’t obtrusive.
We have draconian speed limit enforcement in Australia. Happens when population are cattle, not free.
The radar proximity cruise control is a bit of a de-stress mechanism, however, I like to call it the “follow slowest car on the road” mode.
I call it the “Follow the fastest car that’s passing other cars, and they’ll get the ticket” mode. It’s one thing that to me is a huge improvement over standard cruise control.
Is there any feature, “deal with the poorly trained driver who doesn’t know how to adjust their speed to merge into an Interstate or other limited-access highway”?
In theory, the person in the right lane should maintain their speed and the person merging should make any necessary adjustments, either speeding up or slowing down, or at least that what I was taught in Driver’s Ed. In practice, there are people who will make you slow down to let them in, after which the will accelerate in the highway lane beyond the posted speed limit and change to the left lane?
Can this radar thingie help with that or like other automations, gets hopeless when a human confuses it?
You need to move to my neck of the woods where they open the breakdown and merge lanes to regular 70mph traffic during rush hours. Makes the merge on the commute home a whole lot more interesting when you have to fire the JATO bottles in order to avoid being rear-ended.
I call it the “Follow the fastest car that’s passing other cars, and they’ll get the ticket” mode.
I suppose if I set it for cruise at 90mph and stay in the left lane, eventually that would happen. (End up behind the fastest car on the road that wasn’t me). However, in reality, I usually set it for 70mph and invariably end up doing 55 or less in the right or center lanes. In the passing lane, if I leave it set for 70mph invariably I get guys flashing their lights behind me.
When I initially started using it and not paying attention to my road speed I’d notice this happening a lot, because the rate of approach on the slower car was not detectable. Now I can anticipate it a little better and get over in the left lanes more often. In heavy traffic I just switch it off.
And yes, I’ve see it fail to engage in heavy rain.
Aha, a CX-5, a “small SUV” and probably reasonably fuel-efficient too.
But what if you are driving to your dacha and are carrying your home-owner handyman tools in the wayback, you hit a deer on the highway, and the collision sends all of your gear conking you on the head?
Around here kangaroos, feral pigs and occasional cows are more likely. Moved to 5 acres, 11km from reasonable small town two weeks ago. Bliss! Nearest neighbour 220 meters away. Very quiet. Robot lawnmower arrives in 2 weeks.
I can watch the kangaroos in the tree plantation 200 meters away across the road.
Serious stuff we carry in the 6 x 4 box trailer with cage we bought for the move.
Hint – when moving house tell the removalists to bring a bigger truck than the one they think will do the job.
The HUD and radar warnings are safety features. Having to look at a panel to get to the right menu to control them is not.
I got the simplest 2500 4wd they had. Still has doodads that I could do without. 5&1/2 years and 175,000 miles with no major repairs is good. Electric tail gate unlock sucks. After a few bumps and dings doesn’t work and have serious difficulty getting the tailgate down. It’s a work truck that shouldn’t be hostage to damage that bothers office drones.
Now whenever I rent a car, one of the first tasks (after figuring how to plug in the phone and display directions) is to turn off various “features”. I really dislike those that impose the car’s will on the driver. Was in Iceland a few years back, and the “lane assist” kept pushing me around on their narrow road lanes (and one-lane bridges) that it became dangerous. Had to remember to turn it off after every start.
Backup cameras are the one item that I wish my 2008 pickup had.
The windshield mounted safety camera nailed me in my 2022 4Runner. A little rock pitted my windshield, but I was at the beginning of a 620 mile drive, and by the time I arrived, it was too late to stop the propagation. Toyota maintains a list of companies who are able to replace a windshield, and accurately calibrate the remounted safety camera. But a windshield that would have cost me nothing after insurance set me back $400, because insurance doesn’t cover that service.
Radar cruise control, on the other hand, is the first advancement that makes cruise control worth using. Just don’t rely on it in heavy rain or snow.
I like the HUD on my Lucid SUV, although I turn it off in sunny weather because my sunglasses are polarized and render the HUD invisible. The various driver assist features are in general helpful, including the camera view down the side which shows up on the panel when you signal. Kia and Hyundai have been doing that for a while; I’m glad it’s catching on elsewhere.
But there out to be regulation to prevent the reliance on controls that you have to look at to operate, such as pretty much anything on a screen. Knobs with tactile feedback are definitely the way to go.
The knob at the bottom center of the Mustang Mach-E vehicle is just glued onto the screen, but the back side of the knob operates the touch screen directly, which is a clever way of combining knobs and screens in an application that makes sense.
I bought a 2021 Honda CR-V Touring model with 38K miles on it two years ago. Went overnight from 2002 car technology (Accord V-6) to 2021 tech. The Touring CR-V includes both the radar (panel in the front grille) cruise control (“Adaptive Cruise Control,” or “ACC” in Honda’s parlance) and the windshield camera-based “Lane Keep Assist System (LKAS).” I am madly in love with both. The car does half the driving when I’m on the highway, and both features work reasonably well even in adverse weather — heavy enough rain does disable the LKAS.
I did make one error that I recommend NOONE else do. When I got the car I bandied about on Amazon for accessories. Got a big heavy-duty plastic storage tray that goes above the spare tire, below the cover in the rear — that’s worked fine. My error was believing the hype about a “theft-deterrent steel cover plate” to mount over the radar panel. It requires drilling two holes for screws in the steel plate the radar panel mounts to. The plate is at least a quarter-inch thick, heavy-duty, nearly inaccessible without removing the entire front grille. So I tried to do the job with long drill bits and wound up knocking the radar panel askew (…talk about engine start error messages…!). The fix was $800 at the dealer to for the mounting clip I’d dinged, and to realign and calibrate the radar. Coulda been $4K for a replacement radar panel. Bottom line is that my insurance deductible is considerably less than that $4K, so NOT having the “theft-deterrent” (which given my experience, I’m not sure how a thief would even get close — they’d be better off chasing my cat converters) is way cheaper in the long run.
Don’t believe everything you read on Amazon (…he says, knowong perfectly well that’s exactly what he did!).
The new features are pretty handy but most of the screens aren’t that great and buttons are still fun to press.
It would be nice to have more no frills options out there but I doubt it would drive down the price much.
I concur on buttons and knobs. We also went from 2000 Honda Accord to 2020 CX-5. Several generations of automotive tech ahead. For the first 3 months whoever wasn’t driving had the owner’s manual open as the driver asked “what does this do or what does this light mean?”
Must say the radio/tape player in the Accord was a poor joke played by Honda on the driver. Never did figure out how to use it.
I have no experience with any of this stuff as my last car was a 2000 Saturn.
I have one bad eye and so can no longer qualify for a driver’s license in CA. The wife no longer drives either.
Grocery store visits were most of what we did when we were both last licensed and all of that stuff can be delivered now. Costs a bit extra to do that, but not having a car or a car insurance bill and no gas to buy still lets us come out ahead.
Doctor visits are about all we do by way of “travel” anymore. For that we have a ride service through our insurer.
The co-resident offspring owns a car that mainly gets used for the short commute to and from work. That allows us an occasional ride in extremis, but those are rare.
I’m looking forward to autonomous Cybercab service becoming available fairly soon, but probably won’t use it much. Being a near-anchorite at home suits me fine.
It strikes me that about half the items listed in the linked article are “driver assist” features that will go away when most cars are autonomous and are no longer driven by humans.
Just get one of the other FSD Teslas.
It, or a similar car, is on my long term list for when old age hits.
That was once my intention, but we have gotten acclimated to a lifestyle that includes no car ownership or driving so I may well never own another car.
Commenting on Artemis II, someone said it was just like Apollo but only with electronics upgrades.
My Toyota’s rear facing camera is very helpful, and when on longer drives I use the front radar and the assist for staying in mid-lane. But not thrilled by having to look to the right and touch screen for some things.
I like the rear facing camera a lot.
When I was driving into the city to get to work, there was a point in time when I wish I had bought the package that included the camera on the passenger side mirror that looked back:
Countless times I’d be well ahead of a bicyclist in the bicycle land and I’d put on my blinker and that seemed to be a signal to the biker to stand on his pedals and try to get past me as I made the turn.
The camera would have helped to watch those.
But I solved the problem by first pulling into the bike lane ahead of the biker just before making the turn. Earned me some flipped birds but maybe it saved a stupid biker’s life.
Anyway that’s the one feature I used to want to have. Don’t need it now.
I’m thinking of buying a camera I can put on the back of the boat trailer as I try to get the trailer down the ramp from an S-turn approach.
Like others I much prefer buttons to touch screen.
Bikes have the right of way in this situation, which is really dumb.