They can pry my 2005 Scion xB from my cold dead hands for this exact reason. Insanely light, manual shifter, manual everything, timing CHAIN, 30+ mpg, more internal space than a SUV, looks ridiculous. Check, check, and check.
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.
The more time goes on, the more 1998 being the height of human civilization in The Matrix starts making sense.
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.
In America, anyway, 9/11 was a triple-huge giganto turning point for the national character. It's really hard to overstate, especially for the young 'uns, who don't remember life before US PATRIOT, PALANTIR, and all the other spookshows that helped bankroll "web 2.0".
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.
Agreed on 2015 being the peak - I have a Mazda 6 which has similar mpg and is big enough to be a stealth camper.
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.
I've had 2 Mazda 6's. Great cars, but the second one had keyless ignition, which I found really annoying. If I am leaving something valuable in the boot (trunk) I want to try the door handle to check the car is locked. But as soon as you walk up to the car it unlocked. I would have to give the key to a family member and have them walk away first. Grrr.
My 2015 Passat is of course very similar. It has in a way the perfect amount of features, regular backup cam, parking sensors all around, acc. Actually ours don't even have satnav and I don't care since it has Android Auto. Id like this car but EV, please.
It is a diesel though so I worry a bit about the particle filter clogging, which can be somewhat expensive afaik.
I was so mad our 2016 Jetta was totaled in an accident last month for all the reasons you listed. VW makes effectively the same car, but the cost for a new one went up $10k since we bought ours.
To your list of highly desirable features, I'd add four wheel disc brakes. I was pretty over the moon when we sold off the last car in the household with drums on the rear. Drums are a pain in the ass. Maybe they're not too bad if you deal with them often enough, but discs are simpler by miles.
...And then we bought a '47 Willys Jeep a year later. Which has 4 wheel drums. And the worlds least conveniently located master cylinder.
Is the claim that they produce less particles, or that they distribute less particles because the shoes/drum is more of a closed system? Generally drums are worse brakes than disks so if they don't brake as efficiently, you'd be grinding them for longer, likely making more particles.
I haven't heard much about drums lately except that cheap cars still sometimes have them in the rear.
That makes more sense, if the fronts are regenerative, that's where most of the braking force comes from so I can see drums being sufficient in the back. A lot of lightweight motorcycles (especially classic styled ones) have rear drums.
The only thing I hate about driving a front disk/rear drum car is how deep the brake pedal is before you feel it activating the brakes. Going from responsive brakes to "oh shit they aren't activating yet..." panic for a second can take some getting used to!
I share your disdain for drums. Only issue is every four wheel disc vehicle I own still has a drum for the parking brake. Except these days they're electronic and need a scan tool to release them and get the rotor off!
Electronic drum brakes sound like my personal version of hell. I knew of the existence of electronic parking brakes, but hadn't realized that any car would be silly enough to need a scan tool to release it for service.
Oh, I can't remember a single car me or my father had that had drum brakes anywhere else than on the handbrake. How old cars are we talking about? The oldest I can remember was SAAB 99, about 50 years old model.
I have a '98 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's new enough to have well-sorted fuel injection, good AC and heat, old enough to have zero tattletales, nags, and subscriptions. It has the best sightlines, is comfy and roomy on the inside, and frankly relatively compact compared to many of the behemoths on the road today. If it ever dies I'm really going to miss it!
2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee here. It gets driven hard so it has some problems, and everyone around me keeps pressuring me to get a new car. I've looked, and I've driven a pile of rentals, and everything is just so awful. I think 2010 is about the latest model year I'd ever go.
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.
> They can pry my 2005 Scion xB from my cold dead hands for this exact reason. Insanely light, manual shifter, manual everything, timing CHAIN, 30+ mpg
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.
My 2007 Honda Fit has over 200K miles on it and I'm keeping it as long as I can. They discontinued it in the NA market too, unfortunately, even though there's a snazzy looking new model in Japan.
Mine has fewer miles on it, but my hope is that it's like compact smartphones. Honda will keep it out of the North American market for a couple of years just to release one a few years later to pent up demand, just in time for me to get (and be able to afford) a new one. Another bit that gives me hope is that there's an EV version in Japan - Honda isn't on Toyota's hydrogen train.
We have one of these too! We call it GOAT (Greatest of All Time) because it just keeps going and going well. There was mention higher up of Hondas having trim issues around this year and yeah, the paint is faded, etc. but it is just unstoppable, and the manual shift is a joy.
This is why I absolutely love my 1993 Miata. Every control is physical/mechanical. Whenever I use my wife's 2017 minivan, I'm reminded of that. Even changing the radio station requires going through a menu. The one I listen to is on page 2 of the presets, and the UI is so slow that changing station becomes a planned multi-step activity. Eyes off the road / find next page button / eyes back on road while page changes / eyes off the road to find preset 8 / eyes back in the road. In my Miata I can change the radio station without looking (but ironically, I never listen to the radio in it).
We ordered a Ioniq 5, and I hope it's better, but I'm not looking forward to it.
They can't pry my 2001 v8 4wd 14mpg[1] Tundra bought new for cash from my cold dead hands because I am seriously thinking of when I die I get laid out in the bed and the whole shebang put in an enormous hole and buried somewhere. I'd prefer if it was hauled out by helicopter over the Pacific somewhere and oops dropped.
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.
20 years on the hard 4wd trails of AZ, CA, CO, NM and both MX BCN and Sonora. A couple of hundred miles on the Baja 1000 route with a bed full of camping gear did one suspension in. And there's a lift/helper leaf in there.
Struts and shocks can last maybe 50-100k. If you’re beating the crap out of your truck you might be on the low end of that scale. Maybe that’s what they mean?
I have an 2009 4Runner and while it's got more "bells and whistles" (power seats, power windows, power 2WD/4WD switcher), but it's still very much a "dumb" car compared to any relatively modern car with an infotainment system.
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.
Nice. 2001 Tundra's a good candidate for "best pickup truck ever made". You might very well get 2x-3x new cost for it on the used market now, but there's absolutely nothing that replaces it, so that makes it a one-way cash thing. Your plan's better.
My family has been passing our 2001 Tundra around for a very long time now after it retired from being the ranch truck. We call it Ed Truck the red truck. It has 363,000 miles now and I’m the current owner. The engine and whole truck is incredible. I think about how different it must have been made when I think about things like it still being on the original AC compressor and never needing even refrigerant after 363,000 miles and 22 years. Such a testament to the Toyota Way. All the buttons and controls still work, which is very much not the norm after owning many other cars.
I had been admittedly a bit depressed before the big move across the country and the Tundra had been a bit neglected except for oil changes/tires etc. So after the life reset settled down Mr. Tundra got the full mechanics inspection with me ready to put in Whatever It Takes to make it ready for the next 20 years. And nope! Nothing mechanical needed fixing except for the timing chain. Rats had done their thing but that's just wires and money. I've got brake pads and a spare fan clutch stockpiled. Might replace more of the basic suspension bits if they become noticeable. Two things the mechanic told me that I found surprising is neither the AC nor the cooling system(!) needed maintenance after 22 years.
> Whatever It Takes to make it ready for the next 20 years. And nope! Nothing mechanical needed fixing except for the timing chain. Rats had done their thing but that's just wires and money.
I am mostly with you, but preferring a timing chain to a timing belt is... interesting. Virtually every engine I know with a chain ends up either regularly failing early, or requiring early (and labor intensive, and thus expensive) unscheduled replacement off all the tensioners, etc.
Timing chains used to be a non-service item. Robust metal chain that runs well-oiled inside clean conditions inside the engine: there's not much wear that happens there in the first place.
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.
Care to share some? Because that's the exact opposite of my experience. I've never heard of a chain itself failing, but the plastic guides can get brittle and break. I think BMW and some Fords are bad at that.
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?
Belts tend to fail abruptly and catastrophically, but generally only if they're neglected and used well beyond their design life. Chains fail more insidiously, because they get longer over time. The pins eat away at the plates, increasing the spacing between the rollers. This isn't immediately noticeable, because the timing sprockets will wear to match the altered dimensions of the chain. Worn chains cause all sorts of subtle timing problems and the lifespan of a chain is much less predictable, because it's highly dependent on lubrication; missed oil changes or poor oil quality will drastically accelerate chain wear.
From an enthusiast's perspective, a chain is probably preferable, because it tends to give you some warning before it fails - you might hear a rattle at idle, you might have problems with starting or misfires, you might get a check engine light and an EBD-II code from the timing sensors. That's a much less scary prospect than the potential for a sudden and catastrophic failure of a timing belt.
From a manufacturer or dealership's perspective, belts have some clear advantages. Unless there was a manufacturing defect in the belt, they'll almost never cause trouble if replaced according to schedule. That has obvious liability implications - it's not their fault if the customer ignores the specified replacement interval, but it potentially is their fault if a chain wears faster than expected. BMW, VAG and Jaguar Land Rover have all recently settled class action lawsuits related to the premature failure of timing chains.
I'm more of a hobby bicycle mechanic. Isn't there some similar tool for the meassuring of the chain as you get for bicycles? Just push it down and you directly see if it's time to change the chain. If not done early enough you have to change all the sprockets too because of wear. If done in time, you might not have to change all the sprockets.
You can measure it with an ordinary caliper, but the problem is getting access. The timing chain needs to be continuously supplied with oil, so it is in rather than on the engine and can rarely be accessed without pulling the engine from the car. It takes several hours just to access the chain for inspection, so it's not something you'd periodically check - if you suspect a timing chain problem, you might as well replace it.
VW had a few years making cars with chains that would catastrophically fail. Lots of destroyed engines. It was the EA888 put in Golf GTIs from 2010 and on. After like 5 or something revisions they finally improved the tensioner that caused the failure.
Previous gen GTI was a belt. Garage told me they preferred belts because people know they need to replace those. People aren't expecting to be told your chain needs to be replaced plus it's much more expensive and labour intensive.
Never heard of Honda having problems with chains, though. Some of their motorbikes even had gear driven cams! (VFR I think).
Can confirm, have a 2012 GTI, replaced the stretched chain on it about 10 days ago. The problem is that they provided no service interval for the timing chain when it really needs replacement every 80K miles. It’s an enthusiast car so there are a ton of aftermarket parts that are of good quality and VAG cars share so many parts (the 2.0T e888 engine is in a ton of vehicles from 2008 through today). My car has 211K and I intend to take it well over 300K.
Oh, the chains themselves can fail, in a quite a dramatic fashion, flying through your engine hood.. But that tends to happen well after the mileage they were designed for.
They are by no means immortal, but, by design, should have a much longer lifespan than belts.
> Virtually every engine I know with a chain ends up either regularly failing early [..]
But I have no idea which early-failing models OP is referring to, as the engines I know about where quite reliable. (As in 1e6+ km reliable, with chain maintenance per manufacturer guidelines.)
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.
I've had two bmw e39's with a m57 engines, and these chains last literally forever. One of my engines has over 500k clocked on it, no chain rattle still.
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.
It's a general rule, and it's mostly because I can tell when the chain's wearing down. If the belt is accessible, it's also not as big a deal.
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.
Chains usually have no service interval, so at the outset they seem cheaper and more reliable. But the unfortunate reality is they still fail, or something related to keeping them on fails, you just live in a false sense of security for a few 10's of thousands of km more
And since they're not meant to be serviced on a regular interval, they're designed that way too. A timing chain might be over four times the expense to replace when compared to a timing belt, but possibly without actually lasting over four times long.
Mo tech mo problems. My 87 Toyota 4x4, 89 bmw e30, 83 Toyota Land Cruiser and 76 bmw e10 are an effortless joy to drive (for someone with a little mechanical acumen).
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.
That reasoning hurts my head. "Those cars are dangerous. I'd like one, too, but only so I could drive it under conditions associated with the highest possible fatality rates per vehicle-mile."
Huh? How is a rural road or parking lot with literally no other cars around "the highest possible fatality rate"?
It's not ME that scares me. It's Sally Mae driving a 7 thousand pound Suburban while talking on the phone and putting on make up. She won't even notice anything smaller than a full size sedan.
lack of response during an incident, poor road conditions, little or no flood control, rapidly changing road conditions over timne poor lighting, randomized rural traffic (tractors/goats/whatever), and inconsistent street placement.
rural driving has always been historically pretty dangerous, even on an otherwise empty road.
Track day fatalities are also extremely rare. Most tracks have tons of run off, and obviously one should drive within ones on capabilities.
One of the big differences is response time. If you had a wreck at a track day, you’d be noticed within 30 seconds and the on-site EMS at the accident site within a few minutes. That vastly improves your odds.
It’s all about determining risk vs reward. Driving in track once or twice a year is relatively low risk (annd those risks are largely within one’s own control) and lots of fun (and more fun the more fun the car is). A fun car is not going to make sitting in traffic more funz
If it’s a fun car with a stick, aftermarket clutch, lightened flywhweel, etc it’s gonna be miserable around town, and when you get hit by some idiot that runs a red light, it’s probably not going to go especially well for you. For a faily I’ll take big crumple zones and 17 airbags, blind spot warnings, etc etc.
That said, you can tune a carb with a screwdriver. You can't tune an ECU with a screwdriver. So you can make a barely functioning carb vehicle run again relatively easily, for years, with minimal parts required. Usually it just needs some cleaning if it sat too long. Compare that to a car that requires the entire electrical system and computer to function to even start moving gas from the tank to the injectors sometimes, a vehicle with a carb can be built like a lawn mower - simple fuel system, basic electronics, and you can make a reliable enough vehicle that's intended to be repaired.
Fuel injection systems are pretty reliable by now.
Like sure, you are not gonna tune them with a screwdriver, but in exchange it more or less just operates the engine on the best available point all the time.
Cars from the mid-noughts (the right ones of course! [0]) are the sweet-spot for me. New enough to have modern safety features (like airbags - I know, funny to refer to that as modern) - but still be user-serviceable.
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).
I think you may have changed my life. I have never seen this car before. It took me a couple of minutes to be able to appreciate it. But zooming in on the tech, it looks very electric, vs electronic. The infotainment system is modular, how awesome is that.
> It took me a couple of minutes to be able to appreciate it.
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.
The Scion iM for instance was supposed to be some kind of cool, young people car, while its European counterpart - the Auris (which I drive in its station wagon incarnation) is a sleepy mom car/taxi for the city.
I had one. It is the one car I’ve had that I truly miss. So many clever little features that made it an absolute joy to own and drive. Slow as absolute molasses, but still such a wonderful experience. So spacious for the size, with things like the rear seat adjusting so that you could have more storage area or more rear passenger legroom, which, holy crap, why was that not more widespread?! That car had significantly more legroom than _any_ “midsize” SUV on the market in 2023, certainly more than the Mazda CX50 we ended up getting, which I genuinely thought this article was about because all of the annoyances were ringing true.
'96 Mustang Cobra. You couldn't even buy it with an automatic. It doesn't ding about the seat belt, let alone any of this other bullshit.
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.
you know, it's weird. I have a Miata. It's not particularly fast, but it's fun to drive. Went on a bit of a road trip over the summer, and parking was tight at one place I stayed, so was valet only.
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've routinely had to have valets walk me to my car since nobody who's working that day can drive it. As a result, I've - more than a few times now - gotten the hotel to comp the parking since I end up doing the actual parking and retrieval myself.
It's the same with home automation. Spending hours a month babysitting/updating/fixing/configuring it, to shave off valuable seconds otherwise spent on turning on lights or AirPlaying some music.
I loved my 2006 xB (thunder cloud metallic, manual transmission). It was the first new car I purchased. Traded it in a couple years later and regretted it.
Oh it's a compact. That xB is like the length of a Mini, but you got this cave inside because each wheel is perched at each corner, maximizing usable space. It's insane. It's like someone took an Econoline van and hit it with a shrink ray.
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.
I was going to say a Mini is far smaller, but apparently the current generation ones are almost 4m long. I was still assuming the 3.65m original BMW Mini.
I seriously don't understand how people can stand to drive new cars. Every time I'm in one (e.g., a rental) I need to spend a ton of time figuring out how to turn tons of settings off just so the steering wheel won't randomly jerk or the car won't brake when I don't want to, to say nothing of the constant beeps and lights. A friend had an old Saab with a feature called "Black Panel" that turned off every gauge at night save what was absolutely necessary. It was so nice.
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 don't doubt that the author's car is every bit as frustrating as described, but not all new cars are like that.
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.
You're describing a luxury car maker that understands its customers get pissed off very easily and don't like being told what to do. Even the chimes in a BMW/Mercedes are quite pleasant compared to the ear-ringing DING DING DING you get on affordable passenger cars like Toyotas.
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.
> Even the chimes in a BMW/Mercedes are quite pleasant compared to the ear-ringing DING DING DING you get on affordable passenger cars like Toyotas.
Fun fact: many BMWs also have Rolls Royce chimes on their ECUs because of the shared parts, and they're one hidden setting change away from being enabled
Inreresting, my '21 Toyota does not lock me out of using the screen. But anyway I've learned it's much faster to engage with Android Auto or Car Play via voice. My steering wheel has a button that makes the car "listen" and then I simply say android assistant-like commands eg "navigate to ____" "send message to _____" "gas stations along my route" "Play Wheels on the Bus" etc.
The last time I was on a business trip to Germany I had ordered a small econobox, but when I got to the airport I was "upgraded" (of course they didn't have the car I'd actually reserved) to some huge M-series, "luxury" SUV the size of Belgium.
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.
> t is likely you will spend most of your time going somewhere between 130km/h and 200+ on the Autobahn.
Overwhelming majority of cars on Autobahn is driving 130 and lower on unlimited sections. The speed limit on other sections is 120 or lower - they have signs everywhere.
The 200km/h use case is not what drivers in Germany do majority of the time.
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.
It's to do with the EPA rating. If the car maker allows auto start/stop to be turned off permanently then the ratings agency will test the car again with it turned off then combine the two results into their score. Having a slightly worse EPA mileage across their fleets is probably bad for sales and pleasing governments
There are tools for BMWs (and Minis) that allow to override some settings and enable some features that are not offered on a specific market. You will need a ~$20 OBD cable and an app to code your changes. For instance, BimmerCode [1] has samples of what could be changed on their website.
I stopped reading the article about 4 headings in because neither my new 2023 car nor my partner's nearly decade-old car (still new enough to have a keyless ignition) suffer from these problems (or the complaints are just silly and I don't agree with them).
- 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).
> but most cars with smart keys these days simply open without you needing to use the remote at all anyway
Friends new car supposedly has this feature but yet 9 times out of 10 we stand around the car for 10 seconds clicking the handles until frustration causes the fob to come out.
Yeah the quality definitely seems to vary by manufacturer.
My wife's vehicle would work about half the time, only after a delay. More annoyingly, the fob only seemed to work like 1/10 of the time. Dealer replaced some sensors, swapped things around, did all sorts of stuff... never worked quite right.
My car has never _not_ opened. It responds immediately every single time. I stick my hand in and it's unlocked before I can pull the handle. I've not had to think about unlocking my doors in more than half a decade to the point where if I do stick my hand in and it doesn't open, my immediate thoughts are "do I actually have the key? is the car's battery flat?".
Replaced my wife's vehicle with the same brand as mine, works flawlessly and consistently now.
If you are regularly engaging the automatic braking or even warning, you and your driving habits really are the problem. It’s quite trivial to slow down and leave adequate braking distance when driving on public roads. Not every journey is judged down to the hundredth of a second.
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.
This is a bad take if you haven't driven every single car on the market in order to inform yourself.
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?
I like how you disagree with the parent comment suggesting you drive very aggressively, and then nearly every example you give of the car being wrong is a direct result of you driving very aggressively.
Lifting off the throttle and on to the brakes quickly but gently is a natural safety decision if your going fast on a motorway and someone slower changes into your lane up ahead.
This is the primary reason for emergency brake assist kicking in for me in my car, Skoda Superb (VW group so similar software). It's only ever happened on the Autobahn where there can be higher speed differentials. It's a bit annoying when it does, but it's all controllable.
Other than that, I find my car's safety stuff pretty good. Lane assist isn't intrusive, traction control is functional (car is 4WD 280hp), warning tones are relevant and customizable, etc.
A car cutting in front of me and me not panicking and slamming on the brakes is actually a mark of knowing how to drive.
The one example of me driving aggressively had nothing to do with forward collision warning, and was actually about brake boost systems that choose to brake more aggressively FOR you when you might not want it to, and it has nothing to do with any cars anywhere near you.
> my Golf had a REAR collision warning which would fully engage the brakes
I once had a rental engage full brakes when reversing out of a parking spot because a shadow fell across the rear camera. Car stopped so violently I thought I hit something. Nearly shat my pants.
I've had the forward panic braking go off from a medium sized bird flying by on the highway and once as I came down from a bump the nose must of dipped enough that it identified the unobstructed ground and freaked out.
I actually leave this system on though as it general doesn't have many false positives. I turned off the suicidal lane keep feature almost immediately as that was trying for force me into potholes and debris on the road in its zeal to maintain the lane position. Completely insane.
The most irritating thing is that if there is dirt on the car it disables itself. Which means it doesn't work during half the winter due to road salt. The same goes for the backup camera, I feel like it needs a mini wiper!
I think this take is pretty BS. I'm not claiming sainthood or anything, but I don't drive like an insane person either, and every time I've driven a Tesla (which is at least semi often, my parents own one) it just goes HAM beeping at all sorts of shit, and it jerked the wheel weirdly on me at least once when it seemed to get terribly confused about what was actually a lane or not.
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.
> and it jerked the wheel weirdly on me at least once when it seemed to get terribly confused about what was actually a lane or not
Not in a Tesla, but I've rented 3 cars as of late where driving through construction zones with shifting lanes caused the wheel to jerk constantly as it thought I was leaving a lane.
I'm aware enough to catch it and so on, but man it does not come across as a safe feature in that regard. I would be curious to see what amount of testing is done for this scenario, since construction is a common enough thing to encounter.
For both my Tesla model 3 and my Honda Odyssey, I turn all the alerts on and have adjusted my driving until I don’t routinely get them. One thing I’ve noticed is just how bad the typical driver is at maintaining a safe following distance: the recommended “2 or 3 second following distance” one finds in things like the California driver’s handbook (and Texas’s as well as just about every drivers ed course I’ve seen) is several times longer than the typical following distance in most of the U.S.
I regularly drive down a gently curving 25 mph road. Every single time I do, the collision warning comes on because it thinks I'm going to go straight and not follow the road. It's so repeatable that I pause my podcasts in anticipation of the bleating warning.
I’ll grant you that one, my 2015 Honda predictably does that on some low-speed turns, but I have pieced together that the triggering factor is retro-reflective stickers/indicators on utility poles or road markers that seem to trick the radar into thinking an object on the side of the road is larger than reality.
The regular false positives are so annoying that I sometimes fantasize about removing the camera, then remind myself that it's a leased vehicle and that I only have to endure it for ten more months. Some folks don't mind getting dinged at incessantly, but I have sympathy for people who dislike being constantly techno-nannied or notified to death.
Is it because of the "older" tech? 2015 is "ancient" for these things and difference between 2015, 2020 and 2023 from what I've seen is pretty massive as tech has changed at a dizzying pace.
my 2020 civic seems to do okay but I get those issues only on occasion. Newer tech would be more stable I think. Only been driving it ~3 months.
I dunno. The first car I drove with any of these driver assists was my sister's 2015 Honda (CRV? I think that was the model). I thought it was fantastic. It kept station smoothly behind other cars. The lane-keeping was great on the freeway, and easy to turn off on surface streets. I thought it made me several times safer as a driver: I didn't spend as much attention on the lane markings, or the back of the car ahead of me, so I was able to be far more attentive to cars around, or upcoming (potential) hazards.
When we looked for a car a couple of years ago (and, more recently, when I've driven rentals), station-keeping was certainly no better (and in at least a couple of instances, definitely worse), and as noted by everyone else in this thread, the whole system is so darn annoying. Of the beeps and warnings which are not false-positives, most draw my attention to things I've already seen, so they become either distracting or ignored, which is a net safety degradation.
I think 2015 driver-assist systems (or Honda's, at least) worked better.
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.
Admittedly, I can be classified as one of those "Driver™" people (I've been to a track day with my previous car, for instance). But, here're a few examples of a system like this messing up in slow driving scenarios.
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!
> If you are regularly engaging the automatic braking or even warning, you and your driving habits really are the problem.
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.
When you're not renting them, the time spent learning how to use them is trivial compared to the time spend using them. A lot of those features are nice to have.
True, less an issue if you're the owner, and most can be turned off. And some of my comment is just me being baffled at the things people are ok with. Some people feel safer when the car brakes when it's X distance from one in front on a freeway, but a car not doing what I want to at all times freaks the hell out of me, even when it's fairly predictable.
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.
This. Any friction between the user and controls that affect safety is a serious flaw. Old cars don't make me look at a screen to make the window less foggy.
My 2019 Honda Accord doesn’t make me look at a screen to turn on defrost. But it does have a screen conveniently placed with directions and a map! And that screen reads my messages to me and even allows me to speak a response without ever taking my eyes off the road!
There are plenty of modern cars with a very pleasant mix of tactile controls for things like AC, radio, defrost, etc, while also having lane keep, cruise control auto distance thing, and a screen with a map. There’s a ton of new technology that I love in my newer car, and I’m very glad I’m not driving my crappy 2004 CRV anymore.
Edit: I forgot about the backup camera. The backup camera is also amazing. It gives me way more visibility then just trying to look out my window, and it gives me visibility if I’m parked between giant cars.
I don't disagree that modern features can be useful, nor do I disagree that some modern cars do it right. I'm saying that one car making the user say "pretty please" before disabling a distraction is one too many.
But here's the thing I don't get. People don't learn how to use them. They won't read the manuals or give a shit. You, reading the manual and learning the car, are the exception.
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.
I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but I read the manual for my car (it's next to my toilet) and have navigated through every configuration menu in the various consoles.
Even then I still had to watch a few videos to figure out how to change my charging rate. It was hidden behind a number of hard-to-find settings and is disabled (silently) in many car modes (basically you can only change it when you're in "car on but motors not running and not charging")
//People don't learn how to use them. They won't read the manuals or give a shit.
It's the psychological concept of "maximizing vs satisficing" The former means to squeeze out the most of some item/experience while the later means being totally good once a thing is "good enough." We maximize or satisfice on different topics.
So I read the manual and I know stuff about our car that my wife doesn't. But because the car is safe, fast, and comfortable - it's maxing our her pleasure even if she doesn't know that some setting exists.
I love your confidence :) The other dude already linked to the dictionary, I am just amused that it was easier for you to make up a mental model my thinking rather than right-click to learn a new word!
I might dive into the owners manual to make sure I know what grade of oil I need or for some specific need I have but I'm not going to sit down and read through an owners manual just so I can successfully operate a vehicle.
I have a license in my wallet that says I'm qualified to operate a vehicle.
Most people purchase vehicles to drive from point A to point B, sometimes with passengers. It's not that complicated.
I had a Saab 9-3 with Black Panel; it was awesome and I loved it. Basically when you pressed the Black Panel button on the dash every light inside the car and on the dash went out, except for the speedometer, and that only displayed the 'cake slice' with the needle in it (in approx 30mph slices). If you increased your speed into the next slice then that came on as well. If something like a low-fuel warning happened, then that light would come on as required. IIRC the radio controls stayed illuminated as well. It made for an amazingly immersive zero-distractions driving experience when driving country roads at night.
That Saab made 210k miles, a good part of the three-times-to-the-moon distance I've driven throughout my life.
If you understand what the car does and why, then you are fully able to set up up to your liking. And also, cars behavior ceases to be random. In any case, if that car is breaking for suddenly often, then it is either malfunctioning or the driver is driving excessively aggressively.
For what it’s worth, I actually appreciate most of the safety features on my 2021 Toyota Alphard.
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.
Keep in mind, that new cars aren't bad simply because of all this new tech, but rather how this tech is exposed to the user. HCI seems to have disappeared by the wayside as we create more and more complicated systems.
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.
You're kidding right? Apple under Jony Ive without Steve gave us the worst generation of Macbook Pros: butterfly keyboard, limited ports, and the touchbar.
Recently upgraded my work laptop to an M1 and I gotta say I miss the touchbar. Very sad that they got rid of it seemingly forever. Concretely it was great for managing screen recording. But in general I don’t understand the backlash, especially once they added a physical escape key for my fellow vim heads.
The haters won but I wonder what their victory cost us. Am I supposed to be happy I got my F11 key back??
The touchpads are absolutely absurdly large, Apple could have easily made it a little bit smaller and fit both a row of function keys and the touch bar.
I agree, I'm on the 2019 16" MBP, the one with physical ESC and touchbar. I honestly love the touchbar once you spice it up with BetterTouchTool you can make it extremely useful.
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).
AI (specifically voice recognition and LLM’s) can probably help solve this problem by having the LLM control things for you while “talk to the thing like a human” is the exposed interface.
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.
Those features aren’t for you, they just put a coat of paint on them to pretend like it is. They are an excuse to increase data collection and reporting to the company.
I have a 2020 Audi, several times I've had to do an emergency swerve to counteract an emergency swerve done by the lane assist while on a slip road. It's also applied emergency braking when I drive down a narrow road that has a line of parked cars, which it thinks I'm going to drive into. It's a real fright to get sudden emergency braking applied when you are carefully negotiating round parked cars. Like you, I get the visibility warning at least once a trip.
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.
A friend of mine has a 2023 Audi. Some of the front sensors are already damaged from normal driving. Apparently any scratches cause them to become unreliable.
Starting my current car is always a pain in the ass that takes at least a minute. Get in the car, put the seatbelt on first so it doesn't complain, push the Start/Stop Engine button, immediately turn off the traction control and turn on Sport mode (buttons for which are conveniently placed right beside eachother) so that the car doesn't try to kill me in the rain and so I can get across an intersection from a dead stop faster than fifteen seconds, turn off the blind spot monitoring system so it doesn't flash me, turn off the forward collision warning so it doesn't scare the shit out of me when I'm going through the drive through, disable the parking sensor so that when I go to pay for my food I don't have to keep pressing "Okay" to get it to shut up because it thinks the wall to my left is an oncoming car, and then wait for another minute for the idle revs to drop to 900RPM before I even think of shifting out of park because the engineers thought putting zero weight oil in a highly stressed inline four with less displacement than my childhood lunchbox was a good idea.
I've done a significant amount of track driving and rally driving, which is to say that I appreciate turning off traction control at points. Your immediate need to turn it off by default, for general road driving, is very strange to me. It should in no way be a blocker to you driving in the rain or in an intersection. What on earth are you driving...?
> 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.
How does turning off TC keep your car from killing you in the rain? just out of curiosity. In my experience, TC has been very helpful, as it means I don't have to worry about feathering the gas pedal in heavy rain.
Some implementations of TC/ESC will abruptly brake one or more of the wheels in on/off pulses, using the ABS pump, disrupting an otherwise balanced cornering car.
Yes. I won't buy a car I cannot disable ABS on, because it extends braking distances, plus by doing so, all traction control is off.
But I honed my non-ABS driving in my teenage years, pre-ABS (for most cars at the time), on rural dirt roads, and on roads with constant snow and ice, and driving on frozen lakes.
Of course, if you disable ABS, you may end up without any form of real differential, as many cars use ediff tech, which is horrible, so I now have to also vet for a true hardware, non-open diff.
ABS has nothing to do with improving braking distance. Any skilled driver, who knows their car, can do far better.
For skilled drivers, ABS extends braking distance.
What ABS does, is let a driver mash the pedal on full, and still steer around obstacles. Something a skilled driver can still do.
One problem with these tests, is that if you disable ABS on some cars, the proportioning valve is still set to 50/50, front/rear, meaning you start to lose traction on the rear wheels, and skid. This causes a loss of control, and reduced braking power.
Cars prior to ABS has the capability to adjust rear brake pressure by weight, a typical default of 70/30.
Some card have ABS controllers which you can disable ABS functionality, but still retain proportioning control. Cars with proper diffs are often like this.
Is this true with a modern abs, and have you tested your own capabilities vs abs? It can act on individual wheels which no human can do with a regular brake pedal.
I know of ABS capabilities, and extensively tested ABS on/off on every car I own.
ABS is about steering when people slam the brake pedal down, it is not about improving braking distance.
Outside of how it doesn't help on pavement, it is a absolute disaster on gravel, and deep snow.
For example, on gravel if you lock up the brakes, you dig in. Gravel builds in front of the tire, and your tire sinks. ABS won't allow this, and so on gravel I can stop from high speed fast, while ABS actively works to deny my ability to stop.
On snow, if you briefly lock up the brakes, snow builds in front of the wheel. You can then spin the wheels to turn, let up, and the car will instantly take off in a new direction. ABS actively prevents this.
ABS was never, ever designed to reduce braking distance. It was designed to allow people to steer while braking.
The video I linked shows drivers (one professional, one not) achieved stopping distance in a straight line with and without abs in a fairly recent car.
Gravel and snow I understand - but at least for me are pretty big exceptions.
What kind of cars do you people drive where "feathering the gas pedal in heavy rain" is a necessity? My 90HP FWD car with very little weight on the front can still accelerate faster in rain without wheelspin than I'd ever need when driving normally.
My car is front-biased AWD and is very predictable in the heavy rains we have here during winter that can leave an inch or more of standing water on the roads. Plus I grew up driving older cars that didn't even have ABS, let alone TCS. That means my habit is inducing oversteer to save myself, against the tendency of TCS to induce understeer that most drivers feel more comfortable with. I'd much rather spin out than slide off the road. When TCS activates in the rain that can be dangerous, because I hit the brakes to dip the nose before steering in, only for TCS to detect I'm slipping and jerk the car in the opposite direction (IE, towards the thing I'm avoiding). After having that happen two or three times it became habit to turn off TCS, and I haven't had a scare like that since.
Fwiw, I don't think that's a fundamental issue with the technology or anything... it could be the implementation in your car is just kind of bad.
The traction control in my car is more than happy to let me toss the car around any which way as long as I'm not giving it some sort of input that I want it to be doing something else. It seems to respond not to "the car is doing something potentially bad" but "there's a mismatch between what the driver is commanding and what the car is doing".
Steer into a spin and I can keep the car spinning, steer a bit against it and I can skid it sideways, little-left-little-brake-no-brake-snap-right and I'm tossing the car around 180 degrees. The only point it will cut in is if, during one of these, I point the wheel some direction and hit the gas indicating I want to be going that way now--it will correct the skid/slid/spin and get the car going that direction.
I have a display up during the winter that shows TCS activation and individual wheel slippage so I know when I'm driving beyond the limits of my actual traction. In 6 or 7 years of driving it in Canadian winters really the only time I ever see it cutting in is getting the car moving from stopped on ice.
Try getting off train/tram tracks in snow and ice with traction control off. In many situations you absolutely need to let the wheels slip (but not too much) in order to get around instead of cutting off most of the traction.
> turn off the forward collision warning so it doesn't scare the shit out of me
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).
Wow, I turned most of those features off in my car for similar reasons but at least they stay off. I'm sure they'll end up breaking someday preventing an inspection even though I don't use them however.
> and then wait for another minute for the idle revs to drop to 900RPM before I even think of shifting out of park because the engineers thought putting zero weight oil in a highly stressed inline four with less displacement than my childhood lunchbox was a good idea.
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.
Well, to be fair, the oil weight is a result of CAFE standards. Squeezing out another .5mpg at the expense of an engine needing to be replaced at 115K miles (outside of warranty, of course) is the cost. There are other costs to improve fuel economy, like being stranded on the side of the road with no spare tire when you have a flat.
I just bought a brand new Mazda3 (2024 model year) and picked it up on Monday. I am able to disable all of the features you're mentioning on this car, and I can also choose whether alerts are only visual in the HUD or if they are visual + audible.
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.
In EU, the 2024 Mazda3s now have to comply with new directive where they DING every time you go slightly over the speed limit. What they think is a speed limit (which is commonly inaccurate due to bad nav data or bad sign recognition data).
In the US, you can turn the ding or visual indicator off. You can also adjust when the notification happens. I kept it to visual only and set it to alert when I went more than 5MPH over the speed limit, because I want to help keep myself honest.
It's disappointing it's forced to ding in the EU. In the US, there are many roads where you /must/ drive over the speed limit or you become a road obstruction that is actually putting yourself and others at risk. As an example, several Interstate highways have sections that drop to 65MPH through major metros but outside of high-traffic periods, the established speed is 80MPH on these, just as it is on other sections of the same Interstate (where the speed limit is likely 75MPH).
Wait until you find out about the Mazda telemetry / data collection. Disabling it results in a prompt asking to re-enable it every time you start your car.
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!
See whether it is possible to disable via coding (OBD). My Audi can be customized down to "how many dings, including zero", and when they trigger, like "not if you're stopped".
I'm guessing the driver's seatbelt ding is one of the mandatory ones. Thanks to the 99% of terrible drivers in the US and our incompetent regulators, we get enforced mandatory enshittification.
> At the left front designated seating position (driver's position), a warning system that activates a continuous or intermittent audible signal for a period of not less than 4 seconds and not more than 8 seconds and that activates a continuous or flashing warning light visible to the driver for not less than 60 seconds (beginning when the vehicle ignition switch is moved to the “on” or the “start” position) when condition (A) exists simultaneously with condition (B)
...
> (A) The vehicle's ignition switch is moved to the “on” position or to the “start” position.
> (B) The driver's automatic belt is not in use, as determined by the belt latch mechanism not being fastened, ...
If 99% of the drivers in the U.S. are indeed terrible, then anything that makes 100% of the drivers strap into their seatbelt upon entering the vehicle is improving safety. In that case, the regulators would be competent.
Enshittification would be something like selling third-party access to drivers eyeballs in a way that fucks up the infotainment UX, or selling driver data in a scummy way that encourages phishing attacks from within the infotainment screen.
Not sure how it would actually continue from there, but eventually this process of screwing up the end product in the interest of rent-seeking would make it difficult for the person to actually drive from point and to point b, which is the whole purpose the car was designed for. And at that point people would start questioning Kia (or whatever) as an actual vehicle useful for transportation, and the company would then fail.
That would be enshittification. What you describe is just an annoying safety feature.
I think they can optimize the ding to be tolerable. I own Subaru in Canada and it only dings me for seatbelts after I starting moving faster than 20kmph.
Even if the regulations require a ding for any speed, I assume it doesn’t need to ding when in park.
That would have been a significant improvement. But compared to the OPs experience in the link, I am okay with my current level of frustration. This is a small item to be bothered by.
No. But if you ever remove your seatbelt while it's on, it immediately starts dinging, even if you're in park with the parking brake set (which is an electronic parking brake). It typically takes me around 20-30 seconds to get settled before I drive after I get in the car, and for that entire time it dings every 5 seconds until I buckle the seatbelt.
For someone that is obsessive about safety and is a skilled driver, it feels like some type of indictment that my vehicle is insulting me and accusing me of wanting to drive without a seatbelt, which is the furthest thing from the truth.
Part of me thinks it's auto companies both making sure they dot their i's and cross their t's in case they get hauled into court regarding vehicle safety as well as hammering "look, we're safer than other vehicles!" down consumers' throats.
Or my perceived level of competence among the average driver is way off and the general population needs to be coddled.
Sibling commenter- looks like you've been shadowbanned since you came back in 2022. You might want to reach out to the moderators to see if you can get this removed.
I just bought a Mazda MX5. I love the car but utterly loathe the "entertainment system". When it isn't hanging/crashing (which it does about once a week) it prevents using any of the screen controls while the car is moving. Instead you need to take your eyes off the road longer to use a physical dial to scroll to the control you want to press. Oh and this weekend I kept getting warnings about high-wind conditions 200 miles away from me that I could not close at all while the car was moving, meanwhile no music and no GPS.
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.
Hard disagree. My MX5 is my favorite car I had in the last 10 years.
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.
Before carplay and android auto, at least on my 2015 Mazda3, the UI was designed with the knob in mind, and you could quickly navigate through the menus without looking once you became familiar with the most often used functions. Of course, now that you have interfaces that were not designed with a knob in mind, we suffer trying to spin the knob and highlight the appropriate touch point.
The knob is a UI/UX disaster itself. A digital system that literally requires you to look at the screen instead of the road to access nested after nested menu items.
My last car was a previous version. I was able to disable the change lane warning and other annoyances and didn't use any "infotainment" except connecting the phone or plugging a USB stick with MP3s. No GPS either.
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.
The warning triggers when you approach the line, not when you cross the line. That seems logical, but it was calibrated in a way that it started even if I moved a little to the left so I could use the rear-view mirror, as usual when I have a truck behind me.
Other times it started even driving totally centered in the lane, why? Irregularities in the road surface or temporary lines that someone painted during works and nobody deleted properly.
The alerts were dangerous because, if I'm already paying attention, I now get the idea that there's some danger elsewhere so I just start to nervously look in all directions, before reaching the conclusion that the system is incorrectly second guessing me.
Step daughter had an accident where the issue was a collision mid intersection, assumption of one party running a red light. No cameras, no witnesses except her and the other party, and both were adamant they had a green.
The car she was driving absolutely has telemetry that could have shown "was she at a complete stop, and for how long", immediately before the collision, i.e. showing being stopped at a red light before going (still some discussion on timing if jumping the gun, sure).
Insurance wasn't even remotely interested. It's not worth it to get that information unless, like I (and they) said, it's a very serious accident with a lot of money on the line and no other ways to determine fault.
How does that help? If you use a turn signal when changing lanes, it should only be done after you've departed your lane, as an indicator that it was intentional. :p
I have a 2021 MX-5. The dealer had to do a software update recently which fixed most of the hanging/crashing bugs in the infotainment system. It also fixed a very weird issue where Google Maps would be 5-20 seconds behind on CarPlay (meaning I frequently missed my turn!).
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.
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.
Heh, what would be funny is if we asked the op why they needed a new car and they were like "Oh, I got over into another car".
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.
Uh, none of these are good reasons. At best they are extremely rare and weird edge cases and good UX is not making the weird edge cases dominate the experience.
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.
> 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.
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.
The pressure sensor answer is a good reason. I have two cars with pressure sensors, and they've gone off a handful of times over the years. Each time I check, the pressure is low and I put more air in.
If they're going off constantly, they're faulty, and should be replaced. That's not a design decision failure; sometimes parts are bad.
The double unlocking has been a thing for a long long time, I believe as a safety feature or something. My 2004 dumb-car also has this feature (and I also dislike it)
// At best they are extremely rare and weird edge cases and good UX ... 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 ... I mean, even if they press the start button, then the car won't start unless you've also pressed the brake pedal?
"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.
> 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.
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.
You've misunderstood what we're talking about. Using the turn signal is what triggers the warning in this case. The car is correctly detecting that there's a car in your blind spot, but it incorrectly interprets the turn signal as "I'm going to change lanes" rather than "I'm making a turn".
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)
I stopped paying attention to the alert sounds because they can be triggered for so many reasons and finding out why the sound is playing every time, would mean that I would be constantly distracted while driving. So, ignoring the warnings is actually the safer option in my case (2023 Toyota)
> 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.
My vocabulary fails to adequately convey how useless that bug report would be. Who would you even contact to report the issue?
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.