I recently drove the new Porsche Macan EV, and while I’ll be writing a review on the $110,000 car soon, I just need to get something off my chest: Extending sun visors have to be standard on all cars. They just have to. The amount of bullshit that’s standard on cars these days is shocking (electric door handles, screens out the wazoo, weird capacitive buttons), and to leave out something so basic and yet important is just not OK. So please just allow me this short rant that doubles as praise for one of the unsung heroes of automotive features.
Want to see something ridiculous? Owners of absurdly expensive Porsches — vehicles with beautifully designed interiors — have no choice but to strap a cheap Amazon extender to their sun visors because Porsche, for some bizarre reason, doesn’t offer telescoping fold-down mirrors.
Look at this atrocity:
What’s worse is that the forum thread above, posted in 2021 to the Macan section of Rennlist.com, was started by a Macan owner was was using a piece of cardboard to block the sun; cardboard!:
How absurd is this? You spend an average American’s salary on a Porsche and you have to use a piece of paper to block the sun from your face?
But this isn’t just a problem on old Macans, it’s an issue on the brand new Porsche Macan EV, too. Here’s me trying to drive without the sun burning my face off:
By the way, here’s the Monroney for this Macan, which costs over $110,000!:
It’s not just me complaining about this. Back in July of 2021, car journalist Zac Palmer wrote on Autoblog “Please, just give all cars extendable sun visors.” From that article:
It’s remarkable how brand-new, clean-sheet, redesigned cars keep coming out without extendable sun visors. I know, it feels like such a small and dumb thing to be up in arms about. But that’s also what’s so frustrating. An extendable or sliding sun visor is such a small add-on to a car that can ultimately make driving significantly less stressful. But there are still so many new cars (even from luxury manufacturers!) that don’t ascribe to the extendable sun visor strategy. Is it because we don’t tell them that it’s a desired feature?
And YouTube channel The Straight Pipes has been doing a visor test for years. If a visor telescopes, it’s a pass. If it doesn’t, it’s a fail:
And look at all the posts on Reddit complaining about this very issue:
And yet, here we are in 2025, and we’ve got new $110,000+ cars coming out without such an obviously-should-be-standard feature.
I myself own a 2021 BMW i3S that cost over $57,000 new, and does it have an extending visor?
Nope. It drives me nuts. My wife’s 2017 Lexus RX350?
Yep. Lexus has its shit together. The rest of the industry needs to do the same.
Obviously, this is possibly the most first-world-problem ever, and you can easily find things that people complain about on cars across the industry, but this extremely useful and relatively cheap feature — especially on an expensive car — just isn’t excusable in my eyes. Neither is the sun.
Extending sun visors were featured on all four Nissan vehicles I’ve owned for the past 25 years – ’00 Sentra, ’07 Quest, ’16 Rogue, ’21 Rogue.
My ’07 Mazda 3 didn’t, and my ’18 Mazda 3 only has smaller slide-out plastic shields (which also uncover the visor mirrors).
None of my prior cars going back to my older-than-dirt days had fancy visors.
My 04 Maxima had visor extentions, plus a second, smaller visor that lived under (or rather, over) the main one. Great when the sun is coming in at a funny angle.
Agreed! The Germans won’t make them standard unless they can also make them electronics actuated though. That way it’ll pointlessly fail immediately out of warranty. Possibly also on a subscription service *coughBMWcoughcough*.
Clearly the solution is to put control of the sun visor on the infotainment touchscreen. Bury it under 8 menus for good measure.
Just wait a little bit and you’ll be able to buy the Rennline extendable sun visor for only $1000.
My family’s 1986 Ford Taurus wagon had visor extensions and an auxillary mini visor that swung out from the main one so you could shade the front and side at the same time. For 1986, that car felt like a spaceship. Too bad it kept eating alternators.
I don’t even know if the sun visors are extendible on our cars. I suspect this is because I don’t regularly drive on the freeway or any long straight roads so it rarely comes up that I’d be driving somewhere with the sun predominately in one spot.
https://carpets4classiccars.co.uk/classicCarSunvisors.html
Ynot
I taped the opening tops of a plain manila folder and slipped it over the visor long before such -luuries- were available. Worked great.
Neither my 1996 Cherokee or 1996 Trooper have them, but at least on the XJ, the doors are so small that it still extended nearly all the way back.
30 years on, I figured we’d sorted this out.
You obviously didn’t have a 2-door XJ.
The Lexus way shown above is the only right way. The ones with the little extendable plastic piece, like in my CX-5, are awful and barely help.
Then you have my Miata which doesnt even pull off to the side, much less extend lmao.
That’s wild because although the MR2 Spyder sun visor doesn’t extend, at least it rotates.
Or at least I think it did. Both have fallen off…
Disagree. My Mini has dedicated side visors in addition to the windshield visors. When you are on a windy road in the early morn or late afternoon hours, it is awesome to put both down and not have to worry about flipping the visor front-to-side and back on a windy road. And since I commute on windy roads, this has been a godsend.
I have just the idea to sell it. Electric sunvisors where all functions are controlled through a submenu of a touchscreen.
You’re welcome.
Maybe they can sell you a subscription to the extended visor option?
Aaaaaaahhhhhh!
Combine this with Rod Millington’s suggestion, and you’ve got peak auto company dumbassery. And you just know somebody is going to try it.
Car companies are cheaping on these big time. My old gx470 has 2 sun visors per side, one that works normal, including pulling out AND another that you can flip forward at the same time. Even the most expensive LX700h doesn’t have that anymore and the ones in the fanciest GX550 were simple and cheap feeling.
I seem to recall a vehicle in my youth that had a tiny flip down middle visor to block the sun between the 2 main visors. I want to say it was a Chrysler minivan, but maybe it was just a dream.
VWs/Audi’s had this frequently in the 2000s.
I think the original LS400 and SC400 were the first cars to have this.
I have noticed that as well. It seems older and cheaper cars have put more thought into sun visors.
My First Car- 2007 Hyundai Tiburon had very effective visors, they had an extendable slot to cover up any gaps. I’d rate them 9/10 and were probably more well thought out and designed better than the 2.0L engine and 4 speed automatic transmission were…
My next car- an E85 Z4, has tiny and pretty much useless sun visors. They only swing down are about the size of an envelope you get a fake credit card in the mail that is just an ad for something…. Being a convertible with an offensively windy cabin, I can see why they choose that, but it’s almost mocking me with how small and useless they are. 2/10 just because they have a mirror. Probably the worst part of that car is the visors and how the seat belts cut into your neck like a villain holding a knife to your throat holding you hostage.
My newest car is a 2011 Camaro, and while the visors can swing to cover the side window, they still have lots of gaps. I’d rate them a 6 out of 10 in usability.
My wife’s 2017 VW Jetta (which I drove to work, as she took the Camaro due to Beijing’s license plate restrictions for today- but I want to take a moment to share how cool my wife is- 7 months pregnant and driving a Camaro to work).
Anyway, her Jetta has visors, which she never clips back up and that annoys me as they make tiny clicking sounds going down the road until I put them back in place. They are pretty big but can’t extend so 7/10 points… but I admittedly have never tried to extend them because I don’t like driving that car and just get in and out as quick as I can.
This rant so much!
More interested in hearing about the AUGMENTED REALITY HEAD UP DISPLAY on the options list.
Meh, you probably can’t see it anyway with the sun in your face. 🙂
I watched Doug Demuro’s video about this vehicle. That feature just overlays upcoming navigation turns (via arrows superimposed on the ground) through the HUD. Kinda neat, I guess, but also kinda pointless in my opinion. It’s also a perfect example of how manufacturers often go out of their way to include whiz-bang silliness but overlook the simple stuff that drivers rely upon daily.
Noticed those on my SiL’s Subaru and now I need to see if they can be retrofitted into our old Outback.
You are clearly not the correct height or have the proper spinal curve to drive the Macan, David. Therefore, the sun will remind you of this until you … get shorter? Lean lefter?
“It has sun visors that swivel to the side window!?!” – NC and ND Miata Owners.
and 986 Boxster owners.
and E89 Z4 owners
“What’s a sun visor?” – S1 Elise and Exige.
Ditto 1983 Ferrari Mondial
The Eddie Bauer Ford Explorers had 4 (FOUR) sunvisors! Two for driver, two for passenger, so you can cover front and side at the same time for those twisty roads where the car moves in relation to the sun. I haven’t seen this feature since 1992.
Not just the Eddies. My 94 Sport had them too.
Not just Explorers. My 04 Lincoln Town Car had them too.
Ford put them in the Taurus from the start.
I loved the ’01 Tundra’s 2 per side – one that swung sideways, and a little one that flipped down behind it. It was great
Ford really had this figured out in the mid80’s… I learned to drive (and how to drive stick) on a ’87 Taurus that had the extra hard plastic visor behind the standard one and I have been slightly disappointed by almost all the visors I have used since.
Just the other day a friend of mine was astonished to find out that his visors would slide. He didn’t know such a thing existed, and he’s in his 70s.
I’m 70 and now I have to test my car tomorrow… I doubt it extends though.
I hope it does. It’s a nice feature.
So far I’ve forgotten to check 4 times…like I said, I’m 70. 😉
Psst. 71. What were we talking about?
I tried it and the answer is no. But it is a 2015 Fit after all, and at least it’s heavily tinted.
The cars I grew up with had the little extension bit that pulled out, so I always assumed that was just something my first car didn’t do. When I saw a friend slide the whole visor, I was astonished. I tried it when I got home, and sure enough!
The little extension bits are great for sliding behind the rearview mirror, though, so I like those.
Our W126 560SEL has an extra tiny visor just for the gap above the rearview mirror. Luxury.
I had a car that had both. I think it was a Challenger. The visor would slide and it had the plastic extension bit. With those very long doors, it was nice to have.
Also, undersized visors. Had a Chevy Equinox rental recently and the damn visor was sized at less than half of what it should been. It extended, but that was barely any use when I had to put the seat all the way up to only be half blinded by the rising sun.
No, the missing feature was the only one that could truly boost its comfort, power delivery, and fuel economy: the Jatco Xtronic CVT.
I’d really like to meet you in person. You seem – unique. Or this is just a weird epic troll of some kind? If you are ever in SW FL or Maine, the beer is on me.
I get that people have weird car fetishes, but this one might just take the cake.
It’s really not that funny as the brother of a guy who got rather screwed over by one of these works of Satan.
This is why we need a downvote feature here.
You are misguided, in need of enlightenment. I can help you, if you only open your mind.
There are too many closed-minded people who have yet to open their eyes to the glory that is the Jatco Xtronic CVT. Never has the world seen a technological marvel better than the Jatco Xtronic CVT!
Is there a booming market for aftermarket swaps? Maybe we should all be upgrading our cars to Jatco Xtronic CVTs. Maybe a Miata with this CVT would be the hot ticket!
The last time I suggested CVT-swapping a Miata, I was burned at the stake.
I’m sending this comment from the afterlife. It smells like burnt marshmallows.
No fun allowed!