As cars gain more and more features, it seems there are endless opportunities to experience new-fangled conveniences and niceties for new-car buyers – if you’re willing to pay for the appropriate option packages or trim level or (ugh) subscription. Most of have to decide what we can live without, feature-wise, in the name of a more handle-able monthly payment. “Do I really need the new-fangled thing? I’ve been pretty content with the standard fangle level, maybe I can skip that.”
I will confess, I have come late to a lot of luxury and convenience features. Air conditioning? Not until 1991 – in a 1980 Honda Accord I got for $500. I bought it because it had air conditioning. It was a revelation. Bluetooth? Never had it until my wife got her 2015 RAV4, and boy, that would have been nice to have sooner. Aux cable? What am I, a neanderthal? I’m still waiting for heated and cooled seats, those sound nice. And massaging, hoo boy. Maybe next time. Let’s see where the gang lands on the “luxuries they wish they’d sprung for earlier” question, as clearly I’m still way too far behind in car tech:
Mark Tucker
Memory settings for power seats. My wife and I are both a little territorial about our cars, and when we do have to borrow each other’s cars, we both get annoyed by the seat/steering wheel/mirrors being out of position afterward. For the entire time she owned her Explorer, I drove it scrunched up too close to the steering wheel, because the one time I adjusted the seat for me, it took her a week to find that magic spot again. Now, we just have to hit our own button, and presto, everything is back to normal – in the Chrysler, at least. I still put up with her seating position in the Yukon, because it doesn’t have memory settings.
Stephen Walter Gossin
Keyless entry. You don’t realize how much more efficient/time-saving and convenient it is until you’re manually fishing for a key in your pocket to try and insert into a frozen lock in the dark, in a snowstorm, in a sketchy part of town, while running late, with your hands full.
Laurence Rogers
Can I go the other way? I’ve had heaps of 70s cars, but until I got my ute I hadn’t owned a car with vent windows. What a great thing, you can use them to de-fog the windscreen and get some nice directional air at speed!
Thomas Hundal
When I bought my Infiniti G35 soon after arriving at college, I was thrilled to have a car with an auto-dimming rearview mirror. It made a world of difference, but it was merely the opening to the rabbit hole. My 3 Series doesn’t just have an auto-dimming rearview mirror, it also has auto-dimming exterior mirrors, and they are the absolute shit when you’re in the right lane with the cruise control on just trying to drive economically through a monotonous superhighway hellscape and some poorly modified crapcan with LED bulbs in reflector housings comes screaming up behind you at Mach Jesus with the high-beams on. As far as I’m concerned, auto-dimming exterior mirrors are relatively cheap safety features that ought to be standard on every car, because the first line of defense is always the driver’s vision.
OK, we’ve weighed in – now it’s your turn! What luxury and/or convenience features do you wish you sprang for earlier?
Does owning a rust-free car count, or is it already taken by David?
As a Certified Sweaty Boi: A/C seats. My goodness.
Ceramic tinted windows and carplay are a close second. Keep me cool and keep my music and maps available.
I’m with Thomas on auto dimming of all mirrors, but Lexus took the side mirrors step further, and ruined many other mirrors for me. The auto tilting function for mirrors when the car goes in reverse is the absolute best. I parallel park daily, and having the mirrors show me where the curb is, is one of the greatest features ever.
Auto tilt mirrors are SO under-rated. I loved it in my Lexus but it is significantly more useful in my Silverado.
I’ve honestly turned that off in all of my recent cars. 360 cams have made them kinda redundant.
I go back ad forth on the utility of these, I think mostly because they are too slow on my car. Trying to pull out of a parallel parking spot on a street with traffic makes me wish they didn’t tilt.
Oh I forgot one – my XF has a winter comfort package on it. This includes some kind of secondary heater motor that has hot air ready to go the second you turn on the car. I think i read somewhere that it actually uses fuel to do this.. I am not sure , but in Colorado this is a godsend in the winter.
I will only buy cars with leather and heated seats. I don’t find “ventilated” or cooled seats really do much, but the heated seats is a must.
What i didnt know until i got my Jag, was that heated Steering Wheel… is fucking amazing.
Its not a deal breaker but if i can find a car that has it, i will pay extra for the warm hands in the winter.
Kick-activated power liftgate. When I’ve got 2 kids, purse, laptop bag, backpacks, groceries, soccer bag, shoes that my younger kid kicks off on every goddamn trip (etc. etc. forever and ever) it is an absolute treat.
Amusingly, outside my air-cooled Beetle, the three cars I’ve owned to date were all 2010s (ish) VWs. All base models, all had about the same equipment, which included heated seats, a nice touch VW threw in. Going from the 2009 GTI to the 2012 CC gave me automatic lights, a dimming rearview mirrors, power seats and automatic wipers. And a clock on the dashboard. I liked all of those things, but Bluetooth was my favorite improvement.
Which was a good thing, given the demise of the CC four years ago. My current 2014 Sportwagen has none of the aforementioned features except Bluetooth, and power reclining seats (all other adjustments are manual). It does have a backup camera, though visibility is so good out the back that I rarely look at it. The CC could have really used a camera though. As I’ve said before, if I have some basic luxuries–heated seats and mirrors, Bluetooth, cruise control, power windows and central locking, I’m a happy camper.
But my favorite feature is something I had to enable using VCDS (diagnostic and coding tool for VW/Audis). If I hold down the unlock button on the key fob, all the windows go down. If I hold the lock button, they go back up. Great for airing out the car on miserably hot summer days.
When I got my first VAG product I was blown away by all the tweaks I could make with VCDS. I had a field day.
I have performed that same window up/down mod on a couple other VWs owned by friends and family, and they still tell me how much they love it. One of the first things I did when I got my Sportwagen was go through VCDS and enable all my favorite features.
A/C is as necessary as a steering wheel as far as I’m concerned, so I won’t include it in this category.
One of mine is keyless entry/start. I always hated fumbling with my keys, even back when there was no other alternative. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s a massive quality-of-life improvement for me.
The other is the heated steering wheel. I’ve always suffered from poor circulation, so my hands get cold even in our mild L.A. winters (and gloves take forever to warm my hands). But the rest of my body is NOT cold, so turning on the heater in the car would just make me uncomfortable in a different way.
My holy grail is ventilated seats, but that is always either not offered, or on a higher trim than I can afford.
I’m the opposite on keys – I love physical keys for the visceral, tactile feel of operating the switches, esp. the ignition.
It annoys me that my Focus discourages their use by letting me unlock the doors with them, but then starting an alarm countdown for me to either start the engine or click the freakin’ fob.
Wow, that is an annoying…”feature”? I assume it’s an anti-theft measure, but there have to be better ways of accomplishing the same thing. (And there are…as evidenced by all the other key-operated cars that do not have this feature, and are not Kia or Hyundai.)
I’ve always assumed the same – that it was Ford’s mid-tech way of forcing you to authenticate yourself via the key chip by starting the car, since using the key on the exterior lock is mechanical. But I’ll note there’s clearly a sensor in the lock that detects this/activates the countdown. So maybe just Ford being cheap?
It’s fairly nerve-wracking as yes, it beeps loudly like an ’80s tv time bomb.
I miss the keys. I never forgot them in my other pants unlike the fobs because they aren’t to the forefront of my mind like a key was and I miss the physical turning of the key (along with nothing booting up, no dumb safety disclaimers from a tablet, just a starter engaging).
Traffic aware cruise control and working lane keep assistance is amazing on longer drives.
Summer/Winter tires instead of all-seasons. It took years to finally get a set, but the grip is other-worldly in both cases. The next luxury I need to spring for is a second set of wheels so I can swap without having to pay a shop to mount them.
Have you tried Vredesten Hypertracs?
I find they’re about the best All Season tires out there
I had Conti DWS-06’s in my B5 before and they were great, but now I run Dunlop Direzza Z3’s in Summer and Vredestein Wintrac Pros in winter on the Boxster. My wife has AWD and she runs Vredestein Quatracs, they’re great too.
Definitely going for heated steering wheel and ass chiller seats.
1000% the auto dimming mirrors. I was blown away by the difference.
Having a brodozer on my bumper at night no longer requires trying to outrun him ????
i feel like in some ways i am winning, i am beating those fucking trucks and SUVs at their own game. they can ride me as close as they want, but my interior stays perfectly dark and my eyes are not bothered by them.
One of my cars is new enough to have an auto-dimming rearview, which, when I’m in front of those guys, makes me wish auto-dimming side views were available at that time.
Rear view camera. I spent years dismissing them as unnecessary but damn if I’m not a fan.
THAT SAID no car should be sold without proper mirrors. I love the little camera, don’t love having it completely useless after even the shortest trip in early spring because of mud.
Soft close doors, thought i would never use, love them. However, turned off all the other ‘safety’ features like random automatic braking.
my family still loves to slam the soft close doors – i scream inside every time.. but its no longer worth the fight with my wife and kid about treating objects softly.
The soft close doors come in clutch when your hands are full of diaper bags and baby seats and groceries. No more “shit the door didn’t latch”, it just quietly whirrs itself shut followed by a satisfying *click*.
I don’t care about heated seats so much, but the heated steering wheel, oh man, that’s real lux right there.
My first car lacked power steering, and after years of wrenching the steering wheel while maneuvering in parking lots, I wish I’d sprung for that luxury.
But for a more recent purchase, heated steering wheel and cooled seats would’ve been a nice addition.
My first car, a 1959 Ford sedan which I kept for about fifteen years, had vacuum wipers. Everything I currently own has electric wipers and I admit this method of operation has certain advantages. I’m still not sold on the idea of automatic chokes, though.
I vividly remember the vacuum-operated wipers on my grandfather’s first-gen Bronco. Let’s just say that electric wipers are, um, a bit more effective. But you’ve also got a surprise in store for you – they also have this new thing called intermittent wipers!
Vacuum wipers are intermittent. That’s part of their charm.
Touché.
I bought a Geo Tracker new in 1994 because I wanted a cheap, RWD, stick shift convertible. It was such a pain in the butt to put the top down, I replaced it with a hard top as soon as the seams started unraveling.
Now I have a car with a retractable hardtop. Any future convertibles I have will be the same.
I fear you are doomed to buying used to get that. Stellantis, BMW, Merc, Miata have all abandoned the retractable hardtop (dammit). The BMW was the first keyless entry/start car I had (a revelation) along w/ memory seats and a dipping right side mirror. Sadly, the first owner didn’t spring for the automatic cruise control. The feature I really like is the high intensity headlights.
While the moron dealer who ordered my (used) F-150 did not order the LED headlights, I made sure that the used VW we bought did have them. They are my “never again will I be without them” feature. My late buddy called them 50-50-50 lights. A 50 year old man can see 50’ farther at 50 mph with them.
Heated windshield.
Having a defrosting mechanism on the front glass that is similar to the one on the back glass is fantastic, especially on the rare occasion where the vehicle is outside long enough (e.g. parked at the airport) to acquire a coating of ice.
Where the rear defroster is kind of obvious, the windshield wires are very fine and are invisible the overwhelming majority of the time.
Yeah, I’m in agreement with A/C. I didn’t buy my first car with working A/C until I was almost 40.
You must not live in Phoenix…
Close. Vegas. And that’s why I now buy cars with A/C.
Remote climate control.
Being able to leave work and get into a car that has been pre-cooled from 140* to 75* is something I can no longer live without.
Ah man, I cannot have a daily driver without Blind Spot monitors w/ Cross Traffic. It’s such a win for someone with bad depth perception.
I aspire to one day own a car with cooled seats. The SWASS is real.
Also, CARPLAY!
I wish my jeep had a rear camera. It is a bit of a pain and/or cost to aftermarket one.
First time I used a heated steering wheel it changed my life.
Cooled seats, The ball chillers, Coochie coolers, swampass eliminators, every time I’ve been in a car with them, it’s fantastic.
Best combo I tried was ventilated seats and soft cloth seats, not leather. Life changing
Where does this exist?!?! Which car will I be Autotrader-ing?
Chevy Blazer EV RS, it has a mix of leather and cloth but where you sit is cloth, ventilated or heated.
Similar note: The fact that my brother’s 3rd gen 4runner had a vent under the steering wheel (ball chiller) and my first gen Tacoma didn’t made me very jealous.