The cars of today are technological powerhouses filled to the brim with more bits and doo-dads than you’d find in the cockpit of a Cessna. I find that some features are genuine game changers, others I just can’t get behind.
The newest car I own is a 2016 Smart, and the most advanced technology it has is a forward collision warning system. That’s it. It has a cute radar dome on its front that’s supposed to warn me seconds before I ram into a car ahead of me. In reality, it just beeps every time I go through a curve with any kind of speed. Thanks, Smart!
Sometimes, hopping into a new car feels like I’m strapping myself into a space shuttle. Today’s cars have a smörgÃ¥sbord of systems, each with a nearly unintelligible acronym that I will not remember. A lot of them are helpful, but to me, someone who some might describe as a Luddite, it can be too much.
There are two systems I don’t like using. The first is adaptive cruise control in most vehicles. You can get adaptive cruise in everything from rental Toyota Corollas to BMW motorcycles and with some exceptions, and so many of these systems suck. I like adaptive cruise in theory. The car can brake and accelerate all on its own. You just need to keep it pointed in the correct direction. That’s brilliant!
In practice, the last Toyota Corolla I drove practically slammed its brakes for minor changes in traffic flow and it was always just flipping on the brake lights. Using cruise control is supposed to be relaxing, but the Corolla was driving like a teenager, so the adaptive cruise got turned off. It was a similar deal with a Nissan Sentra I drove. The car seemed scared to even go the speed limit, let alone keep off its brakes. Thankfully, I’ve usually found it possible to disable adaptive cruise and just run with old-school regular cruise control.
To be clear, I always test these systems out because that’s my job. But if they prove to be more bothersome than they’re worth, I will end up not using them for the rest of the time I’m with the car. There are exceptions. I found the adaptive cruise control in a Volkswagen Atlas to be pretty decent. Likewise, BMW Motorrad’s adaptive cruise is so good it almost freaks you out. A motorcycle that responds to traffic!
Before I wrote about cars I wrote SQL queries and Java. You’d think I’d be all over techy sorts of stuff like Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Once again, I test these systems out in every vehicle I encounter, but I prefer old-school Bluetooth. I put on my tunes and hit the road. If I need navigation, hearing the turns through the speakers is good enough for me. I don’t need to have Google Maps on a 12-inch touchscreen. I also run a number of modified APKs on my Android devices and Android Auto sort of conks out when you try to use them in the system.
I suppose that part is weird. My wife is trying her best to push me into the modern era in that regard. Alright, enough about that, how about you? What are the modern features you don’t (or outright won’t) use?
Turn that Auto start stop feature off. The wear and tear on everything engine related because of that feature is of massive concern to me.
I can’t find the article at the moment, but I’m pretty sure they beef up the starter in all vehicles with that. Pretty sure someone found out that a Toyota wouldn’t prompt you to replace it (sans detecting any actual mechanical issues) until 384,000 cycles or something similarly high.
It’s not so much the starter but the internal engine parts that have no oil pressure for a few seconds at startup. Dozens or even hundreds of starts a day will add up to shortened engine life.
I dunno. I have a 2012 Prius v and the engine is on and off all the time quite reliably.
I feel like the technology is pretty well understood, but that’s anecdotal, I concede.
It takes oil a while to drain out of an engine so a few minutes off at a stoplight shouldn’t hurt anything.
Auto Start/Stop. The system is far from transparent and exacerbates the delay of useful power from a stop. Disabled it on my new Outback XT.
The Rear Automatic Braking (RAB) is turned off because my driveway has a dip at the gutter and unless I’m flat creeping, the RAB tries to give me whiplash.
I second both of those 100%! When I start my Grand Cherokee Auto Start/Stop disable is #1 item before anything else. Whenever I forget and the damn thing shuts off at the first stop sign I always have that “what’s wrong?” shot of stress before I remember and hit the flippin button to shut it off. I don’t care if it helps save .00001 gallons of gas every year, I can’t stand it!
I love it. The quiet and lack of 4 cyl idle shake is wonderful.
Automatic high beams
Automatic lights. I know I’m in the minority but automatic lights annoy me. I want to live in a world where people turn off their headlights when they park somewhere and wait in their cars. Heck, I want to live in a world where people turn off their cars while waiting for something. Yes, I know it’s necessary sometimes when it’s 100 degrees but too often they could just roll the windows down and enjoy a cool breeze. Anyway, back to the point. I get in our 2021 vehicle and if it’s night time, I turn on the lights. It’s pretty easy. I think it’s funny lately when I see headlights lighting up as people drive under a slightly dark freeway for 6 seconds. It’s not funny when I’m being blinded by someone that isn’t trying to be rude but just never even thought about turning off the headlights while they park and wait.
The Chevy Beretta I owned in the ’90s had auto headlights. I hated it. They’d constantly turn on in situations like you describe, and b/c the ’90s, the process wasn’t fast. So I’d be back out in the sun, and anything digital on the dash would be impossible to see since I keep the interior lights low as not to be be overly distracted at night.
These days, I’m torn. My own cars are mostly analog, so if the dash is dark, I know my lights aren’t on. But I see a ton of people driving around with their lights out b/c contemporary dashes are always illuminated and they’re not really paying attention.
The issues with people not turning on lowbeams at night because DRLs are illuminated would be easily sidestepped if headlights always came on once cars were on. I don’t know why that isn’t standard.
As for high beams…automatic would be nice. I’ve heard of adaptive systems in Europe (only recently made legal in the US) that sound awesome in theory.
The DRLs on our Honda Pilot would never confuse me because they are vastly different than the headlights at night. They do not light up the road ahead. The headlights are so bright that even in the daytime they would be annoying to oncoming traffic. I think the ones driving with DRLs are often the ones that have auto lights that got turned off. For me, it reinforces that we should just be in the habit of turning them on and off. It worked for decades and it’s super easy. I will concede that I won’t win that fight though.
I think always on lights would be a bad idea since there are plenty of times where people don’t want lights on or shouldn’t have them on. Efficiency is also a minor concern. I know modern headlights are mostly LED so it’s less of an issue. I had an 88 Integra and I could hear and see the idle RPMs drop when I turned on the headlights. I know that there have been different kinds of charging systems and I’m not an expert but it still demonstrated the additional load on the motor that was required. It may be negligible on a modern car but it is still there.
You make good points, but I think just for the sheer safety of added visibility, it’d be helpful if people always had them on. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s taken an extra second to recognize, say, a grey car in the shade against a similarly-colored road, that might’ve been recognized a moment faster if its lights were on for contrast.
When I had a 2023 Corolla rental, I did manually turn the headlight stalk to “DRL off” when exiting it because I hate when car headlights stay on after I’ve turned it off, even just on a timer.
I acknowledge your point about extra load, but I do think LEDs and gains in power/efficiency have rendered it mostly moot.
I can’t honestly come up with example situations where a vehicle is on and you explicitly want its lights off. (Unless I call to mind Tom Clancy novel types of situations, but that’s a different matter entirely.)
LOL, yes, I always turn my lights off when approaching the enemy hideout in the dark. And I am 100% with you on cars blending in, especially in heavy rain and at dusk. You are correct. Safety should be the priority but I still wrote a longwinded response below.
I’m not suggesting you should be able to drive without any kind of DRL on. Our Pilot turns the DRLs on automatically when the car is running and I release the parking brake. The only way to turn them off is to turn the car off. And if I want to idle without shining lights ahead, I need to engage the parking brake and restart the car.
I’m just thinking about times where I might be sitting somewhere like a restaurant with parking outside and people start their cars or just pull in and sit there blinding me. Or there are very niche situations like the Trail of Lights at Christmas where you drive through slowly and headlights are discouraged. A few decades ago, you could turn lights off but now most cars will still have DRLs on. It’s fine but not ideal for something like that.
One thing that irritates me is when someone parks on a neighborhood street on the wrong side with their lights on, especially if it’s high beams. I grew up in the country where high beams were used often but I don’t ever use them in the city. It’s just not necessary.
I’m being nitpicky and sounding older than I feel but there is a safety aspect in as far as too much headlight in your face can also be dangerous. I just wish people were more thoughtful about headlight use and I think automatic lights allowed everyone to just set it and forget it.
Also, too many people turn on fog lights and leave them on forever. They don’t illuminate anything useful outside of their intended purpose. Sorry, not ranting at you. I may have a problem. This is why most of the time it’s best for me to just read the comments.
Rented a new (less than 100 miles!) Mazda CX-5 with auto high beams. Utter shit, pissed off a number of drivers on the Interstate. I stopped and figured out how to shut that off before I got my ass kicked for blinding others.
I can’t stand having calls and texts go through the car entertainment system.
connecting my phone through wireless/bluetooth is the last thing I want to do, as well as any voice command system, it never works, I don’t even like using them on the phone.
Start-Stop, whenever I’m in a vehicle with it I turn it off immediately.
A joke/not a joke: then the damn thing turns itself right back on again!
Thank your Uncle Sam. It’s one way the manufacturers reach their MPG goals, so it has to default to “on” for them to get credit.
The systems in my cars work pretty well, but I have been in at least one older BMW where the system was pretty awful and jarring.
I see them all the time in traffic, and a couple times I’ve ridden in a vehicle so equipped, there’s always a delay and shudder as the car realizes the engine needed to be on one second ago. I wouldn’t even be so opposed if it were longer; idling in drive-thrus and deadlock traffic is needless if you can keep your heat and AC on. A brief 0mph pause where the light will be green in 15 seconds? Fuck off with that.
In the systems’ defense, that could add up to a lot of idling, and it’s possible I’ve seen it without realizing it on sufficiently well implemented vehicles. It still makes me uneasy to feel like my vehicle isn’t ready to respond to my inputs.
Porsche and Merceds have this pretty well figured out.The Mercedes one is especially smooth in the mild hybrids because they begin the car moving with the electric motor while starting the car.
It seems like hybrids and plug-in hybrids all do start-stop really well. For exactly the reason you say, the car is already moving as it restarts the engine.
I can’t remember what car it was, but I drove a manual that did start-stop pretty well. When I stopped at a light I put it in neutral and let the clutch out. When it was time to move it restarted the engine when I touched the clutch pedal and was started by the time the clutch hit the floor.
My 911 works like that.
I think idling emissions are big part of the start/stop.
My current car, the battery is not as fresh as it once was, fraction of a volt low or something, so it fails the ‘auto off’ checklist. Hasn’t cut off in a year or so:)
Look into a new battery! I ignored that on my Escalade for a few months and when I needed it, it was toast. Had to put it on a charger for a couple of days just to get it to the dealer – held enough charge to get it there, and I told them not to shut it off until it was in the bay. I originally was going to change the batter myself, but it was buried pretty deep, and would have had to stand on a ladder then bend way over in a way I’m too old to do any more. I also wasn’t sure I would be able to lift it up and over.
Depending on your vehicle, Autostop Eliminator is a good option. Works wonderfully on my ’24 Subaru. You can also homebrew your own for Honda’s that have a physical button with parts off Amazon.
Heh, worry #1 right now is trying to get one of those fuel flow fixers on the F 900. Someone had linked to it a long time ago and the guy didn’t have them available for F 900s (yet?). The damn thing starves itself at takeoff and is distractingly jerky. It reminds me of, and makes it look like, not knowing how to work a clutch.
May I suggest trying a Fuel Shark? /s
Good luck.
I assume you can’t pass inspections with those for states that require them?
So far in TX they don’t check that Start/Stop systems even work. They sniff the tailpipe (I asked if they ever failed for bad exhaust and the answer was that it had to be really horrible readings), check for emissions system codes and pressurize the gas cap. Some places actually turn off the S/S because it screws up their test sequence when the engine stops.
If at some point in the future I need to, it’s relatively easy to unplug and remove for an annual inspection. Either solution I mentioned doesn’t change readings or reprogram anything. The Autostop Eliminator only remembers your setting and sends the signal to the car’s computer to change the setting, if necessary. The homebrew solution only simulates you pushing the button a few seconds after the vehicle starts.
Oh that’s a good one! That’s the first thing that gets turned off when I get into any modern car.
In my 2023 Mazda CX-50 you can trick this by not pressing heavily on the brake pedal when you come to a stop. If I’m at a long light I’ll engage this on purpose via a heavy brake foot. At a stop sign for a quick stop and go? Don’t press so hard on the brake and the engine stays on. I agree that stop-start is overall an annoying feature but on my current DD with the workaround I mostly enjoy it.
I agree about adaptive cruise control; at least in my older Sensus equipped Volvo it can be disabled (every time you start the car, meh.)
Worse though, my Volvo EV with the Android OS doesn’t allow you to completely disable adaptive cruise nor completely turn off the the lane assist.
The parallel parking assist. I just don’t trust it.
I trust it, but it take so long to use that I can park must faster. My truck will back into parking spots too. I’ve done it once to try it and it worked well, but it has to have a car on either side of the spot to work, and again it just takes too long to set up and engage.
My LKAS is an enormous pile of shit that I’ve had to disable because the sensors aren’t calibrated correctly or my eyes aren’t, because I’ve had it ‘guide’ me a foot and ~8 inches off-center. When it yanked control away from me going around a curve I’ve navigated since I was 15 that it decided I didn’t take correctly, that was it, I looked up the fusebox slot to yank it.
Lane keep assist, et al. I’m an adult, I know how to keep it in the lines.
And I find the Assistant doesn’t in every car I’ve tried it in. Gets turned off right away now. However, I do like the adaptive cruise in the Mercedes-Benz. It’s really good in stop-and-go traffic.
I could see a case for adaptive cruise, although I’ve never actually used it. But in my limited experience LKA is just a very distracting feature.
It’s nice on the freeway – it’s an extra set of eyes, in case I screw up. And if you run into stop & go traffic the MB system is really good at handling it. That doesn’t mean I let my guard down and relax completely, but it does do a nice job and I suspect maximizes my milage. I know my MPG goes up when I use the cruise control.
Not only that, but these stupid things always seem to ping pong off the lanes instead of just keeping centered. They’re awful!
Totally agree! I don’t need or want the car to jerk the wheel out of my hands if there are grooves on the road, thankyouverymuch. I immediately turn this off in any new car.
A Uconnect update on my Grand Cherokee 4XE has added shopping as something you can do with the infotainment system. Hard pass.
I love adaptive cruise but have found its best on wide open highways
There’s a secret hidden feature to this. With a sufficiently high lift kit, the shopping links become SkyMall.
Without giving away how old my newest car is, the rear wiper on my minivan. I refuse to have that half moon mark across the back glass.
Regarding Android Auto (or Carplay), I put a $70 Chinesium touchscreen radio in that same minivan and also refused to use it’s smartphone features. Until one day I plugged my phone into it to charge. And it just worked. Awesomely. It’s better than a $1000 Kenwood head unit from a decade ago. Try it!
….what do you have against seeing out the back window? Rear wipers are awesome.
I wish the E-series vans had gotten tiny ones for its back windows, but I guess that’s too much complexity to add to bottom-line-chasing van fleet customers.
Everything.
No traction control so I can do wild fishtailing through corners. No lane assistance because I want my car going where I point it. No driver awareness because I am doing spirited driving, not taking a summer nap. No automatic braking because I have a working brake pedal. No proximity radar because I have mirrors and can roll down the window to see how close I am to things. Nothing to get in my way of having fun and being in complete control of my car.
I may or may not be exaggerating.
Any vehicle based voice command system. The only ones that work “okay” are Siri & Google. The OEM ones are garbage, and are useless. Why is there a button on the steering wheel for a voice command system nobody uses?
The Mercedes-Benz in the latest cars isn’t too bad – I use it often for navigation and turning on the massage seats (that one is especially nice be use otherwise it’s a few menus deep).
I have a 2020 MY.
Autopilot is truly abysmal in this region of the country, routinely misreading speed signs and phantom braking left and right.
Also I ‘have emergency and regular lane departure warnings turned off’, but they still trigger on completely innocuous turns here in western PA.
I’d love to have my autowipers turned off too, because they worked fine until Musk went to a vision based system that doesn’t work for shit. Particularly when dealing with salt spray (which you shouldn’t try to wipe as if it was rain).
Probably down to differences in suppliers and technology, but yeah — while adaptive cruise and lane keeping are great on the Chevy and Volkswagen we currently own, but I’ve found it to be particularly awful on rental Toyotas and Hyundais/Kias.
As for CarPlay, I like having it as an option (especially on a rental so I don’t have to learn a whole new infotainment system in an airport parking lot) but I could do without it on my daily driver. Millennial here who likes new technology, but even the ancient Blackberry-lookin’ system on my Chevy works reliably, intuitively, and stays current if you update the maps every few years (and the weather/traffic package from SXM). Yeah, that costs money, but the expectation that things should be free and/or subsidized by advertising (cough Google Maps) needs to die.
Seconded on LKA with my Kia (2018 Sorento). I leave it off, because it’s utterly annoying and not accurate.
100% I refuse to use adaptive cruise control. I don’t even like using regular cruise control anyway, so adaptive cruise is just one larger step into the territory of nope for me.
Same. Even using regular cruise control I find tends to decrease my attention to the road. So I only use if it if I’m driving long enough that I know my knee would start hurting if I don’t give it a break (like 8+ hour trip) and then use it strategically in the simplest/least-trafficky part of the drive.
Also not used:
– auto high beams (why is this necessary??)
– satellite radio – FM or CDs are fine
– I do check my back up cameras to make sure I’m not about to back over a child or anything, but prefer to just turn my head and look out the rear windshield when reversing
Every single one of these for me too. Well… maybe most. I’ve given up on CDs and FM radio LOL
Gave up on CD’s after my current car wouldn’t willingly eject them. Had to beg it to give them up. So, found a deck that interfaced quite well with my iPod, which holds 100 CD’s or so in less than a pound.
Car Play.
I’ve laid out my reasons here before but ultimately it boils down to not offering me anything the built in system doesn’t already provide, while bricking my phone so I can’t use it at stoplights or other safe moments.
Is that just an apple thing? I can use my android phone as normal when it’s plugged into the truck providing android auto.
Also, don’t use your phone at stoplights.
I’ve never had an issue using my phone when attached to carplay.
It’s possible it’s a user error or an issue with my truck specifically, but I found it to restrict access to parts of the phone that couldn’t easily be duplicated on the screen. Reducing capability for no upside.
Weird. What kind of truck?
2019 F350
Have you tried it lately? It used to restrict a lot of things a couple of releases back but now I haven’t found that it restricts anything.
That’s very interesting and no I haven’t. I may need to try again.
Assuming you are using an iPhone this may be a phone settings issue as well. Apple has built in safety feature for driving that restrict access to apps while in motion or when it knows you’re connected CarPlay
I was about to say something similar about Car Play. I am always floored when people say they would not buy a car that didn’t have it. I have no idea why people like it so much.
Well, for starters, you get all your apps, the ones YOU use, already signed in, and you don’t have to pay anything extra. You don’t have to sign in again, or sign up for data/traffic/music/etc. It is already configured the way you want. And it gets updated on a regular basis, at no charge.
Huh. Honestly, I’m at a bit of a loss here. I use my phone for directions (including live traffic) and playing music/podcasts, and bluetooth has always worked well for those tasks. I have never had to sign in to apps in my car and I have never had to pay extra for anything. I presume you (and other fans of car play) are using features that I do not use? For what I use my phone for, car play makes those tasks more difficult. I don’t use a lot of tech features, though.
I don’t have CarPlay in my car, but I’ve used it in a couple of rentals. I really like it. I haven’t noticed any downsides.
Bluetooth remains the apex of the connectivity pile and nothing can change my mind.
Absolutely. Bluetooth is how my phone connects to Android Auto, letting me play my music my way, and also giving me navigation on the bigger aftermarket screen I installed in my 2012 Prius v.
“Bluetooth remains the apex of the connectivity pile and nothing can change my mind.”
Sure, if you’re ok with 192kbps music quality I guess. Fine for a noisy beater with a not so great sound system but if I had a luxury car with a *fancy* audio system I’d prefer a connection that maxed out the SQ even if the reality is my aged ears can’t tell a bit of difference.
>Cheap Bastard
>if I had a luxury car with a *fancy* audio system
???
I joke, but I can say without reservation is if I were presented with a personally optimized Bluetooth vs personally optimized Android Auto, I’d opt for optimized bluetooth.
I’d have to write my own API to optimize Android Auto for myself to cut out google’s obtrusive spying and nannying (not for the sake of safety but legal compliance so they can get your sweet, sweet data) that requires me to dismiss prompts while controlling a 3500-lb piece of machinery.
I can safely use an optimized bluetooth for 75% of the functions I need connectivity for. The last 25% can wait until I’m safely stopped.
I don’t have access to any “newer” vehicle features since all our cars are pushing the 10 year mark but the last “new” feature I hated was the backup camera on a 2019 Dodge Grand Caravan. It was positioned in such a way that I couldn’t see a fairly large boulder at bumper level which led to a nice crunch when backing into a parking space at my kids school.
Backup cameras in general kind of annoy me because my father tought me to always use my mirrors when backing and when I first encountered a camera I had to keep looking back and forth from the screen and at my surroundings in the mirrors….couldn’t get used to it.
Makes me angry!
Adaptive cruise control suuuucks unless you’re on a mostly empty highway. In anything remotely close to an urban setting with traffic, they system will leave way too much space (even on the closest setting) and you get cut off constantly. Or, when you move over to pass, the system starts braking. I hate it with a burning passion.
Even more worthless is parallel park assist. In my experience, the system just winds up making traffic worse around you as you slowly crawl around, the system passing spots you could land a jumbo-jet in. If it does finally find a spot, it takes 3 months to actually park. Be an adult and learn how to parallel park.
Lane keeping, can’t seem to be 100% reliable, and just extremely bad habit forming.
Beeping parking sensors. I just use my eyes.
How do you see through the pillars, though?
I distinctly recall my parents’ 2010 Ford Flex, turning your head felt like looking out of tank slits. But the proximity-based beeping was fantastic, since “obstacle x distance away” was more useful information than a camera.
I don’t, I use the windows 😀
Honestly not really any. I’m likely in the minority here, but Apple Carplay and Adaptive Cruise are some of my absolute favorite things about modern cars. If they aren’t going to be the most engaging things in the world, let them take the stress off me. That said, lane warnings pretty much always get turned off. I’ve found they often get too shouty and obnoxious. Also reminders to take a break, if I can turn them off I do. I know my limits and when to stop.
Refuse or just have no need for? Big difference.
Parking sensors. They’ve been turned off in my dad’s Chrysler ever since I inherited it, and it dings every time I start it to remind me to turn it back on. No dice. It was freaking out every time I got close enough to a drive-thru window to actually reach. I’ll trust my own spatial relations, thanks.
Spatial relations!
I like it
I really struggle to understand why cars still have these as options given backup cameras are federally mandated, and high-end or trim cars that get parking sensors now often have 360 cameras. Every system I’ve used with them doesn’t add much if any benefit, just loud beeps.
I miss the parking sensors on my parents’ 2010 Flex. If anything, I preferred them to backup cameras. “What I’m backing up into” is less important than “there is obstacle x distance behind you”
Anything with a subscription.