The 'modern cars are shit' thread.

[Hooli]

Any active 'driver aid' like self parking and lane assist is a sign the cunt who wants it on their car can't drive and shouldn't have a licence.

Touchscreens can get in the fucking sea along with tft dashes etc. Give me proper buttons, preferably flick switches with metal arms poking out along with real dials that are black with white markings and green lighting.

[Broccoli]

Been driving a Nissan Kicker today around New York. Sounds fun, but was actually just damned stressful.

Held the luggage well and the two pedal system was ok for the traffic, but the bloody lane wandering tech, making the steering wheel shudder when you go across a line without indicating was beyond annoying. Imagine how many times you have to move around double and triple parked cars.

Being a rental, I fought with the infotainment system for about 10mins, while trying to drive, so I could get the route details to come through the stereo, but gave up in the end and turned the Bluetooth off. The flashy, buzzy blind spot thing on the freeway did my box in as well (until I learned to ignore it). I think the guy in the back must have thought I am a really shit driver - probably true.

A quick flight later and I’m in Boston tonight and the rental car here is a Nissan Rogue. Weirdly smaller boot space than the kicker. Nothing too bad to say about it (considering it’s a rental) but desperately bland. Can’t wait to get home next Tuesday night. I’m too old to be carting foreign ‘important’ visitors around for work. Especially when they fly first / business and I’m stuck in the back with screaming kids in economy - on a flight too short for service (ie not even a coffee) but they had drinks and nibbles up front. Nice enough fellas but… and the Mrs thinks I’m on a jolly. Maybe should have posted this in the grumpy thread…

Retirement can’t come soon enough.

[brandersnatch]

I’ve only got experience of lane assist on Audis and Mrs.B’s Hyundai. The Hyundai has a button to turn it off. It remembers where it’s set so turn it off and ignore it.
Audis are set to come on every time. There’s a button at the end of the indicator stalk to do this or it might be a button on the infotainment but there’s no sub menus to go through.
The ‘assistance’ is much stronger the further down the range you get. In an E-tron it’s barely there but an A1 will put up a fight.

[AutoshiteBoy]

Stellantis is the new conglomerate that hoovered up all the dreadful shit in Europe/USA that no fucker wanted. Fiat, Peugeot, Shitroen, Vauxhall, Opel, Chry-sler, Lancia, Alfa and all the other burned out ruined shells of once great companies. They now turn out the same shit under different 'brands' to idiots.

Lets not forget JEEP. And Dodge.

[Jazoli]

Another 'feature' of newer cars I fucking hate. Electronic auto gearbox selectors. Said C5 Aircross had an auto box, complete with a poxy electronic selector.
I decided to try driving it properly, by putting it in neutral and applying the parking brake at a red traffic light

Errmmm driving 'properly' is leaving an auto in drive all the time, you are not parking just stopping and waiting

The auto handbrake should have come on and held the car anyway, without showing brake lights, user incompetence or lack of understanding how modern cars work is no excuse

[Hooli]

Another 'feature' of newer cars I fucking hate. Electronic auto gearbox selectors. Said C5 Aircross had an auto box, complete with a poxy electronic selector.
I decided to try driving it properly, by putting it in neutral and applying the parking brake at a red traffic light

Errmmm driving 'properly' is leaving an auto in drive all the time, you are not parking just stopping and waiting

The auto handbrake should have come on and held the car anyway, without showing brake lights, user incompetence or lack of understanding how modern cars work is no excuse

Depends. The handbook for my XJR suggests handbrake and park at lights.

[paulplom]

I've always knocked autos out of drive when idling. I didn't know you weren't meant to.

[SubPar]

Another 'feature' of newer cars I fucking hate. Electronic auto gearbox selectors. Said C5 Aircross had an auto box, complete with a poxy electronic selector.
I decided to try driving it properly, by putting it in neutral and applying the parking brake at a red traffic light

Errmmm driving 'properly' is leaving an auto in drive all the time, you are not parking just stopping and waiting

The auto handbrake should have come on and held the car anyway, without showing brake lights, user incompetence or lack of understanding how modern cars work is no excuse

The bloody thing didn't put the parking brake on automatically either! If I left it in drive I could hold it on the brakes as long as I wanted, but it would move as soon as I released them, with no buzzing / clicking from underneath suggesting the parking brake was releasing.


Also, as the other two said, I've also always knocked autos into neutral if I'm at lights for longer than a few seconds. All the old-school autos I've owned have had the selector designed in such a way that you can flick easily between drive and neutral without having to press the button on the lever.

[mercrocker]

I've always done the neutral thing at train gates, red lights etc. Neutral and handbrake. The Chrysler has one of those shit modern shifters (on the bloody floor, goddammit) that precludes this but my Mercs were a delight - I never used kickdown either, just snicked the lever into "S" - the twincams particularly were always immediately on song and responded quicker than kicking down.

[SiC]

I've never bothered putting it in neutral. It's an automatic gearbox. Stick it in drive and let it figure out what it needs to do. Otherwise why did you buy/get an auto if you want to figure that stuff out?