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dunno about safety or aerodynamics, but hidden wipers is handy when car is parked in a ski resort for a week and 2m 80cm of snow falls. no need to stand them up like some do, and they won't get hit by the snow shovel when removing 40cm of snow 3x per day.
rear one was screwed either way.
Leon has 1 pop out cup holder, and one oddly in the lid of the glove compartment.
Only way that can be used is parked up, and with either no passenger (in which case you don't need 2), or with a passenger so small, and with seat pushed rigth back so they don't close the glovebox door with their knees. And even then it can only take a cup of the size of a flimsy plastic vending machine coffee cup.
There's a spare space where the pop out cup holder, rear screen heater and hazard button is for another pop out cup holder.
Just had a call from the garage doing my MOT today. Can I please add ABS sensors held inside the wheel bearing by a TINY METAL CLIP which DISINTEGRATES the very second it gets wet. The perfectly working wheel bearing then needs broken open to realign the perfectly working sensor and fit a new clip. GGrrRrRRr1!!1!
My Alfa had no cup holders. Didn't have any flat surfaces, either!
Just had a call from the garage doing my MOT today. Can I please add ABS sensors held inside the wheel bearing by a TINY METAL CLIP which DISINTEGRATES the very second it gets wet. The perfectly working wheel bearing then needs broken open to realign the perfectly working sensor and fit a new clip. GGrrRrRRr1!!1!
Ford? Actually no, Ford ABS is a ring that loves to corrode. Why do they design them thus?
1. Northwind - Member
willard - Member
How about the requirement to take the front end apart to change a headlamp or the radiator?
There's a blown bulb in my dash. I've not even bothered to look up how to change it, I'm just assuming it'll be a 5 spanner job that starts "dismantle entire car"
Mondeo?
4 stars – disconnect battery, leave for 30mins and then take half of the car interior out.
I really need to get around to doing it as half our dashboard is in darkness, I know what revs is what speed in what gear but there are only so many times you can get the car tested and it not being picked up. Needs 6 bulbs of one type and 6 of another.
Mondeo boot liner – 8” high at the back so if you drop the 60/40 split you need to find a way to get rid of the liner to put anything big in (not a problem at home but out and about somewhere?).
Stupid wire thing for adjusting forwards/backwards on the driver’s seat – anything underneath will catch it and stretch it making it useless.
Cup holder is perfectly set up to catch the passengers knee.
The buttons for changing the air moving system – takes me 3-4 good looks (whilst driving) to find what I want and then another 5 seconds to change to the setting I want as you have to keep the button pressed down.
Space saver tyre on a car that big that carries heavy loads and is supposed to be a motorway muncher.
Mk1 focus – carpet in the wheel arch – meant that the rust could work 24/7 for months, oh and oil filter above a suspension strut so oil went everywhere.
Fiesta – when the rear fog light is on, the light highlighting this fact is hidden from view if you are taller than 5’ 10”.
Clio – blocked scuttle ports means the windscreen wiper gets shorted (fixable fortunately), use a carwash and the fusebox/ecu gets fried (Not fixable).
Clio “twist” stalk to adjust lights coupled with pull to go from full beam to dipped– twists too well as whenever I switch off the main beam I switch the headlights onto sidelights.
Clio stereo – has an auxillary function (for mp3/cd changers) but doesn’t have the actual “auxiliary” bit.
Saccades - MemberMk1 focus – carpet in the wheel arch – meant that the rust could work 24/7 for months
Ah, the rust sponge! I'd forgotten about that. I'm sure it's suppose to be sound deadening but I couldn't tell any difference.
VW Touran (and maybe other VW cars)
Bikes on a rear boot carrier, rainy day and engage reverse. Rear wiper engages automatically and mashes itself on the bike carrier smashing the blade and the arm. I'm a regular at the scrappers now as the arms are a couple of quid from them.
According to the dealer, this cannot be decoded in the ECU so its a wingnut on the threads to remove it when the bike carrier is on.
Cars with no spare wheel well/hanger
My Alfa had no cup holders. Didn't have any flat surfaces, either!
If it's a 156 you can balance a cup between the speedo and rev counter, the pods hold it in place but you might need to experiment with finding the right cup… and not cornering too hard if you don't want coffee down your legs!
A few here, well 106 posts of them : http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/irritating-car-safety-features-share-your-gripes
Automatic door locking when you move off - I drive off my drive and stop to let people in but all the doors are locked
Doors locking when you get out of the car - Take two steps away from the car and all the doors lock so you stand in the rain trying to unlock the car to get the umbrella
Mercedes traction control - when I turn it off, I want it turned off
Yes, I got caught in a shower while locked out of the car today and then sat in the car watching wife get drenched because I couldn't find a button to unlock the doors for her.
New Mercedes A Class, the cup holders are too small for anything bigger than a can of coke. They are also in the way of the gear stick so your ar rests on top of the can when your trying to change gear. The steering wheel doesn't adjust far enough out so I have to sit bolt upright with my knees out so I can reach the steering wheel. The light for the vanity mirror is on the roof, the flap for the vanity mirror opens up. When you need the light at night it is obscured by the flap rendering it useless.
Current Mercedes C Class Coupe, the steering wheel is over your left leg. With the seat at its lowest height and me at 6ft leaning forward I bang my head on the sun visor. When looking over my right shoulder I bang my head on the roof and once going over a bump (looking right) I got my head squashed between the roof and my shoulder. Also the same problem with the vanity mirrors.
MK3 Focus, the cup holders are a bit tight against the armrest and also too high so with a big cup in there it hits your arm when trying to change gear. The fuel tank in mine is too small. I understand that it only does 28mpg but a range of more than 300 miles would be nice, I can't even go through a whole week without needing to fill up.
Having read all that, my C-max is a paragon of ergonomic delight!
Assides from the not folding flat rear seats though my other gripe about the be back is the ammount of wasted space in the wings of the boot, I've taken the trim off to fit a towbar and they could have had significantly more boot each side if they'd gone right out over the wheel arches rather than shrinking it to a flat sided shape.
A mate had a BMW where the climate control sensor was next to the cup holder, so on a warm day you put your nice cold drink in the cup holder and the car thinks 'brrr, it's a bit nippy, better put the heating on'. Vice versa in the winter, too. Genius.
Old 5 Series? I had one of those, it was the other way round than you described though, the heat off your coffee would make the climate control think it was roasting in the car and turn to full cold. The only thing you could do was turn the fan off (thus causing the screen to mist up) or turn up the requested temperature up to about 36 or whatever the max was. Then again, those cup holders didn't, suggesting that they were a total afterthought.
I loved that car but it had a few issues like that; the wipers were still LHD even on the RHD versions, so the unswept corner was on the drivers side and I don't think any height of driver could simultaneously get a comfy position and see the top part of the speedo and the turn signal indicator lights.
It was still a lovely car to own and drive though and at least avoided issues like the unlit stalks and minor controls on my current Subaru Outback that makes it very tricky to remember how to, for example, turn on the front driving lights after dark.
To go back to the opening post, I had a New shape C3 previous to my current car which is the DS3 both have the same issue, no cup holders which is bizarre in a car this size and the glove box is a joke, you can't even fit the log books in it. Seriously I can get 3 cd cases, and that's all that fits. Not even sure how or why the French did this.
maccruiskeen - MemberAny car where you can't close the windows after you've switched off the ignition. So that pretty much any car other than a KIA.
With my Mazda 6, you get something like 30 seconds to close the windows after switching off.
ny car where you can't close the windows after you've switched off the ignition. So that pretty much any car other than a KIA.
My mk1 Octavia was the same.
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LMT - MemberTo go back to the opening post, I had a New shape C3 previous to my current car which is the DS3 both have the same issue, no cup holders which is bizarre in a car this size and the glove box is a joke, you can't even fit the log books in it. Seriously I can get 3 cd cases, and that's all that fits. Not even sure how or why the French did this.
My Wife's old Pug 308 was like this. Fairly large, wide car with massive dashboard; open the glovebox and you could just about get some thin gloves in there and a CD case. No room for sunglasses or anything else.
What have they done with all that space!?
In my Ibiza the glovebox contains the service/log book/manual, a golf glove, a multi-way lighter socket adaptor, a suction cup phone mount, an HTC charger cord with socket, a spare pair of sunglasses, one of those small (3"?) round multi-LED lights and a broken On One QR seat clamp! And probably a few other bits....I should probably clear it out.
VW Golf mk 4 with climate control. There's a "sunshine" sensor on the dashboard, right up by the windscreen, that measures the amount of "sunshine". It overrides the climate control, so on days like today, zero degrees but sunny, it assumes the interior of the car is hot so it blows cold air unless you turn the temperature control to 29 degs.
The winter pack relay, controls the rain sensor wipers, auto dipping rear view mirror and the headlight washers. Has failed, replaced no bother, but requires setting via VAGCOM to make it work. £150 to plug it in according to the dealer. It's now replaced with a standard intermittent wiper relay. But I get blinded by headlights in the mirror from behind.
Heated front seat wiring loom gets disconnected if you move the seat all the way back. I'm 6'4" so that's where it gets moved to. Seat out to reconnect. But the rear seats won't fold flat unless the front seats are all the way forward.
Letting French people wire the French ones.
There's a "sunshine" sensor on the dashboard, right up by the windscreen, that measures the amount of "sunshine"
Conversely, the Prius has one of those and it's rather effective. Drive into shade on a hot sunny day, you suddenly feel the cold air but a second later it adjusts itself perfectly.
Cars that when turn a fog light comes on. Annoying as you can't make out the indicator and you think it's just some gimp driving with their fog lights on and one has broken
Also, what is it with VAG cars and their insistence that it takes 15 button clicks to open the car? One button click, open the f***ing car. One to lock it.
I guess this is a new feature, my Octavia has the same key fob as the earlier 'W' reg Audi A4, two buttons, click one to lock, the other to unlock. Simple.
Headlight bulbs - piece of piss, open bonnet, unclip headlight rear cover, pull out old bulb, pop in new bulb, replace in headlight unit, replace cover. Close bonnet. Takes about five minutes, tops.
Stark contrast to the Puma, around forty-five minutes to replace a bulb, certainly [i]not[/i] a roadside repair, especially if you haven't got a damn great Torx wrench handy to undo all the bolts. 🙄
Heater controls in the Octy, on the other hand, are positively dangerous, stuck down below the radio, all the buttons are identical square ones, and impossible to tell apart without taking your eyes totally off the road to see what you're doing.
Bloody stupid design.
switchbacktrog - Member
With my Mazda 6, you get something like 30 seconds to close the windows after switching off.
And if you press & hold the lock button on the key fob all the windows close.
Pressing and holding the open button will also open all the windows, great on those blazing hot days to vent the heat.
Some of the gloss/flush buttons for the media system could be better marked, but compared to the Vauxhall explosion in an Awia amp factory they are a paragon of ergonomics.
Also am I the only one to have never used a cup holder? If I want a drink of warm brown etc, I get out of the car and have a slurp while stretching my legs.
Not sure if its been said but lack of lights is probably down more to the fact that everyone has blackout speedos that are illuminated all the time rather than the old type which only got lit when the lights came on. Good way to realise your lights are off.
TR - sliding doors eh? You'll be after a 1007 then...
FIAT Doblo seatbelt tensioners.
They don't rewind the belt properly and the clip naturally comes to rest between the door and the jam.
So when you shut the door without checking you get a nice dent in the door recess, pillar recess or both.
Cars with two rear fog lights. Are you braking?
Cars with DRLs in the same cluster as front indicators where the DRL doesn't shut down when indicating. I can't tell if you're indicating!
Any vehicle with LED lights where the DC supply is barely DC. BMW are really bad for this - their flickering rear lights are practically stroboscopic.
Any vehicle where the manufacturer is so skint that they produce one wiper design for LHD and RHD with a 4 bar linkage to extend the sweep across the screen. Renault started it with the clio, followed closely by BMW with the 5 series.
All brembo monbloc calipers. Fine on a race car where pads are changed all the time, but the retaining pins weld themselves into the caliper when used on the road. What was wrong with a bolt and a split pin?
Nope 1007 had stupid electric sliding doors....plus it loked like a mobility scooter 🙂
thisisnotaspoon - Member
Having read all that, my C-max is a paragon of ergonomic delight!
To be fair my MK2 cmax was quite good in terms of ergonomics but those rear seats are the work of the devil. They are just bloody stupid. Yes you can just fold all three down to get one bike in but it sits at an angle and I didn't like that for long journeys. If you fold the seats forward they are so bloody deep that the reduce the size of your boot so much you have to take both wheels off the bike. To get 2 or more bikes in the boot you have to take at least 2 of the seats out. And where do you put them then? I don't have a garage so ended up having to leave them in the conservatory which is less than ideal when that's where the kids toss are.
The windscreen wipers on mine were an issue. Halfords didn't stock any that would fit so I had to go to Ford. The wiper blades that For sold me didn't fit either, it turned out that the fitting I needed had been superseded with one that didn't fit and all the old blades had been binned. Luckily the chap on the parts counter managed to find a dealership reasonably locally who hadn't emptied their bins and they had one set for me.
On top of that the 115 diesel engine is painfully slow with a powerband that makes my cock look chunky. It used to make me really angry, with a decent engine it would have been quite a nice car to drive. I could have lived with the stupid seats if it had a 2l petrol or similar.
Lots of modern cars that have chrome bezels and clear lenses for all of the lights and therefore rely on a colored bulb. Turn signals and sometimes even brake lights are practically invisible if it is sunny or you are looking at the light from other than a precisely perfect angle. The older ones with red and amber lenses were much more easily seen! Style and fashion has to be getting people killed!
And some modern headlights (especially the ones with the little hemispherical clear lens) seem to be intentionally designed to cause glare for oncoming traffic!
Surely there are ways to measure and quantify this and design lights that work!
Sounds like nearly all of these are the result of people not reading be instructions, or being hamfisted morons.
I've driven loads of different cars and they all have their own character, none of them perfect, just different. The only one I drove which was a genuine problem was the Audi A3 where you had to open the armrest top to put the handbrake on. Stupid!
I always find the best thing to do is when you get a new car (or if you're thinking of buying a new one) is sit and read the instruction manual for 30mins. There is often stuff in there which is a revelation, especially with new electronics in cars. I found that my Astra did indeed have variable intermittent wash wipe even though there was no obvious control for it, you just used the stalk in a different way.
Having to remove part of the bumper/plastic wheel arch trim to change a headlight bulb on the wifes Ford Ka. When you remove the trim it breaks the plastic buttons so unless you know about this and keep plenty spare you can't fit the trim back.
Having the front indicators inboard of the headlights rendering them almost invisible when the lights are switched on
Having to remove part of the bumper/plastic wheel arch trim to change a headlight bulb on the wifes Ford Ka.
That's nothing - the headlight bulb instructions for my car start with: "First remove the wheels..."
Luckily, on full lock with small hands it's just about possible without doing that.
Aftermarket gear knobs. How is it possible to make something so simple so badly? Even supposedly decent brands.
robdob - MemberSounds like nearly all of these are the result of people not reading be instructions, or being hamfisted morons.
😀
My brother had a Golf several years ago (probably about 10 years, actually!). It was a special edition 'Match' and I think the 'special' bits were alloys, a/c and metallic paint.
He'd had it about a year and was moaning that the screen took ages to demist. I told him to use the air-con as it would clear the screen quicker, to which he exclaimed that it didn't have air-con.
After a couple of minutes of 'yes it does, no it doesn't' we went out to the car and I asked him what the button on the heater controls with the A/C label did....he still wouldn't believe it until we started the car up, pressed the button and waited for the cold air to start coming into the cabin....
Light design in general. Why are car makers even allowed to massively compromise safety, function and serviceability for style?
Estate cars with a boot lip just negate the whole point and stop you sitting in there sheltering from the rain for a post-ride coffee.
matt_outandabout - you win with that mini. Take your foot off the gas on a bend, and you're in the nearest hedge. Terrifying things.
Heater controls in the Octy, on the other hand, are positively dangerous, stuck down below the radio, all the buttons are identical square ones, and impossible to tell apart without taking your eyes totally off the road to see what you're doing.
Bloody stupid design.
Agreed. I believe it was standard across VAG cars (certainly my mk1 Octavia had it, and so did a mate's older mk3 Golf VR6).
Old Saab 9-3 (99 vintage ish).
If you left the lights on (as I did at the airport once) and the battery is flat, you can't open the doors, and therefore couldn't open the bonnet to charge the battery. The key in the door lock operated a switch which operated a motor, which needed power.
I guess it's hard to steal, but the AA were seriously thinking about getting some charge through the reverse switch on the gearbox. Eventually with his "collection of random bits of wire" he managed to hook onto the bonnet release cable.
My previous car (2007 Hyundai Santa Fe) had no RDS on the radio. FFS, my Cavalier in the early 90s had RDS....
Has anyone mentioned indicators on the inside of or within headlights? Stick them on the corners so we can see them! (Ah yes, just up there ^ - well it was worth repeating. Idiot designers).
Electric handbrakes. Gear knobs miles from steering wheel (have it coming out of the dash like on my early 2000s Civic). Touch screen anything instead of buttons that can be worked by feel without having to take your eyes off the road - how can this even be allowed?!!
Went to move a Toyota hire car that was blocking my car at work.
No key, just the electronic box thing you push in.
Would the car start, no. Tried everything.
Went back inside and reception said, maybe it's this 'key' - they'd had 2 cars delivered.
Tried the new key and yes it worked. But only after I put one foot on the clutch, another on the brake and put the car in neutral...
Just got a 2005 Navara and checked some forums after buying it.
I was told "It's a good one, the engine grenaded itself at 60,000 and was replaced by a later one which should be good for another 60,000 unless the engine number is above #### which luckily this one is!"
Apparently Nissan designed the engine so a rubber o-ring was the only thing stopping the oil pump pumping air instead of oil. As this perishes the wear on the bottom end massively increases.
To add to the fun they fitted under spec bolts to the conrods so the first sign of engine wear was these bolts snapping and the 'rod being smashed through the engine block.
Normally happened between 60-80,000 miles but there are cases as low as 38,000 miles
Replace the conrod bolts and modify the sump oil feed and the engine is bomb proof apparently. I almost wish I had read before I bought rather than buying on a whim
Stupid Avensis fold-in wing mirrors, I've never had a car with motorised ones before, but now I have I like to use them when parking in busy areas, except that once you've turned the ignition off the button doesn't work.
No matter how hard I try I can't break the cycle and I *always* turn off, remove key, then try and fold the mirrors in, have another tiny hissy fit, put the key back in, turn the ignition on, press the button to fold them in, wait until they've folded in, then turn off and remove they key again.
WHY!?!! why can't you just let them work without the ignition on then I could just poke the button as I'm getting out of the car.