I get a company supplied hire car most week, so get to see lot of useless new features.
Got a volvo estate this week (slight step up from the normal astra's), but it has:
An auto handbrake, a gear change indcator (telling you when to change!) & the best is a rear mirror mounted LED compass (just displays N/E/S/W)

None of these 'features' are selling me this car in any way…. crap for craps sake. Anyone else got any favorites?

a gear change indcator (telling you when to change!)

That'd be a tacho then?

rear mirror mounted LED compass (just displays N/E/S/W)

Thats sounds quite cool

z1ppy, women need all the help they can get 😆

uplink, I wish… it a flaming auto ffs, with one of those silly option to make it a semi-auto.

Auto handbrake sounds quite handy (sorry), assuming it works well.

DRLs 😉

I hate autohand brakes, mainly because the VW passat ones seem to be shite and not come or or go off when you want them too… especially in traffic going up hills (ggrrrr to that experience)
Whats so wrong with a manual lever and cable eh?

Gear change indicators will be law soon. They're just getting in early….

z1ppy – Member
I get a company supplied hire car most week, so get to see lot of useless new features.
Got a volvo estate this week (slight step up from the normal astra's), but it has:
An auto handbrake, a gear change indcator (telling you when to change!) & the best is a rear mirror mounted LED compass (just displays N/E/S/W)

None of these 'features' are selling me this car in any way…. crap for craps sake. Anyone else got any favorites?

Auto Handbrake – I have one on my Passat and think its the best thing ever.
Gear Change Indicator – (a.k.a shift lights) allows for optimal performance and/or optimal fuel comsumption. Also a good thing if you ask me for either reason
Rear Mounted LED Compass – Agree totally pointless unless IMO.

Not seen much that is not going to be handy to a fair percentage of people. Coolest one I've seen in a while is the Corsa's built in bike Rack……wouldn't make me buy one mind you lol

Olly it has those too..

I now someone with inbuild sat nav which you can reach with your hand what with it being right next to the gear stick.
To use it require the remote control.

passenger seatbelt not clunked warning boop. Crap if you've loaded the car up by the passenger door but no-one is sitting in it, as i often do.

BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP

I particularly hate the 'keys still in the ignition & the door open' warning beeps

1 or 2 beeps would be enough but it won't stop until you remove them 😡

Our Focus turns the aircon on every time you direct the heater solely at the windscreen. This is OK in theory, but we all know that aircon uses more fuel, and if you forget it's on, then turn it off, everything mists up very quickly. If you don't turn it on from the start, it's no problem. Useless feature, especially when the car has a heated windscreen!!!

PP has to be said in the middle of winter, the focus heated screen/mirror is an ace feature though…

+1 on air con heated windscreen anomaly on the Focus.

BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP

(sorry, just my passenger seatbelt again)

PP has to be said in the middle of winter, the focus heated screen/mirror is an ace feature though…

Yes I know. But I'm not complaining about that, am I?
🙂

Gear change indicators will be law soon.

Is that true? If you need something to tell you when to change gear, you shouldn't be driving a manual transmission.

Compasses are really useful in American cities due to the grid layout, but over here? A novelty at best.

Car manufacturers fascination with badly designed cup holders?

I think all cars with A/C or C/C turn the air con on whenever you whack it on the windscreen symbol. Although with mine it has a separate de-mist button that does that and you can point tell the ventilation to divert to the windscreen with it still in econ mode. So, i guess mine does both.

I don't like the way my car has one-click to unlock drivers door & two to unlock all doors. It's fine in principle, but the car then locks all doors when moving and when you remove the key from the ignition at your destination it's supposed to have remembered whether you one-clicked or two-clicked and open the correct number of doors. But mine very rarely does and so the passenger door & boot generally don't become unlocked. Which results in passengers trying to rip the door release off until I tell them they have to pull it twice to unlock it. SOunds trivial, but is annoying.
Other than that, there's not a lot in my car that I find really annoying.
But, I do find the whole 'auto' everything that cars seem to be heading towards as a little OTT. I can see it's raining so I put my wipers on. Oh, it's getting dark, I'll put my lights on. Too many people rely on letting their car do this for them & drive without lights when it is actually quite dull, because their car still thinks it's light enough….

PeterPoddy – Member

PP has to be said in the middle of winter, the focus heated screen/mirror is an ace feature though…

Yes I know. But I'm not complaining about that, am I?

I know, but it just SOOOOO good, I have to keep on about it…

know, but it just SOOOOO good, I have to keep on about it…

LOL! 😀

I think all cars with A/C or C/C turn the air con on whenever you whack it on the windscreen symbol

No, they don't. It's not necessary either. 🙂

Is that true? If you need something to tell you when to change gear, you shouldn't be driving a manual transmission.

It's to tell you when's best to change gear to get best fuel economy (earlier isnt necessarily better in that respect).

Too many people rely on letting their car do this for them & drive without lights when it is actually quite dull, because their car still thinks it's light enough

Too many people drive like this anyway, auto lights (and DRL's) at least mean that these people dont wait till its pitch black to turn their lights on.

Compass crap

Satnav 🙂

Automatic gearbox

washers automatically linked to the windscreen wipers, can i please control the two aspects individually please! grrr.. its not progress

washers automatically linked to the windscreen wipers, can i please control the two aspects individually please! grrr.. its not progress

OH yes, especially when it very cold & you don't want to smear the screen before you know you have liquid to wash it
WTF can't they heat the washer system in most cars?

heated air into the car when the engine is still cold, how hard can it be?

I think all cars with A/C or C/C turn the air con on whenever you whack it on the windscreen symbol

Ah – that explains why that happens with my old mundeo, I just thought it was a fault! Agree with PP, heated windscreen is ace.

Drivers Electric window -What's wrong with winding it by hand? (the passenger electric window is useful)

Seatbelt warning beep -unnecessary, I've never forgotten to wear a seatbelt.

Sat Nav -who needs really one?

Parking sensors -We've managed for years without and bumpers should withstand a small impact if you're that terrible a driver.

Auto switching lights -mine has this, but I never use it.

Auto windscreen wipers -often at the wrong speed or lag too far behind the conditions.

Heated seats -useful, but really not at all necessary.

crap new carbike features

😉

bikes with hinges in the middle

That sat nav up there is rubbish. Look at the road. Look at the map.

CRAP

edit: and yes I'm aware it's a rear view, but where's the crossing?

Sat Nav -who needs really one?

Someone who has 6 addresses to visit in the middle of a city they don't know
NB when this occurs it's always wet, dark & there's a bus in front of you

that sat nav in the mirror is ace.
It clearly hasnt a CLUE where it is!

automatic gear boxes have been around as long as manual transmissions, if not longer iirc

manual for me please, but automatics arnt really one of those inventions thats an "add on"
its just different.
much better for driving on ice and snow, if you swing that way

I would be impressed if new cars came with indicators as a lot of them round here appear not to have them fitted.

Seatbelt buzzer
Keys in Ignition buzzer
Stupid buttons that lock doors/boot independent of one-another, what is wrong with lock and unlock?

I borrowed a Volvo once that seemed to have loads of ginormious cup holders, you could get those giant litre MaccyD cups in all of them, I think it could carry something like 8 litres in total. Why in the world would anyone need that sort of cup holder capacity..?