Irritating car safety features – share your gripes

I hate the way in my porsche you have to press and hold..wtf.. a button to turn off the ESP

i’ve never had the dis-pleasure of a car any newer than eight years old.

picking up a Golf hire car tomorrow. will no doubt be able to add something to this topic at the end of the week.

Guess I’d better rtfm!

In the Skoda Yeti the rear wiper comes on if you have the front wipers on the first, non intermittent setting, but the rear wiper switched OFF? WHY!!

But not when they’re on Auto! ❓ Are the electronics guys in Wofsberg complete bleeding loonies?

I think you can turn the auto rear wiper off using the menu (Convenience>Rear Wipe). You need to do this twice, once with each set of keys.

Ambient lighting.

I’ve got ambient lighting in the door handles I presume so that one can see
the window switches, but the switches are iluminated anyway!

shifter – Member

I rode a motorcycle 25 years ago that knew to turn the radio up as speed increased, why DON’T cars do that?

The 5 cars we have had in the last 17 years have all had that, my present one has about 5 levels of volume/speed settings.

Perhaps your buying shit cars 😉

In my Clio, you can’t turn the automatic lights off with out turning the engine off, turning the lights off and then restarting the engine.

More of a mechanical outsmartingness than a safety thing but my Focus developed an intermittent crank sensor fault. Nothing that actually would have caused running issues, but every time it threw a fault, it cut the engine out dead and insisted on being cycled several times before it’d fire again. Which is exciting, on the M6. But if it’d happened entering a corner, sudden loss of power steering would be even more exciting.

mrovershoot – must get annoying when your radio ends up really loud…. oh your car gets louder too?

mines doesnt 😀 – its just loud all the time so generally i dont need to adjust the stereo for the speed 😉

as for safety features that are annoying….. my frontera only disables the immobiliser if you use the keyfob….so the day the keyfob battery died was annoying …..

I’m not sure if its strictly a safety issue, unless you live in an area where car jackings are rife. My Disco 3 bongs incessantly when I put the keys in the ignition and the drivers door is open. I know they’re there because I put them there to stop them from getting lost under the melee of crap that we inevitibly load in to the car before we drive off.

I’ve never understood having to press the lock or unlock button on the key fob twice to get all the doors open.

I mean, the car has central locking – just lock and unlock all of them at once. Even if it’s only me getting in the car I don’t care if the other doors unlock at the same time as mine.

Always end up getting in the car and leaving a passenger standing outside.

And why have to press the lock button twice to get all the doors locked and deadlocked? If I lock the doors I want the best quality locking the car can offer

My A3 only puts the rear wiper on if the front has triggered to wipe just the same as my Golf. It’s never been an issue.

Daytime running lights that only illuminate the headlights.. The new Fiesta must have them as I have seen a few at night with no tail lights..

Dash illuminating lights that illuminate during the day.. Because people then forget to put their lights on at night.

Any why does nobody flash to indicate they have no lights on?????

And while I’m on my soap box.. People driving round town at night with sidelights and front fog/driving lights on.. When did that become acceptable? Put ur bloody lights on properly!

Low fuel warnings beeps that go off every x minutes.. I know ur low on fuel because I can read the fuel gauge, I have better things to do than dash off for fuel every time it gets below a quarter tank.. Plus I like a game of fuel light bingo! Makes the journey more exciting..

Another one: the indicators on my Megane switch off when the steering wheel passes 0º. It doesn’t matter if, say, you’re indicating and starting to turn left: the moment the steering wheel passes the going straight position they switch off. Which is fine if you’re driving along a straight road, indicating to turn off. But bloody useless on a roundabout 😡

Pretty much anything that causes an electronic beep or bong.

That, and the low washer liquid indicator in Audis….. comes on waaaay too early, so you ignore it. And then you run out, because you’ve been ignoring the light for 6 weeks.

The extra wipe my Mondeo does after you’ve cleaned the windscreen, that usually undoes the whole thing, it goes something like this when you hit “squirt”:

1) Squirt windscreen with screenwash
2) Wipey wipey wipey wipey, windscreen now clean
3) Wait a few moments (allow some crap to hit screen) and….
4) SMEARy extra wipe.

Thanks for that Ford.

Not sure if this is standard, but my c class requires me to turn my lights to “on” rather than “auto” before I can turn on my fog lights. Given how infrequently I use my fog lights, and the fact that I never touch the lights since it’s always set to auto, there’s always a blind fumble to get it to the right setting, meaning all my lights go on and off a couple of times in thick fog on the motorway 🙂

No spare wheel in our VW… just a can of Jollop and a pump.

I know it’s to save weight but it does seem a bit daft TBH

Try driving a Passat for irritation – it won’t start until you’ve got the belt on and the clutch pedal down. The handbrake won’t disengage unless you’re in gear and declutching or you press down on the brake pedal… God help you when you stall it because it’s a swine to get restarted. The auto-dim mirror is terrible and as someone else writes above, the headlights on in all but bright sunlight.

The “leaving home” and “coming home” lights are good though.

Not a safety one but that stupid fookin green arrow to change gear is still irritating me on the tranny!

Loving the lack of bongs and other safety features ion my ’96 Audi

However, had a little tantrum in Belfast the other week when the hire car wouldn’t le me exceed the speed limit.

I thought i’d broken it when i booted it coming out of the exit ramp of the dual carriage way – suddenly it hit a rev limiter – at 4,000rpm

Bloody darnright dangerous in my book – what if i was racing someone and they hit the back of my car???

Utter w*ank Vauxhall feature

edlong – Member

The extra wipe my Mondeo does after you’ve cleaned the windscreen, that usually undoes the whole thing, it goes something like this when you hit “squirt”:

Not just me then!

first thing I do when I get a hire car is sit and fanny around with all the settings so that any of these accessories (they’re not features) are turned off.

You know that “bong” sound that warns you to fasten your seatbelt because of turbulence? That, at 1 second intervals, for the entire time you’re in reverse.

I know I’m in reverse. I’m going backwards.

My Mrs car has fog lights that come on on the same side you’re indicating to, to illuminate the road. This is providing you’re doing under 40kph I think.

Bloody annoying, if they’re following you, the first time I saw it, I thought the car had an electrical fault.

Have been caught out with the auto brake assist on my BMW several times now. Cracking on through the lanes and meet a tourist coming the other way in the middle of the road looking at the view. Hit the brakes to scrub some speed to pass safely and the next thing you know the car is stopped on the spot with your eyeballs on the windscreen. I have to learn to get on the brakes more slowly!

Enjoy the mouthful of deicer I got when defrosting the car the first time and the auto rainsensor kicked in the windscreen wipers.

Could never use a bike rack on my old Corsa as everytime you put it in reverse with the front wipers on it tried to do the rear one too…

This is all fascinating stuff, I have no knowlege of all this technology as I drive cars that are ancient and basic.

I certainly don’t fit into the STW demographic.

Seatbelt warning binging (which can be disabled by inserting and releasing the seatblet ten times in quick succession on mine) and anti-hijack locks on the Discovery, which can be disabled via the management menu. Both need to be disabled before you go lamping, otherwise you just get the passenger lined up on a bunny, kill the engine to stop thh vibration and the interior light comes on wrecking your night vision.

Oh, and the lights on manual not auto for foglights is to stop the chavs driving round dazzling everybody with their stupid foglights which they think make it look faster.

My bugbear… Jaguar have decided that I’m not allowed to open my glovebox when the car is travelling at more than 20mph, unless I have a passenger in the front seat.

Less than ideal when that’s where my sunglasses are, and there’s low sun on the M40.

Solution, leave the passenger belt plugged in.

Oddly though, the seat heater on that seat will work when there is no-one sitting in it…

My car has a light in the instrument panel which flashes when my indicators are activated ! OK at least its only one light rather than one for each direction (I hear some cars have independant ones??)but I know i’m indicating I just moved the effing stick and can hear the relay!

My girlfriends car deems it necessary to constantly inform you its cold outside with constant beeping!! “We know we’ve just been there you dick” .

Although mine tends to do the same but by handily keeping the temperature constantly the same inside as it is outside . This is very useful as negates the need to take a coat off on entry and back on,on exit.

Rain sensing wipers, law unto themselves.
Headlight washers that spray the first time you use the screen washers with your lights on then every 5th time you wash your screen.

Oddly though, the seat heater on that seat will work when there is no-one sitting in it…

…so you can keep your takeaway warm.

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Heated mirrors that don’t clear ice quickly enough.
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Try driving a Passat for irritation … The handbrake won’t disengage unless you’re in gear and declutching or you press down on the brake pedal…

It disengages automatically if you just drive off.

You’re welcome.

Are all these gadgets for real??? Wing mirrors that dip to see the kerb? You’re joking surely? I’ve never heard of most of them – I thought electric windows were the bees knees, and my car’s not that old, I drive a T reg Astra 😀

The annoying beep and light in my fathers car that indicates when the drivers seat belt isn’t fastened. He’s not allowed to wear one for medical reasons. 10 seconds in a scrap yard with a stanley knife and a knacked seat belt sorted it. Cut the belt fastener off a belt and inserted it in the normal place.

I only spent 30 minutes in the car with him before it annoyed me, he’d been putting up with it for 3 YEARS.

why didn’t you just thread it round the back of the seat like every taxi or site car has done for years?

Are all these gadgets for real??? Wing mirrors that dip to see the kerb? You’re joking surely? I’ve never heard of most of them – I thought electric windows were the bees knees, and my car’s not that old, I drive a T reg Astra

Dipping wing mirrors are brilliant. Saved my wheels from kerbing countless times when parallel parking.

Dipping wing mirrors are a good idea- especially in these days of **** tiny mirrors. “But they look really nice!” They’re for looking with not looking at ffs!

the kerb is the least of my worrys when parking – i want to see the cars behind and beside me ….

but i have not got stupid lo profile harshrider tires – nor do i have rear windows 😉