I seriously don't understand how people can stand to drive new cars. Every time I'm in one (e.g., a rental) I need to spend a ton of time figuring out how to turn tons of settings off just so the steering wheel won't randomly jerk or the car won't brake when I don't want to, to say nothing of the constant beeps and lights. A friend had an old Saab with a feature called "Black Panel" that turned off every gauge at night save what was absolutely necessary. It was so nice.
When I needed a car two years ago I purposefully looked for one that didn't even have a full screen, figured all those annoyances would be reduced that way (which probably annoy me even more than the OP). The radio/infotainment does have bluetooth and an aux port, but just a simple two-line digital display, perfect for my needs as someone who thinks showing album art to a driver should be illegal. The car ended up being a stick shift, which I had never driven before so I had to get a friend to pick it up for me and teach me how to drive it. So worth it though: made me a better driver and now I actually enjoy being engaged while driving.
I don't doubt that the author's car is every bit as frustrating as described, but not all new cars are like that.
I got a new bmw last year, and before I left the lot, some 20 yo "genius" from the dealership sat down with me and went through every menu in the infotainment to set it up how I wanted and turn off all the annoying driver assistance features. that took the better part of an hour, and to be honest, a slight twinge of buyer's remorse began to set in.
but since then, I haven't changed a thing (okay, I've changed the thermostat about once per season). I'm exactly the kind of person who loves to hate on this kind of thing, but I can't. the car behaves exactly how I want, and it's a lovely way to cruise around town, eat up miles on the freeway, occasionally tear up backroads, etc. the one minor frustration is that I can't permanently turn off the engine auto stop/start, but I'm guessing bmw's hands are tied on that one.
You're describing a luxury car maker that understands its customers get pissed off very easily and don't like being told what to do. Even the chimes in a BMW/Mercedes are quite pleasant compared to the ear-ringing DING DING DING you get on affordable passenger cars like Toyotas.
I rented a Toyota corolla cross a while back and it wouldn't even allow us (in my case my passenger) operate the touch screen while moving. I had to physically stop the car so my passenger could program in a new map location! What happens if you're on the highway and can't stop?! We found the way to circumvent this way to use the phone to operate Carplay instead. But it still made my blood boil being locked out of such critical functionality because the car thinks it knows whats safer in the situation than I do.
Want to reverse? DING DING DING DING endlessly.
And every single time we parked the car and i opened the drivers side door DING DING DING DING endlessly for the crime of turning off the engine until the door was closed. Every time I got out of the car I was pissed off from the sensory assault.
Despite the great gas mileage and great hybrid tech, it was unbelievable how annoying that Toyota was. Going back to my BMW felt like going from a noisy flea market to a quiet luxury hotel that doesn't judge you and let's you live your life.
> Even the chimes in a BMW/Mercedes are quite pleasant compared to the ear-ringing DING DING DING you get on affordable passenger cars like Toyotas.
Fun fact: many BMWs also have Rolls Royce chimes on their ECUs because of the shared parts, and they're one hidden setting change away from being enabled
Inreresting, my '21 Toyota does not lock me out of using the screen. But anyway I've learned it's much faster to engage with Android Auto or Car Play via voice. My steering wheel has a button that makes the car "listen" and then I simply say android assistant-like commands eg "navigate to ____" "send message to _____" "gas stations along my route" "Play Wheels on the Bus" etc.
The last time I was on a business trip to Germany I had ordered a small econobox, but when I got to the airport I was "upgraded" (of course they didn't have the car I'd actually reserved) to some huge M-series, "luxury" SUV the size of Belgium.
I really don't get BMW. You're in Germany. You are going to drive on the Autobahn. It is likely you will spend most of your time going somewhere between 130km/h and 200+ on the Autobahn. Occasionally there is work done on the Autobahn. Then why the hell does BMW make driver's aids that needlessly create dangerous situations when it encounters double road markings? It's not like they are uncommon in Germany.
I wasn't aware that the driver's aids were even on. And suddenly the shitbox decides we had better follow the markings that lead into the guardrail so I have to yank the suicidal, teutonic, plastic battle tank off its intercept course and point it back on the open road ahead.
> t is likely you will spend most of your time going somewhere between 130km/h and 200+ on the Autobahn.
Overwhelming majority of cars on Autobahn is driving 130 and lower on unlimited sections. The speed limit on other sections is 120 or lower - they have signs everywhere.
The 200km/h use case is not what drivers in Germany do majority of the time.
I don't think there is a regulatory requirement to keep it enabled. I have a fresh one ('23) and it remembers my last selection. The previous one I had to code to force it remember my preference. If it is that annoying consider coding - it got ridiculously easy to do.
It's to do with the EPA rating. If the car maker allows auto start/stop to be turned off permanently then the ratings agency will test the car again with it turned off then combine the two results into their score. Having a slightly worse EPA mileage across their fleets is probably bad for sales and pleasing governments
There are tools for BMWs (and Minis) that allow to override some settings and enable some features that are not offered on a specific market. You will need a ~$20 OBD cable and an app to code your changes. For instance, BimmerCode [1] has samples of what could be changed on their website.
I stopped reading the article about 4 headings in because neither my new 2023 car nor my partner's nearly decade-old car (still new enough to have a keyless ignition) suffer from these problems (or the complaints are just silly and I don't agree with them).
- The doors re-lock after a remote unlock if you don't actually use the doors, but most cars with smart keys these days simply open without you needing to use the remote at all anyway (handy if you're wrangling groceries or children as the OP mentions), and the timeout is obviously less about being chased by thieves and more about keeping an accidental remote press from leaving the car unlocked indefinitely.
- The slow closing action of a powered hatch is a fairly obvious safety decision (still fast enough in my experience to justify the tradeoff of having it open for you).
> but most cars with smart keys these days simply open without you needing to use the remote at all anyway
Friends new car supposedly has this feature but yet 9 times out of 10 we stand around the car for 10 seconds clicking the handles until frustration causes the fob to come out.
Yeah the quality definitely seems to vary by manufacturer.
My wife's vehicle would work about half the time, only after a delay. More annoyingly, the fob only seemed to work like 1/10 of the time. Dealer replaced some sensors, swapped things around, did all sorts of stuff... never worked quite right.
My car has never _not_ opened. It responds immediately every single time. I stick my hand in and it's unlocked before I can pull the handle. I've not had to think about unlocking my doors in more than half a decade to the point where if I do stick my hand in and it doesn't open, my immediate thoughts are "do I actually have the key? is the car's battery flat?".
Replaced my wife's vehicle with the same brand as mine, works flawlessly and consistently now.
If you are regularly engaging the automatic braking or even warning, you and your driving habits really are the problem. It’s quite trivial to slow down and leave adequate braking distance when driving on public roads. Not every journey is judged down to the hundredth of a second.
I have a relatively large sample size of drivers I’ve talked to about this. None of the careful, normal drivers complain about collision warnings because they never experience them. Several of my Driver™ friends complain about such warnings with passion.
This is a bad take if you haven't driven every single car on the market in order to inform yourself.
I agree most of them are surprisingly good -- the forward collision warning system on my Golf R only made a few mistakes in the 3 years I owned it, and they were all "understandable" mistakes where the tech clearly didn't understand why it was 'wrong' -- eg, I refused to lift throttle because I knew the car in front of me was about to accelerate due to the light which had just turned green, or I elected not to brake because the car cutting in front of me was swooping across two lanes so it wasn't worth panicking about.
The system on my Model 3 is GREAT, but only when set to "late" ; my aunt's car was constantly hassling her until I found the setting and moved it from normal to late.
But there are other such annoying automated systems -- my Golf had a REAR collision warning which would fully engage the brakes if you were reversing down your driveway while a car was driving down the street behind you. I suppose it wanted me to wait until the road had NO traffic before daring to reverse on my own private property.
Also, some cars try to overthink things for you. I've driven vehicles where if you drive in a spirited manner, lifting off the throttle abruptly and engaging the brakes quickly but not aggressively, it decides you MUST want to perform a panic stop and doubles the brake pressure. I think most of us can agree that we want our machines to perform in a reliable and consistent manner and not have basic controls second guess us?
I like how you disagree with the parent comment suggesting you drive very aggressively, and then nearly every example you give of the car being wrong is a direct result of you driving very aggressively.
Lifting off the throttle and on to the brakes quickly but gently is a natural safety decision if your going fast on a motorway and someone slower changes into your lane up ahead.
This is the primary reason for emergency brake assist kicking in for me in my car, Skoda Superb (VW group so similar software). It's only ever happened on the Autobahn where there can be higher speed differentials. It's a bit annoying when it does, but it's all controllable.
Other than that, I find my car's safety stuff pretty good. Lane assist isn't intrusive, traction control is functional (car is 4WD 280hp), warning tones are relevant and customizable, etc.
A car cutting in front of me and me not panicking and slamming on the brakes is actually a mark of knowing how to drive.
The one example of me driving aggressively had nothing to do with forward collision warning, and was actually about brake boost systems that choose to brake more aggressively FOR you when you might not want it to, and it has nothing to do with any cars anywhere near you.
> my Golf had a REAR collision warning which would fully engage the brakes
I once had a rental engage full brakes when reversing out of a parking spot because a shadow fell across the rear camera. Car stopped so violently I thought I hit something. Nearly shat my pants.
I've had the forward panic braking go off from a medium sized bird flying by on the highway and once as I came down from a bump the nose must of dipped enough that it identified the unobstructed ground and freaked out.
I actually leave this system on though as it general doesn't have many false positives. I turned off the suicidal lane keep feature almost immediately as that was trying for force me into potholes and debris on the road in its zeal to maintain the lane position. Completely insane.
The most irritating thing is that if there is dirt on the car it disables itself. Which means it doesn't work during half the winter due to road salt. The same goes for the backup camera, I feel like it needs a mini wiper!
I think this take is pretty BS. I'm not claiming sainthood or anything, but I don't drive like an insane person either, and every time I've driven a Tesla (which is at least semi often, my parents own one) it just goes HAM beeping at all sorts of shit, and it jerked the wheel weirdly on me at least once when it seemed to get terribly confused about what was actually a lane or not.
Moral of the story, the features are far from perfect, and I would prefer the number of times the car moves the wheel for me to be 0.
> and it jerked the wheel weirdly on me at least once when it seemed to get terribly confused about what was actually a lane or not
Not in a Tesla, but I've rented 3 cars as of late where driving through construction zones with shifting lanes caused the wheel to jerk constantly as it thought I was leaving a lane.
I'm aware enough to catch it and so on, but man it does not come across as a safe feature in that regard. I would be curious to see what amount of testing is done for this scenario, since construction is a common enough thing to encounter.
For both my Tesla model 3 and my Honda Odyssey, I turn all the alerts on and have adjusted my driving until I don’t routinely get them. One thing I’ve noticed is just how bad the typical driver is at maintaining a safe following distance: the recommended “2 or 3 second following distance” one finds in things like the California driver’s handbook (and Texas’s as well as just about every drivers ed course I’ve seen) is several times longer than the typical following distance in most of the U.S.
I regularly drive down a gently curving 25 mph road. Every single time I do, the collision warning comes on because it thinks I'm going to go straight and not follow the road. It's so repeatable that I pause my podcasts in anticipation of the bleating warning.
I’ll grant you that one, my 2015 Honda predictably does that on some low-speed turns, but I have pieced together that the triggering factor is retro-reflective stickers/indicators on utility poles or road markers that seem to trick the radar into thinking an object on the side of the road is larger than reality.
The regular false positives are so annoying that I sometimes fantasize about removing the camera, then remind myself that it's a leased vehicle and that I only have to endure it for ten more months. Some folks don't mind getting dinged at incessantly, but I have sympathy for people who dislike being constantly techno-nannied or notified to death.
Is it because of the "older" tech? 2015 is "ancient" for these things and difference between 2015, 2020 and 2023 from what I've seen is pretty massive as tech has changed at a dizzying pace.
my 2020 civic seems to do okay but I get those issues only on occasion. Newer tech would be more stable I think. Only been driving it ~3 months.
I dunno. The first car I drove with any of these driver assists was my sister's 2015 Honda (CRV? I think that was the model). I thought it was fantastic. It kept station smoothly behind other cars. The lane-keeping was great on the freeway, and easy to turn off on surface streets. I thought it made me several times safer as a driver: I didn't spend as much attention on the lane markings, or the back of the car ahead of me, so I was able to be far more attentive to cars around, or upcoming (potential) hazards.
When we looked for a car a couple of years ago (and, more recently, when I've driven rentals), station-keeping was certainly no better (and in at least a couple of instances, definitely worse), and as noted by everyone else in this thread, the whole system is so darn annoying. Of the beeps and warnings which are not false-positives, most draw my attention to things I've already seen, so they become either distracting or ignored, which is a net safety degradation.
I think 2015 driver-assist systems (or Honda's, at least) worked better.
The two current cars in the family both have exactly the same bugs with their "collission warning" (and some unique ones). They both will consistently issue the RED-FLASH!+BEEP!!+BEEP!!+BRAKE (sometimes), when driving around a turn with a car or especially truck parked on the outside road shoulder. The car cannot figure out that I'm not going straight into the "obstacle", and so warns me. Too late for me to actually do anything about it if I were to actually be heading straight into the parked obstacle, but it goes right ahead. The only possible benefit is if it is also silently pre-tensioning the belts & priming the airbags, but it could do that without the histrionics.
Both cars also far too often will alert on mere cracks or patches in the road ahead, with no obstacles.
There are other times they mis-alert in their own ways or randomly, and it isn't often enough to dump the cars, but it is definitely bad. The warnings are also timed so as to be absolutely useless were it an actual emergency, and I say that as a qualified & championship-winning road-racing driver who has at least better than average situational awareness & reaction times. I can say absolutely that if this "warning system" were to be my first alert to an emergency, there is no way I could take effective action in time.
So I have no idea who are the clueless wankers designing and implementing it; it is evidently for only their own self-satisfaction to justify their existence. Sad.
Admittedly, I can be classified as one of those "Driver™" people (I've been to a track day with my previous car, for instance). But, here're a few examples of a system like this messing up in slow driving scenarios.
In a traditional European city with lots of tight, one-way streets, illegal side-walk parking on them, or short time window available to merge into congested traffic, I'm seeing my 2020 Volvo constantly complain thinking it's about to have a collision with a parked car as you drive around potholes (and point a car slightly to parked car's tail), or abruptly breaking as you slowly reverse back into street from a parking spot because of incoming traffic (eg. other driver behind in the street slowing down to let you merge but not fully stopping, a pedestrian anywhere in the ~8m radius regardless of the direction they are going, or "cross-traffic" coming from the other direction not crossing your lane). I get automated braking happen at least few times a month (I started ignoring collision warnings, so I have no idea how common they are), and I don't even drive that much (35kkm over 3+ years).
OTOH, I did see it react and break properly at exactly the same time as I pressed on the brake pedal when another car unexpectedly cut in front of my car 2 times over the last 3 years: so I appreciate the system being there and I hope it will react even if I am not attentive enough, and I am not looking to turn it off.
But is it annoying and overall stupid? Yes. Could other systems be much smarter than the one in my car? Oh, yes, and I hope they are!
> If you are regularly engaging the automatic braking or even warning, you and your driving habits really are the problem.
Nonsense. I live near a fenced parking lot next to a highway. When I gently back out of a spot at 2km/h, approaching the fence, my car slams on the brakes. Because a car is driving down the highway. Not toward me. Not on the shoulder. But almost two lanewidths away, and behind a fence.
No. I can't "slow down and leave adequate braking distance" to ameliorate this. I try to avoid that side of the lot, but sometimes I can't. I need to wait for a lull in traffic. Because the automatic system on my almost brand-new car is hot garbage.
When you're not renting them, the time spent learning how to use them is trivial compared to the time spend using them. A lot of those features are nice to have.
True, less an issue if you're the owner, and most can be turned off. And some of my comment is just me being baffled at the things people are ok with. Some people feel safer when the car brakes when it's X distance from one in front on a freeway, but a car not doing what I want to at all times freaks the hell out of me, even when it's fairly predictable.
But I still find there are still tons of issues. People also get used to some of the beeps and flashes and don't realize how it breaks their attention, or how long it takes to do simple stuff on a giant touch screen. And I don't want a giant center console screen on when I'm driving a night, but if that screen is the only way I can control, say, the temperature, well then I'll need to go through extra steps and extra distractions.
This. Any friction between the user and controls that affect safety is a serious flaw. Old cars don't make me look at a screen to make the window less foggy.
My 2019 Honda Accord doesn’t make me look at a screen to turn on defrost. But it does have a screen conveniently placed with directions and a map! And that screen reads my messages to me and even allows me to speak a response without ever taking my eyes off the road!
There are plenty of modern cars with a very pleasant mix of tactile controls for things like AC, radio, defrost, etc, while also having lane keep, cruise control auto distance thing, and a screen with a map. There’s a ton of new technology that I love in my newer car, and I’m very glad I’m not driving my crappy 2004 CRV anymore.
Edit: I forgot about the backup camera. The backup camera is also amazing. It gives me way more visibility then just trying to look out my window, and it gives me visibility if I’m parked between giant cars.
I don't disagree that modern features can be useful, nor do I disagree that some modern cars do it right. I'm saying that one car making the user say "pretty please" before disabling a distraction is one too many.
But here's the thing I don't get. People don't learn how to use them. They won't read the manuals or give a shit. You, reading the manual and learning the car, are the exception.
I can't count how many times I've ridden with someone in a new car, and they're like "I dunno..." Or I tell them about some feature they didn't even know the car had. It boggles my mind that you'd spend so much on some fancy vehicle and not try to get your money's worth.
I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but I read the manual for my car (it's next to my toilet) and have navigated through every configuration menu in the various consoles.
Even then I still had to watch a few videos to figure out how to change my charging rate. It was hidden behind a number of hard-to-find settings and is disabled (silently) in many car modes (basically you can only change it when you're in "car on but motors not running and not charging")
//People don't learn how to use them. They won't read the manuals or give a shit.
It's the psychological concept of "maximizing vs satisficing" The former means to squeeze out the most of some item/experience while the later means being totally good once a thing is "good enough." We maximize or satisfice on different topics.
So I read the manual and I know stuff about our car that my wife doesn't. But because the car is safe, fast, and comfortable - it's maxing our her pleasure even if she doesn't know that some setting exists.
I love your confidence :) The other dude already linked to the dictionary, I am just amused that it was easier for you to make up a mental model my thinking rather than right-click to learn a new word!
I might dive into the owners manual to make sure I know what grade of oil I need or for some specific need I have but I'm not going to sit down and read through an owners manual just so I can successfully operate a vehicle.
I have a license in my wallet that says I'm qualified to operate a vehicle.
Most people purchase vehicles to drive from point A to point B, sometimes with passengers. It's not that complicated.
I had a Saab 9-3 with Black Panel; it was awesome and I loved it. Basically when you pressed the Black Panel button on the dash every light inside the car and on the dash went out, except for the speedometer, and that only displayed the 'cake slice' with the needle in it (in approx 30mph slices). If you increased your speed into the next slice then that came on as well. If something like a low-fuel warning happened, then that light would come on as required. IIRC the radio controls stayed illuminated as well. It made for an amazingly immersive zero-distractions driving experience when driving country roads at night.
That Saab made 210k miles, a good part of the three-times-to-the-moon distance I've driven throughout my life.
If you understand what the car does and why, then you are fully able to set up up to your liking. And also, cars behavior ceases to be random. In any case, if that car is breaking for suddenly often, then it is either malfunctioning or the driver is driving excessively aggressively.
For what it’s worth, I actually appreciate most of the safety features on my 2021 Toyota Alphard.
The power sliding doors and rear gate move slowly, but not to the point I’ve ever found it annoying. With kids getting in and out, I wouldn’t want it to be any faster. And unlike in the article, they don’t stop until they actually encounter resistance - which worked fine the one time my kid closed the door on me when I was fetching something out of the back seat.
The proximity sensors do beep pretty loudly every time I get near an obstacle - which is frankly more often than not when parking, and my wife does find it pretty annoying. But it’s a large car, and visibility around the front and rear corners is not great - so I appreciate having an extra audio cue when I’m approaching an obstacle. Often my goal is to get as close as possible to said obstacle when parking (wall, fence, etc) - so my cue to stop is when it finally plays the long sustained beep to let me know that impact is imminent.
I’ve only had automatic breaking engage a few times. Mostly when I back into a parking space too fast and it thinks I’m going to crash - which is easy enough to avoid by going a bit slower. Once it engaged while I was stopped at a traffic light due to a massive downpour which I guess confused the proximity sensor. That was annoying, and could have been worse if I were actually moving, but I just turned it off with a button on the dashboard and carried on.
I find lane keeping assistance (which engages automatically with cruise control) to be incredibly useful on highways, and while it does get wonky sometimes in heavy snow or around construction sites, the car is pretty good about disengaging the feature automatically when it gets confused and makes a ding to let me know. At that point I’ll usually just turn it off manually with a button on the steering wheel until conditions improve. The article mentions needing to keep applying force to the steering wheel even when stopped, but my car doesn't require that.
There’s also a lane departure warning that engages if I cross over a lane divider without signaling first, which plays two short beeps and applies some force to the steering wheel. But easy enough to override if I continue applying force, and most of the time it’s my fault for not signaling properly anyway.
Doors do automatically lock themselves again after a while, but it’s nowhere close to 15 seconds like in the article. It’s maybe happened once or twice and no big deal to unlock again. On the other hand there have been times when I have unlocked my car because I wanted to grab something, and then got distracted and never actually visited it. In these cases I’m glad to have it lock itself again vs. remaining unlocked for several hours.
My car does play a chime at startup, but it’s not unpleasant, and I’m so used to my now that I have stopped noticing it.
I don't have tire pressure sensors - but my mother had a car with this feature many years ago and they were indeed prone to false alarms. She took it to the dealer several times to fix it, and the dealer pretty much acknowleged that they were garbage. Not sure if she ever got it fixed permanently or just learned to ignore it.
Anyway - I know that a lot of this stuff varies by manufacturer and model, so I’m not saying my experience is universal. But for anyone asking who actually appreciates this stuff - I do. Staying safe is really important to me, and whatever annoyance the safety systems in my car cause is easily offset by their benefit. I certainly wouldn’t want to go back in time to before safety assistance features existed.
When I needed a car two years ago I purposefully looked for one that didn't even have a full screen, figured all those annoyances would be reduced that way (which probably annoy me even more than the OP). The radio/infotainment does have bluetooth and an aux port, but just a simple two-line digital display, perfect for my needs as someone who thinks showing album art to a driver should be illegal. The car ended up being a stick shift, which I had never driven before so I had to get a friend to pick it up for me and teach me how to drive it. So worth it though: made me a better driver and now I actually enjoy being engaged while driving.