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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 tu

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.

stronglikedan 3y ago
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.
- garciansmith 3y ago
  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.
  - throwaway092323 3y ago
    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.
    - _gabe_ 3y ago
      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.
      - throwaway092323 3y ago
        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.
- olyjohn 3y ago
  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.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    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")
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    //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.
    - emberfiend 3y ago
      satisfice isn't a word fyi I think you might be conflating "satisfy" (as in "that satisfies my needs") with "suffice" (as in "that's good enough, it suffices for my purposes").
      - jstanley 3y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing
callalex 3y ago
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.
- zbrozek 3y ago
  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.
  - callalex 3y ago
    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.
    - zbrozek 3y ago
      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.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Sticker in a strategic spot?
leetcrew 3y ago
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.
- woobar 3y ago
  > I'm guessing bmw's hands are tied on that one 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.
  - aqfamnzc 3y ago
    What do you mean by coding?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Flash or NVRAM configuration change using some CAN bus software (often manufacturer specific).
    - woobar 3y ago
      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. [1] https://bimmercode.app/ https://bimmercode.app/
freetime2 3y ago
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.
watwut 3y ago
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.
KineticLensman 3y ago
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.

stronglikedan 3y ago

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.

garciansmith 3y ago
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.
- throwaway092323 3y ago
  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.
  - _gabe_ 3y ago
    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.
    - throwaway092323 3y ago
      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.
olyjohn 3y ago
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.
- dekhn 3y ago
  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")
- xyzelement 3y ago
  //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.
  - emberfiend 3y ago
    satisfice isn't a word fyi I think you might be conflating "satisfy" (as in "that satisfies my needs") with "suffice" (as in "that's good enough, it suffices for my purposes").
    - jstanley 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

callalex 3y ago

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.

zbrozek 3y ago
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.
- callalex 3y ago
  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.
  - zbrozek 3y ago
    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.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Sticker in a strategic spot?

leetcrew 3y ago

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.

woobar 3y ago
> I'm guessing bmw's hands are tied on that one 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.
- aqfamnzc 3y ago
  What do you mean by coding?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Flash or NVRAM configuration change using some CAN bus software (often manufacturer specific).
  - woobar 3y ago
    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. [1] https://bimmercode.app/ https://bimmercode.app/

freetime2 3y ago

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.

watwut 3y ago

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.

KineticLensman 3y ago

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.