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I had similar experiences with a modern Volvo. (XC40 T8 EV). Modern cars seem to be absolutely terrible. It's like all those Single Page Applications on the we

• 4ndrewl 2y ago
  "Modern cars seem to be absolutely terrible.” Agree. OP should have just bought a 10yo Corolla.
  • praptak 2y ago
    I drive a 3yo Corolla. While it does have the touch screen, it also has physical buttons both on the steering wheel and on the panel. Well, the volume knob for the car audio, while physical, is actually digital so it's uncomfortably laggy. I only use the touch screen to interact with the navigation (it integrates with Android via USB).
  • lostlogin 2y ago
    They just don’t die. My 16 year old one seemed end of life 10 years ago and when I holed the sump, I was resigned to getting it wrecked. After driving it for a few months it didn’t die so I took it to a mechanic. I got told off for my dry sump technique and told not to do it again. It got a new pan and some oil, that was it. It’s done 5 or so years of light service since. It’s been stolen, carried masses of firewood, too many dogs and too much concrete. Great car.
    • rightbyte 2y ago
      Heh ye I would also be a bit moody as a mechanic if someone gave up over such a simple repair and kinda did 10 year of motor wear in 4 trips. To your defence it is kinda hard to know what problems are simple problems.
    • hagbard_c 2y ago
      Next time just glue a piece of aluminium on the inside of the old sump with JB Weld or a similar type of heat-resistant epoxy. Been there done that after my wife holed a few too many sumps by driving her Skoda over overly high obstacles. The first time she did this I could follow her track in the tractor to where she parked the car for me to tow it homes, the other times were out in the bush - she's a veterinarian which takes her to places where roads are afterthoughts. I just swapped between sumps, repairing the freshly broken one in wait for another turn. That car has been sold and she has not yet managed to hole the current one but I know from experience this works just fine.
      • sevensor 2y ago
        Is there anything you can’t fix with JB weld? The stuff is amazing.
    • dzhiurgis 2y ago
      > They just don’t die Because they only have features of 90s car, not 2020s car. It's just shockingly bare. A lot of times coupled with dull drivers so must be some confirmation bias too.
  • flobosg 2y ago
    My mother used to drive a 1989 Corolla until 2005, when she bought another Corolla. Both are working without issues to this day.
    • 4ndrewl 2y ago
      You mean she's not had to, checks notes, "upgrade the operating system" in all that time? /s
  • verzali 2y ago
    I mean, my 9 year old Clio drives fine with pretty basic software. Whereas when I see a Tesla on the road I try not to get too close out of fear it will do something random and dangerous.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • awalsh128 2y ago
    It sort of feels like Internet connected toasters. If the add-on fails, I'd like to still toast my bread (read drive my car).
• Cumpiler69 2y ago
  [dead]
• evrenesat 2y ago
  I think google's prev ceo once said something like, "Computers should have been invented before cars". They took it wrong, computerizing cars before reaching level 5 automony was a mistake.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• n_plus_1_acc 2y ago
  Try Lexus
  • bdavbdav 2y ago
    They’re primarily US market cars, they just BONG all the time instead!
  • WhipeeDip 2y ago
    I test drove a Lexus NX350h and RX350h not too long ago, and modern Lexus cars also have an issue of taking fancy tech too far: - By far the worst part of the current Lexus design is the steering wheel controls. Instead of physical buttons dedicated to one function, you get two four-way touchpads on the steering wheel. They don't have a fixed function since they can be customized and have two "pages" each - you have to look at the HUD to see what function they're mapped to. Even if you know what they're mapped to ahead of time, you still have to touch the controls to "wake" them up on the HUD and can't simply just click the button. It's a complete hassle if you want to skip a song or adjust cruise control speed. - The climate controls are almost entirely touchscreen based. The temperature controls have a knob but they're quite mushy and don't have well defined steps. - The doors are no longer physically controlled inside or outside, but instead are electronically controlled with buttons since this is linked to safety sensors to prevent someone from opening a door in front of a car. I honestly think the door controls are fine, but this is something that pretty much every review complains about. On the other hand, regular new Toyota models don't have the above issues. Camry, Crown, etc. all have physical steering wheel buttons and climate controls.
• InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  All software is like its makers full of attention-whoring. Its a nasty side-effect of the "identify with your work" ethics. Thus i propose a new job, the ux-castrator. His only job, is to traverse the software and excise out tumorous attention hogging growths and limitations based upon thee. Back to the chasm from which you came daemon, for the user needs not see you, know you, be aware of you and your works. You are a cog and until needed by your use-case, a invisible cog add infinitum. Not a bringer of gifts, not a master-of-metrics, no, bound to the circle of usefulness for all eternity and all the dark patterns shall not have you escape the runes.
  • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
    UX Castrator - i love it :) I'll try to give myself that role
  • rzzzt 2y ago
    The "Use feature ABC? Yes/Not now" dialog that shows up day by day until users click "Yes" increased usage of ABC by a significant amount!
    • InDubioProRubio 2y ago
      Chat GPT i want you to play user on any App i start, click all the dark pattern buttons and notifications. Pretend to be interested. Fill out the surveys. Then present the app without the cruft.
    • mrguyorama 2y ago
      Speaking of which, so many people here were wondering what specific shenanigans Google was getting at with forcing Gemini into google workspaces. Well then they go on a superbowl ad and brag about "millions of people using Gemini" Ladies and Gentlemen: You ever fake metrics for a commercial? I haven't.
      • sidibe 2y ago
        I doubt it's tied to the commercial "millions" is probably easily met through the search blurb "AI overviews" or people who have accepted it on their phones or google homes
• Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  There was a good (?) video on the subject the other day, it was mainly about Volkswagen / VAG but highlighted the software problem. Cars are / were basically Frankenstein monsters under the hood, with dozens of onboard computers / chips all needing to work independently yet collaboratively and talk to each other. VW set up a new subsidiary and hired 3000 people to build the car software system of the future, reducing the 70-odd computers to 3 or so. But we all know software, it uh, didn't go as planned. Anyway, iirc Toyota or Mazda, one of them, was at the forefront of bringing regular buttons back to cars. And I hope there's going to be new car companies that iterate on the thing again and build simpler cars again. It should be a lot cheaper too, because it feels like they bolt on more and more electronic features to try and upsell the car. Building a car with the features and numbers of 30, 40 years ago should be doable at a fraction of the cost. And that development is coming actually, but it's coming from the likes of China and India. It's not profitable to bring them to the west though.
  • delta_p_delta_x 2y ago
    The BMW G20 3-series before and after the facelift[1] perfectly exemplifies this issue. [1]: https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/bmw-3-series-photo-comparison-12.jpg https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/bmw-3-ser... EDIT: top is after, bottom is before.
    • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
      I'd take the bottom picture any day. Is that the newer or older one? Although the LED strips are stupid. The top pic I saw in the showroom and I really didn't like it.
      • eb0la 2y ago
        In the name of $DEITY: WHY? I would pick without thinking the car without the child tablet attached to it, too. We will be forced to switch to this kind of stupid cars by regulation, or planned obsolescence, not by choice.
• PeeMcGee 2y ago
  The cold weather alert especially gets on my nerves. I appreciate the heads up, but I don't appreciate the HUD crying wolf about stuff that doesn't require my immediate attention.
  • cjrp 2y ago
    This is my biggest bugbear with VW (and related) cars. The "it's below 4ºc" message has the same warning tone as messages about tyre pressures, engine malfunctions, etc.
    • necovek 2y ago
      I'd be more worried that you already know how an engine malfunction alert sounds like!
      • cjrp 2y ago
        Oh I'm very familiar, I've not had a good experience with my Skoda Karoq!
    • jamincan 2y ago
      Mine is the "grab your steering wheel" alert when the lane-keep assist does too good of a job staying in the lane and it doesn't receive any steering input from me for too long of a period. I do have to say that after test-driving a number of different vehicles before buying my Taos last summer, that I appreciate that VW continues to use real buttons for most inputs - although I do understand a number of their other vehicles use capacitive touch buttons.
  • moogly 2y ago
    Drives me nuts. It's so loud in my Mazda. Oh, and in the winter, if the front sensors are iced over, it has the worst ear-stabbing incessant EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... sound at low speeds until I go out and fix it. I have not found any other way to shut it up. It might be at high speeds too, because it is so awful that I cannot not go out and fix it, so I'm not sure. Luckily it hasn't happened yet where I couldn't stop somewhere.
• gambiting 2y ago
  >>(XC40 T8 EV). Such model doesn't exist. Do you mean XC60? And if so then it's not an EV, it's a PHEV. Anyway, Volvo made a collosal mistake of going with the Android Automotive operating system. It looks good but it's genuienly a pile of steaming crap. When Volvo had Sensus(their own OS) yeah it wasn't pretty but it was stable and it worked day in day out. I have a 2020 XC60 T8 with sensus and I literally have had zero issues with this car. But the new AOSS models? Oh boy, the main advice on facebook Volvo groups is to just start your drive by hard resetting the system to avoid freezes during operation(!!!!!). If you don't have GSM signal you don't get maps since the car doesn't store them locally anymore. The cars randomly lose cameras, sound stops working until full reboot, and whenever there is an OS upgrade(which is often) you have to roll the dice on what else it's going to break today. >>I just want a luxury car that is grand, silent, feels nice, is nice to drive, and doesn't blast my eyes with screens. Honestly find the same car but with Sensus instead, you will find the experience a lot more like what you're looking for.
  • randunel 2y ago
    XC40 was renamed to EX40 in 2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_XC40 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_XC40.
    • gambiting 2y ago
      There is an EX40, that's the EV model. But the XC40 still continues to be sold: https://www.volvocars.com/uk/cars/xc40/ https://www.volvocars.com/uk/cars/xc40/
      • randunel 2y ago
        The wikipedia link literally quotes: > In 2024, Volvo renamed the battery electric XC40 to the Volvo EX40, aligning it with newer battery electric models such as the EX30 and the EX90. Which makes me think Volvo sold their cars with the old name but other engine options, electric being one of them. They split "XC40" into "XC40 (ICE)" and "EX40 (BEV)".
  • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
• cess11 2y ago
  I spent 2 * 1 hours in a 'fresh' car some time ago, it was a nasty experience. It had all these 'backseat driver' functions, like trying to figure out and then misjudging somehow what the speed limit currently was or trying to influence where on the road I place the car, as if it could know better than I do what would be appropriate. The 'lane assist' was just absurdly awful, it only figured out where the car was sometimes, when it could 'see' the line on the edge of the road clearly enough for long enough, and then pushed away from it under the assumption that I don't have a precision of a few centimeters in relation to it. So once it suddenly pushed the car closer to a heavy truck during an overtaking. And it's not needed, since the edge lines are rumble strips or you feel the tire slip off the asphalt into gravel. It was also obvious that the screen in the middle section ('infotainment'? idk.) was designed by a junior on a huge monitor sitting right in front of them, because the clock was really small and in the upper right corner. Took me a minute to figure out how to make it stop incessantly send out visual noise about what was on some radio channel even though I had stopped the playback from it. It's for good reason many cars has dark orange LCD and not bright off-white on light blue gradients, for one it's a nuisance when the light outdoors is dusky or misty. This was an Opel, don't remember which one. Next time I hand in my friendly relatively low-tech car from 2006 for repairs I'll bring a friend to drive me instead of borrowing another one of these disgusting Scrum cars.
  • yourusername 2y ago
    >like trying to figure out and then misjudging somehow what the speed limit currently was or trying to influence where on the road I place the car, as if it could know better than I do what would be appropriate. These "features" are now mandatory in the EU so you can look forward to a lot more cars implementing them as they try to sell global cars.
    • cess11 2y ago
      Where I live it's a common hobby to tune and style cars, so I'm hoping these people will have figured out how to make future cars tolerable when I'm forced to move off the old school machines. Maybe it'll be possible to switch out the ICE for another powertrain, without at least some of the annoying christmas lights.
• mirsadm 2y ago
  I have the same car and the thing I like most about it is that it doesn't have a giant screen and looks more like a traditional car. I can't say I've had the same issues (or any issues besides the slow infotainment system). I do agree that the amount of notifications are excessive but that seems to be the case with all newer cars.
• roland35 2y ago
  It all doesn't quite work well enough to justify all the new tech. My 7 year old car is pretty good, it has a small 8 inch screen which does car play/android auto and has nice buttons and dials for all controls. No distractions!
• oblio 2y ago
  > It then gave me 2 notifications about some assist features not working and rear warning not working or something, idk. It told you the blind spot indicator isn't working anymore which is relevant safety information.
• voidUpdate 2y ago
  If I was to buy a car these days (which I'm not, I don't have nearly enough money for that), I'd want something with as little "computer" in it as possible. Just a box with 4 wheels and an engine, or maybe a battery and a motor, maybe a heater for when it gets a bit cold, and I'll throw a bluetooth speaker in the back seat if I need something to listen to
  • rightbyte 2y ago
    It feels a bit counterintuitive to go for a Bluetooth speaker over 3.5mm? Your low tech car will feel like a emotional prison. Of all the annoying modernities you want the worst one? If you want to make a deal with the devil I would choose rear camera. Think about it. All the headache and time to pair Bluetooth devices over a dead simple connector. I would aim for a pre 2016 car. I think that has some margin to the Internet of Shit product lines?
    • viceroyalbean 2y ago
      I would prefer 3.5mm over Bluetooth, but keep in mind most people get their music off their phones and (almost?) no modern phones have headphone jacks. Dongles are a thing, but meh. Additionally, modern Bluetooth devices have very little friction in my experience.
      • masklinn 2y ago
        > Dongles are a thing, but meh. A USB to jack left fixed in the car is not much of an imposition. Even less so if it can be combined with a 12V adapter for charging.
      • rightbyte 2y ago
        Ye. Many modern phones are *@*$ too. My wife is still bitter about not having a 3.5mm jack on hers she unknowingly bought 5 years ago. So much trouble ... However if more than one person will use the car (incl. as passanger) the annoyance of Bluetooth is even worse. We have a dongle in the car that is protected by a sworn oath to never be removed from the cabinet along with some charger cables.
• TiredOfLife 2y ago
  Didn't you get the memo. Only Tesla can be bad.
• sandworm101 2y ago
  > just want a luxury car that is grand, silent, feels nice, is nice to drive, and doesn't blast my eyes with screens. '92 BMW 325IS. Coupe. Strait-six. RWD. 5-speed Manual. Cornered like on rails. Never once suprised me with a random shift at a dangerous moment. Had a great little trip computer. No screens. No bluetooth. About 7L/100km. I took it skiing. I took it rock climbing. It drove me to my exams. It drove me to my first real job. I slept in it more than want to admit. It had 320,000km on the clock when i had to sell it. It was full of little optimizations, like how in fifth the speedo and tac would match each other. Or how the center console was angled about 25 degrees towards the driver so all the buttons were equidistant. Or how the armrest perfectly matched the shifter and the stiching on the steering wheel was positioned to give grip in the thumb hooks. Biult in germany, the dash was so simplified that it didnt have mph on the speedo, nor did it even have the letters "kph" or "rpm"... just numbers on a black background. If you need to be told which is which, you dont deserve to be driving such a car. If you are listening BMW: I would pay a premium for a new biuld of that car. Everything i see at your dealerships, all your plastic cars, are total junk.
  • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
    The 94' 316i was my first car! Loved it.
  • tim333 2y ago
    Of course you get some issues with 33 year old cars. I let my 31 year old mx5 go but slightly regret it - it needed ~£3000 spent to renovate but then they keep their value as classics. Getting replacement parts can start getting tricky.
    • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
      Hah, did it fall apart from rust?
      • tim333 2y ago
        Well, not exactly fall apart but there were rust holes you could see through. It would have needed at least some welding to get through the mot and ideally a fair bit of bodywork stripped back and replaced.
• FpUser 2y ago
  >"It's like all those Single Page Applications on the web that are just downgrades over the classic Server-Side Rendered apps. Sure, you have more features, but at what cost? Reliability." Except the cases where there is a need to support some ancient / exotic browser this is total BS. There is no special sauce in SPA that makes it less reliable contrary vs backend rendered.
  • DanielHB 2y ago
    People tend to forget all the god awful server-side PHP/JSP/ASP slop of back in the day. I dunno, to me those days felt worse than today. But yeah, bad software is bad no matter the tech used.
    • stackedinserter 2y ago
      I wish people opened their router UI more often to cure nostalgia.
      • DanielHB 2y ago
        If anything the current JS-centric world view at least puts someone in charge of the "user-facing" parts. Before you had all these backend-focused people who despised building HTML pages in charge of user experience. You know the kind of people who think the user is the database not the actual users.
• amelius 2y ago
  > Modern cars seem to be absolutely terrible. At least it doesn't steal your personal data like Smart TVs do.
  • everdrive 2y ago
    Assuming this is sarcastic, since modern cars famously _do_ steal your data.
  • batch12 2y ago
    Absolutely they do https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-09/car-brands-are-tracking-and-sharing-your-data-with-third-parties/104440742 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-09/car-brands-ar...
• Refusing23 2y ago
  my 2015 suzuki is pretty analog, apart from its android auto feature
• randomcarbloke 2y ago
  Ineos Grenadier, they make them like cars used to be made with real buttons and stuff.
• 11mariom 2y ago
  I have SOS Inoperative in car. Contacted the dealer, it seems like it can be software issue - where update will fix it… But I have to pay for it. Pay for a software bug! For me it's just another stupid notification to close after getting in car, just after "no seat belts fastened in rear" - yeah, 'coz nobody here! Giving me notification about unnecessary things, but when one module failed and got car in limp mode - nothing showed, I was just shocked when car couldn't accelerate as expected… during overtake. Yeah, safety.
• hulitu 2y ago
  > And some of these notifications block the navigation and require interaction to close. While driving! /rant For some reason, some idiots, piece of crap human beings, think that it is ok to bombard you with notifications, with no way to make them go away. It is everywhere: on phones, on TVs, on cars. Dear SW coders, please, read human interface guidelines from Apple from 20 years ago and X user interface guidlines. Do not draw transient windows without an OK or Cancel button. /end rant