Some say life is to be enjoyed, some say it is to be endured, some say it is a combination of both. It is the same with your vehicle, yes? Some companies are particularly overzealous with the “improvements” - or complicating things that worked fine as they were and were better left alone. The following is a list of features I personally find annoying/detestable on 2022 vehicles, and I’m betting you do, too.
Incomprehensible nav/climate/audio touchscreen systems.
You know who makes the simplest, easy-to-use systems? Dodge and Toyota. You sit down, you sync your phone 1,2,3, you find a radio station, comedian or a book-on-tape you want to listen to, and you’re off.
You know who makes the most needlessly complicated, worthy-of-a-baseball bat system? Lexus, who just launched their redesigned system, replacing their terrible, over-sensitive mouse pad with an almost equally labyrinthine mess which, after spending 15 minutes trying and failing to get it to do what I wanted it to do, I just gave up on.
Mechanisms preventing you from accelerating a tad with a door open
Do you have a tight parking space? Do you occasionally open your door to visually see how close your bumper is to the wall in front of you, so you can inch forward? How about if you’d like to even out your vehicle in between two painted lines, using your eyes as you straighten the car? It’s a pleasure to do a nice parking job, isn’t it? Don’t you sometimes look back at your car and admire your “work?”
That’s out in many vehicles. If you open the door and press the accelerator an 8th of an inch the car will stop with a big jerk. (Not you.) The industry’s stance seems to be “We KNOW you’re going to strike a child, even at less than 1 MPH, so, nope! You’re not going anywhere unless your door is closed.”
Sensors that go nuts when there isn’t any danger, and you can’t shut them off.
I told you guys about this last year. Sensors preventing you from dinging your ride are a great thing - but you should be able to shut them off if you’re going a snail’s pace down a skinny driveway and there is absolutely no danger you will scrape or dent anything or anybody. Bonus gripe: Sensors which, when they get full of snow and ice, “think” there’s an object in front or behind the car, and brake, or sound the alarm.
Voice command controls that don’t understand you no matter how slowly and clearly you speak.
It goes like this:
“Call Jenny Smith,” I say to my voice command mechanism.
“Playing ‘Sweet Home Alabama.”
“No. Call. Jenny. Smith.”
“Searching for 123 Main Street.”
“NO! CALL! JENNY! SMITH!”
“Playing John Philip Sousa’s ‘Stars And Stripes Forever.”
“Your mother wears Army boots!”
“Calling Jenny Smith.”
Automatic rear braking that deploys when there isn’t anything behind you.
Nobody wants to hit anything, particularly a living creature. That’s why you look in your rear-view mirror, check the camera, then make a visual inspection of what might possibly be behind your vehicle. Nothing! So you start to back up and BAM! The vehicle applies the brakes with full force, scaring the crap out of you...and there’s nothing behind you.
