Pointless shite features

[JohnDeere]

Pointless car features.  No, not EPBs, DMFs, DPFs, EGRs... but the wackier fitments that shite-makers have added over the years.  Here's a few I thought of on the M1 this evening.  I'm sure you can think of more...

 

The Mk3 Scrote audio joystick.  Lovingly remembered on a rusty-as-hell B-reg diesel pool car.  Endless seconds of fun moving the crackly sound from the AM radio / stereo cassette from left to right, front to back.  Sitting next to the oh-so-desirable, and rather more useful Fisher C-box cassette holder.

 

 

Next, 1100 Vanden Plas picnic tables.  And their modern Mummobile Scenasso plastic equivalents.  Did anyone ever eat a picnic sitting in the back seat of an 1100?  How many people suffered fatal internal injures after flying into the opened table, unbelted, following a minor shunt?

 

 

Just as handy for the picnic - the Conran bag that fits into the original Disco 1 interior.  Did anyone ever actually take this in and out of the car?

 

 

Finally, for now - need I say more?

 

[urpert]

We did once use the picnic tables in our Mk1 Scenic, sitting in a hypermarket car park in a rainy Strasbourg. (It was the driest place to be on a campingshite holiday.)

 

The problem is that there are three equally sized seats in the back, so the tables don't remotely line up with the rear seats. (Other Scenicshite I have owned confirms that this is the case with more recent models too.)

[Timewaster]

Same with the Galaxy. Sat in the middle? Tough titty sunshine, it's lunchbox on your knees for you!

 

I think the drivers seat swivels for picnics or high pressure business meetings, I've never actually tried.

[kinkersaab]

 

Wtf were they thinking?

[Hendry]

Is there not a Jap car, possibly the first gen Toyota Avensis which has a "curry hook" on the drivers side of the dash? Great idea in the Almera on the passenger side so your takeaway can sit in the passenger footwell without tipping everywhere but pointless on the drivers side.

 

"Map pockets" on the back of the front seats of some cars, maybe of use to some people but can't think what for, certainly not for storing maps.

 

Cars with (2011 Kia Rio I'm looking at you here) a vanity mirror on the drivers sunvisor which doesn't have a cover.

 

And another I just discovered recently, on a Ford Smax I think, to get the front windscreen washers to come on you pull the wiper stalk towards you, but there's an additional button on the end of the wiper stalk which also puts the front washers on too and that's all it does, even the handbook says its basically a duplicate, why engineer a stalk with 2 ways to perform the same function?

 

Some modern Volvos with "BLIS" is a little light on the door mirror interior tweeter cover which lights up red when there's a car in your blind spot, good idea in theory except it doesn't work, it comes on when there's no cars in your blind spot, the only car other than you on the road is visible in your mirror and has been since before the light came on.

 

Vauxhalls with a "phone" button on the stereo but aren't equipped with bluetooth and all the phone button does is mutes the audio, fair enough they are clearly trying to save money by having the same radio unit regardless of the trim level but take a leaf out of Fords book, car with bluetooth has same unit as car without but without phone button.

 

Can think of loads tbh on modern cars but I'd be here all week listing the stupid features some of them have.

[Bren]

Underseal on a ford ka.

[Spiny Norman]

My long standing grump is one shot electric windows. I like driving with the window about an inch down, but trying to get that kind of space in a lot of cars is an exercise in frustration. The Dae-who, in typically far eastern form still has window winders in perfect working order, and in about two seconds the whole glass has disappeared into the door and I have to wind it back up again.

 

I often think these 'convenience' features are anything but.

[stuboy]

armrest... on drivers seats, i find they get in the way!!

[robinmasters]

...one shot electric windows....

 

You drive towards the barrier/ticket machine/toll both. You know it's coming, and there's either no-one in front of you or a queue that you have to stop in. Plenty of time to prepare.

 

Out of the other side you're either straight into a main road, or one of eleventy lanes which merge into two. A horrible, rushed panic.

 

So why do so many one-touch windows only work going down?

[Stroller133]

 

My daughter ate a McDonalds the other week in the back of our C-max and it worked quite well.

[Richard]

Twin headlamps that aren't. Why take an H4 headlamp with a large reflector and 60W main beam and cut it in half to make two headlamps with small reflectors and a 55W main beam. Even 40/45W sealed beams do a better job of lighting the way. 

 

Courtesy light delay when you open the door. In what circumstances would you not want your courtesy light to come on right away when you open the door? It just gave me the same sinking feeling I got on older shitters where the courtesy lights didn't work for some reason.

 

Electric sunroofs on SAAB 900s. The manual version was much quicker and easier to use.

 

Front fog lamps.

 

One on more modern cars- power fold mirrors that are just as wide when they are folded so they are just as likely to get hit but there's no give in them if they do.

[twosmoke300]

Bmw folding mirrors seem to be like that. They pivot up rather than in. Just a gimmic for the flash types that have newer beemers I suppose. Bet they are not so flash when they have to buy one.

[Ratdat]

One of my favourite pointless features is on the first gen Suzuki Wagon R....

 

 

 

 

A useless, daft shaped shopping basket! You're gonna look a right twat walking round the shops carrying that!

[Albert Ross]

The Volvo BLIS mirrors work very well in mine. Certainly on a rainy M1 when a biker with no lights on, clad in black, is filtering at about 50-60mph, just when you're thinking of overtaking the truck doing 40. It saved the biker's life that day. Pity he never thought to help himself though.

 

Split fold rear seats.... In current model estate cars. All set up for LHD. The big one you want to drop, to carry one passenger, fouls the back of the driver's seat, meaning you have to faff with the driving position. All ok in LHD, as that would be the passenger seat. See also fold-flat front passenger seats. Great, if combined with the split fold rear seat the same side.... again, would work well in LHD.

 

Current model Astra Auto. Gear selected display on dash, great. On the gear lever surround, not so. Also for LHD. The lever obscures the display in RHD.

[inconsistant]

^^^ Youre doing it wrong... that Suzuki seat isn't a shopping basket it's a commode

[Paul Dupart]

Drinks holders anywhere along the centre console, always get in the way of your elbow when changing gear.

 

And the automatic three flashes you now get when you accidentally knock the indicator stalk, so you quickly click the stalk the other way in an attempt to cancel.......

 

And rev counters, ok for setting tick over in the good old days of carbs but just cosmetic now, give us a decent big analogue clock instead!

 

Sun visors that hinge round to the side window - anyone actually ever used them like this?

 

Rant over! 

[rml2345]

I've never understood the swivelling sun visor either.

Two trip counters on the Toyota Yaris. Why?!

Also, any door pocket that's too shallow or difficult to actually put things in. I'm looking at you, Volvo.

[HillmanImp]

I sometimes use the sun visor like that. I also have been known to keep a map in the map pockets until recently (I use my phone now) but would if I was driving a long way.

 

Maybe I am odd.

 

On the birds Mazda 2 they seem to have an engine cold light instead of a temperature gauge? Why, I know the engine is cold I have just set off and then it just dissapears. Okay, maybe I should be driving slower or something to conserve fuel but who does? I assume it would go red if it overheated which leads me onto my Visa, which does not have a temperature gauge either but a light which apparently comes on telling you when its overheating. Having driven Imps for so long, this does not sit well with me and I spend most of my time when sat in traffic sweating my bollox off with the heaters on full despite it being hotter than Natalie Dormer outside, in order to stop the overheating before it happens. Need to fit a gauge as I really cant cope with not having one.

[M'coli]

I use the swivel-round sunvisors like that frequently, it's a feature that I miss if a car doesn't have them.

[face]

Yeah me too ^^

[Junkman]

Indicators.

What useless tosh. Nobody ever uses them.

 

Speedometer.

Only proves how pointless speed limits are.

 

Ashtrays.

Everyone tosses his rubbish out of the window anyway.

[Sloth in a bowl]

On rev counters: I like them, though my Uno had an odd change up indicator. I had fixed the exhaust by strapping it to the underside of the car with a wire coat hanger so when the engine revs got to the right point it would vibrate on the underside of the car and I would change up. To this day I have no idea what that engine speed was.

 

On flappy visors: I like them too very useful on evening runs on the M5, the alternative is wrap around sunglasses and that's not a look I'm prepared to go for.

 

Re Map Pockets on the back of seats. What I like to do is be approaching a roundabout, realising I don't now which way to go and instinctivly reaching for the map pocket with my left hand while getting that dawning horror that the hand that is now elbow deep in a pocket of miss marple books on tape and mint humbugs should be changing gear RIGHT NOW.

[Mr Livered]

And rev counters, ok for setting tick over in the good old days of carbs but just cosmetic now, give us a decent big analogue clock instead!

 

Sun visors that hinge round to the side window - anyone actually ever used them like this?

 

Like others, I do like to swivel when it's sunny to the right.

 

Rev counters I agree aren't entirely necessary, but "pointless" is possibly over-egging it a bit. A middle-aged lady of my acquaintance recently told me that she had been trying to drive her son's car but ran into problems because it had no rev counter. "How are you supposed to know when to change gear?" she asked.

 

Further investigation revealed that ever since she started driving (which I expect is 20 years ago or so), every gearchange has been done at what she understands to be an appropriate moment in terms of engine speed. If she's accelerating, she said, it's important to change gear "at 4".

[twosmoke300]

Saab 9-5's have 2 sunvisors per side so you can have you down the side window and still have one infront of you.

[castros_bro]

Accelerator pedal on an AX 1.4 Diesel... never seems to do anything when pushed

[JohnDeere]

One of my favourite pointless features is on the first gen Suzuki Wagon R....

 

 

A useless, daft shaped shopping basket! You're gonna look a right twat walking round the shops carry that!

 

That Suzuki slops bucket is my favourite so far.  I have a confession to make.  I rather like the EPB in my Disco.  It puts itself on and off automatically, which is great.  I'll enjoy it till it breaks down expensively and inconveniently.

[mat_the_cat]

Any touch screen that requires you to use it whilst moving. I like all my controls to be identifiable by touch, both for what they are and also when I've moved the switch. The idea of having something you have to look at to press, and to keep looking at to see whether it's accepted your press, seems daft to me.

 

It makes sense on a sat nav, but you don't have to use that while moving. But I've seen cars where the whole audio system is driven in this way, and the temptation to take your eyes and concentration from the road is surely a concern for the designer?

[Pete-M]

Peugeot 604 curved seat rails.

Peugeot 604 curry hook.

Mazda 626 folding passenger seat

[Negative Creep]

The little LED in the key barrel of some Jap cars. Supposedly to help you find it at night, but you have to lift up the handle for it to light up, and such would be so close it's impossible to miss.

 

 

 

Also the rheostat on any instrument panel. Under what circumstances do you need the speedo to be slightly dimmer?

[derskine]

Renault 18 econometer - doesn't make a difference it still does shit mileage!

 

Note: The one in the diesel doesn't work.