In general, what do you most dislike about modern cars?

[Timewaster]

I don't have a problem with stop/start. It works fine.

And if it doesn't I don't care because it's a company car and I will be paid to sit and wait for the aa to come and get it it.

Not sure is want it on my own car though.

 

And electric handbrakes. Just No.

[Pillock]

I like start-stop. I reckon navigating through a city to get somewhere for 8.30am, as I often do, it adds 4-5mpg to my car. Filling up twice a week with 9 gallons, that's another 90 miles, or 1.5 gallons a week saved - £7.50 a week. £370-odd quid a year saved.

 

I get quite frustrated when the system decides it doesn't want to work - normally when it's due a DPF regen.

[HH-R]

Only used Fiat and PSA's stop start but it seems OK - engine only goes off when it's in neutral and you take your foot off the clutch. Not my vehicles either so no battery or starter wear to worry about.

 

TBH it doesn't work most of the time anyway because they only go a few miles at a time and the battery doesn't get enough of a charge.

[HH-R]

I don't understand the feeling of not knowing what the wheels are doing with PAS. I've had cars with hydraulic, electric and no PAS, the Fiats with EPAS are so light that you could steer with the hairs on your head, but know exactly what its grip limits were - you'd have your arse in the driver's door pocket or a handbrake lever up it and one of the door mirrors just about scraping the ground before any grip limits were ever reached.

 

Ditto electronic throttles - we're talking about milliseconds, if it is noticeable at all.

 

To bring it back on topic, I drove my parents' Colt today, and having to lean over to the passenger side of the car and duck down/lift yourself up to make sure you're not going to wipe someone out on mini roundabouts is most unpleasant.

[Pillock]

I preferred the Peugeot Start-Stop as they have EPAS, so the engine will cut out if you're rolling below 9mph or something. There's a long stretch of road that queues down to the motorway in the morning, if I keep my eye on the speedo and lightly touch the brakes when I get to 8mph I can make it about 3/4ths of a mile with the engine off.

The Vauxhall one doesn't cut out until you're pretty much doing zero miles per hour, as it has hydraulic PAS so the steering goes mega-heavy on 215-section tyres (SRSLY, on a 1.6 diesel) when the engine stops. I can see why they do it, if it cut out as you were gliding into a gap in traffic you'd suddenly need to be the Hulk to move the car. Weirdly though I thought VX were one of the pioneers of EPAS on the Corsa, that's why all the kit car builders love the rack off a nice Corsa B.

[gordonbennet]

Strangeangel wrote

 

"Ride quality is appalling - the suspension is rock hard and it's fitted with those stupid low profile rubber band tyres. Why on earth does a shopping car need these? Or half the other crap that's fitted to it, like the button that turns off the traction control off? I didn't know what that was, so I Googled it and came to the conclusion that there would be no possible reason to ever turn it off in a car like this, so why is it there?"

 

The ability to turn traction control off is vital in ice/snow or on loose ground, or you'll never get the thing to move.

With TC on soon as the vehicle detects a slip it cuts the power, rinse and repeat indefinately, so the only way sometimes to get the vehicle moving is to turn it off which then gives you control (well as much as you'll get with that poxy auto box) and allows you to spin up the wheels slightly if needed, as it sometimes is.

 

There's one particular delivery i do with me tanker, its on a one way street, a blind side reverse up a hill into an even steeper entrance.

In the damp if you don't turn off the ASR (as TC is called in an MAN) as soon as you start to turn and push the tank up the slope one of the wheels will slip slightly and the power is cut, ours are all Arsetronic automated manual boxes which are utterly fuckin useless when a bit of work is required, obviously those who don't know how to transfer weight on the mid lift axles nor turn the TC/ASR off end up with overheated clutches due to unpteen full power restarts, we've had at least one clutch completely destroyed there...fuck know what they teach 'em on the lorry courses now.

[strangeangel]

Only used Fiat and PSA's stop start but it seems OK - engine only goes off when it's in neutral and you take your foot off the clutch. Not my vehicles either so no battery or starter wear to worry about.

 

 

 

On the one occasion I forgot to disable it, this thing turned itself off when I was in Drive and waiting to turn right . I really don't need that sort of 'help'!

[strangeangel]

I like start-stop.

 

Some do, and some don't. What I resent is this shitbox car telling me i have to have it by default.

[Pete-M]

High scuttles, thick A-pillars, deep dashboards, low-profile tyres, lack of suspension finesse or compliance, fat doors with window lines at shoulder height.

I like high scuttles, deep dashboards, low profile tyres and window lines at shoulder height.

[FakeConcern]

Did anyone say most of them are MASSIVE?

[HH-R]

On the one occasion I forgot to disable it, this thing turned itself off when I was in Drive and waiting to turn right . I really don't need that sort of 'help'!

Ah, an auto, I see. On the ones I've driven the engine starts as soon as you press the clutch so you can sit with clutch in and 1st selected ready to go. Wouldn't want that sort of thing in that situation either!

 

Imagine in a few years time pulling away when the engine/starter/battery isn't 100% any more...

[Matt]

RE: Stop/Start. Volvo's one is useless. My mother's V50 has turned the engine off all of two times in the 60k+ miles she's done in it. The dealers' service manager has indirectly said the same. I do it 'manually' but thankfully I don't drive in traffic very often. I put a Scanguage II in my car recently and after driving a fast A road followed by about 15 minutes in stop start traffic it was painful watching the average MPG display ticking down. Dropped about 5 or 6 MPG in under a mile so when it works stop/start systems can be no bad thing in my view.

[Pete-M]

I drive cars with stop start regularly. It does save plenty of fuel, and you don't have to listen to a diesel at idle.

 

Win win.

[John F]

Tamworthbay, on 31 Oct 2015 - 5:04 PM, said:

A guy where I work had to have a new alternator on his avensis last week and they had to drop a drive shaft out and take it out from the bottom at a cost of over £300. I can do the one in my capri in about twenty minutes.

 

Things such as that aren't entirely unknown with old cars too... e.g. the alternator has to be removed through the osf wheelarch on my 1994 V6 Calibra, also with the driveshaft being loosened.

[Lukas]

Start-Stop makes alternators, starter-motors and batteries a lot more expensive. 

[Cheggers]

To go back to the original post, I have to take issue with the claim that modern cars lack engineering refinement. The average modern family car is a technological and engineering wonder compared to "the good old days". My Murano has a modern V6 petrol engine that shows up the old Essex V6 to be the crude boat anchor that it always was.

 

I'm no modern car apologist, but have learned to accept that not all progress is the work of the devil.

[steve_earwig]

...until it goes wrong...

[carlo]

The Audi A1.

 

Prior to this, the most modern thing I had driven is Our Lass' Panda, so this has been quite an experience. I thought the arrival of my courtesy car would provide an interesting opportunity to try a properly up-to-date motor, with all the toys and electronic gizmos that the industry tells us that we need. However I've had this thing for just two days and all I want now is my old 205 back

 

The stupid POS auto box is by far the worst feature of this loathsome device. Why does it need 7 speeds and four modes of operation, not least when two of them (efficiency and auto) make the car dangerous to drive as it pulls away so slowly (it's in third by about 4mph). Entering a busy junction at a snails pace, you shit yourself and give it a bootful, and (after a pause for thought and its kicked down about 5 gears) the little bastard responds by setting off like a scalded cat. It's got some sort of Formula 1/Playstation manual arrangement too, with paddles either side of the steering wheel. These are ideal for accidentally knocking it into 6th and wondering why it's suddenly even worse at pulling away from the lights. The only way the auto box is even nearly as good as the one in my ancient Peugeot is when it's in Sport mode (it's not called sport, but you know what I mean). There's a button on the dash that tells the box what mode you want it in, and you have to select this every time you start the car. My £15 Asda DAB radio can remember the last station I listened to, so why can't this leave the gearbox in the mode I selected?

 

Stop-start mode is a ballache. Again, you have to turn this bastard off every time you start the car - why?

 

I can't hear the engine,so I don't know if it's running or if I forgot to disable stop-start and it's just turned itself off.

 

The ridiculously low roof that you twat your head on when you turn round for a shoulder check. Actually there's no point in doing those because the blind spots in the back corners are so big as to mean you can see fuck all anyway.

 

Ride quality is appalling - the suspension is rock hard and it's fitted with those stupid low profile rubber band tyres. Why on earth does a shopping car need these? Or half the other crap that's fitted to it, like the button that turns off the traction control off? I didn't know what that was, so I Googled it and came to the conclusion that there would be no possible reason to ever turn it off in a car like this, so why is it there?

 

It's full of other minor annoyances too: if you want the lights on all the time you can't just leave them for the car to turn off with the ignition (like in the humble Panda), it just beeps to tell you to turn them off. And why do I need to press the brake pedal to start it when it's in Park anyway?

 

Finally, and this is entirely subjective I know, I feel like a complete arse driving around in it.

 

If all moderns are like this (please tell me they're not) you can keep them!

 

I came worrying close to buying a new A1 before we settled on the Kia Picanto for Mrs_Carlo.  What turned me off was the ridiculous price (around £20K for an auto), and the salesman's impossibly smug and arrogant attitude;  He did actually say 'But why would you buy anything else when you can have an Audi for a similar price?'  Probably not quite so smug now.

 

I do think the A1 is an attractive car but the price is nonsense and the above comments don't surprise me at all.

 

I'm still relatively impressed with the Picanto.  It does seem a comparatively simple car, has a nice conventional torque converter 4 speed gearbox, amazingly spacious and nicely-styled interior, good seats and visibilty and an amazing turning circle.  The ride isn't quite as impressive as originally thought but ain't bad for the class of car.  And it cost just under £10K.  It has its modern car frustrations, like a seatbelt warning buzzer which drives you mad (can't even unbuckle to reverse the damn thing without it going off), and a tyre pressure gauge which has already failed but overall not bad at all. 

 

I do still like looking at modern car brochures and specs though; I downloaded a Vauxhall Corsa brochure yesterday and there was not one mention of the automatic, or semi-automatic 'easytronic' gearbox in the whole brochure, it was all lifestyle bollox, pretty girls driving and connectivity.  So I phoned the local dealer who just said 'Yes they're not very good.'

[Cheggers]

...until it goes wrong...

 

I do see where you're coming from, but with a laptop & cable it's as easy to diagnose problems on a modern as it is on an old 'un

[steve_earwig]

I'm afraid I wouldn't be so optimistic about that either, from what I've seen a lot of modern diagnostics won't actually direct you to the problem, rather they'll give you an indication of where to start looking. Say, if the code reader says such and such sensor is up the spout, most people's reaction would be to change the sensor and expect that to be an end to the matter. But it aint necessarily so, the fault might actually be with the wiring, or the ecu, or a completely different sensor, which is throwing the fault onto the one you just spent a fortune replacing. Or the code reader might just say this value is outside the expected range and then it's up to you to use your skill and judgement to work out which gold plated do-dah you're going to try replacing first.

[twosmoke300]

Welcome to my world !

[steve_earwig]

Or you could bung it in to the dealer and, if you're lucky, you might get a mechanic with some experience. Or you could get the dolt who'll replace the whole engine management system piece by piece until the fault disappears. He doesn't care, you're paying anyway.

 

The Pug franchise in Zagreb here condemned the fuel pump on my old 2,1td, which would've cost more than the value of the car. Unconvinced, I took it into a fuel injection specialist who diagnosed the needle lift sensor, I got them to replace all the injectors while they were there (cheap as chips compared to an HDi) Cost me a 100 quid-odd.

[forddeliveryboy]

To go back to the original post, I have to take issue with the claim that modern cars lack engineering refinement. The average modern family car is a technological and engineering wonder compared to "the good old days". My Murano has a modern V6 petrol engine that shows up the old Essex V6 to be the crude boat anchor that it always was.

 

I'm no modern car apologist, but have learned to accept that not all progress is the work of the devil.

 

 

Most of what I wrote was concerning suspension - and I did point out that those who made crap cars often now make good ones. Even if the suspension is designed for school run Mums and test drives on new roundabouts. The contrast between a 1992 Fiesta and a 2002 one is vast, for example.

 

But, what the better machines of decades past used to offer seems to have vanished without trace though. Amazing ride and handling, the desire factor, clever engineering rather than bolt-on fixes... intrinsic reliability, if serviced.

 

More understandable is the loss of the low-profit sublimely-smooth boxer engine and small capacity sixes. I can just about accept the better god-fearing inline fours for utility vehicles (when they've a fan blowing into them) since there'll be long gears and acres of soundproofing. Jags shouldn't though, it's just bad taste. Welcome to the future.

[steve_earwig]

Thought you guys might appropriate this one (or maybe not, who cares?) I had to replace a headlamp bulb on the new yoyo today, they're H11s (wtf? they look like an H7 with a right angle on them). No fiddley clip to fit, push in and turn until it goes click.

 

The one I fitted was Bosch and I noticed this on the side of the box:

I'm not absolutely sure what this means, maybe you shouldn't change bulbs wearing a white suit, you need to don bib&brace overalls, a sideways baseball cap and carry a huge spanner. Or maybe that's a Kendo stick. Yeah, don't change bulbs if your wearing a shinai. I dunno really, it kind of reminds me of Patrick Troughton's nasty end in The Omen.

 

I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean "entrust all your bulb-changing activities to your friendly local mechanic because you're too stupid and likely to end up with a lightning rod stuck through you."

[barefoot]

I'm currently driving a courtesy car, a 52 plate Citroen C3. A modern car to me.

The thing that's getting my goat are the massively overassisted brakes.

I barely tickle them with my pretty little toes and the fair wife and I crack our heads in unison upon the dashboard.

I've been given this in exchange for a 944 which has eleven and a half inch ventilated discs all round.

Hugely powerful brakes, but you have to push them a bit to make them work.

I don't understand.

[martc]

In general, what do you most dislike about modern cars?

 

Some of them are capable of doing 200mph (+\- 10%).

[eddyramrod]

On the Zit: exhaust failure which seems like it might be on the front bank.

First of all: front bank?  WTF?  Surely that should be "left bank" or "right bank" if the engine was fitted properly.

Second: "might be," because the innocent owner at the roadside has no chance whatever of even seeing the exhaust manifolds, either of them.  Ask me how I know.  I'm getting ready to be bumraped for the fix...

[CHRIS1980]

In the case of my VW Bora,it's the fact that VW fit an OBD Socket that can't diagnose the fault it has. And sensors everywhere. We did away with pints and condensers etc and replaced with bloody this sensor,that sensor. And the fact that they make people think that they can drive fast everywhere because the ESP or whatever acronym will sort it out. But most of all.....I miss using the choke. All my minis had a clothes peg for such occasions.

[gordonbennet]

Still can't work out why all versions of Rover's 75 weren't proper (rear) wheel drive, the design lent itself and by the very nature of the car when new it was aimed at a traditional market who mostly prefer PWD anyway.

 

I look under the bonnet of most WRD (wrong wheel drive) cars and swiftly close the bugger up again.

[Pete-M]

In general, what do you most dislike about modern cars?

 

Some of them are capable of doing 200mph (+\- 10%).

They should ALL be capable of 200.