Driver unfriendly car features

[Ghosty]

Audi A3 where the armrest interferes with the handbrake.

[bramz7]

405 front armrests interfere with a lot of things as they are incredibly massive.

 

See also the Stilo/147.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

It's not beyond the wit of man to focus LEDs properly like dipped beam yet for some reason it's not done.

A properly diffused lens might work

[JoelIoM]

I had a Toyota Avensis that had the headlight controls on the end of the indicator stalk. Obvious consequences.

[leafsprung]

My Ovlov V50 headlights, and, it appears, its replacement a mk2 Octavia. Not led projector bollocks just standard ones but with lenses that appear to illuminate approximately 40ft of road and leave everything else in utter pitch darkness. Fine on illuminated motorways, fucking terrifying on dark country roads, and not to mention fog. Both manual adjusters were knackered by previous frustrated owners trying to crank them higher. The lights* in my old series land rover were actually better despite the lower speeds. 

[Remspoor]

That buffeting noise you get on some cars when only one window is open. Normally if it's a rear window. Seems to be on more modern stuff than older.

 

I purchased a set of these. https://www.e-heko.com/en/ Can even leave the car with the windows open a wee bit for ventilation on a hot day.

Audi A3 where the armrest interferes with the handbrake.

The same with the arm rests on my Pug 307. And the changing of the gears too. Never used them total waste of.

[Ohdearme]

Every time you put something in the cup holder of an Alfa 147 it either changes the radio to station 5, puts a cd into random as anything but a red bull style can catches the radio fascia.

 

Also, the lack of a way to open the boot from the outside becomes tiresome when your car is old and the remote battery is dead. Unlike Rover/Honda/Saab where at least the button is by the door, on the Alfa it’s below the radio...most ungracious leaning your fat arse in there to open the boot with an armful of shopping.

 

Oh and the window switch on the 5 door. Instead of everyone else in the world that has four switches, two front, two back, Alfa has a random toggle switch you press to make the two switches operate the rear windows. Totally stupid.

[martc]

^^^ Your door/armrest appears to be made from a block of real wood and looks a little wide, another driver unfriendly feature?

[New POD]

I would never drive a car with cup holders. Drink yer coffee before/after your journey, it's not rocket surgery.

You don't need cup holders in an auto

 

one hand is free.

[PhilA]

A properly diffused lens might work

The problem with LED's is they put out a very narrow selection of colors. Their spectral output isn't continuous like an incandescent bulb's filament is.

There's all kinds of gaps- if you split LED light through a prism you don't get the nice "Dark Side Of The Moon" rainbow, you get a few stripes with a lot of black space in-between, and using lenses and mirrors becomes complicated to make the light pattern on the street useable without massive light loss or scatter.

 

Phil

[Rod/b]

Chrome dashboard trim that always - ALWAYS - reflects in the door window EXACTLY where you look out at the door mirror.

 

Oh and the F150 instrument binnacle, which whilst having 6 analog gauges and a multi function display in the middle with all sorts of angle meters and towing mode settings, transmission temperature tests etc doesn’t include a volt meter. This is despite there being a voltage display hidden in the depths of the dasboard test mode.

[Zelandeth]

The spectra from a white LED isn't that bad. They're a blue diode providing drive for a yellow phosphor giving a nett white light.

 

The phosphor is a pretty broadband emitter, so the only obvious deficiency is in the mid blue/cyan area really and there's little to no emission that's shorter wavelengths than blue.

 

Here's what you see if you split a white LED's light output through a prism (well, diffraction grating) this is what you get.

 

[Richard]

The problem with LED's is they put out a very narrow selection of colors. Their spectral output isn't continuous like an incandescent bulb's filament is.

There's all kinds of gaps- if you split LED light through a prism you don't get the nice "Dark Side Of The Moon" rainbow, you get a few stripes with a lot of black space in-between, and using lenses and mirrors becomes complicated to make the light pattern on the street useable without massive light loss or scatter.

 

Phil

 

 

They've replaced all the street lights around here with LEDs. I'm sure they use less electricity than what was there before but put out no useful light at all, so all the electricity they use is wasted.

[Zelandeth]

They've replaced all the street lights around here with LEDs. I'm sure they use less electricity than what was there before but put out no useful light at all, so all the electricity they use is wasted.

Which is a shame, as it's the crap ones like these which give the whole technology a bad name. There are some really good examples out there which work extremely well. The Halophane V-Max range being one particular example. They've just replaced a bunch of 70W high pressure sodium lights around our area with 20W V-Maxes, and the light level actually on the road has increased markedly.

 

I begrudgingly accept that they're an improvement here, and I'm no great LED fan!

 

Sadly there are a lot of totally rubbish lanterns out there, and poorly specified ones where the council who have fitted them.have just blindly believed the nonsense in the poorly translated Chinese brochures.

[Richard]

I know the technology can work well, but it needs clever design of reflectors and lenses, which seems to be beyond the capabilities of most manufacturers of vehicle lighting. More worryingly, there doesn't seem to be anybody imposing or enforcing standards on vehicle lighting so you get lighting that can be blinding or invisible depending on your viewing angle.

[Toledo71]

headlight bulbs and bulbs in general ,

 

bulbs that need a major disassembly and knuckle dicing to get out

 

as well a child's size hand to orientate the bulb , its holder and the wires back into position .....

 

and then the smart arse who says " did you not see clip under XYZ ? "

 

 

Yep. The offside headlight access hatch on the Saab 9000 was next to the turbo, behind the AC compressor and underneath some other thing, all of which had to be negotiated when the bulb went, which it seemed to do a lot.  It was as if they'd designed the engine bay not expecting any of their cars to have ancillaries.

[myglaren]

They've replaced all the street lights around here with LEDs. I'm sure they use less electricity than what was there before but put out no useful light at all, so all the electricity they use is wasted.

The council replaced our street lights with LED ones a few months back and they are really quite good.

[Guest Hooli]

LEDs outside this place aren't too bad. Where I used to live though the lights were further apart & the LEDs didn't spread as much, so as you drove along it went light/dark/light/dark/light/dark etc with enough difference to hide people walking - very handy.

[Toledo71]

The sheer and seemingly ever-increasing size of the things is my main criticism of modern car design. It's getting to the point that even average cars barely fit in a standard parking space.  Lots of older garages are now too narrow to keep a modern car in.  

 

A quick bit of research to illustrate my point shows that the VW Golf has gained 550mm length and 189mm width between earliest and latest versions.  For the Range Rover it's 554mm length and 292mm width - so it's nearly two feet longer and a foot wider.  They're also heavier.  I guess this is the pay-off for driving stability and safety kit but it feels a bit like an arms race sometimes, especially with the march of the SUVs.

 

Also, column stalks that spring back to the central position when you've switched something on.  Grrr.

 

On the other hand air-con is nice, when it works.  When I were a lad you only got that as standard kit on a Rolls-Royce.

[dozeydustman]

Back to cars, has anyone mentioned the stupid indicator stalks fitted to some Vauxhalls and Opels about 12 years ago? The push & release to flash 3 times, push to hold to stay on permanently with no steering activated cancel?

[Frogchod]

Street lights ? Very fancy. The few in the village go off at 22.00.

To get back on topic.

XM headlights. Tucking useless, unless there's streetlights. ..

I forgot how useless they were until driving back from the ferry on Friday night in the rain.

 

Maybe the person who thought up this new 80kph limit has an XM ?

[Tamworthbay]

Back to cars, has anyone mentioned the stupid indicator stalks fitted to some Vauxhalls and Opels about 12 years ago? The push & release to flash 3 times, push to hold to stay on permanently with no steering activated cancel?

I had forgotten about those, I had them on a courtesy car once and they were a pain in the arse.

[tul66]

The glovebox in the Alfa 75, dumps everything in the passenger footwell when you accelerate cos it's basically a drawer and falls out...grrrr.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

....XM headlights. Tucking useless, unless there's streetlights. ..

I forgot how useless they were until driving back from the ferry on Friday night in the rain.

Maybe the person who thought up this new 80kph limit has an XM ?

Are they as hopeless as Calibra headlights?

[PhilA]

Street lights ? Very fancy. The few in the village go off at 22.00.

To get back on topic.

XM headlights. Tucking useless, unless there's streetlights. ..

I forgot how useless they were until driving back from the ferry on Friday night in the rain.

Maybe the person who thought up this new 80kph limit has an XM ?

That's not even 55mph!

 

Phil

[Zelandeth]

Oh lordy I'd forgotten those software controlled indicators. Had them on one hire car I had and discovered after an overtake that I couldn't turn the darn things off...I could indicate left or right...but not off until I eventually went round a corner.

[dollywobbler]

Oh lordy I'd forgotten those software controlled indicators. Had them on one hire car I had and discovered after an overtake that I couldn't turn the darn things off...I could indicate left or right...but not off until I eventually went round a corner.

 

You just press the other way and it cancels. A brief flick gives you three flashes for an overtake. I think they're the work of Satan.

 

However, on an original Citroen Ami, you have exactly the same 'toggle' operation, but you pull the stalk TOWARDS you to cancel. How marvellously French!

[Zelandeth]

That's what I thought was meant to be the case (having previously encountered such a system in an 80s Jag XJ6), but the one in the Vauxhall I was driving must have been dodgy. Flicking it the other way just made it start indicating that way.

[AMC Rebel]

The 56mph governor on most lorries. Legally, the lorry speed limit is 60 so why force the fitting of a device that holds them back below it? Especially when the in-cab harmonics at 56 are specifically designed to send a driver to sleep. Wonderful.

 

 

Unfortunately answering the "why" on that leads us off to areas better not discussed.....

[Rusty_Rocket]

That's what I thought was meant to be the case (having previously encountered such a system in an 80s Jag XJ6), but the one in the Vauxhall I was driving must have been dodgy. Flicking it the other way just made it start indicating that way.

 

You press the stalk in the same direction to stop it iirc.  When I last had a car with this arrangement, I hated it until I'd got used to it... then it was great!  3 flashes with just a flick- ideal for changing lanes or indicating through roundabouts   Takes some getting used to, though.