The most useless feature of a car?

[artdjones]

Touch screen heater controls. 

[Split_Pin]

2 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

I imagine moduhns with electric seat adjust have 'pronouns' where you select who is driving

 

[yes oui si]

Timely pea roast:

[MiniMinorMk3]

16 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Locking wheel nuts

Especially after your local ATS has used a windy gun to do your nuts up and wrecked your socket.

New ones cost £35.40 from BMW.

[RoverFolkUs]

7 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Especially after your local ATS has used a windy gun to do your nuts up and wrecked your socket.

New ones cost £35.40 from BMW.

Scrotes

Personally I always torque them lower than the other fixings, because they cause more hassle than they're worth. 

It's one thing extracting them when they're loose but when they're done up fucking tight it's 10x worse, literally

[mitsisigma01]

Remote control for a car stereo 🤷🏼‍♂️

[Stanky]

1 minute ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Remote control for a car stereo 🤷🏼‍♂️

GR9 4 dogging.

*ahem*

So I've been told...

[castros_bro]

Most unless thang must be the driver.

[Talbot]

19 hours ago, St.Jude said:

My wife’s Merc is a pure piss take. She’s 5ft 5, and naturally sits higher up and closer to the wheel than I do. So when I get to the car, I have to stand outside pressing the memory setting to see the seat slowly move down and back, only for the wheel to then move.

You're using it wrong, I think.

Fairly sure you can set up seat/mirror/steering wheel profiles against the different keys, so when your wife unlocks the car, it moves everything to her position, and when you use your/another key to unlock, it moves everything to that keyholder's preference.

How this is done I have no idea, as I've never had a car new enough for that to be a thing, but I know I've read that modern Mercs can do this.

[CreepingJesus]

The most useless thing about electric seats is them seizing up through never being used. If you're the only one driving it, it's 'set and forget' until that one time someone does have to adjust it and it jams. It's not at their setting and it won't go back to yours either, just for added hilarity. It could've been broken for yonks, and you'd neither know nor care.

But of course, it 'only' needs the screw threads cleaned and greased, which turns into the kind of job that requires paper thin multi-flexible arms with eyes on the ends of the fingers. 

Mind you, there's sun visors that don't always visor. What's wrong with adding an additional section to cover the gap to the pillar? Should be universal, so any that don't have it, have near useless visors. Cos while the existing bit of visor is occluding 90% of the light, the remaining narrow shaft of light turns into a horrible natural sun laser. It's safety critical when you think about it.

[St.Jude]

55 minutes ago, Talbot said:

You're using it wrong, I think.

Fairly sure you can set up seat/mirror/steering wheel profiles against the different keys, so when your wife unlocks the car, it moves everything to her position, and when you use your/another key to unlock, it moves everything to that keyholder's preference.

How this is done I have no idea, as I've never had a car new enough for that to be a thing, but I know I've read that modern Mercs can do this.

Maybe I don’t know. It’s keyless entry, but even my gaffer who’s car it was never mentioned anything like that 

[EyesWeldedShut]

I'll just go for the over abundance of fiddly, rarely used 'stuff' that they 'load' a modern car with so that we'll all want to buy one, even #2 sprog's new Dacia needs a bloody O level just to open the door - A level to start it and a 2:2 degree to use the 'infotainment' centre.

And feckin' over sensitive 'lane changing' indicator stalks that start winking when you dip the headlights - that really irritates me on the Pug - if it could be disabled somehow I'd love it

[High Jetter]

5 hours ago, artdjones said:

Touch screen heater controls. 

Touch screens.

[bunglebus]

Lights that do stupid things, i.e. cornering lights, sequential indicators on moderns, 6 billion watt headlights that blind oncoming drivers etc etc

[lesapandre]

+ light- bars right across the back of cars - makes them look more like a roadblock than a vehicle.

Any vehicle that requires downloadable updates to itself - imagine Mr Chudleigh-Warner tuning in to the wireless to update his Humber. 

[lesapandre]

And not a 'useless feature' - but just the useless jacks and wheelbraces with some cars.

And non-standard spare wheels requiring different wheel-nuts you can't find in the boot.

[Split_Pin]

1 hour ago, Talbot said:

You're using it wrong, I think.

Fairly sure you can set up seat/mirror/steering wheel profiles against the different keys, so when your wife unlocks the car, it moves everything to her position, and when you use your/another key to unlock, it moves everything to that keyholder's preference.

How this is done I have no idea, as I've never had a car new enough for that to be a thing, but I know I've read that modern Mercs can do this.

You can do this with a 75 MK1, just hold down the unlock button. But I've never had a MK1 spruce enough to actually have 2 functioning fobs 😂

[RoverFolkUs]

Brake pad wear sensors

A good idea in theory, but I've just changed pads (and discs) today on a gopping Aldi Q7, 1x front and 1x rear wear sensor had been triggered, pads had a good 4-5mm or so left on then, approx 35-40% compared to the new ones that went on

Just a complete waste. Same with all the other prestige cars, they trigger far too early in my opinion. Probably early enough for the first set to be needed at some point during the main dealer servicing period early on in its life...

They weren't cheap either, because you'd do the discs at the same time as the pads and not put new pads onto almost fucked discs, £275 each. Ouch! The (front) discs had a little bit of life left in them - they would have easily lasted the remaining 10k miles the pads had left in them

Because of the wear sensor, this is a reason for an MOT fail but no testers outside of main dealers seem to use it, but here it is:

Repair immediately (major defects):

- Front Brake pad(s) worn down to wear indicator (1.1.13 (a) (i))

Most seem to wait until they're 1.5mm to use the dangerous defect..

Totally ridiculous idea, quite often they are only fitted to 1 out of 4 pads anyway and bear no indication to the condition of the other 3. This particular Audi had one on each corner, so if you fit them to the inner pad you're probably ok on that front. 

 

[Remspoor]

This may be two in one. Day light running lamps. Whilst most agree that they are an important road safety feature. The issue for me is that the rear lamps are usually not lit when these are in use. To make the rear lamps work the headlamps have to be switched on. That brings me to gripe number two. Auto headlamps. They do not work in poor visibility during daylight. So No headlamps and no rear lamps due to automation for the unintelligent.

[Nullzwei]

Electric folding mirrors are a fairly pointless addition to any car.  Must be rare for anyone to pass by close enough to damage a wing mirror in its normal position. If they are that close they are probably pissed, on smack or having a heart attack and are going to cause a lot more body damage than just a poxy mirror.

Heated mirrors - great feature on a frosty morning. Electric adjustment , especially on the passenger side again very handy (Mercedes got it right 4 decades ago), but electric folding? Bag o shite.  

[FakeConcern]

So many things already mentioned that I agree are useless.

These I have personal experience of...

My V70 had memory seats and were great as when I unlocked with my key when Mrs Concern had been using it, by the time I opened the door the seat would be ready for me.

I've had an XM and even though it was auto the foot parking brake was useless.

Night panel I had on a C4 VTS and was a great gimmick, but ultimately useless.

TPMS in my first C4 VTS worked perfectly and was great at warning that tyre had dropped few psi. Next two C4 VTSs the battery in the sensor had failed and not separately available. The sensor cost over £100 per wheel so no thanks. Useless when over ten years old.

Auto lights I first experienced on daughter's 2002 Clio, they worked great. Mrs Concern's Moodus has them also work great. When in combination with DRL they should be good to stop people driving at night with just front lights, but those too stupid to notice that they don't have the proper lights on also so stupid they have the auto lights turned off so verdict is useless for anyone below average intelligence (and DRLs).

Auto wipers have worked well on each car I've tried with them, Mk2 Clio, C4 VTS, Pug 207, Moodus, Volvo C30. The Volvo has the bonus of also having an adjustable intermittent setting. I find them usefull.

Locking wheel nuts are a pia and I've had to pay to have them removed when the key has broken. On my V70 I had to call the AA when I couldn't get a wheel off. He couldn't either so he plugged the tyre (worked well) until I could get the car to a garage. I now always remove them and fit standard nuts. Useless.

Things I think are useless and possibly downright dangerous, but have no direct experience of...

Touchscreens.

Lane Departure that actually pulls the steering.

Electric handbrake that stops car being when broken down or crashed.

Keyless entry, a mate of mine left his on the roof of his Range Rover and drove off. By the time he noticed he had to walk back over five miles to find the squashed flat and pay £££s for a new set.

 

 

 

[gm]

doors that lock themselves again if you don’t start the engine straight away - arseholes, the lot of them !

this new slk i’ve bought seems particularly keen to lock me out, although as a serial honda owner, i’m fairly used to it 

[High Jetter]

Yup, the MG locks after I get out, have to unlock (2 presses) to open the tailgate. Why?

[808 Estate]

I had an XC90 for a couple of weeks as a works rental and it must have had about 7 levers for adjusting the seats. After 5 days of fiddling I just gave up and suffered where it was bacause I was fucked if I could make it comfortable. The Hilux has 1 adjustment and its a really comfortable and a well padded seat. The XC also had heater controls via touch screen.

Take eyes off road look for location of air con "button". Look back at road to make sure all is good. Look at touch screen and press air con button. Hit bump in road and activate Radio 3.  Look back at road and check all is good. Prod screen randomly to get rid of Radio 3 while looking at oncoming traffic lights out of corner of eye. Finally disable Radio 3. Breathe sigh of relief. Open window to let in some fresh air before you have another go at adjusting air con. Check road is clear. Take a good look at centre screen and press aircon button. Air con window appears. Check road is still there. Aircon window has a row of touch sensitive sliders. Touch slider it shows 22c. Touch is a bit lower, 18c. Touch it a bit higher 23c. Arrghh fuckit. Look at road for a while and chill out. Look at screen again. concentrate really hard and adjust slider just a smidge. Yay 21c. Look at road, all is good. Try to reset screen to map page. Car screams at you and jumps 3 feet to the right because its seen a pillar box and suspects it will jump into the road. Try and streer back into the correct lane before oncoming bus hits you.

Hilux. You know aircon is on right hand side rotary knob. Feel for knob with arm while watching the road. Turn 1 click to the left.

You can tell I think the XC90 is a piece of crap. But wait, theres more..........

Autobox has P, R N, D on it. Ooh technical. I move gearknob from P to D release parking brake, press accelerator and move off. Only the car doesnt move off. Oh no. Volvo has engineered a special safety device to prevent you "accidentally" pulling away after you have deliberately put the car into gear, released the brake and pressed the accelerator. You have to "confirm" you really want D by putting it back into N and reselecting D again.  Yes, they invented the double tap gearbox just to cause extra misery on top of the shitty screen  and the cry wolf colision warning.

But wait, theres even more...........

Just below the screen of eternal misery, there is a big round knob. Yes, a physical control. Can you adjust the air con temp with it? Can you fuck. Its a volume control for the radio. But theres already one of those on the fucking steering wheel as well as the shitty on screen one, why does it need 3 volume controls and no physical temp control.

Swedish wankers.

[Metal Guru]

5 hours ago, Nullzwei said:

Electric folding mirrors are a fairly pointless addition to any car.  Must be rare for anyone to pass by close enough to damage a wing mirror in its normal position. If they are that close they are probably pissed, on smack or having a heart attack and are going to cause a lot more body damage than just a poxy mirror.

Heated mirrors - great feature on a frosty morning. Electric adjustment , especially on the passenger side again very handy (Mercedes got it right 4 decades ago), but electric folding? Bag o shite.  

I prefer mirrors that don’t fold. If someone gets too close and hits a mirror it’s better than ripping the whole side of your car. 

[Cheggers]

I prefer mirrors that don’t fold. If someone gets too close and hits a mirror it’s better than ripping the whole side of your car. 

Folding mirrors are handy when parked in a tight space though. When driving I'd defy anyone to hit the "fold" button in time to avoid a broken mirror.

[vaughant]

I was going to say the dash dimmer on a Berlingo/Partner but I did one have an alternator that only made 12.000001V on idle and less when running so I literally drove from Frome to Magor on side lights and dimmed dash so MAYBE it helped a bit.

 

[Markeh]

As a fat fucker, I quite like cars with folding mirrors as it makes my life much easier in car parks. The Nissan can be set to fold and unfold on lock/unlock, so I use it as a nice visual indicator of whether I remembered to lock it or not.

The electric tailgate however can FRO. If one more person pulls the bloody thing manually I might scream. I've had all sorts of things fly out of the boot when opened, which if it had been manual, I could've opened it slowly or been able to catch them. I hated the hands free bit at first because I could never get it to work but I have now worked out roughly where I need to wave my foot. The most irritating bit on the Nissan is the fact it emits 3 loud beeps when you open and close the boot. I'm sure my neighbours love me when I'm getting something out of the car late at night.

[S2000]

Ski Hatch. I live in the UK. 

[warch]

Just now, S2000 said:

Ski Hatch. I live in the UK. 

Actually they were originally intended to allow you to insert four packs of fruit flavoured yoghurt straight into the boot without leaving the car.