Dead features in cars that need to make a comeback

[EyesWeldedShut]

Stuff heated rear windows - let's go for the stick on plastic doo-dahs (also aftermarket)

(I think this thread is going to end up with a 1950s Morris Oxford with a sidevalve engine as its ultimate vehicle)

[catsinthewelder]

Dials that light up with the lights off can FRO,  I can only cope with them on the Focus because it has got auto lights!

[Niffleman]

I liked the time when nothing on the car needed to be "coded" when replaced.  A light was just a light.  If it stopped working you could go to a breaker, buy another one and fit it.  I understand that many components are now coded so even if the part number is the same, a replacement will not work without access to a dealer level computer system.  

I also liked it when steering and brake feel was a thing.  I recently hired a Citroën C3 and there was neither.  I had no idea what was going on with the front wheels due to the over assisted  steering and the brakes were either on or off with no feel at all.  Maybe it's just me but I don't like this, although I think it's what the market wants.

[sheffcortinacentre]

Because it needs to be like a playstation.

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

Indicators larger than an ants cock in the light cluster. 

[Metal Guru]

  On 26/08/2024 at 00:43, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Indicators larger than an ants cock in the light cluster. 

Expand  

Modern cars either have this , a tiny slit of orange flashing in 6 sq ft of light cluster, or half the rear of the car lights up. Ironically Audis are in the latter catagory.

[EyesWeldedShut]

  On 26/08/2024 at 00:43, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Indicators larger than an ants cock in the light cluster. 

Expand  

'Soft' indicator switches? The sort that start up when you fluff a dipped beam change and then you cannot cancel?
Sod that - bring back a good old on-off-on mechanical switch with a CLICK that shakes your fillings every time. Self cancelling is permitted, I'm not that much of a Luddite

[Asimo]

  On 25/08/2024 at 19:06, sheffcortinacentre said:

All this stuff is to hard , complicated for modern drivers they just want an appliance or a person taxi at their beck & call 24/7.

Expand  

Well they can sodding well walk everywhere then.

[comfortablynumb]

  On 25/08/2024 at 22:33, Niffleman said:

the brakes were either on or off with no feel at all.

Expand  

I used to work for the demonstration fleet for VAG.

I had to drive their all singing/dancing toerag with auto trans, private plate, etc etc.

When you had to slow to a stop, from about 4mph, the brakes would grab, and lurch you to a standstill, trying to put you through the screen. However it was no good easing off the brakes, because auto, it'd just start pulling away again!

This was about 20 years ago, so not a recent thing.

I hated that car with a passion 🤬

[DSdriver]

  On 25/08/2024 at 19:19, EyesWeldedShut said:

That'd be buggered by my request for less electric gizmos then? Central locking is handy but power doors or power boot lid? Kind of up there with automatic wipers and lights in my book - great when they work but will be a bugger for somebody when the car is ten years old?

Ideally I'd like to have something modern but designed like my runout Ovlov 940 -  smol ECU to handle fuelling, electric windows/locking, full size spare, proper jack, decent profile tyres. 
Air con and power steering.
Decent sized boot, velour or cloth upholstery (how can a 1996 Ovlov with 180,000 miles still have unblemished velour when the modern pleather stuff does not last 100,000?)

Trouble is that, as a consumable, modern cars need to be attractive to the first owner and, if that needs gizmos and baubles, so be it.

Expand  

I solved the problem of not having central locking on the DS by giving my wife her own key so she can unlock her side. Now I just have to remind her to bring it.

I hate the Saab estate locking its boot when the rest of the car is unlocked, get out go to back of car try to open tailgate, return to drivers door to press the effing tit, return to back of car by which time I have forgotten what I wanted to do. 

[DSdriver]

  On 26/08/2024 at 05:55, Asimo said:

Well they can sodding well walk everywhere then.

Expand  

Or stay on the sofa and use their Ipad.

[MiniMinorMk3]

  On 25/08/2024 at 17:39, caffeine said:

One that’s maybe not quite dead yet but certainly seems to be going that way: analogue dials, digitally rendered approximations look naff and while it might be regarded by some as more up to date and  ‘techy’ I strongly suspect it, along with the omission of physical switches/buttons, is mostly driven by cost cutting.

Crisp, tastefully backlit dials and switchgear are fearfully a dying art -  can you imagine ‘the dash at night’ thread made up entirely of identikit elongated iPads - what would be the point?

The multi-million pound Bugatti Tourbillon I mentioned in another thread seems to make a big deal of its analogue dials, unfortunately we may be fated towards a world where they only exist as an ultra-niche luxury.

Expand  

People worried that clocks and watches would never be the same again when they introduced digital ones.

[MiniMinorMk3]

  On 25/08/2024 at 19:08, EyesWeldedShut said:

No diesels would cure that  
I'd ask for a temperature gauge and just this please:

 

Expand  

Looks like that Morris had the illuminating indicator stalk. My 1963 Mini had one of those and it was like being in a slow discoteque when you operated the turn signals at night.

That Morris also has the two oil lights, one for low pressure and one for the blocked filter indicator.

[artdjones]

  On 24/08/2024 at 11:15, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Old car smell. You know, that blend of sweaty old leather and musty wool carpets.

Expand  

Ooh, heark at Lord Muck! Ours just smelled of sweaty vinyl and damp synthetic carpet.

[MantaGTE85]

  On 25/08/2024 at 22:02, catsinthewelder said:

Dials that light up with the lights off can FRO,  I can only cope with them on the Focus because it has got auto lights!

Expand  

The '91-on facelift Citroen AX had dials that lit up regardless of the lights being on or off. My sister once owned a purple '94 Spree edition and she was always forgetting to turn the lights on when dark outside.

[MiniMinorMk3]

  On 26/08/2024 at 11:05, artdjones said:

Ooh, heark at Lord Muck! Ours just smelled of sweaty vinyl and damp synthetic carpet.

Expand  

I'll have you know it was a £500 Wolseley 1100 that I purchased in 1991.

[IronStar]

  On 26/08/2024 at 05:50, EyesWeldedShut said:

'Soft' indicator switches? The sort that start up when you fluff a dipped beam change and then you cannot cancel?
Sod that - bring back a good old on-off-on mechanical switch with a CLICK that shakes your fillings every time. Self cancelling is permitted, I'm not that much of a Luddite

Expand  

I like the ones with 3 blink mid position. The ones that you can't cancel and keep blinking, usually with no audible clicks to show that your indicator is on can sod off.  

[artdjones]

  On 26/08/2024 at 11:08, MiniMinorMk3 said:

I'll have you know it was a £500 Wolseley 1100 that I purchased in 1991.

Expand  

£500? Luxury! My first car cost £85. It put me off Cortinas for life.

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

Exhausts that are exhausts not BarryBoy fake tips or plastic blanks of depression. 

[busmansholiday]

Steel wheels and chrome hub caps. The sort you had to polish with Brasso and would fall off if you didn't fit them back on correctly (or would shoot off up embankments and attempt to decapitate cows when badly fitted on Scanias).

 

[Zelandeth]

  On 27/08/2024 at 07:16, busmansholiday said:

Steel wheels and chrome hub caps. The sort you had to polish with Brasso and would fall off if you didn't fit them back on correctly (or would shoot off up embankments and attempt to decapitate cows when badly fitted on Scanias).

 

Expand  

These Saab ones had similar tendencies to make bids for freedom.

Did look bloody good though.

[ETCHY]

  On 26/08/2024 at 00:43, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Indicators larger than an ants cock in the light cluster. 

Expand  

100% agree, I was behind a modern VW (Polo I think) & they were ridiculously small.

Again we have reg's for everything so how the fuck is that allowed ??

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

Suspension that works for comfort, not so you can feel each pothole through your bowels.

[New POD]

  On 28/08/2024 at 04:28, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Suspension that works for comfort, not so you can feel each pothole through your bowels.

Expand  

Handling that's totally unforgiving and will snap from understeer to oversteer if you so much as look at the steering wheel or throttle mid bend. 

Tyres that have a wet grip rating of 5, but which are so narrow, they cut through the water like a knife, so whilst the don't aquaplaning, there is still minimal grip available.

Cars that go out of control at low speeds. 

Cars with ABS so crude that it only works if you are in the ditch already. 

If you are going to crash, make it at a low speed. 

 

[New POD]

  On 26/08/2024 at 09:41, DSdriver said:

I solved the problem of not having central locking on the DS by giving my wife her own key so she can unlock her side. Now I just have to remind her to bring it.

I hate the Saab estate locking its boot when the rest of the car is unlocked, get out go to back of car try to open tailgate, return to drivers door to press the effing tit, return to back of car by which time I have forgotten what I wanted to do. 

Expand  

Some MX5s have a boot lever next to the fuel flap lever. Some don't. This means you have to take the key out of the ignition to open it. So irritating. But then there is no central locking. 

[Liggle]

A normal, straight forward sunroof not a panoramic one that inevitably stops working and/or leaks

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

A return to a requirement to turn on your own headlights that work on both fronts and back because fuck the person who made drls that only light up the front. 

[IronStar]

  On 28/08/2024 at 05:12, New POD said:

Cars with ABS so crude that it only works if you are in the ditch already. 

Expand  

Add very crude ESP to the list

The only car I ever managed to spin out, and I wasn't even driving that fast, is 307CC. One wheel slightly lost traction mid-turn and instead of letting me feather it and get out, ESP went LOCKUP ALL THE BRAKES AND KILL THROTTLE INPUT. I was facing the wrong way on the other side of the, thankfully empty, road in half a second and there was nothing I could do to catch it, the car just killed all the inputs. 

Any hint of a wheelspin when setting off? WHEEL IS SLIPPING! PANIC! THROW THE ANCHORS!

[sheffcortinacentre]

That was skynet doing early testing of human eliminating software

[crad]

ashtrays