My pick to start...automatic seat belt thingys. So many things wrong with this that are pretty obvious. From what I know of them (meaning there were probably a few different kinds), it wouldn't really save a step as you'd still have to buckle the lower part), the mechanisms could break, they easily get in the way getting into the car if you're holding things and several other things.
That one specifically had a huge problem (which I'm realizing I'm saying from a story my driver's ed teacher told, I have not verified this, so take it with a grain of salt). Like you said, the lap belt was a separate step, but as I heard it, a lot of people didn't bother with that one because hey, automatic seat belt! Then you get in a crash and now your lower body is not restrained and you end up hanging yourself/breaking your neck on the shoulder belt as your body tries to submarine under it.
Similarly, the ones where the belts were connected to the door. That seems fine right up until you end up in a crash that causes the door to open.
Did the auto belts not work as intended though? My impression (from a very limited understanding of what was going on at the time) is that automakers used them because it allowed them to skip installing air bags, which would have been more expensive.
This is a smaller one, but my 2014 Hyundai immediately switches away from bluetooth audio input when it doesn't have a bluetooth connection. Which is really annoying because every time you get in the car it switches back to radio, and you have to keep pressing the input button to get it back to bluetooth whenever it reconnects. Just leave it on bluetooth!
Autopilot
Right, and something about "passive restraint requirement" law or some crap which might be also considered substitute for an airbag.Originally Posted by Tom Servo
That one specifically had a huge problem (which I'm realizing I'm saying from a story my driver's ed teacher told, I have not verified this, so take it with a grain of salt). Like you said, the lap belt was a separate step, but as I heard it, a lot of people didn't bother with that one because hey, automatic seat belt! Then you get in a crash and now your lower body is not restrained and you end up hanging yourself/breaking your neck on the shoulder belt as your body tries to submarine under it.
Similarly, the ones where the belts were connected to the door. That seems fine right up until you end up in a crash that causes the door to open.
I believe the auto belts were dictated by the US federal government. The way I remember it, they were really struggling with getting people to wear seat belts and they thought the auto belts would get people into the habit. I don't believe it had anything to do with airbags when it is just as important to wear a safety belt with an airbag.
My current pet peave is adding gigantic screens in place of knobs. Nobody is asking for this and I am appalled that it was even allowed and passed usability standards.
I wrote this for another forum earlier in the year so I'll repost it here. Can't believe it came up twice in 2023:
Jimmy Carter mandated that by 1983 all cars would have either automated seatbelts or airbags. So there is this short period where some manufacturers opted for automated seatbelts whereas others installed airbags. By 1997 airbags were mandated for all cars.
Automatic seatbelts could have stuck around on their own; however, they're expensive to produce and maintain. The motors go bad, they fall off their tracks, etc. Because a seatbelt is a safety item they're subject to indefinite recall that has to be repaired for free by the manufacturer. So rather than repair every seatbelt mechanism in perpetuity manufacturers opted for the simpler and less costly manual seat belt. Somewhat ironically the Takata airbag recall ended up costing these manufacturers millions of dollars as those were installed in just about every vehicle from the mid-90s through the late 2000s.
It's perhaps notable that US safety standards for cars include cases where the occupants are unbelted, whereas EU standards only require the car to protect correctly restrained people in a crash. (Passing reference to http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?...-in-the-states ) Which perhaps reflects that legislative thinking that one or the other will help, whereas I think a better approach is to consider seatbelts being fundamental, and airbags another layer on top.
Completely agree, my biggest frustration is playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey to adjust a temperature slider on a touchscreen while driving along a winding road. I'd like to see a special circle of hell created for the people who made such systems, in which the temperature alternates between freezing cold and boiling hot, never reaching a comfortable temperature in between.
That was a disappointment on the Volvo, I thought that the dial was for AC but it's just for volume from the stereo. The climate control stuff is touch screen, though at least it's just "hit this button to increase or decrease the target temp" and then it tries to do the rest. Ideally, I guess you don't adjust it that much once you have that target temp, but I can tell you my target temp gets much lower when I'm leaving the gym than it does the rest of the time, so I still adjust it a lot.
The worst was the time it failed to initialize properly and we did a 45 minute drive with no ability to adjust the climate control. Turns out you can reboot the head unit just like an Android phone, but we didn't know that a week into owning the car.
Yeah, can’t blame carmakers for the automatic seat belts. That’s mostly a product of stupid regulations. Overall, for sure regulations have made cars much safer today, but every once in a while, good intentions go bad. Most likely due to 2 sides compromising into something that doesn’t quite make sense.
Anyway, my main beef against modern cars is that they’re just too difficult and expensive to repair now. I suppose prettt much all products are made this way now? They figure out the cheapest possible way to produce it but pay little attention to future repairs… they’d just rather you junk it and go buy a new one!
Any relatively minor fender bender on an older car can easily be totaled loss from insurance’s perspective.
I’ve seen on Kia Sorento forum where some guy had his shark fin antenna torn of in a car wash and due to the extensive labor require to take off the ceiling liner… dealer’s asking $1000 to repair that!
If that happened to my Kia, I’d just forget about it… since I rarely listen to the radio and I can just use CarPlay as GPS!
For cars like Model3 where you control pretty much everything thru a screen… I wonder how much that will cost to repair…
I wish car makers could just keep things simple and easier to fix.
I really think my 2002 Honda S2000 is the near perfect car for me. Other than the fact that I can’t carry my entire family of 3 all at the same time, I really can’t ask for anything more! Wish Honda would stick to that design philosophy.
Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; March 3rd, 2023 at 10:04 AM.
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