To hate modern cars?

[Sandflea9900]

Just got a new car after having our previous one for about 9 years. It’s a disaster. Too damn clever for its own good with automatic everything. The problem is that all these automatic features don’t work properly to the point where I think they’re actually making the car more dangerous. Examples:

a) Automatic headlines on, driving at night on the motorway, car changes from dipped headlights to full beam despite there being oncoming traffic on the other side of the motorway.

b) Driving along a residential road at the speed limit of 20mph, late at night. No other road users on the road, no pedestrians, cats etc. The anti collision system does an emergency stop for no reason.

c) Car randomly beeps warnings with no visual warning light/symbol/message so I have no idea what it’s warning me about. Car manual doesn’t explain.

AIBU to want to go back to a simpler car without all these magical gadgets? DH insists all cars are like this now. I know I can turn off automatic lights (and have done so) but I’m thinking I need to turn off all the other safety features if this is how the car is going to behave.

Oh bloody collision braking is doing my bloody head in.

I swear I am going to get someone go in the back of me at some point.

I was in a REALLY slow moving queue last week, literally 2 mph, bloody thing came on! Had I have hit the guy in front at that speed he wouldn't have noticed!!

It was with dismay that I discovered (when I bought my new Suzuki SX4 S Cross back in 2021) that new cars don't have CD players. Yes, it has the ability to play linked devices but I've got loads of cds that I used to really enjoy playing in the car.

And the lights - absolute mystery to me.

My motor cars date from the early 70s - I'm not blind to their flaws - I spend a lot of money on running repairs but I like the charm and the simplicity. I think it was downhill for motor cars from the early 90s - cars from that era don't have the corrosion issues faced by older cars like mine and they don't have the bloat of modern cars.

I've never owned a car younger than 2009 and I don't want to. Apart from the technology, the modern ones are so much wider. I also don't want to be one of the arseholes with those ridiculously bright headlights. I'll keep my old bangers going for as long as I can.

Every car I've ever had has had the fog lamp buttons hidden where I can't easily see them if I hit fog. Why do they do this? It's precisely when I drive into fog that I need the buttons to be VERY easy to see!

Even my kids have 90s cars. I'd rather them drive basic functionality cars that they have actually drive and maintain before the beeping crap that manufacturers make.

Also their choices! And all from eBay with various tinkering aspects.

That's another reason I love my cars - they were big cars in their day and although the bonnets are long, the cars are very narrow. There's been a few times over the years when drivers of, say, a Ford Focus have followed me through a gap and broken their door mirrors.

The automatic headlights baffle me. It was a glaring bright 31C Australian summer day today, and multiple cars had their headlights on.

I hear you, OP. I recently got a new car. I have gotten used to it, but I don't love it and I miss the simple reliability of my old car. However, the repair costs of the car I got rid off were slowly bankrupting me, so I had no choice.

Thankfully my car is the cheapest version of a cheap hatchback. This means no automatic braking. I do have lane keeping assist, however, that is easy to disable by holding down a button on the wheel for 3 seconds. Had to watch a Youtube video to figure that out as the manual wasn't clear on that either. As for the rest I get audio warning with visuals, but I ignore them now, because 80% of the time they are wrong and/or pointless.

The speedlimit warnings really annoyed me at first, because they are wrong nearly a 100% of the time. But now I have become acclimatised to them and tune them out.

The only problem now is that I have become totally complacent to any and all audio warnings. I am sure I'll end up regretting that some day, but needs must in the mean time.

Completely agree OP! Over engineered, confusing nightmare! Give me chunky buttons and a cd player any day.

New cars don’t have CD players?? But that’s the only place I listen to cds!
I totally agree with modern cars being far far too big. I don’t get it? Roads are getting more congested daily so let’s make cars take up even more space? Every day I see some giant transit van sized monster with one tiny person perched up in it. Barely able to manoeuvre the thing, barrelling down heavily parked roads, sending smaller cars swerving out of the way.
I genuinely don’t see the appeal.

I've just been given a courtesy car which has no physical hand brake just a button and I hate it. I feel really unsafe as I keep automatically reaching for the brake.

No idea. But, surely, the fact that you can turn them off proves something, that they are not obligatory. It's not as if you are turning off the actual brakes / headlights / whatever - just the automation of them.

But I don't know, I'm just guessing.

We got hit in a Tesco’s car park by some numpty reversing the wrong way ( we were starting to back out of our space) She wasn’t looking behind her (she explained) because she was waiting for her reversing camera to beep if there were any obstacles. WTF??!! This technology is leading to some seriously bad driving.

I need a new car as mine is showing its age now and things are starting to go wrong.

I’m holding off as DH’s car drives me crazy with all the panicked beeping from the proximity sensors. A dried out nettle stem is enough to trigger them. There are a lot of narrow lanes here and pulling into a hedge is routine. I don’t need 4 different proximity sensors screaming at me whilst I edge slowly past. They are dangerous and distracting.

We’ve turned off as much as we can but can’t seem to do anything about these!

Jaguar didn’t make an estate in the 90s…

I bought a new car last year, a Lancia Ypsilon. Not available in the UK but it is/was the cheapest new car available to buy here at €13,000ish. No Bluetooth, no infotainment screen, no automatic anything…and I love it for that. It’s like a new car from 1999. I use to to commute to the train station every day and for shopping once or twice a week. In 18 months I’ve only covered about 5000 miles. My plan is to drive it until the wheels fall off.

It’s high beam assist. It goes to high beam when it’s dark and supposedly goes to dipped with oncoming traffic or traffic ahead but sometimes the barrier on motorways prevents the detection so full beam remains on.

Fair point OP, as someone who does not own one and only ever uses hire cars. Takes away some of the skill of driving and breeds a kind of laziness in some.

Though BMW have not included a warning noise or something that tells drivers to indicate.

God yes, me too! Ours isn't that new (about 12 years) but I hate the electronic warning lights. We have had one on for a while now, intermittently. Our garage couldn't diagnose it (we'll have to go to a specialist for the brand) but found something they thought was the problem, but isn't serious. Who knows? Now another has come on, telling me "STOP THE CAR". Well, I switched the engine off and on again and the error went away.

We've been looking to replace it, but all the touch screens, auto this and auto that make me lose the will to live. And they have forgotten about the basics, like doors that are easy to open and shut from the inside (not something you think about till it's wrong and difficult), or a proper seat with space for an adult in the middle of the back row.

I want a Fred Flintstone car!

DH is talking shit. If you weren't meant to be able to turn them off for any legal reason (including insurance) the car simply wouldn't let you. Tell him to grow some balls.

My DH's car has these features. I tried to flash someone the other day, which didn't flash them, but turned on the auto full beam instead and took me an age to turn off! Unless you drive on country roads constantly, the feature is a nothing but a menace.

I got stuck in DH's car once when reversing off a tricky driveway. Auto braking kicked in because there was a leaf behind a sensor. There was a fence, but it was a good 2 foot behind me so I had plenty of room, but the car would not let me go any further. DH had to get out and hold the leaf out of the way!

The beeping could be a speed warning. I had one on an old Honda Civic. You can set it to bing whenever you go over a certain speed. I had mine set at 80! My now car had one set at 30 when I got it, so that got turned off straight away.

Some features are great, but the ones you mention specifically are, I agree, a pain in the arse!

My car in 7 years old and has only auto headlights and auto windscreen wipers and I am happy with those! My favourite feature is when you have the rear windscreen wiper on but you put the car in reverse, it turns the wiper on to continual mode.

I also like the fact that if you turn your indicators off half way through a flash, it will finish the flash cycle properly. I like the little things! 😂

Oh and I hate bloody touch screens in cars. It's illegal to use your phone, but hey, just stick a big iPad in the middle of the car and use that instead. You have to be looking at it to change anything and I always end up pressing something else instead.

I like the BMW and Audi (I think) system of having a dial too. My car has the dial in the centre console and it's so much safer to use.

Interesting thread - as a driver of a car which has nothing more sophisticated than a parking cam, I now understand why cars seem to brake for no apparent reason!

Which? recently reported that cars don't have CD players any more. One of our cars is a 10 year old Ford Focus and it does.

I don't use satnav, I know or look up the roads I need to get somewhere and if I need help when I get there I'll either look at the map, or I'll turn on Google Maps at that point to guide me over the last mile or so. Occasionally go wrong, but just turn round at the first opportunity or find a different way to go.