What features are worth the cost?

[sarahb083]

Hi, we're looking for a new car but not sure where to start with the huge lists of features. What options are worth it? We know we want parking sensors, what else should we consider?

Wing mirrors that close when you lock the car - especially if you don't have a driveway and park on the road.

We have 360 parking cameras with an top down view. I could live without now! I can squeeze in to much tighter spades than I used to, even with a larger car.

I don't know how standard it is on cars... But I found it very useful when my car told me I was losing pressure in one of my tyres.

Parking sensors

Heated seats if you have long term back problems!

Electric seats. Heated seats. Full media bluetooth. Auto lights (not just DRL). Front and rear parking sensors.

Having a light in the boot when you open it
Folding wing mirrors
Heated seats
Air con
Rear camera

Parking Sensors
Parking camera
Bluetooth/ phone/ sat nav
Tyre pressure sensor
Heated seats
Keyless ignition ( no more looking in my very messy bag for keys)

I like connectivity, specifically the facility to 'sling' music or nav from my phone to the car
A decent sound system. My Nissan Murano has a Bose system, it's terrific
Leather upholstery (not black, although that's a personal taste thing)
Air conditioning/climate control
Lots of seat adjustment (I'm tall and like my back supported a certain way)

Otherwise and this is again purely personal and perhaps more about model choice than spec a sufficiently powerful engine for the long journeys that I tend to do. So many modern cars have thin, reedy engines that never seem to have quite enough shove. Give me a 3.0 V6 or more any day.

All I want from a car is electric windows and air conditioning anything else is completely extraneous for me .

What sort of driving do you do?

If your living it a busy city things like parking sensors can be handy if your not great at parking or the car is substantially bigger than what you’ve had before.

If your doing motorway driving stuff like cruise control, Bluetooth, and sat nav may be a good investment.

If your normally out the house really early things like heated front/rear screen and heated seats can be a great investment. Takes 2 mins to defrost your front screen. If you get leather seats you definitely want heated seat. The seats a freezing in the winter .

Personally for me air con is a must, the rest I literally don’t care. I only drive 10 miles to and from work so didn’t feel the need to buy all the add ins. Dp works about 2 miles away from home and insisted on heated seats and sat nav ‘Incase he gets lost’ 🤦‍♀️

Aircon
Parking Sensors
Heated windscreen - clears so quickly when iced up
Heated wing mirrors
Heated steering wheel
Bluetooth

Otherwise and this is again purely personal and perhaps more about model choice than spec a sufficiently powerful engine for the long journeys that I tend to do. So many modern cars have thin, reedy engines that never seem to have quite enough shove. Give me a 3.0 V6 or more any day.

Performance is top of my list when choosing a car, but engine size is much less relevant these days. The 3.5 V6 in your Murano would be woefully underpowered for my tastes and yet there are plenty of 2 litre turbos around now with loads of power.

I like that I can press a button in my car and say play x song or direct me to x location. I feel all Star Trek! I never know if the map will play through the car or my watch tho. It's a surprise each time.

I miss rear camera. My sensors are woefully sensitive which means I just ignore them anyway. And heated seats. Or where you can have one side of the car hot and one cold. My car also has a shit sound system. And only goes fast down a hill, if the wind is blowing in the right direction.

It's the outgoing 118i.

But the more reliable brands include all the good stuff in their models and the ones that don't will as WLTP makes options a nightmare.

Reversing camera. It has made parking so easy. I would never not have one now.

Heated seats, parking sensors, I would also get a dash cam personally. Great for insurance purposes

Oh and the light that flashes when someone is in your blind spot!

Thank you, this is really helpful! Keep them coming!

Heated steering wheel and speed camera notifications

If you are short powered opening and closing tail gate.
Heated seats.
Blue tooth.
Sat nav.
These are the only four things I require on my car (lease with DPs job), he then spends hours on the other stuff that is not important to me.

Really people think folding wing mirrors are worth the cost? You realise all wing mirrors fold some just need pushing in manually. Is that really too much effort these days?

@PomBearsyummy two coworkers and I got our premium brand, top spec cars delivered at the same time. We accepted delivery and then locked the cars. The wing mirrors stayed out. We all looked confused and asked the man who delivered them and he laughed and manually pushed them in. We were horrified 🤪

My fav features in my car are heated seats with massage (though it doesn't work that well as it's old!) really decent front and rear air con, rear heated seats, huge boot space extra seats in boot for random extra children or in-laws. (I have a Volvo xc90)

Not so important - have sat nav but it's out of date and my own house isn't even on it lol but I would prefer a proper built in sat nav. My husband has one in his car which isn't out of date!!

Definitely not important - rear screens with DVD player (2011 car bit old school now) which the kids have enjoyed but it's a bit gimmicky now as they all have other screens. It was a godsend when my daughter and husband drove to the alps though!

two coworkers and I got our premium brand, top spec cars delivered at the same time. We accepted delivery and then locked the cars. The wing mirrors stayed out

Can’t have been that top spec then!