A Car You Love With a Feature You Loathe

This morning as I was turning off the Outback the little Mile-O-Meter (fancy vacuum gauge) caught my eye.

I bought the Outback on sort of a whim; we were car shopping more so for me wife and this 6 speed manual came up, so we bought it.

The car fits what I need a daily driver for, perfectly, I've grown to appreciate it more and more except for one feature that I find idiotic; the aforementioned Mile-O-Meter. 

A temp gauge would have been far more useful than a gauge that helps, in theory, the driver get better gas mileage. It's made even more idiotic given that there is another readout that tells gives you MPGs in real time.  

Conversely I shall also share a car I came to loath with a feature I still go on about 22 years later:

My much mentioned D-sports racer. I came to hate the expense and maintenance intervals on that car but all these years alter I still rave about the brakes.

The car pulled 3Gs on the brakes and now every car I drive seems to have just OK brakes. Even the Formula 500 which did near 2Gs on the brakes felt just OK.

EDIT...........yes I know I've got a typo in the title but I clicked post before I realized it.

I like my Chevrolet Silverado but I hate the auto stoplight engine off feature requiring me to turn it off every day. 

I very much like my Tesla but the association with...you know...is becoming more and more of a problem.

The "you're in reverse" persistent beeping in the Prius bugs me.

Just about any system on my '23 Tacoma that uses the radar. For a vehicle this young, I expected more maturity out of the tech, but just about everything that relies on the radar hardware is terrible at it. Not just "not great", but flat awful. It has slammed the brakes multiple times on me for no need. Sometimes, it was a situation that would be admittedly tricky to program for (like an intersection with a sharp curve in the primary road, so the system thought I was headed towards incoming traffic), but thinking I was going to hit a bridge on the other side of the shoulder was pretty egregious. There happened to be a cop on the other side of said bridge, so I wonder if there was some cross-talk with his radar and mine. If so, also egregious. I have to set the following distance to a minimum all the time when using the adaptive cruise or else I'd never get close enough to pass someone without getting in the left lane a quarter mile too early. Just the other day, the emergency braking feature yelled at me while I was already braking for a car  that was turning out of my line. It was so overly cautious, my wife asked what the beeping was for since she didn't think I was remotely close to colliding with the car way ahead of me. 

I'm starting to wonder if I need a dealer visit, but it isn't repeatable enough to try and replicate. Ironically, the bridge incident was on the way to the dealer but for unrelated stuff. Apparently it is normal for the interior light to turn off from just applying upward pressure to the slider switch, and this isn't a warrantable issue...

Does the transmission count as a 'feature'?  My transit connect is a great vehicle otherwise.

For me, the feature I loathe in a car I otherwise love is the passenger side of the ND Miata. 

I hate the driver's side door on a Veloster.  If both sides looked like the passenger side, take my money.

mazda 3 awd turbo 2.5L hatch but it only comes in auto...

I loved my IS300. I hated the automatic transmission. "Please be in 3rd gear." pedal goes down a bit "Oh, you want to be in 1st now? That's not what I wanted."

My wife bought a Cobalt before I met her. I hated that car. About a year after she sold it, my favorite feature on that car--the oil cooler o-ring delete feature--kicked in and it started hemorrhaging oil. New owner neglected this, and the engine grenaded itself. Obviously, I still feel bad for him, but we sold it to him dirt cheap, and he just used it as a beater. Good riddance to the car. 

Keith Tanner said:

I very much like my Tesla but the association with...you know...is becoming more and more of a problem.

Autistic people are known for their social skills, all of them should own a social network.

And people whose two most prominent companies' very existence owe something significant to government funding/subsidies should get really involved in politics. Even better, when a car company is synonymous with virtue signaling for one side, go all in with the other side. It's the perfect formula to make literally everyone hate you.

Keith Tanner said:

I very much like my Tesla but the association with...you know...is becoming more and more of a problem.

The number of jerk-wad CEOs and founders at automotive companies is endless.

Keep your Tesla and tell folks to get stuffed is my advice for any Tesla owner.

C6 Z06 power drivers seat. The seat can be programmed to move to an 'exit' position when you turn off the ignition. It will not move into the criving position when you start the car, the button on the door must be pressed. Every. Single. Time.

The tachometer on the Mazdaspeed3. I'm unable to see redline in my peripheral vision. I'm lucky that you can feel the car run out of power just past 5K.

FRS.

Subaru engine. 

Snrub said:

Keith Tanner said:

I very much like my Tesla but the association with...you know...is becoming more and more of a problem.

Autistic people are known for their social skills, all of them should own a social network.

And people whose two most prominent companies' very existence owe something significant to government funding/subsidies should get really involved in politics. Even better, when a car company is synonymous with virtue signaling for one side, go all in with the other side. It's the perfect formula to make literally everyone hate you.

Not sure which side of the "no politics" line that post falls on, but it seems like instigation of further posts which will definitely be on the politics side of that line.

2023 Audi RS6. Love the car. Loathe the adaptive cruise control. Also loathe that I can't figure out how to switch from adaptive to standard. If I berkeleying wanted to keep a berkeleying constant distance from a berkeleying variable-speed object, I berkeleying wouldn't be using a berkeleying device that has been known throughout history to control to a fixed berkeleying speed.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Not so sound pedantic, but have you checked the manual? My Tacoma (see loathing above) can go to plain cruise if you hold the enable button for like 3 seconds. This is hidden in the manual but no indication anywhere else. 

Which does bring me to part B. Why does every manufacture except BMW think cruise control is some dangerous tool that must be carefully armed prior to use? My E91 had just a single button press to hold your speed, and it was within reach of the left hand (because manual). With my (also manual) truck, I have to use my right hand and press multiple buttons. That E91 easily had the best CC of any car I've owned. 

Tom1200 said:

Keith Tanner said:

I very much like my Tesla but the association with...you know...is becoming more and more of a problem.

The number of jerk-wad CEOs and founders at automotive companies is endless.

It is pretty much tradition. Henry Ford the 1st kept bruisers on the payroll to physically assault employees who were causing problems (trying to form unions), yet is still thought of as an american hero.

In reply to cyow5 :

Nope. No RTFM here, yet.🤘🏻😎

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:

The "you're in reverse" persistent beeping in the Prius bugs me.

Came here to say exactly this!

No clue why the designers thought the beeping should be on the inside of the car.

I loved my C8 but the stupid digital mirror. It had like 5 different zoom functions and none of them were correct to actually look like a real mirror. I would spend minutes flipping between the views so I could get it setup right. 

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

2023 Audi RS6. Love the car. Loathe the adaptive cruise control. 

Love the adaptive cruise in mine.  It's not "keep a fixed distance from the car in front of you", it's "maintain my set speed except don't rear-end people".

Worst feature is the auto stop/start that you have to turn off every time.  We can thank the EPA for that aggravation.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Auto stop/start - I couldn't think of the name.  

My last Silverado had the 8 to 4 cylinder change and when it hit 150,000 miles sometimes you picked up the changeover when you were doing 300 miles of flat cornfields. 

Guy at work said this 8/4 AFM ruined his engine. 
 

Snrub said:

Keith Tanner said:

I very much like my Tesla but the association with...you know...is becoming more and more of a problem.

Autistic people are known for their social skills, all of them should own a social network.

And people whose two most prominent companies' very existence owe something significant to government funding/subsidies should get really involved in politics. Even better, when a car company is synonymous with virtue signaling for one side, go all in with the other side. It's the perfect formula to make literally everyone hate you.

To be fair, SpaceX never took subsidies. They won government contracts in open bidding and delivered on them. But yeah. Way to burn all the bridges and then set everything else on fire as well.

I'm not afraid I'm gonna come off looking like a Nazi supporter because of the association, I'm more worried about someone vandalizing the car to make a political statement. Probably not all that likely around here though.

As for my other cars, I don't have a lot of hate for any of their aspects. Some things might bug me a bit, and often I'll make a modification to deal with it. But that's all.

In reply to NOHOME :

Best answer in this thread so far