I thought it was just me

Have modern car driver interfaces become too complicated for some people.

I wouldn't have brought this up, but was talking with some buddies and one brought up how his wife got mad at him after he changed the display mode in her car. I can see her point, that it's her car and doesn't want it messed with. But he went on to say that she didn't know how to change the display back to the "MPG" screen, and he then realized that for seven years, she'd been looking at "average speed" and thinking it was MPG. He said he wanted to bring up the terse and direct guy comment of "RTFM" but knew better.

His story started everyone talking at once, about how wives don't seem to care to understand how to operate their own car. Instead of reading the manual, they simply conclude that it's broken if it doesn't work as expected. There were stories about spouses having their car towed to a dealer, only to be told that nothing was wrong, and that the dash indicator meant that the hatch wasn't latched. Another spouse refused to drive the car because she saw a new red dash indicator. This, as she sat in the car with the driver's door open, pointing at the indicator showing that a door was open, yet not knowing that's what it meant.

Perhaps worst of all is that all the said spouses concluded that there is something wrong with the car, even after it was explained. What was most concerning wasn't that some one had such a story, but that we all did, all involving spouses having concluded that their cars are unreliable because they won't read the manual. Because women have so much decision-making authority when buying a new car, this misguided perception of unreliability could end up hurting car makers. Maybe they need to work harder on their human-to-machine interface, like getting rid of display icons and just say "Driver's door open", or "Hatch unlatched." Anything short of this could lead to misperceptions about what's going on, but for most people, perception is reality, so car makers better simplify a bit more.

I don't think it has anything to do with women, I think it's just how much thought normal non-car people give to their cars. They're just appliances to do a job, so why bother figuring out how it works?

We bought a new dishwasher a few months ago. It has a funky light on the front that blinks different patterns and colors. I have no idea what it means, nor am I ever going to bother finding out. Dirty dishes go in, clean dishes come out, and if all goes well it'll be broken and replaced with the next dishwasher before that blinking light has any relevance to my life. 

Total agreement, except it's part of the sales patter.  People normally don't understand ( or care) but by mentioning everything a few key words may reach people and they make their decisions on that and price.  
  Ever wonder why expensive cars sell to none car people?   Price and sales patter.  

Yeah, speaking as a wife, I definitely have never had a car towed to a dealer because of a perceived issue. It only goes in for routine maintenance and I change the cabin air filter myself because berkeley paying for that. I'm a pretty average case among other women I know, too.

No, I don't like people messing with my display modes unless they're going to be driving the car for a long trip, but I will begrudgingly change them back to how I like them when I'm back in the driver's seat. 

And Tom, I think the funky light on the dishwasher is to let you know when it's starting/finishing a new cycle?

I had some thoughts that I will avoid sharing because I read it back and it sounded (and probably was) incredibly sexist. 

No, I don't think cars are becoming too complicated for some people. Yes, I do think that many cars come with unnecessary features. Yes, I do think that all cars should come with a quick-start guide much like how mobile devices do (here's how you start the car, here are the blinkers, the hazard light is here, here are common dash lights that turn on, here's how to operate the HVAC, etc). 

When I bought my WRX, the sales agent walked me through the process of what all the buttons do and what the lights mean. Granted, this was new, and they most definitely won't do that if it's a used car, which is why I think a quick-start guide should be provided. 

My wife RTFM for her car when she got it, and understands more about the features and functions than I do.

Her car tried to pair itself with my phone and I was so suspect of it that I turned my phone off.

The TPMS alarmed for a tire. She took the gage, found out what tire it was and let me know. I filled it back up, figuring the alert would go away. The TPMS system doesn't reset itself. There is a procedure you have to do. My wife knows what it is. I don't. 



 

hunter47 said:

I had some thoughts that I will avoid sharing because I read it back and it sounded (and probably was) incredibly sexist...

Completely agree and I almost didn't post it, and wouldn't have if I hadn't heard from others first. And I'll be the first to admit that you're only hearing half the story from a guy's perspective - we all know how guys don't read instructions or ask for directions.

In reply to hunter47 :

My mother in law bought a new Forrester last year. The Subaru dealer scheduled her to come in for a one day class on how to use it like a week after pickup.

Turns out Mrs "multiple PHDs and gatekeeper too becoming a teacher in this state" still can't use the touch screen, backup camera, and forgets how to use the push button start at least once a week still. 

Slightly better than my mom who refuses to learn new technology at all. 

It's not women, as such.  It's spouses who have been told that mansplaining is a thing, and it only happens to women. (I get E36 M3 mansplained to me by a friend all the time. Drives me nuts.)

Get a respected neighbor to tell your spouse things, and you can tell his spouse stuff.  Works way better.

Oh yeah- cars are way stupid, with way too much garbage built in.

I think perhaps it's even simpler, and that sexists who look down on women don't attract the sharpest tools in the drawer as mates.

Margie

Definitely not just limited to women, but a non-car people thing.

I knew a guy in college who had a very nice new Mustang convertible. He was very proud of it, and even more proud of the fact that he "drove stick." He told me to take it for a drive so I could "see how much better it was than my ratty BMW."

Y'all this car was an automatic. I told him that and he was like "but it has a stick." It blew his mind when I told him that an actual manual transmission has a clutch pedal that is used when the driver manually selects the different forward gears. I guess his last car had the shifter on the steering column and he thought that as long as it's in the center, it's a manual transmission. 

My wife and I generally have no issues with operation of any of our vehicles. My 19 year old son however... oof... I am however grateful that he is an attentive driver with a lot of patience on the road. That is all I could ask for.

In reply to Katie Suddard :

Ok this is very funny, how had I not heard this story before?

I'm seeing two things here.

- complaints about problem indicators that are not clear. This is not a new thing, obscure and incomprehensible warning lights have been around forever. My CRX has a warning light that lights up the outline of an integrated circuit with PGM overlaid. If you don't know what an IC looks like, then the light just looks like a bug. That doesn't help anyone. And that vehicle is nearly 40 years old. Before the obscure warning light, you had gauges the driver had to be able to read and understand. An ammeter showing the generator isn't keeping up doesn't help if you can't interpret the gauge, which is one reason why we have alternator lights now :)

- mutable interfaces. This is the more modern problem, and I understand. Interfaces in vehicles shouldn't change, on their own (short or long term, such as those context-sensitive physical buttons in the new Hummer or an OTA-delivered interface refresh by some 25 year old graphic designer who felt the old one was "stale") or by user UNLESS there is a way for the car to identify the user and change the interface back.

It took a few weeks but I finally convinced my GF that is the noisy U joint on here AWD vehicle's drive shaft blows it won't disable the car....in fact we can remove the driveshaft entirely and it'll keep going as FWD.

She's only become concerned about it after noticing an occasional noise recently. I noticed it over a year ago....

There have been many times with her and plenty of other people when I just have to shake my head and think internally "really"....

Does her AWD have a center diff? Because if all the diffs are open, losing a drive or halfshaft will disable the car :)

Marjorie Suddard said:

I think perhaps it's even simpler, and that sexists who look down on women don't attract the sharpest tools in the drawer as mates.

Margie

I won't say my wife is smarter than I am overall, but she's certainly more knowledgeable in some areas than I am. 

We work well as a team. 

Katie Suddard said:

Definitely not just limited to women, but a non-car people thing.

I knew a guy in college who had a very nice new Mustang convertible. He was very proud of it, and even more proud of the fact that he "drove stick." He told me to take it for a drive so I could "see how much better it was than my ratty BMW."

Y'all this car was an automatic. I told him that and he was like "but it has a stick." It blew his mind when I told him that an actual manual transmission has a clutch pedal that is used when the driver manually selects the different forward gears. I guess his last car had the shifter on the steering column and he thought that as long as it's in the center, it's a manual transmission. 

It takes X bit of time and effort to learn (things), and a certain bit of brain overhead to keep it in memory. There are plenty of people who reserve that for other things that are more important to them, and most of the time it's fine. It only matters when something goes wrong.

It's sad that the OP's friend group seems to have such a universally low opinion of their spouse's intelligence. 

There's lots of stuff on my wife's car that I know how to do and she doesn't because I care about cars and she does not. But I would NEVER say there's anything that's "too complicated" for her to understand or something that she couldn't figure out if she decided she wanted to learn about. 

Marjorie Suddard said:

I think perhaps it's even simpler, and that sexists who look down on women don't attract the sharpest tools in the drawer as mates.

Margie

I regret that I have only one upvote to give

In reply to Katie Suddard :

Wow.

In reply to Asphalt_Gundam :

I wouldn't be proud of talking someone out of being worried about a known-failed u-joint.  Would I drive it around like that?  Sure...until I had a chance to fix it.  But I wouldn't brag about it.

That's an actual problem...not something to look down on someone for being concerned about, lol.

To the original topic:  Cars are definitely too complicated for my taste but I just chalk it up to "the world is changing and I'm now officially "old."  I can be old and grouchy or just move on with it."  There are things that aren't cars that I am ignorant about (willfully and happily).  So why would I judge (too-harshly) non car people for "not getting it" when it comes to car technology?

I will say that some of them are not in any way intuitive. 

My mother has a Subaru something. She loves the car, but the display is pretty much crap unless you have the instruction manual or time to scroll through looking for something. Forget adjusting anything at a redlight. It's been back to the dealer several times to have things reset or found in the menus or have it reconnected to her phone. She's had it for about a year and it still disconnects from her phone on occasion.

To answer the question, I say yes. It took my over a dozen drag passes to finally figure out what sequence of events I needed to properly execute a decent run in my Mustang.

First I have to have the ignition on. From there I have 4 "switches next to the stop/start button, I select the mode switch and have to hit it up 5 times, once to trigger the menu and 4 more to scroll through to the drag race option. I can then start the car by pressing in the clutch and hit the start button. I then have to turn off the traction control or a burnout just doesn't happen as the abs module has other ideas. I do my 6500rpm burnout wait for some smoke and throttle out. Turn traction control back on as it's also a rpm limited launch control like a two step. Stage. Floor it. Sidestep the clutch at 4k, and shift twice at 6500 rpm, cross at the 7500 rev limiter. Drive to the timing shack for a time slip... typically 13.5@110. 

There just shouldn't be that many "processes".....