Five most useless features in a car

[Halmyre]

This is a personal observation - YMMV.

ELECTRIC SEAT ADJUSTMENT
Maybe it helps if only you ever drive the car, or you and your partner are the same height, but this was definitely the least-used feature on one of my cars – in eight years of ownership, I never touched it after the first couple of weeks of fiddlage. Once you've got the rake/height/lumbar/fore-and-aft positions, how often do you subsequently adjust them?

INTERMITTENT WIPERS
They NEVER work at the required speed. I’ve got five degrees of intermittency, and not one setting survives more than two or three sweeps before I’m fiddling with it, or switching it off altogether and just using the flick-wipe facility.

SUN ROOF
It lets in noise, it lets in water and it breaks down. Fully open, you can’t use it above fast walking speed due to turbulence and, tilted open, it lets in even more noise. And if it’s glass, it just reminds you of how dirty your roof is.

ELECTRIC REAR WINDOWS
My latest car has manual winders in the rear – oh, the deprivation! But honestly, I can’t remember the last time anyone opened the rear passenger windows. The damn things don’t even go all the way down anyway – might as well have them fixed.

SIDELIGHTS
Here’s a free tip - if it’s dark enough that you think you need sidelights then it’s dark enough that you need headlights. Maybe some people are trying to save wear on their bulbs, or are worried about the increased fuel consumption.

[Halmyre]

Crosswise said:

As an aside, I'm fascinated to know what car you have purchased which doesn't have electric rear windows? The wording leads me to believe it's modern in which case I'm amazed that anyting other than a lightweight track car or a Tata Nano come without electric windows, or your car is a Mk1 Ford Cortina in which case it would make sense. My XJ6 has electric windows front and back and that's nearly 40 years old, I'm shocked that it hasn't caught on.

3 year old Passat R-line (one up from bog-standard). I understand "Ze Germans" are notorious tightwads when it comes to extra features. Although I have heard that in South Africa even a radio is an optional extra.

[Halmyre]

300bhp/ton said:

Maybe you need to let these things not bother you so much. Either that or have a custom vehicle built for you that only has things you want, rather than buying something designed for mass production.

Well, that's put me in my place.

[Halmyre]

SilverWraith said:

Enjoyed the comments. For me the prize goes to the Golf bottle opener (WTF?) but my pet hate is cup holders. Never a practical size for anything I want to drink and always in a very awkward position forcing you to take your eyes off the road to find the drink. I use my wife to hold my drink! I just hold my hand out with eyes firmly fixed on the road and the beverage of choice is delivered smoothly into my hand (and it works in reverse!)

As a Rolls-Royce man, I have to say the absence of the push-button door closing in the front of the Phantom is unbelievable. Introduced for the rear passengers as the suicide doors prevent one from reaching the door once in necessitating the need for a button. But, have they not sat in the front and realised that the doors, which are huge, are a long way out to reach so if one is even average hieght you practically have to get out of the car to pull the door in!

But...doesn't one normally have a chauffeur for that sort of thing?

[Halmyre]

akaRob said:

Has the dashboard light dimmer on the MX5 been mentioned? I've never used it and can't think why I would ever need such a thing. I've never seen it on any other car either.

What's its purpose? Does anyone feel the need to use it?

I have that, turned down to its lowest setting. It's a common feature on cars nowadays.

[Halmyre]

akaRob said:

Halmyre said:

I have that, turned down to its lowest setting. It's a common feature on cars nowadays.

Is your intrument cluster always illuminated? It would be quite handy if that was the case.

It lights up when the car's lights are on. On unlit roads I would still say it's too bright. Some car dashboards are lit up like Blackpool illuminations - which git thought blue LEDs were a good idea? One car I had, I used to cover one bit of the dash (not the important bit!) with a bit of card to cut down the glare.

[Halmyre]

TonyRPH said:

mp3manager said:

TonyRPH said:

To all those complaining about dashboard dimmers...

I found them really useful when driving for long hours in the middle of the night on unlit roads.

My only pet peeve with them, is when they are placed next to the headlamp height adjuster, and it's easy to get confused between the two..

Good job the brake and accelerator pedals aren't placed next to each other then, as it would be easy to confuse between the two of them........oh wait!

lol but seriously - I was referring to this (Audi A3) example in particular.

The Passat's the same (obviously), with the advantage that you can't see it from a driving position. At least you can quickly work out that you're twiddling the wrong bit. The Alfa had an awkwardly sited push button that you pressed to sequentially set the level, but if you pressed too often it went back to full brightness and then it was start again - one push, two pushes, three, four...dammit, overshot again. And it was placed close to the trip reset.

[Halmyre]

Shaw Tarse said:

petrolsniffer said:

Fastdruid said:

I'd agree, I liked the Puma intermittent wipers which (as a previous poster notes) can be set to any intermittency you want but even then I find if the rain is itself intermittent you still end up playing with it all the time.

How do you do this???? I've done it by accident a couple of times but never known how to set the delay

From my poor memory, switch intermittent wipe on, switch off, switch back on at the delay you want?
Also works on older Focus?

Problem of course is that THE fkING RAIN DOESN'T ALWAYS FALL AT THE SAME fkING FREQUENCY!!! Thank you God, thank you so very much you evil bd!! !