You are of course entitled to your POV, and obviously (from your post) it isn’t a compromise that works for you. I say “meh” compromise, because I remember trying to drive and swap out cassettes or CD’s from a car, where I can now just access via voice and/or steering wheel buttons hundreds of albums from my phone with much less distration.
Again, it’s a compromise. Do I wish that the manufacturers are heavily invested in sticking it all in one so they do less work and yet somehow charge an excessive premium for it (especially with screens large enough for “slop” factor)? Oh hell yes. It’s a truly mixed bag. And that’s leaving out the assumption that more or less everyone has to have an internet connected device or pay an outrageous premium for monthly service from the mnfc!
Federal law requires the nag screen at every start up. And requires that it time out after a bit and expose the normal UI. Just learn to ignore it as another example of well-meaning nanny state that doesn’t achieve its goal at an acceptable cost of your and my irritation.
Because that screen is a US requirement not found in other countries, it’s controlled by an internal software toggle switch. The car makers generally make one set of software for the entire world that incorporates all the quirks of each regulatory agency and includes ways to switch on and off each of those quirks. Part of manufacturing that individual car is setting all the switches to the country where it’s going.
There are aftermarket tools that can access and flip some of these switches and other settings on some makes and models of cars. I have turned that nag screen off on my last 5 cars. And turned off all the seatbelt noises which I find intrusive, but not the warning icons which I find acceptably ignorable for the rare occasions somebody is deliberately not belted but are still useful info for the “I forgot” case. And a few other things I found irritating that weren’t addressable through the cars normal settings UI.
Slowly manufacturers are bumping the anti-hacker security of the car’s computer systems. One of the consequences is to lock out the ability to flip any such switches. My latest car of the same make is much more locked down than it’s predecessor was.
I can’t say anything specific about your car, but some searching may produce dividends.
Also the 6th gen Chevrolet Camaro 1LE ( track ready version ) uses it on it’s steering wheel, shifter knob and seats. Some of the Ford Mustangs have it too.
It looks and feels OK, but I wonder how durable it would be with all paws gripping, grabbing, slipping all the controls with it.
In the modern world, you can assume the engineers thought of that and know pretty accurately how well it will wear.
What you can’t know is whether Marketing wants it to last 10 years or only 3. The importance of the first buyer is large. The importance of resale value and the second buyer of the same car is nil to many manufacturers.
Has there been an environment more studied, in all of history, than the automobile passenger compartment? Maybe but I can’t think of one. Every single thing in a mass market vehicle has been gone over in painstaking detail but, even then, the human-machine interface gets special attention: seating/upholstery, dash, driving controls, sightlines, etc.
Your car had a manual? Last month I rented a brand new 2026 SUV for a week. The same make and model as my own car, but of course full of the latest tech. There was a menu of which particular touch screen I wanted at the moment, which doesn’t help without an explanation of which screen controls what function. I couldn’t figure out how to activate anything, and the rental didn’t come with an owner’s manual. Eventually I learned where the windshield wipers were, how to change the radio station and turn the AC on and off (but not how to change the setting.) I trusted the headlights to come on automatically and was glad I only needed it for driving around town.
The manager at the rental car agency was apologetic, but said they didn’t have any control over whether someone had neglected to include an owners manual. He did give me a voucher for 10% off my next rental.
Dual climate controls are an absolute godsend for couples who operate at different temperatures. We’ve owned two vehicles with this feature and really miss it in the cars that don’t have it.
3rd row seating is one of those things that you may not use very often but when you need it its the only thing that will suffice. We owned a Suburban with triple bench seats. Not the most comfortable rig but when we needed to haul a bunch of people it was a lifesaver.
I love the adaptive cruise control and lane-stay assistant. The adaptive cruise control really is exponentially safer than the old-school type.
My Kia has a sunroof and the only benefit I’ve found is to let heat out on hot sunny days. Which, admittedly, is very nice.
It also has the mood lighting. Stupid, pointless, distracting, and something I turned off before leaving the dealership on the day I bought it and have never turned back on.
However the stupidest modern car features are electronic parking brakes:
My very limited experience with Alcantara is not from its use in a car I’ve owned, but friends that had it when it was an interior option from Lotus. My observation is that it’s a good material for low-touch uses, like door cards and dashboard inserts. Not so great for high friction environments like seat bolsters and such where it eventually wears down. TERRIBLE for steering wheels, especially for people that eat in their car. Hand grease makes Alcantara look super gross. Think of restaurant carpet that’s gotten so dirty and worn that it gets shiny. Eww.
This is how I know when my car has gotten a software update during a dealer visit. All of a sudden I get in and and delivered an avalanche of beeps, pings, warning lights and messages on screen. Then I gotta remember what I turned off where just to get my car back to its quiet self.
While completely useless, I liked my ambient lighting options my last car. (my current car doesn’t have it) I could pick a color and intensity. I generally went with a dim blue or violet.
The Rogue had an auto-dimming headlight feature. At first I didn’t know what was going on, but then I found I liked it. I was surprised that it worked near perfectly. As good as I would have manually.
It also put the speed limit in the display. My 2019 doesn’t have that. You can’t trust it 100%, but it helps away from home. I heard it uses a camera to read signs. Fascinating!
The auto headlights feature is one I love. What I dislike is that my wife prefers to manually operate the headlights in her car (same make, different model.) So on the rare occasions that she drives my car, in addition to fucking with the seats and mirrors, she’ll invariably turn the lights off when turning the car off.
Two small features I had on a previous car (VW GTI) - and really liked - involved the wipers. They would sense rain and turn on automatically. Then, they had an adjustable intermittent setting. So if it was only lightly misting/sprinkling, the wipers would wipe with quite long pauses in between. A minor thing, but nice. Both of our newer cars have only a single intermittent speed - which IMO is often too fast in a light rain.
One more thing - several cars ago I owned a Toyota that had a compass. Not sure if it was on the mirror or dash. When I bought a newer Toyota, the interior was very similar, but thecompass was gone. Just seemed like such a useful and inexpensive feature. Thought it odd that they offered it then discontinued it.
This post reminded me of something I see on my dashboard display as I cycle through, and I have not been able to figure out what it’s for. It says “Sway Warning” with a graphic of a coffee (or tea) cup. I’ve looked in the owner’s manual and it’s not listed in the various warnings that can be displayed. It also seems odd that it’s not a “pop-up” warning but one of the screens you can select for the display. It almost seems like a placeholder for something that’s not active or maybe not available on my model. It’s a 2018 Toyota RAV4 – if anyone knows what this is, I’d love to know.
We haven’t had rain in a while, and on this morning’s commute I had trouble remembering the way my intermittent wipers work. I was setting it in the wrong direction because that’s the way it is in our other car; standardization would be nice.
I still miss the foot operated high beam botton on the floor.
In our EV I love the many options I have to set when charging happens depending on where I’m plugged in. Not something I would have asked for but it’s a godsend at times.
The last time I rented a car it had adaptive cruise control, and I figured it out pretty quickly – you just set like normal “dumb” cruise control, except it will automatically slow down if you approach a car traveling slower than the speed you set. Really the only difference is an additional control to set the following distance. (Admittedly it was probably easier for me to figure out on that rental car because it was a Mazda, and my own car is also a Mazda but with just old fashioned cruise control, so the basic controls were already familiar to me).
As a side note, recently my parents we telling me all about this cool new feature they just discovered their car has – adaptive cruise control. Apparently they were completely unaware adaptive cruise control is a thing, let alone that their car has it, and they’ve had that car for nearly a year.
More and more I see a lot of cars driving around at dusk without headlights. I suspect that the automatic function has been turned off unintentionally.
Ever since cars’ electromechanical instrument panels have been replaced by glowing screens, it’s become hard to tell whether headlights are on or off at dusk. Used to be the most obvious clue to the driver was their speedometer was too dark to read. Not anymore.
Screens are ~10 yo tech for mainstream cars which suggests a lot of older pre-screen cars are now aging off the road, or moving into their po’ folks-only clunkerhood while the bulk of ordinary cars seen in ordinary situations is rapidly becoming fully screen-equipped.
I love this in my car as well. You can set the distance gap to the forward car, and it does a seamless job of managing your speed. You go the speed you want, unless it would put you too close to another car, the car in front speeds up, you speed up, someone cuts in front of you, the car brakes. I’m still driving, I just don’t have to deal with the speed at all, it does exactly what I want.
After posting earlier, I played around with this a bit when I was in the car at lunchtime. Yes, it apparently is a “falling asleep” warning, and tied to the Lane Departure Alert. First I had to turn on the LDA (which I don’t usually have on when driving around town) by pushing a button on the lower left dash. Then I separately had to turn on the Sway Warning in the in-dash menu.
I’m going to swerve all over the place on the way home and see if it tells me to take a nap!
