Rear camera.
No-brainer for me- seat heater. The boyfriend bought me a remote starter for Christmas, so that solved half the problem. But I would love, love, love, love to have a seat heater.
I don’t suppose that Google’s self-driving cars count as “commonly available”? Because I’d be all over that, if I could afford it, and if the laws allowed it.
My Volt has a bug that Chevy says is a feature. You can’t use navigation or climate controls, or anything with the touch screen without audio being on. I would like a power button that solely controls the audio system. As it is now, I have to mute the radio if I want the rest of the devices to be on.
Ugh, I’m so fed up with “features” of dubious value that break and cost a ton of money to fix. Can I remove some of them instead?
My ideal car would be fully manual - stickshift, roll-up windows, etc. The only automation I want is cruise control. When the cars are fully automated, great. Until then, I want to have physical control of most things, and have them easily fixed when they break. Which should be rare.
Much louder horn!
(Hmph. SDMB took away my ALL CAPS response. Consider it being blasted from a freight-train horn.)
Does it have to be something available for my make, model and year, or just anything available on any car, and it’ll be magically retrofitted to my vehicle?
If it’s the first, I think I’d have Cal retrofit my pickup with the 4.7L V8 that came as an option on the 2005 Dodge Dakotas. It puts out quite a bit more power than my V6, but with very little additional fuel consumption. Kind of a win-win.
If it’s anything, I think I’d find some kind of very reliable 4 or 6 cylinder engine that makes about 20 mpg in the city/30 on the highway along with making at least 210 hp and 235 ft/lb of torque @ 4000 rpm. That way, the driving feel would be as good or better than what I have, and the fuel economy would be better.
How about removing features instead?
2007 VW Rabbit (AKA a Mark V Golf) 2 door manual transmission
Permanently disable the traction control “feature”, replace the electric door locks and trunk lock with manual, mechanical locks, replace power windows with manual crank windows
Upgrades?
Practical; add on a supercharger and intercooler, upgrade the ECU program, upgrade air intake and performance exhaust
Okay, one item…
Supercharger
You can work around the all caps takeaway.
[spoiler] One lowercase letter in your post will negate rendering the caps in lowercase. If you put a lowercase letter and use the color tags to make it white, it will look invisible while all of the capital letters will show.
MUCH LOUDER HORN! [noparse]x[/noparse]
For illustration purposes, I didn’t parse the color tags. [/spoiler]
Real: Heated exterior mirrors.
Fantasy: Dual machine guns.
You guys are giving me lots of ideas (cruise control, ability to lock car doors from outside while car is running, iPod jack/mp3 player, 75 more horsepower) and some from old cars of mine (adjustable intermittent wipers, illuminated ring around ignition switch), but since I have to choose just one, I choose iPod jack. My car is a 2005, and I think the very next year iPod jacks became standard equipment, but I just missed it.
I have plans to update my car’s stereo system sometime soon - it’s had a problem with the cd player for a while now.
All of these posts (except maybe the machine guns, I have enough of a ‘trigger finger’ yelling at people with my windows closed up where they usually don’t hear me) are exactly the reasons I love leasing cars. I know, I know, but getting a new car every three years rocks.
Heated mirrors are pretty nice. I mean, it’s kinda nice when you get out of work and it’s been snowing all day, but it’s really nice on those days when it’s snowing while you’re driving. Flip them on and the snow is gone 90 seconds later.
Illuminated ignition switch (button on mine). Got it, don’t really need it, but I have it.
Aux jack, yup.
Heated seats, got em
Anyways, one of the things I’ll never have a car again go without is bluetooth. It’s so nice and I feel so much safer using it that I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s mandatory in new cars in the next 5-10 years (or whatever we’re using to connect our phones to our cars at that point).
Stick shift.
My '99 Grand Prix is the first vehicle I’ve owned that’s an automatic. I’ve gotten used to it by now, but I miss the control of a manual.
I’d remove the dumb auto-dimming rear view mirror.
I was thinking either iPod jack or in-dash GPS (I drive a 2004 car so I missed that stuff) and if I had to choose one I think GPS. As long as I don’t have to pay for service for it or anything.
I don’t use my GPS or my iPod much (I have an FM transmitter for the iPod but I like listening to the radio anyway) but I do enjoy using my GPS when I do. I just don’t like having to plug it in and put it on the window and stuff.
Since some have asked, the intent of my post was to be real items, although they don’t have to really be available for your specific vehicle.
On the other hand, some of the fictional add-ons are amusing me, so by all means, carry on.
Air conditioning. In 2006, the lowest trim package for the Honda Civic came with no radio, no air conditioning, no lots of things, but of all of them I really missed the A/C (well, I missed the radio enough to buy one, but that’s cheap).
The 2011 Dodge Caliber had a “hill holder” feature that delays releasing the brakes to allow time for the clutch to engage. Except on the base model, which is the one I have. Since every stoplight on a hill in these parts — and there are a great many — seems to come equipped with a moron who snuggles right up against the rear bumper of the car ahead, I’ve wished for one of these many times.
(On the other hand, a Doper who owns a 2012 Caliber with the feature claims that it’s a genuine PITA, so perhaps I should just suck it up.)
I’d like my 97 BMW to be fitted with the 2014 Alpina B4 modifications. I’m talking engine, suspension, the works but in the wonderful E36 body style.
What a sleeper that would be!
GPS computer. My Dad has one and its cool because you can look at that and always know what street your on, what streets are around you, and what is coming up.