Biggest Pet Peave on New Cars

Self dimming mirrors. I want to be in control of that myself, thank you very much.

Also, mirrors that are right at eye level and can't be adjusted up higher to avoid blocking my view of traffic.

dxman92 wrote: I'd like to see more performance oriented cars (ms3, civic si, gti) available with no sunroof, crank windows and no sat/nav. Also, i'd like to see some cars with manuals available with 6 speeds instead of 5. An extra cruising gear to keep the rpms down would be nice..

first gen ms3 wasn't available with a sunroof, and the sport package came with non-HID headlights and cloth seats, not sure about the current one. i do agree though, i had a hard time wearing a helmet in my rsx due to the lack of headroom with the sunroof.

pimpm3 wrote: Lack of "Real" manual transmissions. My friend who recently bought a 4 door M3 with a 6-speed. Had to get it out of Arizona. He lives in Miami and none of the local dealers had any that were not SMG. They all looked at him like he had three heads "why don't you want the SMG it is faster...."

i got similar looks when asking about a 4x4 xterra in houston. "why would you want 4wd here?" because i plan to use it not here, besides, its not your job to tell me what car i want, its your job to sell it to me.

The new ms3 doesn't have a sunroof either, structural reasons is what I'm told.

There is only "tech" and "non-tech" packages on the 2010 ms3. I went with non-tech, as I didn't think a crappy nav system, Bose stereo and start button was worth $2k

I have to agree with pretty much everything listed here. That's why i decided on my rx8 r3 over, well, anything else. It was more fun to put around in, plus it wasn't obnoxiously huge, (though at 3k lbs it's a bit heavy) it has manual lights, manual climate control, no sunroof, no satnav, (it does have bluetooth, and i hate it) traction/stability control are fully defeatable (though it doesn't say how in the manual, which i did read cover to cover) but what i do HATE is the stupid electric card/key fob crap. Seriously, I bought a car with manual lights, and you think I want a fancy pants key fob?!

Also, i don't like the brake pedal feel, and the stupid throttle by wire (not sluggish on this car, but i don't like it) of prettymuch every new car. And I HATE how i can't get a real manual on so many cars. I get odd looks when I tell people i hate automatic transmissions, but when pressed they all admit they can't drive a manual. I've only had one person say "thank you" when i said an automatic sports car was an abomination. She was a car salesman. I bought my car from her.

RexSeven wrote:

Marty! wrote: HID headlights. I hate when a oncoming car has these and blinds the hell out of me.

I don't think it's the lights themselves, rather that they are not aimed correctly, esp. if they are aftermarket HIDs mounted on a car that was never available with them. I don't get blinded by Acuras or Infinitis with them, but I definitely get blinded when they are installed in some crapcan Honda.

I get blinded by all of them including Acuras and Infinitis.

My biggests complaints have already been mentioned. Number one is the high seating position. I am 6'4" tall and get very tired of looking out of the top three inches of the windshield.

Number two is the "Start" button that turns everything on or off. To all the auto industry people on this board, do you really want the vehicles you dedicate most of you waking hours to produce to function like a Microsoft product?

ALL (well most) OF THE ABOVE!

But mostly no manual transmission, and the ridiculous high beltline and the drive-by-wire crap.

Anything that is supposed to make you "feel" safe while actually making you less safe. So, enormous trucks and SUVs and this stupid fad for high belt lines and small windows. Yes, you feel safer in an SUV. Yes, you feel safer with small openings to the outside. Yes, you are in more danger in all of those cases than if you were driving something with good visibility and the ability to maneuver in emergency situations.

I don't think we're creating "car people" at the same rate these days.

I recently read that Hot Wheels sales are off as of late. None of my nieces or nephews seem to care much about cars.

I was in a used luxury car dealership/Kia dealership (Why is the used luxury/cheap Korean brand combo so common?) where they had perhaps 80 cars that would be considered premium and made in the last ten years. There were no manuals there. They had a Miata (that was destined to go to their Chevy used lot) that had an automatic! SLK, G35, Boxster, C230, 325 - all slushboxen. Another dealership told me they wouldn't put sedans with manual transmissions on their used lot. Many dealership employees don't know how to drive a manual!

Strizzo wrote:

pimpm3 wrote: Lack of "Real" manual transmissions. My friend who recently bought a 4 door M3 with a 6-speed. Had to get it out of Arizona. He lives in Miami and none of the local dealers had any that were not SMG. They all looked at him like he had three heads "why don't you want the SMG it is faster...."

i got similar looks when asking about a 4x4 xterra in houston. "why would you want 4wd here?" because i plan to use it not here, besides, its not your job to tell me what car i want, its your job to sell it to me.

I was walking yesterday and heard an xterra drive by that sounded like a manual. I paid attention at the next stop sign and it sure was.

While I knew it was an option to get the 6spd in them, I figured it was a mythical unicorn. Nice to know someone still wants to row their own, even in an suv.

A retired co-worker tried to get his daughter's Cobalt out of about 8" of snow. The tires spun, traction control kicked in and tires stopped spinning. The car also stopped getting out of the 8" of snow. And then it refused to go over about 15 mph. He told her to call the Chevy dealer and get them to fix it by telling them they could fix it or she'd trade it on a Subie with lots of incentives poured out upon it. Thing is, she's the bookkeeper at the Chevy place...

There are eight cars parked immediately outside my office window. Three Opel (GM), three VW, a Ford and a Mitsubishi. Seven of them are some variant of silver or grey. In fact, the Opels, the Ford, and one of the VWs are as far as I can tell, a completely identical shade of dull appliance-silver. Missing are the two identical silver Yarises that sometimes park there.

I realize that a quality silver can be a really striking colour on the right car, but apparently people think every single 4-cylinder boxmobile needs to be identical! Does no one have any imagination anymore?

Honestly, I'll take some of those '70s colours back now, like lime green or day-glo orange. Sheesh.

Where do I start.

Intrusive electronic driving aides for stupid drivers. Now most are mandatory. Mercedes even advertises them and showcases brainless twits who can't pay attention when they drive.

Electronics in general. We finally have engines that are reliable for 200k+ but are plagued by sensors that go bad every 20k, costing much more than any mechanical part on the engine itself.

Plastic interiors. Sorry, I'm not spending my hard earned money to buy a piece of plastic. I grew out of Fisher Price years ago.

Weight, size. It seems as America got fat and lazy, the cars did to. I'm sick of every generation of cars being bigger than the last as that's some sort of improvement. The NA-NB Miata is a perfect evolution of a car. OK so it did lose some feel as it got older, but it evolved nicely. Take a look at the early 90's Camry and the Camry now. I wouldn't doubt that the Yaris sedan is the same size as a 1990 Camry.

MPG. We act like 30mpg is a benchmark but cars 20 years ago easily achieved this. Read above complaint. Now we need expensive and complicated hybrids to get mid 40's, yet an 80's CRX HX got the same MPG as a new Prius and doesn't drive like a golf cart.

Dealerships. You can't buy a new car without one. Staffed with a bunch of morons from top to bottom who can't tell you any information about a car but can screw you every chance they get. I deal with dealerships all the time and MAYBE 5% of salesmen that I come in contact with are even interested in cars.

I'll stick to weeding through poorly written craigslist ads and ebay for my cars now thank you.

mmosbey wrote: I recently read that Hot Wheels sales are off as of late. None of my nieces or nephews seem to care much about cars.

I'm trying to do my part. My grandson is now a year and half, but I've been collecting them for him since he was born. I have about 200 so far and hope to have double that by the time I give them to him on his 4th or 5th Birthday.

I've already trained him to watch racing!

In reply to Jay:

I am seriously debating painting my '95 Golf "Safety Orange".

Did anyone else see this article?

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/03/autos/backup_cameras_nhtsa/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

The complexities continue to increase. I can just imagine if every car had a LCD screen, what wonderful new "standard features" would the car manufacturers dream up to force on the car buyer.

Brett_Murphy wrote: In reply to Jay: I am seriously debating painting my '95 Golf "Safety Orange".

Heck, manufactures could list that as a safety feature... hard to claim you didn't see something when it's RETINA PIERCING NEON ORANGE.

Strizzo wrote: i got similar looks when asking about a 4x4 xterra in houston. "why would you want 4wd here?" because i plan to use it not here, besides, its not your job to tell me what car i want, its your job to sell it to me.

That sounds like a weird question to ask in Houston... as if there is no sand in Texas.

The warranty repair times suck...but that mostly just upsets me and those of us who work on these turds.

Everything.

I'm serious. They are overloaded with crap. They have too many computers in them. They are too heavy. They always get bigger and heavier with each successive model re-do. There are so many shared parts due to global models, and yet there's so many different parts, inexplicably. The plastic covers over engines under the hood. Throttle by wire. They all have mandated stability control. They're too quiet. They have absolutely too many adjustability settings on their power, heated and cooled, massage front seats. The wheels are freaking gigantic- 20 inchers on a berkeleying sedan, standard, 22s optional. Option packages in general- god help you if you want a sunroof but not leather seats. You have to scour the country to find one with a manual transmission- and it'll be pink. The price. Having to visit a car dealer (and deal with car salesmen) to get one. You need a computer science degree to work on one...tuning a carb might be tough, but I doubt it's as tough as digging into the ECU code to find a bug.

And, of course, the fact that they exist. To paraphrase Jay Leno, an old car is an environmentally-friendly car. It takes an insane amount of energy and materials to build a new car which causes pollution- undoubtedly more than what an older car emits out of it's slightly-less-efficient tailpipe.

Everything.

Wally wrote: I miss having a tiller to control direction, now any commoner can become a motorist.

God, I love it here.

My despise of newer cars is pretty much summed up by the previous comments. Though it's not everyone's cup of tea, I also don't mind manually rolling my own windows up and down. But one that really rots my socks is the idea that if I change my own oil, I can wave goodbye to my warranty. WTH. I was recently considering the purchase of a new VW GTI when the issue of owner maintenance came up. The dealer insisted that all maintenance done during the warranty period be done at the dealership. The oil changes were very expensive, and they use VW branded oil, whatever the hell that is. This was to be my first new car (I've always bought 1-3 years old), but after checking out a couple of cars I was interested in, the experiance was so frustrating that I refused to part with that kind of money for something I wasn't completely happy with. I gave up and bought a used Mazda3, and with the money I saved I bought a gorgeous '74 Lotus Europa. I'm happy now

Let's band together, all 500 of us and find a manufacturer (Mazda? Subaru?BMW?AMC?) to release the "GRM Edition Miata/Impreza/e30 325is/Gremlin" of our dreams...

Sure, it's a small niche, but we're the ~trend setters!~.

Twin_Cam wrote: The wheels are freaking gigantic- 20 inchers on a berkeleying sedan, standard, 22s optional.

plus 100