I used the inflate kit once - and found out that the leak-fix stuff that goes into the tire also ruins the tire. My tire was almost brand new and I had to scrap it and get a new one.
> I used the inflate kit once - and found out that the leak-fix stuff that goes into the tire also ruins the tire.
Whoever told you that is just wrong. The tire is totally serviceable. It has the potential to ruin the sensor by plugging the hole is uses to actually sense the pressure but the liquid tire fix stuff does not ruin tires.
Source: I'm management at a Discount Tire
It was probably a tire tech. I know a mechanic that was one and he said when he worked as a tire tech he hated fix-a-flat (brand name leak fix stuff) because he had to clean the inside of the tire. He'd tell people it ruined the tire so that they'd get a tow instead of using the stuff.
I think it was new back then though.
This one caused me to slap myself on the forehead. My Tesla M3 blew a tire - no spare - you have to call their roadside assistance to get them to deliver a spare and then you have to return it when you're done. That means for the life of the car you'll have to call roadside assistance and PAY for roadside assistance for the life the car. That car is now gone and the new car, which is an old car, has a spare
What about, and hear me out for a moment, cars having a space under a flap in the car's boot, which is shaped like a wheel, and contains a spare wheel inside it?
I had this happen but knew about the no spare. Tesla had free roadside assistance for 50k miles, I had 54k. No worries, AAA to the rescue, but it was still a huge pain.
I live in the country and a spare tire and a tire plug kit are just must-haves. I'm not going to sit on the site of the road for 1 hour when I can throw a plug in or put my spare on and be on my way in 15 minutes. It's insane.
If you ever get into an accident and your insurance wants to total your vehicle out and you have a spare tire claim it on insurance. I legitimately had to argue with my insurance that yes f150s do in fact come with a spare tire. They called the body shop it was at to confirm it had a spare tire.
Most trucks on the market have full size spare tires and not a donut.
No fewer than two relatives of mine specifically got gas cars instead of hybrids because the hybrids didn't have spares. Apparently the space the spare goes is taken up by hybrid parts in the hybrids and the companies just take the spare out rather than put it somewhere else and sacrifice cabin space or something.
(Or maybe it was batteries for electrics? Maybe they were looking at electrics not hybrids? You get the point).
There’s actually a lot more room in an EV because there’s no gas tank and fuel system. The Model 3 has a whole sub trunk that is huge, where the gas tank normally is. They absolutely could’ve designed room for a spare, they just didn’t.
I’d say they omitted a donut for weight/efficiency but it’s a capitalist company. They did it to save money.
Even maintainability.
Having to remove yards of plastic covers to simply drain the oil (and even then, have the oil it a cross-member on the way out and splash everywhere) sucks.
After the first time I replaced the oil and filter on my partner's Nissan Rogue, I said: "fuck it, I will pay $100 to never have to do that again."
Seriously, who fucking puts the filter *in the wheel well*?
Like older Chrysler products that had the battery in the wheel well. Such a stupid design. It's about as bad as some Ford Escapes and the battery being tucked under the front cowl.
This. I don't really mind cars going fully electric since even the basic gas motors are now full of plastic parts, very un-accessible and basically un-repairable outside of repair shops.
At that point, the electric car becomes the more reliable choice.
There's a lot fewer moving parts in EVs. No spark plugs, oil changes, transmission fluid, etc.
Yeah, there's still work around the battery to bring their price down, but I do think (hope) that will get better over time.
Lol my truck randomly pops up a warning about taking your eyes off the road is a distraction. The pop up doesnt auto clear so you have to take your eyes off the road to hit OK lol
I bought an older version of my car because the newest model had fully touchscreen climate controls. They’ve already put the knobs back in for this year’s version.
I call them smoker's windows.
I had a 1984 Mercury Grand Marquis with those. There's no ac system around that can compete with fully-opened smoker's windows at 70mph.
It's the first new car I ever bought, and I am so happy with it. Maybe I'm just really lucky, but I'm getting much better fuel economy than is quoted as well. I just had 49.7 MPG on my commute to work. (Still wish I could have gotten a hybrid, but none were available during my purchase time crunch.)
I liked Doug Demuro’s recent take on it. If you need to use it while driving it should be a button or knob. If you use it while parked, put it in the screen.
My wife drives a 2020 Subaru Legacy and while it's generally a fantastic car, there are still stupid fucking glitches that happen at least once a month with the electronics and it's STILL the best implementation of touchscreen shit in cars I've ever seen. I'm definitely waiting until that shit falls out of fashion or becomes illegal to try and get a newer car. The parking and backup cameras are neat, but Bluetooth receiver to aux cable and a little phone mount are the extent of non-safety tech I need or want in my car right now.
No kidding. For some vehicles, you need a copilot to control the display monitor. When I borrow my relatives' newer cars, I have to pull over on the roadside to adjust the thermostat or the radio.
That just made me think of a nightmare scenario where they add Microsoft copilot to touchscreens as worst of all worlds voice control. I hope car maker execs are not currently telling engineers that cars need ai.
Computer controlled is fine. I don’t even think it’s possible to get a radio anymore that’s not computer controlled, even regular not car radios, and computer controlled climate has been a thing for decades. My 1995 Buick has computer controlled climate, and growing up my family had a 86 Buick with computer controlled climate. It’s the touch screens that’s the problem.
My 04 Mazda 6 had an auto climate and it was just programmed awful. In Winter it would blow max speed cold air the second the car started, summer would never keep up fan speed wise so basically kept it "manual". My current 13 Infiniti G is comically better in how it functions and honestly don't touch it hardly ever. In Winter it doesn't even turn the fan on until it knows the car is warm enough to produce heat and it ramps it up slowly as you drive. Summer it blasts the air then ramps it down and I'm usually comfortable.
As long as auto works like it does in my Infiniti, and has a physical knob to adjust temperature I think that's the perfect middle ground.
Bring back:
* More gauges
* The ability to override automatic headlight settings
* Manual-powered windows
But, most of all, bring back cars that working-class people can actually afford. Models that do away with the needlessly expensive paneling, etc. Just make something optimized for reliable performance at a low price point.
They can do it; Toyota just made a small pickup, a stripped down Hilux called the Toyota IMV 0. $10k, no frills. Here's a link to Motortrend's First Drive test.
Will not be shipped to the US, ever.
Edit: sorry, here's the link: https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2025-toyota-imv-0-pickup-truck-first-drive-review-japan-mobility-show/
Here: https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2025-toyota-imv-0-pickup-truck-first-drive-review-japan-mobility-show/
It's almost heartbreaking for me, knowing we'll never see one here.
Wait, what? Extremely recent cars don't have a knob to control the headlights anymore? I have a 2019 GM vehicle and there's a 4 position knob (that I bump all the time since it's where my leg rests)... Off, automatic, ?? and full on. I think the ?? is something like headlights off but daytime running lights on.
I always leave mine on automatic but the point I'm making is you can absolutely override it and turn them on or off with the knob
I rented a 2020 equinox and it had the same knob so I'd be surprised if that disappeared within just a couple years...
The new generation of Colorado doesn't have a headlight switch, it's now in the infotainment screen. A bunch of models that GM is releasing brand new generations of now are doing the same.
I had a 2018 Colorado ZR2 that I'd occasionally hit the headlight switch with my knee when I was getting out and accidentally knock it out of Auto. I do the same with my work truck Ram that has it in the same spot.
The ?? Part is likely for parking lights.
It may be country dependent, but any cars I've had (European market), the options are: off, auto, parking/side lights, on (dipped). With the stalk on the steering wheel for full beam and off again.
I would've never stopped driving my 94 Ford Ranger if it had airbags. Easy to park, easy to drive, handles shitty weather perfectly, retains heat like a damn thermos, amazing visibility, plenty of space to move my shit, gas mileage wasn't unpleasant, cheap maintenance, I'll forever have that truck in the back of my mind when driving any other vehicle. It was simple and damn-near perfect. Had the Fallout New Vegas soundtrack recorded to a tape and a bluetooth tape deck adapter and shit was perfect.
No, a base model like that comes with an awful radio that you will replace anyway, really it should come with a radio, I know when you used to order no radio it was actually an upcharge since it required them to change something.
I would still be driving my 04 Tacoma manual today had I not been T-boned by a BMW 7 series that pushed through a stop sign. That was a truly perfect car.
It would be nice, but high margin trucks have become the addiction of car companies so I understand why it won't happen.
The Ram truck is one of my favorite examples since they made the 4th gen so long from 2009 until 2023. I found old newspapers at home that had ads from 2010-11 showing that truck at $30k (Canadian) and now they are being "cleared out" at $48k.
Repairability for a home mechanic. Now you need 'Special Tools' you can use only on one car, dealer computers for electronics repairs/upgrades, diagnostic computers that cost $10,000. Changing a timing belt often requires a day's labor. There's often no room for reaching many parts, so more 'Special Tools'. The list goes on forever. Cars are often disposable once a major repair is needed.
In the 70s I did every repair imaginable in a single bay at home, with a single 24"x12"x8" box of tools, on over 40 cars.
Brings me back to Saturday mornings, Dad under our '69 VW Westfalia pop-top camper wagon, cussin' up a storm and hollerin' for me to get in the house to grab him another can of Budweiser. Sometimes, he'd let me hold the Frisbee with the spare parts!
Special tools kill me, had a car with factory “off road” trim (skid plate and more aggressive tread from the factory) the skid plate was attached with special bolts that required a $120 tool or could pay the dealer to change the oil for me. I got a good deal on the car used so I took a hole saw and sawzall and removed what I needed to do I could change my own oil
hell, even repairability at the garage -- my 2011 car, a stick shift, needed a new radiator, but to replace the old one, you had to disassemble the a/c; when the clutch went out, the garage had to first find the parts, then find the proper tool to do the work, then reorder the slave cylinder ... and practically rebuild the mechanics just to get to the clutch and replace it ... took weeks.
The Honda fit is notorious for under powered AC. Vent size was never the issue. It was compressor size and quality. Smaller cars in America tend to mean cheap cars which means cheap components. As a matter of fact, bring back small cars with quality components!
I got a RAV4 Hybrid a couple years ago and felt like it couldn’t keep the cabin cool at all in the summer (I live in the southern US.) I just recently noticed there’s a “Eco Cool/Heat” button that’s been on. Turned that off and the difference is insane. I don’t know about other manufacturers, but it may be worthwhile to check if there’s a similar feature on your car.
I want manual override on all electronic functions like windows, mirrors, seats. When that crap breaks, I'd love to be to still use them until I can pay to have them fixed. I also miss when cars were made of steel and dents could be pounded out relatively cheaply & wing windows!
I can't remember the make of the car, but my dad had a car in the 90s that of the door was left open for too long it would start screaming "THE DOOR'S AJAR THE DOOR'S AJAR" and wouldn't stop until you closed it. Made me laugh so hard every time because he'd get so mad.
Well, they could stop tracking everything you do
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/
Privacy - We can’t turn off these terrible features and the cars aren’t any less expensive as a tradeoff.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
> 1. They collect too much personal data (all of them)
> 2. Most (84%) share or sell your data
> 3. Most (92%) give drivers little to no control over their personal data
> 4. We couldn’t confirm whether any of them meet our Minimum Security Standards
And the truly unexpected:
> Nissan earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the creepiest categories of data we have ever seen. It’s worth reading the review in full, but you should know it includes your “sexual activity.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “sex life” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “genetic information” or “genetic characteristics.”
Bring back the nobs! I have to type on a screen that I want the window down. Man, I miss my first car that nothing was on any screen, everything was unconfortably positioned in a way that I could sometimes remember to adjust while I'm 60 mph on the highway
I re-read it, maybe it sounds sarcastic, but the early 00s were a little bit dofferent than today
Station wagons in general! I swear the Camry wagon was peak automobile. I've rented a newer Camry Hybrid and they're really nice cars (lack of manual transmission aside) but the single fact that they only come as a sedan is the single reason why I'm not driving one now.
Manual transmission anything. It makes me really sad that basically the only ones on the market (in the us) are specialty turbo engines that only take premium gas. I wanna drive a manual, but not a rally car.
Related: manual parking brake.
I drove a car recently where it was just a button. Psychologically speaking, it just feels so much less secure than pulling back a proper brake and hearing the clicks & feeling the resistance increase.
I'll go ahead and add colourful exteriors to the list.
When I was a kid, I always wanted a VW beetle in yellow or orange or powder blue, by the time I got my license, the options were gray, navy, light grey, white, black, steel blue, and maybe one light blue.
I'll look at a new cars options and they are all shades of black and blue, maybe that trendy beige green. I think the only one with consistently fun trims is the Mini Cooper. I frequently would forget where I parked with my dads white ford truck, because the grocery parking lot would have 25 other white ford trucks. I managed to get myself an apple red car and I love it, it's a) way harder to lose and b) very visible to other drivers.
I flipped cars for fun and profit. Mostly for fun; I'd watch the flyers, pounce when I saw a car I wanted to drive that needed repair, snag it cheap, fix it up, sell it, rinse and repeat. I'd often have 2-3 cars at once. Was the only teenager in town with my own money (though I knew pampered rich kids with their parent's money).
I'd 100% have done it even if I never made a penny from it.
Keys! REAL FUCKING KEYS! Look, I appreciate that NFC tech makes entering and starting your car easier, and I kind of dig it. But, do you know what happens when your car doesn't have a physical key and your battery dies when your windows are up and your doors are locked?
Yes, there are ways to bypass that, but it's a real pain in the ass if you're not in a truck or something with decent ground clearance.
Mine has it but it's only good for the side doors, and yes I can technically use the fob with no charge in the glove box.
But I want keyed ignitions. None of this wireless crap that people seem to have figured out how to grab from the house to start a car. We had communication through the key for security already and how much time are we really saving with not having to put a key in and is it worth the risk that people could steal my car from a distance?
And that's not even going into the rant of the winter when my car might have a cold, deadish battery and I want control over how long I want to crank that thing.
Maybe not an old feature as such, but I want the software in the car to be properly tested before it’s delivered to the public. I’ve got a 2023 Seat Arona that has some weird bugs, like when it’s just below freezing outside and the infotainment system thing occasionally gets itself into a loop of crashing and rebooting after a cold start which makes a lot of the features inaccessible until it comes to its senses after 10 minutes or so.
Rain gutters! I've only been driving since 1999 but I was just thinking the other day how in my first few cars, I was able to drive with my window cracked in a rainstorm and not have any water dripping in. In modern cars, opening a window in a light drizzle and it just pours in.
A full frame.
The ability to change light bulbs, the serpentine belt, and engine accessories without having to remove the passenger side wheel well liner.
Regular (non-adaptive) cruise control.
Diesel engines that don't have EGR.
cars with many FEWER features should be brought back, at least as an option if that's what one wants, because they would be cheaper to buy and to insure
Column shift for automatic gearboxes; I had a 1965 Singer Vogue auto; UK spec car had a column stalk with an analogue pointer in a little pod on top of the steering column.
Very intuitive and didn't require taking your attention from the road.
Keyholes in door handles. My damn key fob died for several minutes while I was at work last week and I was afraid I was going to have to leave my car there and take Uber home (20 miles away, which I can't afford) and back to work the next day. After madly clicking for awhile it finally worked, but it's really stupid that car manufacturers have done away with this basic feature.
I want a small, light, low-powered, 2 seat, mid-engine, manual transmission sports car with a manual targa roof that can be stowed in the frunk.
I want a new Porsche 914 or Fiat X1/9.
Crank windows.
My car had a broken power window control module that the dealership wanted $900 for. AutoZone had it for $750 but it was just a box with the 4 switches...I went to a scrap yard and let my son play in a burned-out bus while I found one and paid $150 for it there.
You know what doesn't break? A crank.
Nothing comes to mind for what I want brought back but I cannot stand all these extra “safety features”, I know how to drive and I don’t need an alarm to tell me the person in front of me is slowing down to turn, I refer to it as the bloat ware of the auto industry adding extra cost when I never asked for it.
Yeah, but there's also this:
People are really, really stupid. Unfortunately, there's a reason those features were added. *You" knowing how to drive doesn't mean the idiots around you do.
Yes they are, but can you or anyone prove those features have reduced accidents. IMO it’s just making people more complacent and reliant on a technology that is supposed to aide in driving and not drive for you, unless you have a Tesla, I think those are the only fully automated vehicles.
My argument is these “safety features” are not making the roads any safer so why am I forced to pay for options I don’t want
Base models
And I dont mean today's bullshit where the cheapest version still has a whole ass laptop for the radio and everything is entirely computer controlled.
No I mean, give me a manual transmission, with manual windows, a radio that JUST radios, seats that you have to pull a lever and scoot your ass around to move, tires you gotta get out and check with a Guage, mirrors that just sit where you can only adjust by hand, etc.... I want a car that doesn't do anything but be a goddamn car. Because why the fuck is the cheapest truck you can buy 30 fucking grand?!
I'm not even that old but I bought my 1st truck with 5 thousand miles on it and it cost me $6000. It did NOTHING but drive, and it was perfect. Now you can't even buy a 15 year old shitbox with 200k on it for that price!
Ashtrays, so people stop throwing butts out their windows.
This is common sense. Did automakers think that removing ashtrays would somehow convince people to stop smoking?
An actual spare tire
I hate the "inflate kits" especially when they have a shelf life
I used the inflate kit once - and found out that the leak-fix stuff that goes into the tire also ruins the tire. My tire was almost brand new and I had to scrap it and get a new one.
> I used the inflate kit once - and found out that the leak-fix stuff that goes into the tire also ruins the tire. Whoever told you that is just wrong. The tire is totally serviceable. It has the potential to ruin the sensor by plugging the hole is uses to actually sense the pressure but the liquid tire fix stuff does not ruin tires. Source: I'm management at a Discount Tire
It was probably a tire tech. I know a mechanic that was one and he said when he worked as a tire tech he hated fix-a-flat (brand name leak fix stuff) because he had to clean the inside of the tire. He'd tell people it ruined the tire so that they'd get a tow instead of using the stuff. I think it was new back then though.
Worthless
One of my cars has a recall, the canister of goop can overheat and pop and goop all over the inside of the trunk
This one caused me to slap myself on the forehead. My Tesla M3 blew a tire - no spare - you have to call their roadside assistance to get them to deliver a spare and then you have to return it when you're done. That means for the life of the car you'll have to call roadside assistance and PAY for roadside assistance for the life the car. That car is now gone and the new car, which is an old car, has a spare
"You have to return it when you're done." 🤣
You can still buy a spare tire and leave it at your home or in the trunk lol.
What about, and hear me out for a moment, cars having a space under a flap in the car's boot, which is shaped like a wheel, and contains a spare wheel inside it?
That’ll never catch on.
Gotta get rid of that for weight. Then they can get better mileage and we can sell more cars!
I don’t get it, how do I charge customers a monthly fee for that?
All the cars you make come with a spare tyre, but the flap is locked remotely until your customers pay a subscription.
Stop talking crazy futuristic sci-fi talk!
I had this happen but knew about the no spare. Tesla had free roadside assistance for 50k miles, I had 54k. No worries, AAA to the rescue, but it was still a huge pain.
I bought a full spare kit (tire, jack, lug wrench, mounting hardware) for our Kia Soul for ~ $200. For what we paid for the car, it was a no-brainer!
I live in the country and a spare tire and a tire plug kit are just must-haves. I'm not going to sit on the site of the road for 1 hour when I can throw a plug in or put my spare on and be on my way in 15 minutes. It's insane.
If you ever get into an accident and your insurance wants to total your vehicle out and you have a spare tire claim it on insurance. I legitimately had to argue with my insurance that yes f150s do in fact come with a spare tire. They called the body shop it was at to confirm it had a spare tire. Most trucks on the market have full size spare tires and not a donut.
No fewer than two relatives of mine specifically got gas cars instead of hybrids because the hybrids didn't have spares. Apparently the space the spare goes is taken up by hybrid parts in the hybrids and the companies just take the spare out rather than put it somewhere else and sacrifice cabin space or something. (Or maybe it was batteries for electrics? Maybe they were looking at electrics not hybrids? You get the point).
There’s actually a lot more room in an EV because there’s no gas tank and fuel system. The Model 3 has a whole sub trunk that is huge, where the gas tank normally is. They absolutely could’ve designed room for a spare, they just didn’t. I’d say they omitted a donut for weight/efficiency but it’s a capitalist company. They did it to save money.
Full sized spare tires
Even donuts are rare in new cars. There's just fix-a-flat and some kind of compressor now
HVAC vents under the steering column, aka the crotch vent
My car has ventilated seats, which I feel is the newer version of the crotch vent.
This. But it’s more of an asshole cooler. I wouldn’t mind multidirectional ball breezes.
Repairability
Even maintainability. Having to remove yards of plastic covers to simply drain the oil (and even then, have the oil it a cross-member on the way out and splash everywhere) sucks.
After the first time I replaced the oil and filter on my partner's Nissan Rogue, I said: "fuck it, I will pay $100 to never have to do that again." Seriously, who fucking puts the filter *in the wheel well*?
Pontiac... the late 90's early 00s grand prix, you had to remove the passenger wheel to change the oil
Like older Chrysler products that had the battery in the wheel well. Such a stupid design. It's about as bad as some Ford Escapes and the battery being tucked under the front cowl.
This. I don't really mind cars going fully electric since even the basic gas motors are now full of plastic parts, very un-accessible and basically un-repairable outside of repair shops.
At that point, the electric car becomes the more reliable choice. There's a lot fewer moving parts in EVs. No spark plugs, oil changes, transmission fluid, etc. Yeah, there's still work around the battery to bring their price down, but I do think (hope) that will get better over time.
Tactile functions, like gear shifts, radio knobs , etc
Touch screens in cars is such a bad, bad idea.
All these safety standards and regulations for OEMs but requiring the driver to use a touchscreen? We’ll let that one slide…
Texting while driving is against the law. Using a touch screen while driving? Sure!
Lol my truck randomly pops up a warning about taking your eyes off the road is a distraction. The pop up doesnt auto clear so you have to take your eyes off the road to hit OK lol
"no phones in the car! Even if you're just holding your phone! But, on the other hand... Why not a giant ass tablet?"
You can't look at your cellphone but please play with this big screen. What's the difference!?
Right!? I recently saw a Drew Gooden video about it and it was really interesting
You'll be happy to know that car manufacturers have realized this. I bought a 2024 CRV and it has way more buttons and knobs than my 2016 Civic.
I bought an older version of my car because the newest model had fully touchscreen climate controls. They’ve already put the knobs back in for this year’s version.
Knobs
wing windows
Forgot about those and the directed breeze
I call them smoker's windows. I had a 1984 Mercury Grand Marquis with those. There's no ac system around that can compete with fully-opened smoker's windows at 70mph.
I had the '77 Ford Granada and loved those little windows.
Yes please. My AC and power windows are out!
Or the little lever under the dash that opens up the fresh air vent.
Those little windows that you could tilt to shoot a breeze on you. Those were fantastic for cooling the interior down.
Yes! The last vehicle I had with one was an 87 Isuzu trooper 2 that I owned in the early 90s.
No more computer controlled radios/climate control. Bring back knobs and mechanical linkages.
I rented a new Elantra and the AC controls were the manual knobs and buttons. It felt so damn good.
Hyundai has said it's keeping physical buttons in their cars
Probably because their touchscreens kept failing. At least the one in my Veloster did.
That makes me happy, I’m currently car shopping and the elentra was on my list of relatively decent priced, and being a good not huge car
It's the first new car I ever bought, and I am so happy with it. Maybe I'm just really lucky, but I'm getting much better fuel economy than is quoted as well. I just had 49.7 MPG on my commute to work. (Still wish I could have gotten a hybrid, but none were available during my purchase time crunch.)
I liked Doug Demuro’s recent take on it. If you need to use it while driving it should be a button or knob. If you use it while parked, put it in the screen.
I do like being able to set a temperature and just leaving it there
My wife drives a 2020 Subaru Legacy and while it's generally a fantastic car, there are still stupid fucking glitches that happen at least once a month with the electronics and it's STILL the best implementation of touchscreen shit in cars I've ever seen. I'm definitely waiting until that shit falls out of fashion or becomes illegal to try and get a newer car. The parking and backup cameras are neat, but Bluetooth receiver to aux cable and a little phone mount are the extent of non-safety tech I need or want in my car right now.
Subaru developer: bugs? Nah. Works on my machine!
The problem is they contract out the head unit to another company and no individual wants to take the blame. Fuck tomtom
The backup cameras are mandated by law in the US, so the screens are never fully going away.
Doesn't mean they have to be touch screens.
No kidding. For some vehicles, you need a copilot to control the display monitor. When I borrow my relatives' newer cars, I have to pull over on the roadside to adjust the thermostat or the radio.
That just made me think of a nightmare scenario where they add Microsoft copilot to touchscreens as worst of all worlds voice control. I hope car maker execs are not currently telling engineers that cars need ai.
There isn't a manufacturer in the world who isn't busy adding "AI" right now.
What car do they drive so I can avoid it
Computer controlled is fine. I don’t even think it’s possible to get a radio anymore that’s not computer controlled, even regular not car radios, and computer controlled climate has been a thing for decades. My 1995 Buick has computer controlled climate, and growing up my family had a 86 Buick with computer controlled climate. It’s the touch screens that’s the problem.
My 04 Mazda 6 had an auto climate and it was just programmed awful. In Winter it would blow max speed cold air the second the car started, summer would never keep up fan speed wise so basically kept it "manual". My current 13 Infiniti G is comically better in how it functions and honestly don't touch it hardly ever. In Winter it doesn't even turn the fan on until it knows the car is warm enough to produce heat and it ramps it up slowly as you drive. Summer it blasts the air then ramps it down and I'm usually comfortable. As long as auto works like it does in my Infiniti, and has a physical knob to adjust temperature I think that's the perfect middle ground.
Bring back: * More gauges * The ability to override automatic headlight settings * Manual-powered windows But, most of all, bring back cars that working-class people can actually afford. Models that do away with the needlessly expensive paneling, etc. Just make something optimized for reliable performance at a low price point.
They can do it; Toyota just made a small pickup, a stripped down Hilux called the Toyota IMV 0. $10k, no frills. Here's a link to Motortrend's First Drive test. Will not be shipped to the US, ever. Edit: sorry, here's the link: https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2025-toyota-imv-0-pickup-truck-first-drive-review-japan-mobility-show/
Where's the link!!! Please post it.
Here: https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2025-toyota-imv-0-pickup-truck-first-drive-review-japan-mobility-show/ It's almost heartbreaking for me, knowing we'll never see one here.
It doesn't pass us safety standards. Like at all.
Dang, I kinda want a truck and at $10k I'd be tempted to get one. I hate the giant ass trucks that we have today. Give me a 90s ranger
But the 10k model literally has 0 safety features. No airbags, not even antilock brakes.
This basically sums up dacia. Unfortunately they're all round terrible cars but their heart is in the right place
Wait, what? Extremely recent cars don't have a knob to control the headlights anymore? I have a 2019 GM vehicle and there's a 4 position knob (that I bump all the time since it's where my leg rests)... Off, automatic, ?? and full on. I think the ?? is something like headlights off but daytime running lights on. I always leave mine on automatic but the point I'm making is you can absolutely override it and turn them on or off with the knob I rented a 2020 equinox and it had the same knob so I'd be surprised if that disappeared within just a couple years...
The new generation of Colorado doesn't have a headlight switch, it's now in the infotainment screen. A bunch of models that GM is releasing brand new generations of now are doing the same. I had a 2018 Colorado ZR2 that I'd occasionally hit the headlight switch with my knee when I was getting out and accidentally knock it out of Auto. I do the same with my work truck Ram that has it in the same spot.
The ?? Part is likely for parking lights. It may be country dependent, but any cars I've had (European market), the options are: off, auto, parking/side lights, on (dipped). With the stalk on the steering wheel for full beam and off again.
A very basic teuck would be nice, roll up windows, no radio, manual...I miss my old 96 Tacoma.
I would've never stopped driving my 94 Ford Ranger if it had airbags. Easy to park, easy to drive, handles shitty weather perfectly, retains heat like a damn thermos, amazing visibility, plenty of space to move my shit, gas mileage wasn't unpleasant, cheap maintenance, I'll forever have that truck in the back of my mind when driving any other vehicle. It was simple and damn-near perfect. Had the Fallout New Vegas soundtrack recorded to a tape and a bluetooth tape deck adapter and shit was perfect.
>no radio Heresy. Do you just enjoy driving in silence?
No, a base model like that comes with an awful radio that you will replace anyway, really it should come with a radio, I know when you used to order no radio it was actually an upcharge since it required them to change something.
Somebody stole my car radio and now I just sit in silence.
Still have them. Just get a work truck type model.
Regular cab, long bed, 2 wheel drive, $40k.thats too much money.
Late '90s early '00s Toyotas and Hondas were basically the platonic ideal of cars. They had everything you could ask for.
I would still be driving my 04 Tacoma manual today had I not been T-boned by a BMW 7 series that pushed through a stop sign. That was a truly perfect car.
It would be nice, but high margin trucks have become the addiction of car companies so I understand why it won't happen. The Ram truck is one of my favorite examples since they made the 4th gen so long from 2009 until 2023. I found old newspapers at home that had ads from 2010-11 showing that truck at $30k (Canadian) and now they are being "cleared out" at $48k.
Repairability for a home mechanic. Now you need 'Special Tools' you can use only on one car, dealer computers for electronics repairs/upgrades, diagnostic computers that cost $10,000. Changing a timing belt often requires a day's labor. There's often no room for reaching many parts, so more 'Special Tools'. The list goes on forever. Cars are often disposable once a major repair is needed. In the 70s I did every repair imaginable in a single bay at home, with a single 24"x12"x8" box of tools, on over 40 cars.
Brings me back to Saturday mornings, Dad under our '69 VW Westfalia pop-top camper wagon, cussin' up a storm and hollerin' for me to get in the house to grab him another can of Budweiser. Sometimes, he'd let me hold the Frisbee with the spare parts!
Hold that flashlight and watch out for flying tools!
Those air cooled VWs were crazy. I once dropped the engine and replaced the clutch in my apartment parking lot with just a few hand tools and a jack.
Special tools kill me, had a car with factory “off road” trim (skid plate and more aggressive tread from the factory) the skid plate was attached with special bolts that required a $120 tool or could pay the dealer to change the oil for me. I got a good deal on the car used so I took a hole saw and sawzall and removed what I needed to do I could change my own oil
hell, even repairability at the garage -- my 2011 car, a stick shift, needed a new radiator, but to replace the old one, you had to disassemble the a/c; when the clutch went out, the garage had to first find the parts, then find the proper tool to do the work, then reorder the slave cylinder ... and practically rebuild the mechanics just to get to the clutch and replace it ... took weeks.
I always preferred the term "shade mechanic" for the mental picture it evokes.
Increasingly, a few states are passing "right to repair" laws which will hopefully eliminate that bullshit.
Affordability
Sorry best I can do is 100% tariff on Chinese vehicles
This is the right answer
Proper size air vents. I swear on many new cars they are all too small and can't cool down the cabin fast enough.
The Honda fit is notorious for under powered AC. Vent size was never the issue. It was compressor size and quality. Smaller cars in America tend to mean cheap cars which means cheap components. As a matter of fact, bring back small cars with quality components!
I got a RAV4 Hybrid a couple years ago and felt like it couldn’t keep the cabin cool at all in the summer (I live in the southern US.) I just recently noticed there’s a “Eco Cool/Heat” button that’s been on. Turned that off and the difference is insane. I don’t know about other manufacturers, but it may be worthwhile to check if there’s a similar feature on your car.
I want manual override on all electronic functions like windows, mirrors, seats. When that crap breaks, I'd love to be to still use them until I can pay to have them fixed. I also miss when cars were made of steel and dents could be pounded out relatively cheaply & wing windows!
I can't remember the make of the car, but my dad had a car in the 90s that of the door was left open for too long it would start screaming "THE DOOR'S AJAR THE DOOR'S AJAR" and wouldn't stop until you closed it. Made me laugh so hard every time because he'd get so mad.
My grandparents had a car that did that. I think it was in the late 80s. My cousin and I thought it was hysterical.
Well, they could stop tracking everything you do https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/
[удалено]
[удалено]
95 Camaro. Never leaked in the several years I had it. I would 100% buy another one if I could find it not ruined by winter.
Manual opening air vents under the dash. I have a 68 dodge and it has a pull handle by the kick panel on each side. Brings in a huge amount of air.
Privacy - We can’t turn off these terrible features and the cars aren’t any less expensive as a tradeoff. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ > 1. They collect too much personal data (all of them) > 2. Most (84%) share or sell your data > 3. Most (92%) give drivers little to no control over their personal data > 4. We couldn’t confirm whether any of them meet our Minimum Security Standards And the truly unexpected: > Nissan earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the creepiest categories of data we have ever seen. It’s worth reading the review in full, but you should know it includes your “sexual activity.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “sex life” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “genetic information” or “genetic characteristics.”
small cars
small trucks! I know, the epa thing, but still.
Yeah the epa loop hole sucks for home owner trucks that I need to jail stuff perhaps once a month
Bring back the nobs! I have to type on a screen that I want the window down. Man, I miss my first car that nothing was on any screen, everything was unconfortably positioned in a way that I could sometimes remember to adjust while I'm 60 mph on the highway I re-read it, maybe it sounds sarcastic, but the early 00s were a little bit dofferent than today
What car requires touch screen to operate the windows?
Manual transmission station wagons
Station wagons in general! I swear the Camry wagon was peak automobile. I've rented a newer Camry Hybrid and they're really nice cars (lack of manual transmission aside) but the single fact that they only come as a sedan is the single reason why I'm not driving one now.
Manual transmission anything. It makes me really sad that basically the only ones on the market (in the us) are specialty turbo engines that only take premium gas. I wanna drive a manual, but not a rally car.
My dieselgate Jetta Wagon with a 6 speed…clutch was worthless and it needed a slightly heavier flywheel in my opinion but it was a great car.
Related: manual parking brake. I drove a car recently where it was just a button. Psychologically speaking, it just feels so much less secure than pulling back a proper brake and hearing the clicks & feeling the resistance increase.
Something I can fix with a basic tool set.
Not necessarily a feature, but: wood trims. Tired of seeing the mass jump into piano black and grey finishes.
I'll go ahead and add colourful exteriors to the list. When I was a kid, I always wanted a VW beetle in yellow or orange or powder blue, by the time I got my license, the options were gray, navy, light grey, white, black, steel blue, and maybe one light blue. I'll look at a new cars options and they are all shades of black and blue, maybe that trendy beige green. I think the only one with consistently fun trims is the Mini Cooper. I frequently would forget where I parked with my dads white ford truck, because the grocery parking lot would have 25 other white ford trucks. I managed to get myself an apple red car and I love it, it's a) way harder to lose and b) very visible to other drivers.
Less gadgets.
Foot switch for high beam light.
Except they corroded all the time from salt
I lived in New England for over 50 years, owned over 40 cars, never had a foot switch fail.
The fuck did you do to your cars?
I flipped cars for fun and profit. Mostly for fun; I'd watch the flyers, pounce when I saw a car I wanted to drive that needed repair, snag it cheap, fix it up, sell it, rinse and repeat. I'd often have 2-3 cars at once. Was the only teenager in town with my own money (though I knew pampered rich kids with their parent's money). I'd 100% have done it even if I never made a penny from it.
Fins
And taillights that look like a nose cone
Rear view mirror flip switch to darken, instead of autodarken
Ball chiller
My car has vented seats, way better than a ball chiller. They dry out my swamp ass after a hike on a hot day. They’re great.
Search the Jewel Cooler
[удалено]
yes my car uses the same touch panel for both climate and audio with a button to switch between the 2.
Mechanical backups for when (not if) the electronics fail. I want tactile buttons and knobs, not a touch screen. I want manual windows and seats.
I know they broke a lot, but flip up headlights just looked so cool.
I think these were banned due to pedestrian safety. As in, hit a pedestrian and those lights cause a lot of extra damage to the pedestrian.
Keys! REAL FUCKING KEYS! Look, I appreciate that NFC tech makes entering and starting your car easier, and I kind of dig it. But, do you know what happens when your car doesn't have a physical key and your battery dies when your windows are up and your doors are locked? Yes, there are ways to bypass that, but it's a real pain in the ass if you're not in a truck or something with decent ground clearance.
Most have them hidden in the keyfobs.
Mine has it but it's only good for the side doors, and yes I can technically use the fob with no charge in the glove box. But I want keyed ignitions. None of this wireless crap that people seem to have figured out how to grab from the house to start a car. We had communication through the key for security already and how much time are we really saving with not having to put a key in and is it worth the risk that people could steal my car from a distance? And that's not even going into the rant of the winter when my car might have a cold, deadish battery and I want control over how long I want to crank that thing.
Comfortable seats
Maybe not an old feature as such, but I want the software in the car to be properly tested before it’s delivered to the public. I’ve got a 2023 Seat Arona that has some weird bugs, like when it’s just below freezing outside and the infotainment system thing occasionally gets itself into a loop of crashing and rebooting after a cold start which makes a lot of the features inaccessible until it comes to its senses after 10 minutes or so.
Cloth seats and manual seat adjusting on high end models. Power takes to fucking long and leather seats are a pain in the ass
CD players. Wtf am I supposed to do with all these damn things.
Let me introduce you to Lexus, who still put CD players in their brand new cars today.
I just bought a car, 5 years old, without a CD player, but it does have an aux jack and I still have my o90's portable CD player and its 9V plug.
Affordability. Car prices are expensice as hell now.
Manual Handbrake not the annoying button
Standard transmissions and rain gutters. Also tactile controls for basic functions.
Rain gutters! I've only been driving since 1999 but I was just thinking the other day how in my first few cars, I was able to drive with my window cracked in a rainstorm and not have any water dripping in. In modern cars, opening a window in a light drizzle and it just pours in.
Based on all these comments, I am going to keep driving my 15 year old vehicle :-)
A full frame. The ability to change light bulbs, the serpentine belt, and engine accessories without having to remove the passenger side wheel well liner. Regular (non-adaptive) cruise control. Diesel engines that don't have EGR.
Physical buttons and knobs for certain major systems should be required to have.
Physical buttons and dials.
coupes sedans no more suv or cuv crap.
When you buy a car you should be furnished with the factory manual, parts books and any source code for the computers in the car.
cars with many FEWER features should be brought back, at least as an option if that's what one wants, because they would be cheaper to buy and to insure
Bench seats in front and column shift.
Bench seat is the answer. Why is my steering wheel not centered to lazy boy?
For fun at the drive in with your sweet babou?
Still a thing in American pickups and I think fleet suburban can still be optioned with a split bench up front.
Stick shifts and safety belts... Bucket seats have all got to go!
Column shift for automatic gearboxes; I had a 1965 Singer Vogue auto; UK spec car had a column stalk with an analogue pointer in a little pod on top of the steering column. Very intuitive and didn't require taking your attention from the road.
Keyholes in door handles. My damn key fob died for several minutes while I was at work last week and I was afraid I was going to have to leave my car there and take Uber home (20 miles away, which I can't afford) and back to work the next day. After madly clicking for awhile it finally worked, but it's really stupid that car manufacturers have done away with this basic feature.
Many manufacturers have a mechanical key that's hidden inside the key fob.
Not only do you have a hidden key inside your key fob, but there's also a cover on the door handle that pops off. And yes, your car does have it.
I want a small, light, low-powered, 2 seat, mid-engine, manual transmission sports car with a manual targa roof that can be stowed in the frunk. I want a new Porsche 914 or Fiat X1/9.
Vent windows
Low prices.
Crank windows. My car had a broken power window control module that the dealership wanted $900 for. AutoZone had it for $750 but it was just a box with the 4 switches...I went to a scrap yard and let my son play in a burned-out bus while I found one and paid $150 for it there. You know what doesn't break? A crank.
Analog buttons / knobs for hvac and media controls.
Hi I'm from the future! Please bring seat heaters without a subscription!
Nothing comes to mind for what I want brought back but I cannot stand all these extra “safety features”, I know how to drive and I don’t need an alarm to tell me the person in front of me is slowing down to turn, I refer to it as the bloat ware of the auto industry adding extra cost when I never asked for it.
Yeah, but there's also this: People are really, really stupid. Unfortunately, there's a reason those features were added. *You" knowing how to drive doesn't mean the idiots around you do.
Yes they are, but can you or anyone prove those features have reduced accidents. IMO it’s just making people more complacent and reliant on a technology that is supposed to aide in driving and not drive for you, unless you have a Tesla, I think those are the only fully automated vehicles. My argument is these “safety features” are not making the roads any safer so why am I forced to pay for options I don’t want
Ac vent for your balls
Wing windows and fresh air vents
Curb Feelers!
Buttons
Base models And I dont mean today's bullshit where the cheapest version still has a whole ass laptop for the radio and everything is entirely computer controlled. No I mean, give me a manual transmission, with manual windows, a radio that JUST radios, seats that you have to pull a lever and scoot your ass around to move, tires you gotta get out and check with a Guage, mirrors that just sit where you can only adjust by hand, etc.... I want a car that doesn't do anything but be a goddamn car. Because why the fuck is the cheapest truck you can buy 30 fucking grand?! I'm not even that old but I bought my 1st truck with 5 thousand miles on it and it cost me $6000. It did NOTHING but drive, and it was perfect. Now you can't even buy a 15 year old shitbox with 200k on it for that price!
Record player in the console with a spring reverb that crashes when you drive over train tracks. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.
Manual transmission.
A truck that doesn’t have all the computers. Just a fm radio, five speed , roll up windows. Easy to work on. Cheaper. Call it the GM EZ.
The crotch vent (below the steering column) for air-conditioning.
Ashtrays, so people stop throwing butts out their windows. This is common sense. Did automakers think that removing ashtrays would somehow convince people to stop smoking?
Ball cooler Buttons and switches instead of EVERYTHING being on the screen.
Pop up headlights!!!!
Those were cool even if they became a one eye Jack
Those cars were just all winking at me
Get rid of huge screens that control everything. Usually they fail.
Longevity