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Car Telematics/Infomatics/Infotainment

Nero

Nero

Re: Tired
My latest purchase has really opened my eyes up to the leaps forward the car makers have made in the above. I ran my last car for 3 years, and was quite satisfied with things like satnav, CarPlay, Bluetooth etc, but in the space of three years, the whole shebang is in a different league. Touch screens with haptic feedback, completely configurable dash, features you never knew you needed and so on. Maybe it's got to the stage that the basic vehicle is pretty much sorted, so they have to work on something to differentiate.

The naysayers will say that it's a bag of stuff which will go wrong in due course, and is unserviceable, but I'm prepared to live with that. Impressive developments.
 
And there lies a gadget freak.

You do NOT NEED much of it at all. You have not had it until now, so you do not NEED it. You like the new toy.

And yes, it is more insane complication that is not needed. All cars will vary, but just look at heating/ventilation (ignoring AC). You used to have 3 levers operating via cables. One for temperature, one for the air going up, one for going down - so you could balance the flow up and down. Now? A whole mass of motor driven valves controlled from a plethora of dash controls and usually only a very coarse rob Peter to pay Paul control of where the air goes. Temperature adjusted in 0.5C steps that must rely on electronic sensing, and to what ends? Why would ANYONE want to adjust temperture by half a degree? And so on..................
 
Vinny said:
And there lies a gadget freak.

You do NOT NEED much of it at all. You have not had it until now, so you do not NEED it. You like the new toy.

And yes, it is more insane complication that is not needed. All cars will vary, but just look at heating/ventilation (ignoring AC). You used to have 3 levers operating via cables. One for temperature, one for the air going up, one for going down - so you could balance the flow up and down. Now? A whole mass of motor driven valves controlled from a plethora of dash controls and usually only a very coarse rob Peter to pay Paul control of where the air goes. Temperature adjusted in 0.5C steps that must rely on electronic sensing, and to what ends? Why would ANYONE want to adjust temperture by half a degree? And so on..................
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0.5 degree too much over tens of millions of cars is a lot of extra greenhouse gas.
 
russel said:
0.5 degree too much over tens of millions of cars is a lot of extra greenhouse gas.
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There is no logic in that comment as at 0.5C divisons it is just as likely that anyone will set it 0.5 higher or lower , or even a degree higher or lower - it is meaningless, almost no-one can tell temperatures 0.5C apart.
 
Nero said:
Touch screens with haptic feedback, completely configurable dash, features you never knew you needed and so on.
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I'd be interested on your view of whether touchscreen everything is more dangerous than traditional switchgear - a lot of reviews suggest you spend too much time looking away from the road to operate.
 
Vinny said:
Why would ANYONE want to adjust temperture by half a degree? And so on..................
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you've never met my wife.....

interestingly up until the current car we've had 18 way, 21 way adjustable seats with heating, with ventilation with air scarf.......and guess what, over all those cars I could never get comfortable, always a back ache after a drive of an hour or more.

on the existing car the original owner specced ultra expensive carbon fibre seats (about £3k each), no adjustment apart from forwards and backwards. All other posture changes are made via the adjustable steering wheel....guess what, super comfortable, no back achr
 
In my last car I could leave the heated seat button pressed in permanently during cold spells. The radio or iPod played as soon as I switched the engine on. I could set the satnav immediately.
On my present highly intelligent car I have to wait for 30 or 40 seconds for the computer to recognise everything before I can set the seat, radio, satnav and all the other smart functions. That's not a long wait, but it's an irritation when I'm keen to set off.
 
It can be a distraction but voice control takes a lot of that away. My last car had a big knob ooer missus which you could twiddle by feel. The main problem is that it was all set up for a right-handed person driving a LHD car. The majority of us are not so proficient stabbing a screen with our left index finger
 
Thorn said:
In my last car I could leave the heated seat button pressed in permanently during cold spells. The radio or iPod played as soon as I switched the engine on. I could set the satnav immediately.
On my present highly intelligent car I have to wait for 30 or 40 seconds for the computer to recognise everything before I can set the seat, radio, satnav and all the other smart functions. That's not a long wait, but it's an irritation when I'm keen to set off.
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I’ve only just found the setting to turn off the fanfare when the ignition is pressed. That’s a feature I can live without
 
I detest it all.

I just don’t need or want so much info. I’d love a plain dash with my iPhone sat in a cradle.
Back in September I had a new Range Rover for a week, and the worst aspect by a long way was the incredible number of menus and permutations of suspension etc. I could even turn off the auto dimming function of the interior mirror... why? Even the various trip functions didn’t operate in a logical way. Just horrible.

Next hire car I get, I’m determined to just ignore it all and just drive it.
 
Vinny said:
You used to have 3 levers operating via cables. One for temperature, one for the air going up, one for going down - so you could balance the flow up and down.
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yes and it didn't work, you either got scorched or frozen, you couldn't get your feet warm, your eye balls and lungs were dried out.

Vinny said:
Now?
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Guess what, it actually works. You can drive in an ambient temperature with a gentle breeze for total comfort. I can sit and drive in 17C bliss and my Mrs can have her tootsies warm at 24C without any debate or argument.
 
I have to say, we don’t “need” most of the technology in new cars, it’s just nice to have, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The one thing I really do prefer in older cars (besides the way they drive), is rotary heater controls... the I don’t like having to take my eyes off the road to navigate a menu for those, I should be able to use feel/muscle memory for that, just as you do with lights and wipers.
 
So... this was a few years ago. I go to Germany on a one day there and back business trip. Fly Ryanair to the middle of nowhere - but happens to be about 1.5 hours away from where I need to be. We (there were 2 of us) hired a nice Merc from Hertz. It turned out to be convertible. Hmmm... nicer still and no extra charge. Need the sat nav to help us navigate. Now this was before smart phone navigation was a thing. So we get in car and everything is on a screen, in German. Now I know a few words of German, but it took a good 20 minutes of playing with German menus before I got the language to change to English. I am ashamed (not!) to say that we were pushed for time on the return and I left it in English mode.

Screens are in general pretty good- but heater / air controls buried down the menus implies to me that the design team did not have a decent spec to work to. My current Volvo has a screen, but the heater stuff is all on a seperate panel - easy to use. The new generation I borrowed whilst mine was being serviced - yikes, it took a few looks and random stabbings to find the controls on the screen. Even hopping from screen to screen was not exactly straightforward.
 
Tony Lockhart said:
I detest it all.

I just don’t need or want so much info. I’d love a plain dash with my iPhone sat in a cradle.
Back in September I had a new Range Rover for a week, and the worst aspect by a long way was the incredible number of menus and permutations of suspension etc. I could even turn off the auto dimming function of the interior mirror... why? Even the various trip functions didn’t operate in a logical way. Just horrible.

Next hire car I get, I’m determined to just ignore it all and just drive it.
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My brother had a new BMW 3 series with all manner of settings, he absolutely loves it... I’ve swapped cars with him a few times when he’s needed to get stuff in the back that won’t go in a saloon and he’s genuinely excited when I hand it back, asking me if I’ve tried it in each of the many configurations... the only configurations I’ve driven it in are what ever he’s handed it to me in... I just get in and drive.

He seems to think that sports mode “adds” performance... my golf has all the performance of that BMW, and then some... sports mode in mine is my right foot going down harder and me sharpening up!

His car is WAY more fuel efficient, I’ll give it that.
 
It seems daft that manufacturers go to great lengths and expense to develop their own, proprietary OS/entertainment system when most car reviews just say you're better off using Apple Car Play or Android Auto when your phone connects.

There seems to be the potential for saving a lot of money and complexity by just providing the most basic of dials and information, then just relying on the driver's phone for the rest.

I even see Mercedes have now developed a complete one piece OLED dash the entire width of the car(!) that looks insanely expensive and complicated. Do we think there will be any classic cars in the future when current cars are so electrically complex and beyond the scope of a tinkering DIY enthusiast?
 
gintonic said:
not withstanding the fact a Golf was the most uncomfortable driving position of any car I have driven. I had one as a courtesy from Porsche, when the PDK gearbox on my 6 week old Boxster failed
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Each to their own, I’ve had several Golfs, they just do everything right for me as a daily driver, I’m quite comfortable on a long drive in one and it’s still fun in the twisties... my only real criticism, fuel economy on the hot petrol models... but then fuel economy is not the forte of any petrol powered performance oriented car. That being said, the newest golf I’ve had is a MK5, and I prefer my MK4.

Every car I’ve driven pails in comparison to my Volvo S60R for comfort though, not even a Jag XJ or XK can top that for comfort.
 
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