[ChrisPlatt]

Like cameras today I would have a difficult time finding a new car simple enough for my tastes.
I prefer analog gauges and controls. I don't need or want a light show on my dashboard.
Today's cars do feature some useful advances but far too many toys, bells and whistles.

Chris

[kadajawi]

Sadly my speed is not likely to exceed 120kph due to British motorway limits. The red one boasts 110ps though I have yet to do 400 kilometres in it so it should loosen up in another 5000 kilometres or so. The longest journey it has undertaken so far is about 50 miles where it averaged around 40mph through mixed A and B roads through towns and provided around 60mpg. The 2.0 litre diesel or the 150ps petrol with DSG would have been preferable but this 1.6 litre also costs me nothing in road tax at the moment.
Excitement from driving cars used to happen when I drove rear wheel drive cars on much less populated roads 40 years ago. when I usually had 2 cars, 1 for work and 1 for fun, or a motorcycle. I sold my last motorcycle (BMW 1100cc) when I was made redundant and out of work for a long time. Now I've taken the early retirement option due to ill health I get my excitement from other things.

Ah, true. British motorways. I only drove there once, and I must say I don't miss it. The B roads are nice though.

The 1.6 is very frugal, if you don't push it too hard. The 140 hp 1.4 petrol (it was replaced by the 150 hp 1.4, and now the 150 hp 1.5) costs about as much as the 1.6 TDI, and it's one hell of an engine. Powerful enough, and if you're gentle with it the consumption is low too. Not as low as the 1.6, mind you, but you can do about 5.5 liters per 100 km (sorry, no idea what that is in mpg). Plus it is very, very quiet and smooth. The 2.0 TDI adds a couple of k, is quite similar in terms of power (but there's less on the low end, and obviously it won't rev as high. In turn when the turbo kicks in...). Road tax (in Germany) on the 1.4 is very low, around 30 Euro a year. That's, like, nothing, after my previous Citroen cost 100 and my Renault diesel before that more than 500 Euro. A very unfortunate combination of, I think Euro 2 (i.e. dirty as hell) and 1900 cc...

This is a replacement for a 2010 Mazda3 hatch, 2.5L 6 speed which was T-boned by a young idiot just after Thanksgiving 2016. We had only 92K miles on it and it was running strong. Grrrrr......

The new ride is well-appointed. Leather, power driver's seat, heated front seats, rear view camera, radar warning of cars on either side, XM radio, auto climate control, etc. The engine is 2.5 L, 185 ftlbs, 184 HP, or vice versa! 13 to one compression ratio on regular gas - has to be direct injection. 6 speed manual. We've seen mpg as high as 35 mpg at free-way speeds. 18 inch alloy wheels.

Likes: nice clutch. Good trans linkage. Quieter on the road than the 2010. Much better mileage than the 2010 with subjectively better acceleration. Back up camera! Yes! Mazda's reincarnation of the "hill holder" for manual trannys of yore. Mazda's feature gives you a few seconds of braking on an incline to ease the need for fancy foot work. XM radio is nice. Key-less entry and ignition. Auto temp control is nice, separate controls for driver and passenger seem sillly. Seems like higher grade interior materials than the 2010. Heated front seats nice. Big screen for back up camera, also reads out mileage figures, helps control sound system, even has an altimeter.

Dislikes: The electric hand brake which enables, I am told, the hill holder doesn't allow any gradual application. No hand-brake turns in the snow. A dumb idea to save the space taken up by a brake handle. The "remote" for the key-less entry has a replacement cost around $300.!! The auto temp control is hard to adjust without looking away from the road. Rear vision is atrocious! Parallel parking without the rear view camera would be difficult. There is NO CD player; we're supposed to load our music on a thumb drive. Our 2010 had a six-disk changer. The 2017 has the Bose "Center Point" sound system, distinctly inferior to the Bose system on the 2010. The 2010 had a sub-woofer in the spare tire driven by an amp under the front passenger seat. The 2017 uses just the door speakers, which don't have the decent bass of the sub-woofer, but rather what sounds like a peak around 70 or 80 cps. Male voices are unpleasantly exaggerated. Not good! Still no coolant temperature, oil pressure, ammeter. Why not use that big camera screen for such displays?

Generally we like the 2017.

To all makers: Why not have a button on the remote to raise/lower windows? Shouldn't be too difficult!

Sweet. Had I found a second hand 3 hatchback with the specs I wanted, I might very well have ended up with one. Sadly Mazda only makes the safety systems I want available when you order the highest spec (including harsher ride and 18" rims), and add leather seats (which I'm not particularly interested in, and cost a ton). Then, and only then, can you order the tech package that adds what I really want. With VW you can go for the absolutely lowest spec car, and add these gadgets. Obviously only few buyers did order the 3 in the specs I wanted.

The hill hold assist on the Golf works continuously. I had a rental Polo for a few days, where it would let go after a couple of seconds, and the system in the Golf is MUCH, MUCH better. There's no worrying about when it would let go. At a traffic light you don't need to step on the brakes at all. When it's green, you can simply step on the accelerator and let go of the clutch. No idea why other cars don't have the same system, rather than the timed system.

I'm not a fan of keyless go, as it is pretty easy to steal.

Separate temp controls make sense, if your passenger is my mother. Her preferred temperature is way too cold for me. But the car can handle it just fine.

I was very skeptical about the electric handbrake, but it engages automatically, and actually it's space saving and convenient. Only thing is no handbrake turns, but other than that...? A plus. Btw., the optional, and very expensive Meridian sound system in the Jaguar F-Type isn't worth it either. It's just not that good. Be glad that you even get the engine temp, some cars only have a light that is supposed to tell owners if the engine gets too hot.

Like cameras today I would have a difficult time finding a new car simple enough for my tastes.
I prefer analog gauges and controls. I don't need or want a light show on my dashboard.
Today's cars do feature some useful advances but far too many toys, bells and whistles.

Chris

Ha. There's a new Citroen that's being advertised as a camera. As in, the driver drives to pretty spots, snaps a photo with the camera and then sends it over the internet, through the car. But really, have you looked at base spec cars? Some are surprisingly empty. And there's always Caterham, Ariel etc.

[grhazelton]

IIRC Studebaker, and perhaps some other manufacturers, had a hill holder in the 50s. Press the clutch past a certain point and the brakes are engaged! Simple, probably fool proof and doesn't need an Electric Hand Brake or other foolishness. No manual tranny car I've ever had - and that's most of my choices! - had such. On the bright side being able to leave a stop on a steep grade without stalling out or burning the clutch was a sign of MASTERY! often gained the hard way.

[wombat2go]

When it's green, you can simply step on the accelerator and let go of the clutch.

We had to learn "heel and toe" to downshift double declutch into second gear for a track driving course.
That skill also allowed for hill starts. I suppose that is a lost art, and it usually could only be done on cars where the brake pedal was near the accelerator pedal.

I just got a new Jeep 4WD and it has hill start in drive and reverse.
I dodn't realize it had that until reversing out of a steep parking space.

[Just1MoreDave]

Like cameras today I would have a difficult time finding a new car simple enough for my tastes.
I prefer analog gauges and controls. I don't need or want a light show on my dashboard.
Today's cars do feature some useful advances but far too many toys, bells and whistles.

Chris

It really is the same as cameras. For many reasons, the bells and whistles are cheap and easy to add on at the factory. Car makers do suffer, though. A few years ago they were getting hit on quality surveys because buyers couldn't figure out their complicated car. Now they are getting complaints about the high-end safety gear not working like the customer wants.

Also like cameras, figuring out the controls in the field/while driving is impossible. I somehow accidently told our new car that I wanted the navigation system to remember a certain location, an intersection. For about a year, the car would sound a chime when we went by that point again. Each time, I was driving - not really willing to scroll through the byzantine navigation menu system, figure out what I did and undo it. Eventually I remembered when I was parked and had 15 minutes to read the right line in the supplementary 250 page manual for the audio and navigation system.

On electric parking brakes: I get an annual laugh out of ours when we take it in for service. Just about all the other cars they sell have electric parking brakes that release automatically. But our car has a manual transmission, very rare, with no auto-release. Invariably the lot person hops in and tries to drive away with the brake set. And this is no old-school parking brake that only works on the rear wheels, where the car maybe shifts a bit. The car might as well be welded to the ground.

[kadajawi]

It really is the same as cameras. For many reasons, the bells and whistles are cheap and easy to add on at the factory. Car makers do suffer, though. A few years ago they were getting hit on quality surveys because buyers couldn't figure out their complicated car. Now they are getting complaints about the high-end safety gear not working like the customer wants.

Also like cameras, figuring out the controls in the field/while driving is impossible. I somehow accidently told our new car that I wanted the navigation system to remember a certain location, an intersection. For about a year, the car would sound a chime when we went by that point again. Each time, I was driving - not really willing to scroll through the byzantine navigation menu system, figure out what I did and undo it. Eventually I remembered when I was parked and had 15 minutes to read the right line in the supplementary 250 page manual for the audio and navigation system.

On electric parking brakes: I get an annual laugh out of ours when we take it in for service. Just about all the other cars they sell have electric parking brakes that release automatically. But our car has a manual transmission, very rare, with no auto-release. Invariably the lot person hops in and tries to drive away with the brake set. And this is no old-school parking brake that only works on the rear wheels, where the car maybe shifts a bit. The car might as well be welded to the ground.

Hm, I don't have any issues with the bells and whistles, in terms of usability. But it depends on the car maker. I feel like VW does a lot to ensure it is easy and logical to use. Yes, the cars may look a bit plain, but the amount of thought that went into them is very high. Things are easy to understand even if you have never driven a VW before. Other makes can be more confusing, less structured, they may have buttons that aren't really that important and hide important stuff in hard to reach places. Think Pentax vs., say, Sony. You grab a Pentax, and you know how to use it. Even if it is your first. You grab a Sony, and... well, good luck! It's full of hidden stuff, illogical things and bad placement. Why, for example, when the mode dial is in movie mode, can't a Sony A7 start recording a video by pressing the shutter? Instead you have to push a badly placed button on the side of the camera, which always starts recording videos. Pushing the shutter button just causes the camera to tell you that you have to push the other camera. WHY? Oh yeah, and the VW feels like it's made from one company. It's one coherent device. The design is coherent. The interior is. The usability. Everything matches, while other brands tend to be more a mix of different things from the parts bin. Like infotainment systems that clearly were designed by another company, maybe one that didn't put as much thought into the design, look and usability of things.

As for reliability of the high-end safety gear... if you're just turning off the brain, and don't pay any attention, yeah, it may screw you. But I haven't had an issue with these systems for the past 50000 km (30000 miles). If the emergency braking is about to trigger, the car will warn me. I can still override it (though that is seldom necessary, bridges for example don't confuse it, an issue that the Honda Civic is supposed to have) by touching the accelerator. What's the problem? And my car was built at the end of 2012, so the systems in it are already 5 years behind the curve. The system in the Golf is rather predictable, I know some situations can confuse it and can prepare for them. I know how it will react. It will still help, it will still make things safer and more relaxing than not having these systems.

I haven't touched the car manual. Ever. I've just driven it. Maybe it took me a bit longer to figure out something than it had by reading the manual, but I think I know most I need to know, and make use of all the systems.

My car sometimes auto releases the electric parking brakes, but not always. Maybe I haven't figured out why, yet, or maybe it's a software issues causing it to act a bit randomly.

I guess this is a problem for me. I've spent some time with the infotainment system from Peugeot/Citroen, and it's just frustrating. It is slow, makes little sense, and forces you to use it for things that should have actual dials. The Opel system crashed more on me than a beta version of Windows Me would have. So... while those cars may be more fun to drive, perhaps more reliable (at least the French ones, I don't trust German makes too much), the way how VW thinks of everything is wonderful, and something I wouldn't want to miss.

We had to learn "heel and toe" to downshift double declutch into second gear for a track driving course.
That skill also allowed for hill starts. I suppose that is a lost art, and it usually could only be done on cars where the brake pedal was near the accelerator pedal.

I just got a new Jeep 4WD and it has hill start in drive and reverse.
I dodn't realize it had that until reversing out of a steep parking space.

Nice. I tried, but the space between the pedals is a bit too big... I guess the car makers don't want drivers to accidentally step on both pedals I can reach across, but may easily slip off the brakes when doing. It's not quite optimal. Or maybe my technique isn't good enough.

Oh yeah, I've been able to teach my 60+ mum who has never ever had a car with cruise control how to use the adaptive cruise control in my car within a couple of minutes. An hour later she was using it frequently. Not a pro, but it was fine. Unfortunately since she rarely drives my car I always have to teach her anew, but still, if she can figure it out, and learn it, without too much effort, it can't be too difficult. Then again I don't know other brands that much. Maybe it's really just VW who have figured it out.

[Canada_Rockies]

IIRC Studebaker, and perhaps some other manufacturers, had a hill holder in the 50s. Press the clutch past a certain point and the brakes are engaged! Simple, probably fool proof and doesn't need an Electric Hand Brake or other foolishness. No manual tranny car I've ever had - and that's most of my choices! - had such. On the bright side being able to leave a stop on a steep grade without stalling out or burning the clutch was a sign of MASTERY! often gained the hard way.

Last time I looked Subaru still has hill holders in their manual transmission cars.

I drive a 2002 Tundra 4wd V8 in SR5 kit. It has ~277,000 Km on it (~172,000 mi) and the only time it has left me stranded was when I left the door ajar and the battery went flat. Here it is on a photo outage July 6-8.

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[TER-OR]

2004 Prius, with almost 250K miles on it.
Like -
mileage is still over 45mpg.
Upkeep has been very inexpensive.
Bigger than it looks, particularly for cargo.
Relatively comfortable, nice commuter and distance car.

Dislike -
Support bar on long front windshield blocks some visibility.
Light suspension, somewhat low-riding.
Stereo could be updated.

Our other car is a 2016 Subaru Outback, which is loaded. Replaces a bare-bones 2003 Outback
Like -
Subaru AWD feels great.
HK stereo frakking rocks. Metal sounds outstanding, you can feel the kickdrum.
Adaptive cruise control is really nice, and works well.
Outstanding open-road car, just like its predecessor it's a great long-trip vehicle.

Dislike:
Mileage could be better, but it's AWD and heavy. We knew that.
So many buttons, features which might be useful one day but have never been used. (I suspect most cars are like this now)
Could use more/better storage options in the cabin.


I keep hinting to my wife I'd like to get a used Subaru BRZ/Scion FRS. Simple, light, great-feeling manual transmission with rear-wheel drive. Not expensive but it's a driver's car.

[Erikka]

Currently piloting a 2011 MINI 2 Door hatchback in Horizon Blue and Black, love the car but the mileage is getting up there and thinking it's time to dump it before the well known horribly expensive MINI repairs begin to kick in. I'd like to eventually find my dream car, a 1956 VW Beetle, Oval window with all the mechanicals, brakes, suspension, electric,etc all upgraded

2016 KIA Soul:

FROG

Base model, Manual 6-speed, numerous upgrades.

Pros: Price, overall quality, reasonable mileage, power and handling (although it won't win any races)

Cons: rear view limited (added backup cam and wide field mirrors)

The color ("Alien 3") is an acquired taste. I call it the $1000 paint job—it cost that much less than a similar car in a different color. I painted the wheels.

This is a small car on the outside but big on the inside. They offer a 200 h.p. Turbo Soul which I understand is pretty zippy but this is fast enough for me.

[AggieDad]

We have a 2014 Chevy Captiva which is really a 2009 Saturn Vue. It is only sold as a fleet vehicle so it has to be bought used. It's a nice little SUV, but the best thing about it is that is an automatic that can be towed 4 wheels down behind our motorhome. It also is one hell of a lot more comfortable than the 2002 Chevy Cavalier that used to tail behind the RV.

There is also a 2008 Yukon XL for me to motor around town in comfort. It's big. It's comfortable. It can carry lots of stuff - including my tripod fully extended. Nine years old with only 74,000 miles. I don't need this much iron, but I sure like it.

Vehicle number 3 is a 2006 Winnebago Voyage. This is the 34' motorhome that pulls the Captiva around the country. It has a giant 8.1 liter GM engine, which makes it three GM vehicles on the scorecard.

Finally there is a 19' Sea Hunt pleasure boat with a 115hp Yamaha (uh oh, not GM). It gets us around the lake.

[monochrome]

My daughter just bought a 2017 Mazda3 Touring Hatch w/ the 2.0L and auto. She loves it !! Essentially the same car features wise, but with the standard engine.
.

This is a replacement for a 2010 Mazda3 hatch, 2.5L 6 speed which was T-boned by a young idiot just after Thanksgiving 2016. We had only 92K miles on it and it was running strong. Grrrrr......

The new ride is well-appointed. Leather, power driver's seat, heated front seats, rear view camera, radar warning of cars on either side, XM radio, auto climate control, etc. The engine is 2.5 L, 185 ftlbs, 184 HP, or vice versa! 13 to one compression ratio on regular gas - has to be direct injection. 6 speed manual. We've seen mpg as high as 35 mpg at free-way speeds. 18 inch alloy wheels.

Likes: nice clutch. Good trans linkage. Quieter on the road than the 2010. Much better mileage than the 2010 with subjectively better acceleration. Back up camera! Yes! Mazda's reincarnation of the "hill holder" for manual trannys of yore. Mazda's feature gives you a few seconds of braking on an incline to ease the need for fancy foot work. XM radio is nice. Key-less entry and ignition. Auto temp control is nice, separate controls for driver and passenger seem sillly. Seems like higher grade interior materials than the 2010. Heated front seats nice. Big screen for back up camera, also reads out mileage figures, helps control sound system, even has an altimeter.

Dislikes: The electric hand brake which enables, I am told, the hill holder doesn't allow any gradual application. No hand-brake turns in the snow. A dumb idea to save the space taken up by a brake handle. The "remote" for the key-less entry has a replacement cost around $300.!! The auto temp control is hard to adjust without looking away from the road. Rear vision is atrocious! Parallel parking without the rear view camera would be difficult. There is NO CD player; we're supposed to load our music on a thumb drive. Our 2010 had a six-disk changer. The 2017 has the Bose "Center Point" sound system, distinctly inferior to the Bose system on the 2010. The 2010 had a sub-woofer in the spare tire driven by an amp under the front passenger seat. The 2017 uses just the door speakers, which don't have the decent bass of the sub-woofer, but rather what sounds like a peak around 70 or 80 cps. Male voices are unpleasantly exaggerated. Not good! Still no coolant temperature, oil pressure, ammeter. Why not use that big camera screen for such displays?

Generally we like the 2017.

To all makers: Why not have a button on the remote to raise/lower windows? Shouldn't be too difficult!

[Auzzie-Phoenix]

Over 37k views and 650+ responses to this thread.... what sort of monster have I unleashed upon PF.... lol.

[dngr]

Over 37k views and 650+ responses to this thread.... what sort of monster have I unleashed upon PF.... lol.

Relax, this was inevitable 😁

[Canada_Rockies]

Over 37k views and 650+ responses to this thread.... what sort of monster have I unleashed upon PF.... lol.

Less than 1,000 pages? Nothing at all!