Analogue man in digital world!?

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Can’t begin to tell you how much I dispise this dash on the B-class hire car!!!

83927f1d3ef5c2196c322120b923884a.jpg


Merc IMHO has gotten this very wrong! It’s intrusive, distracting, childish in the way the animations work and would greatly appeal to the grantouriaimo generation!! It often switches screens to give me notifications I don’t want to see at the expense of losing revs and Speed display. This was the least annoying screen I could find.

I am sure there is a way to go through the settings to get to something tamer if I had the time and patience. I can’t find any screen that shows me the water temp - I guess it doesn’t matter to 99.9% of those the car is aimed at.

Give me an analogue gauged dash any day - unless of course it’s a Lexus LFA, in which car I forgive it instantly!!!

The sensors all round bing and bing sooooo much while reversing that they take away any semblance of usefulness.

Am I just becoming a grumpy old man!?
 
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Wally

Club Member
I had an A-Class with all the bells and whistles as a hire car recently. Handled well but far too many buttons and screens. I found the centre screen badly placed as half the screen was covered as soon as you had you hand on the steering wheel. Ended up having to move my head left everytime I wanted to check the sat nav.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Rob Gaskin

Treasurer
Staff member
Site Administrator
Our lives are spent looking at screens. I'm doing it now, however in cars it is very distracting.

My pet hate (well one of them) is people who stick a phone or sat-nav on the windscreen in there sight-line.

When cars are advertised these days they 'major' on it's 'connectivity'.

Yes Ali you are becoming a grumpy old man - it's natural.
 
Can’t begin to tell you how much I dispise this dash on the B-class hire car!!!

83927f1d3ef5c2196c322120b923884a.jpg


Merc IMHO has gotten this very wrong! It’s intrusive, distracting, childish in the way the animations work and would greatly appeal to the grantouriaimo generation!! It often switches screens to give me notifications I don’t want to see at the expense of losing revs and Speed display. This was the least annoying screen I could find.

I am sure there is a way to go through the settings to get to something tamer if I had the time and patience. I can’t find any screen that shows me the water temp - I guess it doesn’t matter to 99.9% of those the car is aimed at.

Give me an analogue gauged dash any day - unless of course it’s a Lexus LFA, in which car I forgive it instantly!!!

The sensors all round bing and bing sooooo much while reversing that they take away any semblance of usefulness.

Am I just becoming a grumpy old man!?

its the greatest Irony that people are paying to have screens in cars when they're so much cheaper than 'real buttons'. I had a drive in a new a8 with touch screens for everything. It just didn't work as a car for when you were driving.


It was so much easier to text on phones while driving when you could feel the buttons without needing to look :)
 

Paul_S

Club Member
When Nissan designed the interior of the new Juke they made a specific point of having lots of physical buttons on the dash rather that relying on nested menus on the touchscreen. I like their (retro) thinking.
 

Pete

Well-Known Forum User
On the last hire car I rented I found the lane control system most entertaining on narrow B roads, till I found the get this sh.t to f..k button.
 

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Glad it’s not just me then! Guys these comments resonate so much! [emoji1787][emoji106][emoji106]

Pete, driving on the mountain switchbacks on the way to the ski resort the lane assist caught me out a couple of times - read, made me change underwear !! It decided not be on (greyed out on the screen) then came to life unexpectedly when I had to get right over to give room to wide traffic coming the other way @ 50km/h. Somehow when it sees the right conditions like two lines and the right speed it decides to activated itself. It feels like the car has become a sentient being making bad decisions. I pulled over and found the deactivate option, which told me that all will die horribly if it’s not allowed to intrude!!!

On the upside the car has a phenomenal turning circle and on “sports” mode blips the revs on downshifts which makes it easier to drive on the mountains.

Finally, every year, I switch between winter and summer tyres on the family cars and vexed about going all season tyres this year. I bought new winter tyres again this year as I couldn’t make my mind up. But the jury is still out on the all seasons. The ones fitted to the merc do an admirable job on the snow and ice but I do (in my fussy geek-petrol-head style) find that too much is being asked of them and they are way too vague, with tread blocks that move about far too much for my liking. Somehow the winter Contis I run on the Audis have more feel. Which is not something you hear about steering on any Audi! ;)

OK grumpy old man is going back in his box!
 

uk66fastback

Club Member
The wife's MINI has this annoying thing where when you select reverse, the n/s mirror dips down to show you the ground, when all I want to see is the side of the car ... I don't need to look in the normal rear view mirror of course as it starts beeping in the red zone when I am still 18" away from the obstacle ... bizarre. I know that I can go a foot back still when the thing is chiming away, much to the missus' annoyance!
 

Bazzateer

Club Member
All so true! Don't get me started on automatic lights and wipers - if you don't know when to switch them on, should you be allowed behind the wheel of a 100mph+ lump of metal, glass and plastic?
 

WazzaJB

Club Member
My mates got an A200 company car with an identical cluster, and I thought it * looked * really good. Hadn't considered the usability of the thing.

We've got a Golf GTE and it's mostly brilliant, but....

The parking sensors are insanely annoying, to the point where they are so sensitive (going mad about 2 feet away) that they are actually useless. Have to turn them off to park on the drive which is frustrating given I need to get it as close to the back fence as possible in order to plug in the charger without intruding the footpath.

Also, if you're about to make a right turn and do so immediately after a car passes on the right then the sensors/collision prevention or whatever goes absolutely mental as it thinks the car is still there...

I don't think any of you/us are grumpy old men, I just don't think the technology is there yet. Haven't been in a Tesla though so would be interesting to actually see how far ahead they are.
 

Rob Gaskin

Treasurer
Staff member
Site Administrator
There are lots of 'things'
All so true! Don't get me started on automatic lights and wipers - if you don't know when to switch them on, should you be allowed behind the wheel of a 100mph+ lump of metal, glass and plastic?

Auto lights should be used all the time and over-ridden when it's foggy i.e. switched on. The problem these days is that 'running' lights and instrument lights give the impression that your lights are on. Seen lots of cars with no rear lights.
 

Paul_S

Club Member
There are lots of 'things'


Auto lights should be used all the time and over-ridden when it's foggy i.e. switched on. The problem these days is that 'running' lights and instrument lights give the impression that your lights are on. Seen lots of cars with no rear lights.
Absolutely, and when the main lights are on it will dip the (extremely bright) DRLs so it doesn't blind other road users. One problem is that auto lights aren't compulsory but DRLs are. It's mad when things like headlight washers must be fitted with Xenon headlights.
 

toopy

Club Member
All so true! Don't get me started on automatic lights and wipers - if you don't know when to switch them on, should you be allowed behind the wheel of a 100mph+ lump of metal, glass and plastic?

Absolutely, never understood why they have become a thing, if you cant manage that decision for yourself you've no business being in a car!

What would be far more useful would be indicators that intelligently cancelled themselves, because the numpty driving obviously cant see or here they are still on after making a turn half a mile ago!!
 

Bazzateer

Club Member
There are lots of 'things'


Auto lights should be used all the time and over-ridden when it's foggy i.e. switched on. The problem these days is that 'running' lights and instrument lights give the impression that your lights are on. Seen lots of cars with no rear lights.
I understand but disagree with your point re using them all the time. My view is that we shouldn't need them at all. People who drive should know when to put the lights on, the car shouldn't be doing it for them.
 

Bazzateer

Club Member
Absolutely, never understood why they have become a thing, if you cant manage that decision for yourself you've no business being in a car!

What would be far more useful would be indicators that intelligently cancelled themselves, because the numpty driving obviously cant see or here they are still on after making a turn half a mile ago!!
Absolutely!
 

Rob Gaskin

Treasurer
Staff member
Site Administrator
I understand but disagree with your point re using them all the time. My view is that we shouldn't need them at all. People who drive should know when to put the lights on, the car shouldn't be doing it for them.

Anything that prevents people driving in the dark without lights is a good thing surely.
 
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jonbills

Membership Secretary
Site Administrator
Those ridiculous so called indicators get me. Anyone that can't stick their arm out of the window to show their intended direction of travel should be strung up.

Actually, cars. What a stupid idea. Who really needs anything more than a horse.

The middle-aged of today have money than sense.
 

Pete

Well-Known Forum User
Those ridiculous so called indicators get me. Anyone that can't stick their arm out of the window to show their intended direction of travel should be strung up.

Actually, cars. What a stupid idea. Who really needs anything more than a horse.

The middle-aged of today have money than sense.
 
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