Best new features of any new car?

S

Stark

Veteran
Just reading up on the new Mini, and the Navigation system has a video recorder on it that can record and film traffic etc in front of you....what a great idea.

Anything else you think over the years that's been invented, mainly by way of Mercedes probably, that still amazes you?

Heated seats have to be one of the best inventions!! Parking sensors also pretty high on the list...
 
And airbags - including the systems that control them - are pretty amazing too.
 
Hands free, although I am staggered at the amount of people that are driving +08 cars that appear not not have spent the additional £200 on the option :x
 
Nissan's 360 degree camera comes to mind as a recent gadget I love.

Automated distance control on cruise systems is another great invention
 
Electric windows, i have just had my new works van delivered, and it was dark when i left work to take it home. i went to put the drivers window down to wipe the wing mirror and could not find the button. when i turned the light on i see this funny looking thing with a knob on the end of it. what is this funny witchcraft i said. :lol: didnt think they made anything with window winders anymore.

but heated seats are a great thing love them in my Z4. great for my back after a day at work.
 
Controls on the steering wheel for all the stuff you need to use in a modern car!

Who'd have thought you could drive from Cheshire to London without your hands ever needing to leave the steering wheel and still be able to change stations on the radio, change music sources, program sat nav, use a telephone and change gear!
 
I have worked as a sales rep for almost 30 years driving up to 40 k miles a year.

Power steering now standard on most cars I could not live without.
( not standard on your cortina, Sierra, Montego and cavalier )

Sat Nav saves so much time. How did I manage without it ?
 
I am probably showing my age now as these things have been around a while but I certainly appreciate auto dipping mirrors, rain sensitive wipers, adjustable intermittent wipers, automatic headlights, auto dipping lights, central locking, and climate control but to name a few.

Never got too excited about cup holders though :P
 
340bhp in something i can afford.
Priceless.
Oh, ok then. I'll play along properly.

Reliability.
Having done half a million miles since 1990, and only broken down and had to be recovered once, I can't imagine doing the same in the 70's.

Tyre Pressure sensors.
Visiting customers where there are always nails or screws in the car park means I've probably had 10 puncutres in the past 10 years. As these are slowies, I was able to get them repaired before I killed the tyres ( you can barely feel a flat tyre nowadays with power steering and general wooliness of steering feel)
So that's saved me 10 tyres.

Radar Guided cruise control. not had a chance to try this yet, but will be on my next car if I have anything to do with it.
 
All these electro gadgets are fine. But they are THE REASON cars are so damned hard and expensive to work on, And nearly impossible to fix your self. The basic mechanical systems on all modern cars are fairly bullet proof. It's when the central LCD/SatNav control everything in your life data display unit that costs several thousands of dollars to correct should it fail, that one will see the beauty and simplicity of buying a new easy and cheap to update Garmin for 1/10 that amount that you see the rather large $ down side to the nanny in the dash. I had one go out in a 2004 Honda Accord. I lost all ability to use the heater/AC, entertainment system. $2500.00 for a new one. Same car over the 100,000 miles I owned it had ZERO mechanical failures. Old school heater controls? You replace a $5.00 cable. New car heater control? 100-500 times that amount. Are we that lazy any more?
 
^^^^^^^
Agreed, but marketing sells new cars not old ones.
Made me think about old/ New alternatives
Electric Windows with finger trap detection- wind up Windows and common sense
Heated seats - stand with your arse by the fire before you go out.
Satnav - Last year's AA road atlas that you bought from a garage the first time you were lost.
Coilpacks that fail after 100k - 3 sets of points and car scrapped at 100k anyway
 
Talksthetorque said:
^^^^^^^
Agreed, but marketing sells new cars not old ones.
Made me think about old/ New alternatives
Electric Windows with finger trap detection- wind up Windows and common sense
An electric motor winding the old mechanical scissor jack to lift window= no IC's, over half a century old.
Heated seats - stand with your arse by the fire before you go out.
Again very old tech (heating pad, Electric hob) just in a new place= No IC's, Just a high resistance wire and thermostat, about a century old.
Satnav - Last year's AA road atlas that you bought from a garage the first time you were lost.
Garmin, Tom Tom. Cheap to buy, Cheap to upgrade. in dash GPS= very expensive to buy and upgrade but reliable. The LCD dash interface is the problem. Everything is in one unit and the failed component can't be isolated and replaced. That's the same as replacing your whole drive train because the diff failed.
Coilpacks that fail after 100k - 3 sets of points and car scrapped at 100k anyway
Again, Very old tech moved from distributor to the sparkplug
Click to expand...

The main reliability/expense issue I'm referring to, Are the all in one computer controlled stuff. If your idrive goes out, You can't even check your bloody oil level, You'll be lost without your AA map. Want to update your newer systems map? $300 and you have to do it at a BMW dealer because they now have proprietary coding to prevent you from doing anything with it. You can get a new Garmin with more features and a new map for half the cost of a BMW update. Or if you are like us with our 08 i-drive CCC. There are no updates for map data from BMW. One must go after market and hope it doesn't mess up your $2000 system that BMW will no longer provide map updates for. They will sell you a new one. Just no map updates. And that's a 5 year old car.
 
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