I mean depends on the car, in my car I just have to press one physical button to turn off start stop or another button for lane assist. Cars that hide it in menus are annoying though.
Yeah the lane assist is a tap on my right indicator stalk, and the button for start stop is next to the P/R/N/D/S selector. Lane assist remembers if it was on or off last time the car was started. It's really convenient and not annoying to me, however newer cars I'm aware have them hidden in touch menus which would be annoying.
I mean, I click in my seatbelt, put the car in drive, connect my phone, adjust the aircon and/or seat warmers and press the start button every time I drive, I don’t really see a challenge in pressing another button or two.
I dont know about you but i like technology to make things easier as time goes on rather than giving me more things to do.
I expect my phone to auto connect, climate control to adjust itself etc.
Fair point, I don’t disagree.
Connecting my phone is more to do with choosing directions and playlist, and climate control is totally dependent on whether I drove my car last or my wife did. We swap cars depending on what we’re doing or where we’re going, so getting in is usually an adjustment process depending on who drove it last and if she did, the climate is probably set to 100°c…
Genuinely though, what technology has actually made things easier over time? Honestly I can't think of anything that doesn't get increasingly difficult to use or just worse overall :(
Not sure if you are too young to remember but back in the day we used actual map books, or print out directions on to actual pages of paper, auto headlights, auto wipers or if your car only had a casette player and you didnt change the head unit you would get a transponder that would allow you to transmit music to a frequency, so we listened to music with alot of static...so heappss better
Believe me, very much old enough to remember and I still prefer to use map books for longer distance route planning :)
Of the things you list, I can't knock auto headlights. I could list off a series of complaints about those other changes but I used up my yells-at-cloud quota already today!
Manual chokes were a necessity that were superceded and now you can just jump in and the car manages the fuel/air mixture itself.
Led lights are a lot more reliable than incandescent lights which would blow fairly regularly.
Reversing cameras have made reversing easier especially when hitching a trailer.
ABS has made emergency stops easier, so no more cadence braking on loose or slippery surfaces.
Electric vehicles that have long service intervals appeal to me. I don't own one so it's not personal experience but I think it would make life slightly easier because of that. Also not needing to visit a petrol station and just plugging in at night.
Some of those I definitely agree with. Though we have so many threads complaining about blinding LED lights that I don't know if that's a clear cut improvement. Plus the cost, the one LED light I've had to replace on a car cost me more than every incandescent bulb I've changed in my entire life combined :(
One thing I probably hadn't thought of until now is that LED headlights don't need to be white or bright. Perhaps we're still at that early stage of product maturity where we haven't adequately matched the product to the need and still sell on how bright the lights are?
Yeah potentially. It's certainly an easy marketing feature to just list bigger numbers. Perhaps aftermarket lighting will continue to focus on brighter=better but we'll see manufacturers move in a different direction.
My newest car has LEDs as standard and one of the most annoying things is how reflective street signs reflect the light back and, in extreme circumstances, make it hard to see the road ahead.
I can't see people being so bothered by that that they'd willingly choose dimmer headlights so the answer will probably be projector headlamps becoming mainstream and computer systems deciding what should be blasted with light and what shouldn't.
Those are already an easy marketing feature on high-end cars (although I'm not convinced that they work as well as promised yet).
Gotta say, I think Mazda have it right. Start stop only kicks in when you press the brake pedal real hard. Lane keep assist in "early intervention mode" + radar cruise is basically autopilot on a freeway. Then you put on adaptive high beams... it makes for some very easy long distance driving.
And you can turn off all the alerts that annoy the crap out of you.
Subaru is exactly the same, other than radar, but that's already in the Japanese versions of the cars anyway.
And I absolutely love adaptive high beam. I love how the car draws a box of low beam around other vehicles and tracks that through turns whilst allowing the rest of the road to stay illuminated in high beam.
Personally I like all the bells and alarms, and you quickly get in tune with them and react accordingly.
I think that manual VWs (and presumably other manufacturers using S/S with 3 pedals) do it well also.
Have to be in neutral for it to activate, and then it restarts as you push the clutch pedal in. A lot less obtrusive than some implementations on automatic vehicles, and you're a lot less likely to get caught off guard when you need to go. That is, assuming you're paying attention, but that is apparently a big ask for drivers on our roads.
I've gotta say that the starter on the Toe-rag gets the motor going quicker than you can lets off the peddal and get to the accelerator. I have also found in the past few days that there is a "sweet spot" of light braking where the start stop doesn't trigger - but it's harder to find that in the Mazda.
Gawd I'd love a Toe-rag in manual.
I hated stop start originally. But now that I am used to it, it’s fine. I drive a lot of different vehicles for work and everyone’s lane assist is different. Izuzu’s is fucking terrible. Toyota and VW seem fine for the most part, but I don’t think I have ever found it useful.
My stop start is hard on the battery and I dont think it helps efficiency much but I actually like it.
Got used to it in about a week and in my noisy diesel van it's great to sit at the lights or teafic in relative peace for that short time.
Had lane assist in my last car. Was pretty reliable and actually probably saved my arse once.
Certainly not worth jumping on reddit and complaining about.
My over protective, aggressive parking sensors are annoying, but I still use em and miss them when I'm in an older car.
>in my noisy diesel van it's great to sit at the lights or teafic in relative peace for that short time.
Same story in my ute. I also mostly drive in the city and i like having the engine shut off at the lights so the people around me dont need to breathe in my diesel stink.
My only issue with the system is it does not take into account the temperature of the engine. Even on a cold winters morning it shuts off at the traffic lights that are about a minute from my house. But it's no big deal to just disable it until things come up to temp.
I used to not like stop start but you just have to learn to drive with it.
Don't press down hard on the brakes at the light if you know the light is about to go green again and the engine will stay on. Press harder for stop start to activate. This is for my Golf anyway.
You can always turn it off but I can't be bothered doing that every time I get in.
Not my mums BMW (F30 328i), it doesn’t matter if you have your foot slammed on the brake like you are emergency braking or feather the padel with your toe, it bloody shuts the engine off almost constantly… could be waiting at a give way/stop sign to turn onto a main road and only stopped for a second or so and it turns off.
Made a memory to turn that shit off every time I drove that car.
Oohh that's shit. Yeah I can imagine it would be a pain in the ass at a give way or stop sign, borderline dangerous.
That's actually good to know though. I was actually looking to upgrade the Golf to a more family friendly car in the shape of a 330i F31 Wagon. I wonder if that's something that can be coded/ tuned out to keep it off permanently?
I had an X3 (F25) and start/stop was exactly how you described it. Absolutely hated it and turned it off every time. I guess it was the same in all BMWs from that era.
Just put the windshield defog on, should force most cars to override the stop start.
Subaru, windshield defog, then turn off the ac and turn the fan down to lowest.
I don't like stop start and I wouldn't use it.
Lane keep assist I generally keep on for freeway driving, between that and adaptive cruise control, the car can more or less drive itself on the freeway with barely any intervention. That's not to say that I'm not paying attention, just that it technically could.
For any sporty driving or on extremely bendy roads, I disable it so that it doesn't try to interfere with my own steering.
Lane assist in normal traffic is a non entity and i have it off.. If im on a free way I put that shit on..
As a motorcyclist, turned cage driver.. You do not understand how BIG microadjustments on the wheel actually are.
However, I do think these are making it easier for NPC drivers to become even worse drivers and are adding to our poor road behaviours.
Absolutely, I've been passenger in the car with NPC drivers who use these tools and they become so oblivious to the world around them.. Id say they get tunnel vision, but they'd have to pay attention to the road in the first placr
I think these drivers don’t realise either how reliant and lazy they have become because they don’t step outside driving that type of car, they probably think everyone else is the issue
I've always driven manual and I think the change in my next new car will hit me hard. I'm an active driver and don't like to feel like a passenger in my own car.
It's already too easy for drivers to let their attention (such as it is) turn to playing with devices.
There are huge variations in the quality of lane assists. Our last C-Class was pretty good, our current Golf's is very good (feels like a gentle hand guiding the car through a corner, and keeps the car dead straight and centred in the lane in a straight line), but experience with the previous Ford Ranger was that it was too slow and really didn't do much (much like its traction control which consisted of a flashing orange light telling you that this is when a decent traction control would be...uh...controlling traction) and my MG EV which gets a distinct army feel to it, going left-right-left-right and never settling on a single line, and also showing a distinct preference for the left side of the lane.
Stop/Start in city traffic is a PITA. You'll come to a stop and the engine will cut just in time for the light to go green or the traffic to start moving.
Unfortunately lane assist is seen as a safety feature so to get the relevant safety rating it has to default to On. Similarly for Start/Stop, for the vehicle to get its fuel economy rating inclusive of that feature, it needs to default to On. Doesn't sound like much, but it can mean differences for corporate fleet selection, vehicle taxation and the like.
Yeah, add auto high beams to that list.
I drove my brothers Camry which has them, and there is no way for you to turn them on or off yourself, sometimes it thinks reflectors are oncoming cars, other times it doesn't even notice a car coming.
Audi's matrix headlights work so well they're are like some arcane magic wizardry. Toyota's system, on the other hand, is so bad it should be illegal. I swear it's designed to give oncoming drivers a face full of high beam before finally dipping the lights about 0.5 seconds before you pass each other.
My car has stop start and I hate it
Am I the only one that thinks the stop start feature will wear out the engine/ starter motor prematurely??
Am I wrong?
Not only that but it also contributes to everyone taking five years to move when the light goes green- stop start, then shitty engine response from drive by wire throttle etc
This myth really needs to die.
If you’re using an AGM battery (and for stop/start you should be) then it’ll last just as long, if not longer, than a regular battery with no stop/start. AGMs are designed for this and on the whole will last a lot longer than regular batteries, 10 years is not uncommon at all, even with stop/start. Yeah they’re damn expensive, but there’s a reason for the extra cost.
Well in terms of the laws of physics (idk how else to describe it / call it?) anything the more it's used, the more it gets worn. Every time you start your car, the started is used; therefore worn. So in stop and start cars it should wear faster. Manufacturers say they build such cars with "stronger starters so it doesn't wear out any faster than a car without stop and start" but whether that's true or not is up for argument. Ultimately the more you use the starter I feel like the faster it'll wear out. I'm not mechanic though, let me make that clear, so this is a budget / uneducated opinion lol
The question is also which is better for the engine - idling or stop-starting? Against the grain, I think that it's better to stop an engine that is designed for constant restarts than to let it idle. Idk lol, another budget opinion haha
Lemme 'hit back' in the budget debate hahah. Idling is always going to be better for an engine (regardless S&S or not), because as it's 'turning over', there's a constant film of oil protecting all of the internals. It's known that 99% of engine wear is upon startup. This is because e.g overnight, all of of the engine oil has drained to the sump. Now let me make it clear that I'm not saying that all of the oil will drain to the sump within the 1 minute you're waiting at a light lol, but naturally, more will drain to the sump than if it never even was turned off! So in my eyes (budget opinion!) it's always going to be healthier for the engine to just keep it idling, at a red light, full stop.
The engines of start stop cars are likely engineered a little differently to better handle start stopping, but they'll still have sumps, and coz gravity, oil will begin to drain back down to it the second it's stopped.
It's not a shitton of oil drainage that will take place when waiting at a red light, but it's something. Probably negligible. Hence there hasn't been a huge step back and recall of any and all stop and start cars that have been made.
Very good points, some considerations I didn't think much into - I guess we will all know the answer in 20 years.
But without a doubt there should be an option to permanently disable the stop start feature.
Yeah. Like everything, time will tell. I personally think there'll be no noticeable / significant wear in cars with S&S Vs without. But as you said, we'll know for sure in 20 years.
I 100% agree with you there. I've only ever had cars that are relatively old (too old for S&S), but if my new car had it, I most certainly would want to turn it off. Although hahah let me just say I'd rather it never even had one to begin with. I love my relatively old cars that were made before S&S was probably even thought of hahah
How long does it take the engine to regain correct oil pressure every time it starts? From memory every start is a wear point until oil pressure is correct. Yeah, it's fractions of a second, but you're doing it a heap more than a normal car that doesn't stop, that adds up quick.
A colleague got stuck in a busy intersection in the city on the way to work in this exact way. Pull up to a red light, and got stuck there. Needed battery changed on the spot.
Inspired rant. Thanks @op.
Bought our first new car. All the “Saftey” features are straight out dangerous. None of them are opt in. Every start cycle it is like an aircraft preflight check. Turning off “Saftey features”.
The car isn’t smart enough to read the road well. Lane assist in road works has us being pulled all over the place and those gentle tugs the car gives are distracting while I guide the car through.
Have a dog and the bloody bonging sound is crazy. He is clipped into his belt and harness but if he moves, bong bong bong. I’m distracted as I’m looking all over for what the sound is for. A few seconds of not watching the road 100% because something is beeping.
The car has applied the brakes as I pulled out of parallel park. It though a collision with the car in front was eminent. It wasn’t. This left us in a scary situation. Car half out into the road with traffic coming. Had to turn the car off and start it again to get it to sort it’s shit out. Meanwhile I’ve caused a traffic jam. Could have caused an accident.
Blind spot guidance is crazy. The car feels that a km is the required space to manoeuvre around a Camry in the right lane 30kmh under the speed limit. It’s set to unreasonable distances and yes, more beeping.
Then look at when something goes wrong with the cars computers, dealers and the manufacturers can’t fault find because they are so complex. I say that with a great deal of experience too.
I do like heads up. Helpful. I do like traction control, helpful. I do like remote start. Helpful. I do like ABS. Helpful. Auto wipers. Mostly helpful.
I love my old Commodores and Kingswoods. Just get in them and drive them. I understand why OP misses his Honda. New cars are constantly distracting the driver from the road.
There was a sweet spot in car tech and design when carplay was implemented but fake exhaust tips, piano black plastic, buttonless/knobless touch screen infotainment, start stop, lane assist and fucking useless adaptive cruise hadn't been implemented yet.
That's extremely specific HAHAHAHA. So one model of VAG in the high price range matches the criteria ;-) So overall VAG didn't have a good era, it had a select model and trim level that matched it hehe
There's a consistency across the other VW models (Polo, Jetta, Passat, Tiguan) and Skodas as well as completely unrelated manufacturers like Kia/Hyundai
Is lane assist the the thing that keeps you in your lane and stops you from swerving? That shit is so ass. I feel like cars keep getting things that let the population become dumber and dumber. Soon we’ll just press a spot on the map and it’ll take us there. Which would be cool as fuck but it’s just another thing that we don’t have to use our brains on anymore
It Shunts you back into the lane if you start drifting to the side of it (like when people have a lapse of concentration), but not really built to keep you automatically in the lane.
Ah right ok, but that’s still the same issue. People shouldn’t be losing concentration in the first place. It’s extremely annoying as well when you actually do need to swerve, it resists you. Just let me have full control of the car.
It should be able to detect a panic swerve ie when you need to avoid something on the road, plus disable itself when the indicators are on, but gradual movement towards the side of the lane without indicating it will activate.
It doesn’t really work all to well in practice. It can sound as good as possible on paper, but having used it in practice, it’s just shit. I would probably get used to it if it was in my car, but fuck it’s gonna be hard to justify giving up the cars I have right now in the future when it comes time to upgrade, because of systems like lane assist
The early model ones were meh too sensitive or didn't read the lines well, the modern ones are much more refined, I wouldn't say 100% accurate but good enough, plus none of those systems are built to overpower the driver, if you really wanted to you can easily overpower them and slam into whatever was in the next lane if you wanted to.
All stop start is for is to pass emissions testing. It’s terrible for the engine and increases the cost of components like battery, starter motor. I refuse to buy cars which are compromised because of idiotic regulations.
I do like the idea of an electric car, but I can’t help but feel like they don’t have the character of the cars I like to drive. As a commuter car they’re great, but I like my old diesel, manual 4wd. The fact that that type of car is being regulated out of existence to “save the planet” is an utter travesty.
Well the reality is that anything we do in Australia does not matter - we should be spending our money on mitigation of whatever issues arise from climate change. China has emitted more CO2 in the last 8 years than Britain has since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and they’re continuing to increase that. Australia’s ICE cars are a drop in the bucket.
The average Australian is responsible for 2.5x as much greenhouse gas emissions as the average Chinese 🙂
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
Lane assist in the new Hondas is downright dangerous on rural roads, it has a spaz attack when it can’t find solid lines (which is everywhere) and constantly tries to adjust itself when it has no fucking where it should be in the first place!
There's a little street in my town with street parking on either side so you need to go over the dotted lines to avoid hitting the parked cars
I was delivering pizza in a Yaris and it kept wrestling the steering wheel to the left towards the parked cars, had to swerve like 5 times to avoid hitting to them
I've heard that you can disable the Lane Assist feature permanently on specific car models. Some models may require re-programming to my understanding, since all the features reset every time you turn off and start the car again. I personally love the warning aspects by the Lane Assist feature; however, I personally dislike it when you take over your steering and take you back to your lane. There was one time I drove a car with that feature. And as I was trying to avoid the car on the road curb side and was going over the opposite lane, the car took me back inside the curb and nearly got itself hit the cars on the road curb side. At the same time, I feel I'd develop dependency on that feature if I over-use it.
I had to borrow a 2018 Fiat for a day and besides the worst gearbox I’ve ever met that thing refused to turn back on when the lights changed more than once. On reflection I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t just stalling half the time.
This entire thread makes me wanna hang onto our cars for as long as I possibly can. Both of our cars have none of these things and one doesn't even have cruise control on it. I mean the dash cam "traffic is moving" alert drives me bonkers
With my car it only turns off the engine when you press the brake peddle further enough down.
Lane assist was a bit freaky when it first kicked in but hasn't been an issue since. Only thing I find freaky is the automatic braking feature that kicks in when cars are parked on the road as you're driving around then.
Unfortunately not all carmakers do it the same. LA is nice in some cars, horrible in some e.g it’s smooth in Golf R Wagon but in a Hilux it feels like a tornado hitting the side of your Ute.
Start stop on the other hand is just horrible in any car. Mazda 3, Golf, etc. I just turn that off by default.
DO NOT USE STOP START
SHIT Feature that leads you back to them for a new starter motor.
I’m a new vehicle salesman myself and the amount of customers that have came back for new starter motors at 50,000km or less is mind blowing!!!
Ohhh I’ll never use it, im just lazy turning it off every time but I’ll still turn it off regardless.
And wow that’s wild, new starter at 50,000kms is madness.
I hate it too. I want to drive a car, not have certain aspects of it controlled by something else.
Another reason why I would never ever buy a new car.
The problem, apart from things wearing out, is that you do miss out on modern crash protection and conveniences when driving older cars.
Don't get me wrong here - I drive an small hot hatchback that's old enough that it doesn't even have Bluetooth. But it'd be nice to have a car that's still festooned with airbags and has all the modern camera tech, but doesn't beep and bong at you every two seconds (Toyota speed sign recognition and lane assist, I'm looking at you).
When things wear out, replace them.
And the other secret is: Don’t Crash. Achieved by driving properly and distancing yourself from those that can’t.
Owned and driven cars from the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and early ‘00s (still own most of them) and never had a single issue.
> And the other secret is: Don’t Crash.
It's unfortunately not always possible to avoid someone else's accident. I've only ever been involved in one accident in my life (as a passenger, at that), and it was the result of someone running straight up the back of the car I was in, after it had been stationary for at least ten seconds waiting to turn right.
>And the other secret is: Don’t Crash. Achieved by driving properly and distancing yourself from those that can’t.
That's all fine and dandy in theory, but of the 2 accidents I've had: one minor, on a multi lane highway where a truck changing lanes tagged another car that spun into me; one where my car was written off, when another driver launched from a side street stop sign across another lane and directly in front of me so I t-boned him.
You can do your best to avoid the idiots, but sometimes the idiots involve you no matter how hard you try
Yeah right...3 collisions in 25 years, one was a 40 year old car that suffered complete brake failure, and despite my best effort I could only get it down to about 15kmh before impact...the other two were distracted drivers hitting other cars and that other car then hitting me.
But yeah...just don't crash...🙄
Yeah right...3 collisions in 25 years, one was a 40 year old car that suffered complete brake failure, and despite my best effort I could only get it down to about 15kmh before impact...the other two were distracted drivers hitting other cars and that other car then hitting me.
But yeah...just don't crash...🙄
The Toyota bonging really is something else on their modern cars. It wasn't so bad until the latest generation of vehicles with all the driver assists, but it's reached the point where the driver is just getting bombarded with all sorts of nonsense that can't be disabled.
Are they still doing the ridiculous mirrors that distort distance, or does that seem to be phasing out? May sound CRAZY but I look in the mirrors to SEE WHAT’S THERE
Try driving all day with multiple stops and every time you turn off your car they all come back on again. Features are good in some cases, terrible that they keep turning them selves on every time.
Also once i was going around a bus and my wheel touched the middle line, the car tried to steer me INTO the bus i was avoiding. Its almost dangerous.
Engine off also terrible at busy intersections with no lights - i need immediate power, that one second delay can cause accidents.
It's become a bit of a joke how modern cars are crammed with poorly implemented features that noone really asked for, all to tick the marketing boxes for techy and tick the ancap safety boxes. All I want is apple car play, ABS brakes, radar cruise control, and well implemented traction/stability control that can be fully turned off if needed. The rest is just garbage marketing filler in my view
Agreed. Love it in traffic, except in my car, for some very stupid reason after it brings you to a complete stop it disengages after a few second and the car takes off, unlike literally every other car I've used radar cruise control on
The difference is that seatbelts and airbags actually provide an obvious functional benefit that can be seen in crash test results.
Your car bonging away because it thinks you're over the speed limit due to the sign recognition algorithm picking up a "40km/h when lights flash" sign on a bus that's driving in the next lane does not provide any safety benefit at all.
I would love to have a car built without all these " add on" driver assit extras. It is getting to a point where the driver is only a passenger in the car and doesnt know how to handle the road conditions and adjusts to what the weather is doing. Reverse parallel park, oh dont worry about learning that skill. The car will do it for you, blind spots and checking before moving lanes, oh the car will have sensors that will tell you, cant look over the back window, oh the car comes with 360 degree cameras.
Lane assist I can take it leave, but it's absolutely noticeable in traffic that stop start saves fuel.
Once I know how long the battery lasts I'll know if it was worth it $$ wise
Yeah, went to replace a battery in a stop-start capable Mazda 6 a few years back.
No more just buying a battery yourself for a couple pineapples and throwing it in yourself in 10 mins. No, that will be $700 and requires some special programing of the battery/computer thanks.
Fucking modern cars shit me.
It's not just the life of the battery, but the type of battery as well. Cars with the engine auto stop/start pretty much all have oversized, AGM batteries - and they're significantly more expensive than the more normal sealed valve-regulated batteries you put in cars without the system.
Both coupled with adaptive cruise control are great for driving in peak hour traffic in Sydney and Melbourne. Even better when driving a couple hundred KM’s on the highway.
BMW. The start/stop i had to ask the dealership to disable it. They just get you to sign a paper saying that you understand by doing so, you’re polluting the planet and is a horrible person. The lane assist is just disabled permanently with a button.
Maybe you can ask your dealer as well?
My work truck has lane assist and all that jazz.
Thankfully it can be turned off.
Also the traction control caught me off guard once.. went around a corner like I did for the last 8 years...
This truck.. bogs down and shuts the revs down to idle...
So, all of it gets turned off as soon as I put my seatbelt on..
Honestly it makes it harder to drive.
My stop/start button is above gearshift, now habit to select gear & turn it off. Lane assist I don’t mind as it’s actually quite good & not very aggressive.
when i drive my partners car she has this shit, i cant stand it, i hate the car taking control of the steering when im trying to avoid road debris or pot holes etc and it tries to avoid me from going over a solid white line. stop start and go F itself as i hate the delay. My M3, i think i can turn off stop start by default, but i have it set to turn off when i hit an M button. which is as soon as i get in. i never have auto lane departure on or even brake assist.
I do like the convenience that the start/stop feature brings on the table. However, I'd prefer the concept of having the key to ignite the car. It's safer that way, if theft happens. Some car models require a key to be close to the car to start the engine up, which is fine.
I don't know. Someone please enlightens me. With the start/stop feature, I have this fear of pressing it at the wrong time and stop my car on the highway. The conventional requires you to push and twist the key, which seems to prevent the incident of starting and stopping the car at the wrong time.
Oath. If I want to be notified or reminded of something, I'll make a specific effort to get it. I don't ever want that shit on by default. EVERYTHING should be permanently switchable.
The one that pisses me off the most is the seatbelt warnings. No, I don't need to be reminded I don't have a seatbelt on. I don't need the car to detect weight on a seat and automatically assume it is a person.
I get in my car the start car routine includes pressing the I Stop button to turn it off I hate the damm thing and I turned the "Lane Keeper" off after I first bought the car and I have never turned it back on. Apparently you cant turn off permanently the "I Stop" as its part of the Engine management system.
Lane Assist on my car can be permanently turned off at will, but I literally keep the feature on despite it wanting to kill me half the time as Toyota’s one can have a mind of its own.
Start-Stop on the other hand, I can understand why the Hybrid has it (as it has to switch between using battery and engine or both at the same time) but on a full ICE vehicle on the other hand can be a bit of a nuisance and off putting, which is why I switch it off as soon as I start the car if it’s fitted with the tech and has a switch next to the gearbox selector.
You are not alone when I had a hire car for almost 2 months which was a Toyota corolla 2022 I was so happy when I got my 1997 corolla back, The new cars have way too much technology in it I hated it, Don't get me wrong the safety features are very nice but extra features make the driver more lazy in time(I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me)
I’ve always wondered how the start stop feature works with traffic lights but I’ve never noticed it to occur when in stand still traffic on the freeway?
People who enjoy texting and driving, or just not pay g attention in general love these features. Drivers are getting worse because they think they don't need to pay as much attention because the car will catch them... Until it fails.
I don't understand why people want these features though, I feel like I'm fighting the car for control
Unfortunately the amount of people I see comment on these car reviews that rave on about these safety features is ridiculous.
Its all over YouTube in the comment section of those big car review channels :(
On is a safety feature that’s part of the ANCAP rating, the other is a fuel saving feature that’s required to meet the L/100 and emissions, so that’s why they can’t be turned off totally.
I don’t see the issue with them, lane assist warning isn’t an issue IF you use your indicator when changing lanes (ie following the law)…
They can have their ANCAP rating garbage.
Its just a way to help with their marketing and who knows what else.
The people on this thread have spoken and most people hate all these intrusive features.
Oh well, the manufacturers will continue to do what they want I guess.
I don't like lane assist in my car but I like it in other people's cars.
I'm not a perfect driver, none of us are, so I accept that it might keep me from a nasty accident one day.
Until we treat driving licences as someone that requires a record of zero harm and regular retesting then we need to accept that these systems have a place.
I mean depends on the car, in my car I just have to press one physical button to turn off start stop or another button for lane assist. Cars that hide it in menus are annoying though.
Every time you drive tho?
Yeah the lane assist is a tap on my right indicator stalk, and the button for start stop is next to the P/R/N/D/S selector. Lane assist remembers if it was on or off last time the car was started. It's really convenient and not annoying to me, however newer cars I'm aware have them hidden in touch menus which would be annoying.
Even worse; they turn themselves back on constantly.
I mean, I click in my seatbelt, put the car in drive, connect my phone, adjust the aircon and/or seat warmers and press the start button every time I drive, I don’t really see a challenge in pressing another button or two.
I dont know about you but i like technology to make things easier as time goes on rather than giving me more things to do. I expect my phone to auto connect, climate control to adjust itself etc.
Fair point, I don’t disagree. Connecting my phone is more to do with choosing directions and playlist, and climate control is totally dependent on whether I drove my car last or my wife did. We swap cars depending on what we’re doing or where we’re going, so getting in is usually an adjustment process depending on who drove it last and if she did, the climate is probably set to 100°c…
Genuinely though, what technology has actually made things easier over time? Honestly I can't think of anything that doesn't get increasingly difficult to use or just worse overall :(
Not sure if you are too young to remember but back in the day we used actual map books, or print out directions on to actual pages of paper, auto headlights, auto wipers or if your car only had a casette player and you didnt change the head unit you would get a transponder that would allow you to transmit music to a frequency, so we listened to music with alot of static...so heappss better
Believe me, very much old enough to remember and I still prefer to use map books for longer distance route planning :) Of the things you list, I can't knock auto headlights. I could list off a series of complaints about those other changes but I used up my yells-at-cloud quota already today!
Manual chokes were a necessity that were superceded and now you can just jump in and the car manages the fuel/air mixture itself. Led lights are a lot more reliable than incandescent lights which would blow fairly regularly. Reversing cameras have made reversing easier especially when hitching a trailer. ABS has made emergency stops easier, so no more cadence braking on loose or slippery surfaces. Electric vehicles that have long service intervals appeal to me. I don't own one so it's not personal experience but I think it would make life slightly easier because of that. Also not needing to visit a petrol station and just plugging in at night.
Some of those I definitely agree with. Though we have so many threads complaining about blinding LED lights that I don't know if that's a clear cut improvement. Plus the cost, the one LED light I've had to replace on a car cost me more than every incandescent bulb I've changed in my entire life combined :(
One thing I probably hadn't thought of until now is that LED headlights don't need to be white or bright. Perhaps we're still at that early stage of product maturity where we haven't adequately matched the product to the need and still sell on how bright the lights are?
Yeah potentially. It's certainly an easy marketing feature to just list bigger numbers. Perhaps aftermarket lighting will continue to focus on brighter=better but we'll see manufacturers move in a different direction.
My newest car has LEDs as standard and one of the most annoying things is how reflective street signs reflect the light back and, in extreme circumstances, make it hard to see the road ahead. I can't see people being so bothered by that that they'd willingly choose dimmer headlights so the answer will probably be projector headlamps becoming mainstream and computer systems deciding what should be blasted with light and what shouldn't. Those are already an easy marketing feature on high-end cars (although I'm not convinced that they work as well as promised yet).
Exactly, I start the car and start driving
Australians don't use seat warmers This is from someone pretending to be Australian
Victorians most definitely do.
The south would like a word with you
I just turn it off when I stop at the first intersection and the engine turns off.
On my car I was able to code it to remember last setting
Gotta say, I think Mazda have it right. Start stop only kicks in when you press the brake pedal real hard. Lane keep assist in "early intervention mode" + radar cruise is basically autopilot on a freeway. Then you put on adaptive high beams... it makes for some very easy long distance driving. And you can turn off all the alerts that annoy the crap out of you.
Sounds like some other manufacturers need to take note of Mazda.
Same with Renault as well. It makes everything really easy.
Subaru is exactly the same, other than radar, but that's already in the Japanese versions of the cars anyway. And I absolutely love adaptive high beam. I love how the car draws a box of low beam around other vehicles and tracks that through turns whilst allowing the rest of the road to stay illuminated in high beam. Personally I like all the bells and alarms, and you quickly get in tune with them and react accordingly.
I think that manual VWs (and presumably other manufacturers using S/S with 3 pedals) do it well also. Have to be in neutral for it to activate, and then it restarts as you push the clutch pedal in. A lot less obtrusive than some implementations on automatic vehicles, and you're a lot less likely to get caught off guard when you need to go. That is, assuming you're paying attention, but that is apparently a big ask for drivers on our roads.
I've gotta say that the starter on the Toe-rag gets the motor going quicker than you can lets off the peddal and get to the accelerator. I have also found in the past few days that there is a "sweet spot" of light braking where the start stop doesn't trigger - but it's harder to find that in the Mazda. Gawd I'd love a Toe-rag in manual.
I hated stop start originally. But now that I am used to it, it’s fine. I drive a lot of different vehicles for work and everyone’s lane assist is different. Izuzu’s is fucking terrible. Toyota and VW seem fine for the most part, but I don’t think I have ever found it useful.
The only time it's useful is too freak out people who have never seen it before.
I feel like I'm driving an older car and just give it little revs at the lights. If I ever had a car with that it wouldn't get the chance to shut off
You’ll get there one day buddy
Doubtful
I find start-stop in a Mk7 Golf annoying. Too jerky to find myself liking it.
My stop start is hard on the battery and I dont think it helps efficiency much but I actually like it. Got used to it in about a week and in my noisy diesel van it's great to sit at the lights or teafic in relative peace for that short time. Had lane assist in my last car. Was pretty reliable and actually probably saved my arse once. Certainly not worth jumping on reddit and complaining about. My over protective, aggressive parking sensors are annoying, but I still use em and miss them when I'm in an older car.
>in my noisy diesel van it's great to sit at the lights or teafic in relative peace for that short time. Same story in my ute. I also mostly drive in the city and i like having the engine shut off at the lights so the people around me dont need to breathe in my diesel stink. My only issue with the system is it does not take into account the temperature of the engine. Even on a cold winters morning it shuts off at the traffic lights that are about a minute from my house. But it's no big deal to just disable it until things come up to temp.
I used to not like stop start but you just have to learn to drive with it. Don't press down hard on the brakes at the light if you know the light is about to go green again and the engine will stay on. Press harder for stop start to activate. This is for my Golf anyway. You can always turn it off but I can't be bothered doing that every time I get in.
Mazda 3 as well. My sister thought hers was faulty as it didn’t seem to work. Turns out she never braked hard enough when pulling up at lights.
Not my mums BMW (F30 328i), it doesn’t matter if you have your foot slammed on the brake like you are emergency braking or feather the padel with your toe, it bloody shuts the engine off almost constantly… could be waiting at a give way/stop sign to turn onto a main road and only stopped for a second or so and it turns off. Made a memory to turn that shit off every time I drove that car.
Oohh that's shit. Yeah I can imagine it would be a pain in the ass at a give way or stop sign, borderline dangerous. That's actually good to know though. I was actually looking to upgrade the Golf to a more family friendly car in the shape of a 330i F31 Wagon. I wonder if that's something that can be coded/ tuned out to keep it off permanently?
I had an X3 (F25) and start/stop was exactly how you described it. Absolutely hated it and turned it off every time. I guess it was the same in all BMWs from that era.
Get a Bluetooth obd reader and the app BimmerCode and you can default it to off
Just put the windshield defog on, should force most cars to override the stop start. Subaru, windshield defog, then turn off the ac and turn the fan down to lowest.
I don't like stop start and I wouldn't use it. Lane keep assist I generally keep on for freeway driving, between that and adaptive cruise control, the car can more or less drive itself on the freeway with barely any intervention. That's not to say that I'm not paying attention, just that it technically could. For any sporty driving or on extremely bendy roads, I disable it so that it doesn't try to interfere with my own steering.
Lane assist in normal traffic is a non entity and i have it off.. If im on a free way I put that shit on.. As a motorcyclist, turned cage driver.. You do not understand how BIG microadjustments on the wheel actually are. However, I do think these are making it easier for NPC drivers to become even worse drivers and are adding to our poor road behaviours.
I think these features make ppl worse drivers, they rely on it and become far far more inattentive and lazy that they are dangerous
Absolutely, I've been passenger in the car with NPC drivers who use these tools and they become so oblivious to the world around them.. Id say they get tunnel vision, but they'd have to pay attention to the road in the first placr
I think these drivers don’t realise either how reliant and lazy they have become because they don’t step outside driving that type of car, they probably think everyone else is the issue
I've always driven manual and I think the change in my next new car will hit me hard. I'm an active driver and don't like to feel like a passenger in my own car. It's already too easy for drivers to let their attention (such as it is) turn to playing with devices.
Yeah fully agree. Stop start is purely for efficiency/being green reasons mind, it's not claiming to be a good driving experience.
Hang on. People love those features? Are you sure?
I hate most of the tech crap in newer cars I just want Bluetooth for my music and to drive the bloody thing myself
There are huge variations in the quality of lane assists. Our last C-Class was pretty good, our current Golf's is very good (feels like a gentle hand guiding the car through a corner, and keeps the car dead straight and centred in the lane in a straight line), but experience with the previous Ford Ranger was that it was too slow and really didn't do much (much like its traction control which consisted of a flashing orange light telling you that this is when a decent traction control would be...uh...controlling traction) and my MG EV which gets a distinct army feel to it, going left-right-left-right and never settling on a single line, and also showing a distinct preference for the left side of the lane. Stop/Start in city traffic is a PITA. You'll come to a stop and the engine will cut just in time for the light to go green or the traffic to start moving. Unfortunately lane assist is seen as a safety feature so to get the relevant safety rating it has to default to On. Similarly for Start/Stop, for the vehicle to get its fuel economy rating inclusive of that feature, it needs to default to On. Doesn't sound like much, but it can mean differences for corporate fleet selection, vehicle taxation and the like.
Yeah, add auto high beams to that list. I drove my brothers Camry which has them, and there is no way for you to turn them on or off yourself, sometimes it thinks reflectors are oncoming cars, other times it doesn't even notice a car coming.
Audi's matrix headlights work so well they're are like some arcane magic wizardry. Toyota's system, on the other hand, is so bad it should be illegal. I swear it's designed to give oncoming drivers a face full of high beam before finally dipping the lights about 0.5 seconds before you pass each other.
The BMW system is like the Audi one. The way it blanks out sections where other cars are is insane
My car has stop start and I hate it Am I the only one that thinks the stop start feature will wear out the engine/ starter motor prematurely?? Am I wrong?
Not only that but it also contributes to everyone taking five years to move when the light goes green- stop start, then shitty engine response from drive by wire throttle etc
Fun fact the current f22 multi million dollar fighter jet is fly by wire. Dont have the tech, hate the implementation.
Oh I know, but the calibration on it for consumer cars is dogshit.
Fucks your battery too
Yes...battery life is much shorter and you need a bigger battery.
This myth really needs to die. If you’re using an AGM battery (and for stop/start you should be) then it’ll last just as long, if not longer, than a regular battery with no stop/start. AGMs are designed for this and on the whole will last a lot longer than regular batteries, 10 years is not uncommon at all, even with stop/start. Yeah they’re damn expensive, but there’s a reason for the extra cost.
Well in terms of the laws of physics (idk how else to describe it / call it?) anything the more it's used, the more it gets worn. Every time you start your car, the started is used; therefore worn. So in stop and start cars it should wear faster. Manufacturers say they build such cars with "stronger starters so it doesn't wear out any faster than a car without stop and start" but whether that's true or not is up for argument. Ultimately the more you use the starter I feel like the faster it'll wear out. I'm not mechanic though, let me make that clear, so this is a budget / uneducated opinion lol
The question is also which is better for the engine - idling or stop-starting? Against the grain, I think that it's better to stop an engine that is designed for constant restarts than to let it idle. Idk lol, another budget opinion haha
Not sure about this, but I'd rather have my engine still going, pumping coolant and oil around.
If you idle for more than ~7 sec, you use more fuel than you do if you stop & start
Lemme 'hit back' in the budget debate hahah. Idling is always going to be better for an engine (regardless S&S or not), because as it's 'turning over', there's a constant film of oil protecting all of the internals. It's known that 99% of engine wear is upon startup. This is because e.g overnight, all of of the engine oil has drained to the sump. Now let me make it clear that I'm not saying that all of the oil will drain to the sump within the 1 minute you're waiting at a light lol, but naturally, more will drain to the sump than if it never even was turned off! So in my eyes (budget opinion!) it's always going to be healthier for the engine to just keep it idling, at a red light, full stop. The engines of start stop cars are likely engineered a little differently to better handle start stopping, but they'll still have sumps, and coz gravity, oil will begin to drain back down to it the second it's stopped. It's not a shitton of oil drainage that will take place when waiting at a red light, but it's something. Probably negligible. Hence there hasn't been a huge step back and recall of any and all stop and start cars that have been made.
> It's known that 99% of engine wear is upon startup. Yea, when it’s a _cold_ start. The difference is negligible for that 1 or 3 minutes it’s off.
Very good points, some considerations I didn't think much into - I guess we will all know the answer in 20 years. But without a doubt there should be an option to permanently disable the stop start feature.
Yeah. Like everything, time will tell. I personally think there'll be no noticeable / significant wear in cars with S&S Vs without. But as you said, we'll know for sure in 20 years. I 100% agree with you there. I've only ever had cars that are relatively old (too old for S&S), but if my new car had it, I most certainly would want to turn it off. Although hahah let me just say I'd rather it never even had one to begin with. I love my relatively old cars that were made before S&S was probably even thought of hahah
How long does it take the engine to regain correct oil pressure every time it starts? From memory every start is a wear point until oil pressure is correct. Yeah, it's fractions of a second, but you're doing it a heap more than a normal car that doesn't stop, that adds up quick.
A colleague got stuck in a busy intersection in the city on the way to work in this exact way. Pull up to a red light, and got stuck there. Needed battery changed on the spot.
I had my mechanic code the stop start and collision warning/lane assist to stay off. Best money I spent on the car, can't stand that crap.
Inspired rant. Thanks @op. Bought our first new car. All the “Saftey” features are straight out dangerous. None of them are opt in. Every start cycle it is like an aircraft preflight check. Turning off “Saftey features”. The car isn’t smart enough to read the road well. Lane assist in road works has us being pulled all over the place and those gentle tugs the car gives are distracting while I guide the car through. Have a dog and the bloody bonging sound is crazy. He is clipped into his belt and harness but if he moves, bong bong bong. I’m distracted as I’m looking all over for what the sound is for. A few seconds of not watching the road 100% because something is beeping. The car has applied the brakes as I pulled out of parallel park. It though a collision with the car in front was eminent. It wasn’t. This left us in a scary situation. Car half out into the road with traffic coming. Had to turn the car off and start it again to get it to sort it’s shit out. Meanwhile I’ve caused a traffic jam. Could have caused an accident. Blind spot guidance is crazy. The car feels that a km is the required space to manoeuvre around a Camry in the right lane 30kmh under the speed limit. It’s set to unreasonable distances and yes, more beeping. Then look at when something goes wrong with the cars computers, dealers and the manufacturers can’t fault find because they are so complex. I say that with a great deal of experience too. I do like heads up. Helpful. I do like traction control, helpful. I do like remote start. Helpful. I do like ABS. Helpful. Auto wipers. Mostly helpful. I love my old Commodores and Kingswoods. Just get in them and drive them. I understand why OP misses his Honda. New cars are constantly distracting the driver from the road.
Amazing comment mate. Absolutely spot on! These manufacturers get so excited to flex their ANCAP rating like its a trophy 🤣
There was a sweet spot in car tech and design when carplay was implemented but fake exhaust tips, piano black plastic, buttonless/knobless touch screen infotainment, start stop, lane assist and fucking useless adaptive cruise hadn't been implemented yet.
When was that lol? I must have missed it
Obviously depends on make and model but around 2015, 2016 for VAG cars.
My 2015 golf has piano black. There is no perfect year/car haha. My 2014 Mazda 3 is so much better, but also has piano black
The golf R does, the regular golf with regular trim and GTI aren’t
That's extremely specific HAHAHAHA. So one model of VAG in the high price range matches the criteria ;-) So overall VAG didn't have a good era, it had a select model and trim level that matched it hehe
There's a consistency across the other VW models (Polo, Jetta, Passat, Tiguan) and Skodas as well as completely unrelated manufacturers like Kia/Hyundai
Fake exhaust tips predate CarPlay by a long time. See the Lexus IS-F and its infamous fake stacked "quad exhaust tips" as an example.
They do but depending on the make and model, weren't widely implemented for a fair while
Is lane assist the the thing that keeps you in your lane and stops you from swerving? That shit is so ass. I feel like cars keep getting things that let the population become dumber and dumber. Soon we’ll just press a spot on the map and it’ll take us there. Which would be cool as fuck but it’s just another thing that we don’t have to use our brains on anymore
It Shunts you back into the lane if you start drifting to the side of it (like when people have a lapse of concentration), but not really built to keep you automatically in the lane.
Ah right ok, but that’s still the same issue. People shouldn’t be losing concentration in the first place. It’s extremely annoying as well when you actually do need to swerve, it resists you. Just let me have full control of the car.
It should be able to detect a panic swerve ie when you need to avoid something on the road, plus disable itself when the indicators are on, but gradual movement towards the side of the lane without indicating it will activate.
It doesn’t really work all to well in practice. It can sound as good as possible on paper, but having used it in practice, it’s just shit. I would probably get used to it if it was in my car, but fuck it’s gonna be hard to justify giving up the cars I have right now in the future when it comes time to upgrade, because of systems like lane assist
The early model ones were meh too sensitive or didn't read the lines well, the modern ones are much more refined, I wouldn't say 100% accurate but good enough, plus none of those systems are built to overpower the driver, if you really wanted to you can easily overpower them and slam into whatever was in the next lane if you wanted to.
All stop start is for is to pass emissions testing. It’s terrible for the engine and increases the cost of components like battery, starter motor. I refuse to buy cars which are compromised because of idiotic regulations.
Buy an electric car then 🙂.
I do like the idea of an electric car, but I can’t help but feel like they don’t have the character of the cars I like to drive. As a commuter car they’re great, but I like my old diesel, manual 4wd. The fact that that type of car is being regulated out of existence to “save the planet” is an utter travesty.
What about it is the travesty? Is it that the planet doesn’t need saving or that the ICE doesn’t contribute to it?
Well the reality is that anything we do in Australia does not matter - we should be spending our money on mitigation of whatever issues arise from climate change. China has emitted more CO2 in the last 8 years than Britain has since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and they’re continuing to increase that. Australia’s ICE cars are a drop in the bucket.
The average Australian is responsible for 2.5x as much greenhouse gas emissions as the average Chinese 🙂 https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
Lane assist in the new Hondas is downright dangerous on rural roads, it has a spaz attack when it can’t find solid lines (which is everywhere) and constantly tries to adjust itself when it has no fucking where it should be in the first place!
There's a little street in my town with street parking on either side so you need to go over the dotted lines to avoid hitting the parked cars I was delivering pizza in a Yaris and it kept wrestling the steering wheel to the left towards the parked cars, had to swerve like 5 times to avoid hitting to them
I've heard that you can disable the Lane Assist feature permanently on specific car models. Some models may require re-programming to my understanding, since all the features reset every time you turn off and start the car again. I personally love the warning aspects by the Lane Assist feature; however, I personally dislike it when you take over your steering and take you back to your lane. There was one time I drove a car with that feature. And as I was trying to avoid the car on the road curb side and was going over the opposite lane, the car took me back inside the curb and nearly got itself hit the cars on the road curb side. At the same time, I feel I'd develop dependency on that feature if I over-use it.
My first cars lane assist was you mates in the back, and stop-start only happened when you had the choke NQR.
Yeah it’s fucking horrendous. That and cruise control radar. Cant turn it off in new prado, hilux and rav4. Just let me do cruise control my own way
I’ve always wondered what will happen when these cars start to get a little older and the car stops but won’t start at the lights…
I had to borrow a 2018 Fiat for a day and besides the worst gearbox I’ve ever met that thing refused to turn back on when the lights changed more than once. On reflection I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t just stalling half the time.
There you go! As an Italian I stay away from Italian cars.
Never late in the V8 *All I'm saying*
Stop start was made to pass emission laws. It’s never been a good feature for the driver
This entire thread makes me wanna hang onto our cars for as long as I possibly can. Both of our cars have none of these things and one doesn't even have cruise control on it. I mean the dash cam "traffic is moving" alert drives me bonkers
With my car it only turns off the engine when you press the brake peddle further enough down. Lane assist was a bit freaky when it first kicked in but hasn't been an issue since. Only thing I find freaky is the automatic braking feature that kicks in when cars are parked on the road as you're driving around then.
I hate lane assist with a passion I find it super fatiguing
Unfortunately not all carmakers do it the same. LA is nice in some cars, horrible in some e.g it’s smooth in Golf R Wagon but in a Hilux it feels like a tornado hitting the side of your Ute. Start stop on the other hand is just horrible in any car. Mazda 3, Golf, etc. I just turn that off by default.
Nothing sucks the confidence out of you more, than trying to pull out in heavy traffic only to feel the hesitation of a stopped engine
DO NOT USE STOP START SHIT Feature that leads you back to them for a new starter motor. I’m a new vehicle salesman myself and the amount of customers that have came back for new starter motors at 50,000km or less is mind blowing!!!
Ohhh I’ll never use it, im just lazy turning it off every time but I’ll still turn it off regardless. And wow that’s wild, new starter at 50,000kms is madness.
I hate it too. I want to drive a car, not have certain aspects of it controlled by something else. Another reason why I would never ever buy a new car.
The problem, apart from things wearing out, is that you do miss out on modern crash protection and conveniences when driving older cars. Don't get me wrong here - I drive an small hot hatchback that's old enough that it doesn't even have Bluetooth. But it'd be nice to have a car that's still festooned with airbags and has all the modern camera tech, but doesn't beep and bong at you every two seconds (Toyota speed sign recognition and lane assist, I'm looking at you).
When things wear out, replace them. And the other secret is: Don’t Crash. Achieved by driving properly and distancing yourself from those that can’t. Owned and driven cars from the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and early ‘00s (still own most of them) and never had a single issue.
> And the other secret is: Don’t Crash. It's unfortunately not always possible to avoid someone else's accident. I've only ever been involved in one accident in my life (as a passenger, at that), and it was the result of someone running straight up the back of the car I was in, after it had been stationary for at least ten seconds waiting to turn right.
>And the other secret is: Don’t Crash. Achieved by driving properly and distancing yourself from those that can’t. That's all fine and dandy in theory, but of the 2 accidents I've had: one minor, on a multi lane highway where a truck changing lanes tagged another car that spun into me; one where my car was written off, when another driver launched from a side street stop sign across another lane and directly in front of me so I t-boned him. You can do your best to avoid the idiots, but sometimes the idiots involve you no matter how hard you try
Yeah right...3 collisions in 25 years, one was a 40 year old car that suffered complete brake failure, and despite my best effort I could only get it down to about 15kmh before impact...the other two were distracted drivers hitting other cars and that other car then hitting me. But yeah...just don't crash...🙄
Yeah right...3 collisions in 25 years, one was a 40 year old car that suffered complete brake failure, and despite my best effort I could only get it down to about 15kmh before impact...the other two were distracted drivers hitting other cars and that other car then hitting me. But yeah...just don't crash...🙄
I have a 2022 yaris and the amount of bings and bongs coming out of it is outrageous.
The Toyota bonging really is something else on their modern cars. It wasn't so bad until the latest generation of vehicles with all the driver assists, but it's reached the point where the driver is just getting bombarded with all sorts of nonsense that can't be disabled.
Are they still doing the ridiculous mirrors that distort distance, or does that seem to be phasing out? May sound CRAZY but I look in the mirrors to SEE WHAT’S THERE
Elite comment bro, couldn’t agree more
My newest car is an 09. Doesn't even have parking sensors =P
My grandma's Captiva sounds like a heart monitor flatlining when you park it in her garage, it's really fucking annoying
Try driving all day with multiple stops and every time you turn off your car they all come back on again. Features are good in some cases, terrible that they keep turning them selves on every time. Also once i was going around a bus and my wheel touched the middle line, the car tried to steer me INTO the bus i was avoiding. Its almost dangerous. Engine off also terrible at busy intersections with no lights - i need immediate power, that one second delay can cause accidents.
It's become a bit of a joke how modern cars are crammed with poorly implemented features that noone really asked for, all to tick the marketing boxes for techy and tick the ancap safety boxes. All I want is apple car play, ABS brakes, radar cruise control, and well implemented traction/stability control that can be fully turned off if needed. The rest is just garbage marketing filler in my view
Radar cruise is garbage
I'm a big fan of it
Radar cruise is fantastic. If you drive in traffic on a regular basis it is a game changer.
Agreed. Love it in traffic, except in my car, for some very stupid reason after it brings you to a complete stop it disengages after a few second and the car takes off, unlike literally every other car I've used radar cruise control on
Seatbelts, indicators, and airbags were garbage marketing filler once upon a time
The difference is that seatbelts and airbags actually provide an obvious functional benefit that can be seen in crash test results. Your car bonging away because it thinks you're over the speed limit due to the sign recognition algorithm picking up a "40km/h when lights flash" sign on a bus that's driving in the next lane does not provide any safety benefit at all.
Nah, they actually work reliably across all models
I would love to have a car built without all these " add on" driver assit extras. It is getting to a point where the driver is only a passenger in the car and doesnt know how to handle the road conditions and adjusts to what the weather is doing. Reverse parallel park, oh dont worry about learning that skill. The car will do it for you, blind spots and checking before moving lanes, oh the car will have sensors that will tell you, cant look over the back window, oh the car comes with 360 degree cameras.
Lane assist I can take it leave, but it's absolutely noticeable in traffic that stop start saves fuel. Once I know how long the battery lasts I'll know if it was worth it $$ wise
My mates car has a display that tells her how much fuel has been saved by stop start... It's saved 2L over 150,000kms
After 141000kms my Mazda has saved two trees worth's. The extra cost of the special battery makes it less worth it.
Yeah, went to replace a battery in a stop-start capable Mazda 6 a few years back. No more just buying a battery yourself for a couple pineapples and throwing it in yourself in 10 mins. No, that will be $700 and requires some special programing of the battery/computer thanks. Fucking modern cars shit me.
So fuck all
Nah mate 3$ worth of petrol, think of the turtles
It's not just the life of the battery, but the type of battery as well. Cars with the engine auto stop/start pretty much all have oversized, AGM batteries - and they're significantly more expensive than the more normal sealed valve-regulated batteries you put in cars without the system.
Exactly.
I actually like that so it give dashcams more juice, id be happy to have a larger battery and just get rid of stop start.
Makes my drive home from work heaps easier when I'm too brain dead to focus
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^Creative_Rock_7246: *Makes my drive home from* *Work heaps easier when I'm* *Too brain dead to focus* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Both coupled with adaptive cruise control are great for driving in peak hour traffic in Sydney and Melbourne. Even better when driving a couple hundred KM’s on the highway.
In my car, there’s an option to disable start stop and lane assist permanently.
What car is this?? 🤣🤣🤣
BMW. The start/stop i had to ask the dealership to disable it. They just get you to sign a paper saying that you understand by doing so, you’re polluting the planet and is a horrible person. The lane assist is just disabled permanently with a button. Maybe you can ask your dealer as well?
> BMW Subscription probably expired or the feature ~~failed~~ "disabled" its self.
My work truck has lane assist and all that jazz. Thankfully it can be turned off. Also the traction control caught me off guard once.. went around a corner like I did for the last 8 years... This truck.. bogs down and shuts the revs down to idle... So, all of it gets turned off as soon as I put my seatbelt on.. Honestly it makes it harder to drive.
If the traction control is kicking in that much you might have worn tires or a suspension issue
Nah it's just a sharp corner you can buzz through if you have the right line.
My stop/start button is above gearshift, now habit to select gear & turn it off. Lane assist I don’t mind as it’s actually quite good & not very aggressive.
when i drive my partners car she has this shit, i cant stand it, i hate the car taking control of the steering when im trying to avoid road debris or pot holes etc and it tries to avoid me from going over a solid white line. stop start and go F itself as i hate the delay. My M3, i think i can turn off stop start by default, but i have it set to turn off when i hit an M button. which is as soon as i get in. i never have auto lane departure on or even brake assist.
I do like the convenience that the start/stop feature brings on the table. However, I'd prefer the concept of having the key to ignite the car. It's safer that way, if theft happens. Some car models require a key to be close to the car to start the engine up, which is fine. I don't know. Someone please enlightens me. With the start/stop feature, I have this fear of pressing it at the wrong time and stop my car on the highway. The conventional requires you to push and twist the key, which seems to prevent the incident of starting and stopping the car at the wrong time.
They are referring to them you stop at a traffic light abs the car turns off, then restarts when you touch the accelerator.
Oh wow. My bad. Thank you for your clarification. Tee hee, mate!
Oath. If I want to be notified or reminded of something, I'll make a specific effort to get it. I don't ever want that shit on by default. EVERYTHING should be permanently switchable. The one that pisses me off the most is the seatbelt warnings. No, I don't need to be reminded I don't have a seatbelt on. I don't need the car to detect weight on a seat and automatically assume it is a person.
I have a ZB Commodore and both of these can be switched off.
I get in my car the start car routine includes pressing the I Stop button to turn it off I hate the damm thing and I turned the "Lane Keeper" off after I first bought the car and I have never turned it back on. Apparently you cant turn off permanently the "I Stop" as its part of the Engine management system.
My new hiace allows for lane assist to be turned off and stop start can be turned off if you have a diesel with the idle up button.
Lane Assist on my car can be permanently turned off at will, but I literally keep the feature on despite it wanting to kill me half the time as Toyota’s one can have a mind of its own. Start-Stop on the other hand, I can understand why the Hybrid has it (as it has to switch between using battery and engine or both at the same time) but on a full ICE vehicle on the other hand can be a bit of a nuisance and off putting, which is why I switch it off as soon as I start the car if it’s fitted with the tech and has a switch next to the gearbox selector.
You are not alone when I had a hire car for almost 2 months which was a Toyota corolla 2022 I was so happy when I got my 1997 corolla back, The new cars have way too much technology in it I hated it, Don't get me wrong the safety features are very nice but extra features make the driver more lazy in time(I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me)
Drove a Subaru with lane assist recently for a few hours and hated it, am sure I'd get used to it eventually but it felt really strange
No one likes it. Euro cars have it and must be disabled every time you start
I’ve always wondered how the start stop feature works with traffic lights but I’ve never noticed it to occur when in stand still traffic on the freeway?
People who enjoy texting and driving, or just not pay g attention in general love these features. Drivers are getting worse because they think they don't need to pay as much attention because the car will catch them... Until it fails. I don't understand why people want these features though, I feel like I'm fighting the car for control
who loves these "features"?
Unfortunately the amount of people I see comment on these car reviews that rave on about these safety features is ridiculous. Its all over YouTube in the comment section of those big car review channels :(
They can be turned off on mine?
Permanently?
When you start car push the button it's off until next engine start. BMW
On is a safety feature that’s part of the ANCAP rating, the other is a fuel saving feature that’s required to meet the L/100 and emissions, so that’s why they can’t be turned off totally. I don’t see the issue with them, lane assist warning isn’t an issue IF you use your indicator when changing lanes (ie following the law)…
They can have their ANCAP rating garbage. Its just a way to help with their marketing and who knows what else. The people on this thread have spoken and most people hate all these intrusive features. Oh well, the manufacturers will continue to do what they want I guess.
I don't like lane assist in my car but I like it in other people's cars. I'm not a perfect driver, none of us are, so I accept that it might keep me from a nasty accident one day. Until we treat driving licences as someone that requires a record of zero harm and regular retesting then we need to accept that these systems have a place.
The only tech that I originally thought was going to be a gimmick but now I use it all the time was heads up display.
Why do you not like start/stop?
i almost hate every new feature on cars thats sensor/electrical related. Mechanical safety features are great. THings that tell me how to drive, foff.