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I use the speed limiter about once a year to see if I can work out why it's useful. I also never use fog lights or, indeed, sidelights.
The list of gadgets I either have or had on cars that I didn't want is fairly extensive:
- Heated door mirrors
- Those hooks for hanging your jacket on
- The radar thing that slams the brakes on occasionally
- The lane keeping thing that tries to crash your car sometimes
- Silly little squirty things for the headlights
- A powered fold away towbar
- Electric boot opening
- About 95% of the things in an infotainment system. Especially SatNav.
- Adjustable boot floors
- Sport mode
Not quite the same, but I am unsure why a soft dashboard is considered so important these days.
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My previous car had what was described in the manual as a "sunglasses holder" - a strange drop down flap which, when pressed, hinged down from the ceiling. None of my sunglasses would fit in it, and even if they had, opening the holder would have resulted in the sunglasses falling out into the footwell.
I also removed the raised boot floor within weeks of buying the car and bought a rubber mat. This downgraded it to the "poverty spec" version which had a load lip, but you could then get a lot more in.
Also, grab handles above the doors - I don't think these were ever used in the whole 10 years I had the car.
The opposite way round, but I never realised just how much I valued the "ski hatch" until I bought a car without one. I probably only carried skis in the car a few times, but it was also incredibly useful for anything long bought from DIY stores, garden centres etc. when neither back seat can be easily folded because of the kids car seats. It also provided a fun and convenient access route for the kids into the back seats when we'd been for a muddy trip out somewhere, particularly when it was raining when we got back to the car. We'd put the kids into the boot to remove waterproofs, wellies etc,, and once clean they'd climb through the ski hatch and into the back seats.
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Foglights I never use.
I have used the hooks for hanging jackets on several times on the way to funerals or interviews. I only had one car with headlamp wipers and that was a Lada. Very useful though, I wish more of my cars had them.
Personally I'm not bothered about electric windows but it's rare to find a car without them, likewise electric mirror adjusters.
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Don't have many gadgets. (Don't have any Rac***s either, unlike the OP, who must be in the US)
Things I have dispensed with as more trouble than they are worth are
(a) Carpets- Retain dirt, damp (car leaks) and inhibit rust treatment. Removable mats instead.
(b) Wheel covers - What are they for?
(c) Rear seats - Removed them for extra cargo room. Can replace for 6 monthly inspection and those rare back seat passengers but there are no rear seat belts
(d) Plastic interior trim - was sun embrittled and was just going to get smashed up if I left it in place. The exposed steel bodywork is more robust and has some useful (cubby) holes in it
I'd quite like to take the doors off sometime, (for the dry season) but I doubt it would pass inspection like that and might attract cops..
Edited by edlithgow on 26/05/2023 at 03:59
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Front fog lights certainly fall into this category in my case. I think they're more for style than anything else.
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Cruise control oddly enough. It used to be a useful flick on/off system and much used. Now on the Golf it’s a multi mode faff largely unused.
Worse is the headlight level adjustment. A once useful feature now buried in a menu somewhere and impossible to find and use safely on the move.
Driving mode. Set to Eco and stays there.
CD player. Single shot unit in the glove box with poor Adele locked in for four years and counting.
Come to think about it, the box has never seen a glove.
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Fog lights can be useful on those dark and misty early mornings when i'm on my way to work, i take a country route and on the probably 6 miles of country road i see another car maybe once a week, in fog main beam is useless because reflection and the fog lights do provide a useful extra spread of light where its needed...they are however road legal upgraded Osram bulbs, with OE bulbs they were like candles which is pretty standard for every front fog lamp and probably why you find them pointless.
The other reason for front fog lights is should you experience a blown headlight bulb, you can flick the fogs on and still have a decent fully lit front end visible for oncoming vehicles, we've all encountered the motorcycle on a rural route which turns out to be a neglected Transit with not a single offside bulb to be seen.
Age and type of our cars pointless gadgets are thankfully not fitted and the ones in place are mostly useful, haven't needed to use the centre diff lock yet nor sport mode on the electrically adjustable dampers (Sport mode damping on a Landcruiser i ask you) and the noughties Toyota in-built satnav is such a pita to use you'd probably run out of fuel if you had it on tickover whilst failing miserably to program it, cursing fluently, must be 50% of the handbook just for that useless thing.
Haven't needed the spare wheel on one car (just as well, bolted to the rear door under a lockable cover it's a major operation to use it), have needed it on the other car.
Edited by gordonbennet on 26/05/2023 at 07:07
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The other reason for front fog lights is should you experience a blown headlight bulb, you can flick the fogs on and still have a decent fully lit front end visible for oncoming vehicles,
Not thought of that before - veery good point.
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I use the speed limiter about once a year to see if I can work out why it's useful. I also never use fog lights or, indeed, sidelights.
The list of gadgets I either have or had on cars that I didn't want is fairly extensive:
- Heated door mirrors
- Those hooks for hanging your jacket on
- The radar thing that slams the brakes on occasionally
- The lane keeping thing that tries to crash your car sometimes
- Silly little squirty things for the headlights
- A powered fold away towbar
- Electric boot opening
- About 95% of the things in an infotainment system. Especially SatNav.
- Adjustable boot floors
- Sport mode
Not quite the same, but I am unsure why a soft dashboard is considered so important these days.
My 'old' Mazda 3 supposedly has heated wing mirrors, but there's no specific button to switch it on, so does it just switch on automatically as the A/C goes to heating mode, or would it have some kind of temperature sensor in one / both mirrors to trigger that system?
I personally don't see the point of an adjustable boot floor. Why was it that older designed cars could easily accept a full sized spare wheel and tyre, then my car's generation (for the most part, with some notable exceptions that could still accept full size spares) then could only take a space-saver, now most either have nothing at all or seriously reduce the main boot area below that of previous generations' in order to fit a spacesaver in, assuming the space isn't filled with some kind of ICE.
What use is this space (other than ICE) being put to nowadays? Sveral 'new' cars similar in physical size to mine I looked at back in 2017 failed the 'holiday gubbins' boot test that mine passed with flying colours. So many now have a very shallow floor, even when the boot floor is 'dropped'.
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My 'old' Mazda 3 supposedly has heated wing mirrors, but there's no specific button to switch it on, so does it just switch on automatically as the A/C goes to heating mode, or would it have some kind of temperature sensor in one / both mirrors to trigger that system?
Forester has one button which switches on the windscreen heater which fires up the mirror heaters at the same time, that might bne typical for Japanese cars.
It's not a Ford type whole screen heater, the element is along the bottom of the screen behind the wiper blades, surprising how quickly the heat defrosts the whole screen though.
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It's not a Ford type whole screen heater, the element is along the bottom of the screen behind the wiper blades, surprising how quickly the heat defrosts the whole screen though.
That would be to prevent the blades being frozen to the screen when parked ?
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That would be to prevent the blades being frozen to the screen when parked ?
Indeed Andrew, but its effective in defrosting the whole screen too.
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system?
I personally don't see the point of an adjustable boot floor.
If you want to get something in and out easier without too much of a load lip then you can have it raised and can have it dropped to get more in the cars boot. We'd need a level boot to get a wheelchair in, but if we don't have the chair in can drop it to get more in the boot.
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system?
I personally don't see the point of an adjustable boot floor.
If you want to get something in and out easier without too much of a load lip then you can have it raised and can have it dropped to get more in the cars boot. We'd need a level boot to get a wheelchair in, but if we don't have the chair in can drop it to get more in the boot.
Maybe, but from looking at cars in 2017 with such features, the height of the raised boot space area is quite small and, whilst easier to slide something onto it, it may not be high enough for some bulky items to be accommodated.
I'd rather have a lower loading lip and the 'old' lower boot floor to start with - it's not as though car manufacturers cannot make them that way, given many have been over the years with seemingly no downside.
In my view, cars with a high rear bumper / boot opening lip would surely contribute to worse rear end accident results, because the car hitting them from behind could go undeneath and flip the car in front into the air, rather than bonnet bumper + rear end bumper making full contact and taking most of the crash energy, rather than transferring the potential energy from one car to the one in front, propelling it forward, maybe over.
Just a thought.
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