Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: CKN
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Chances of me buying a new car are slim. I am rebelling against the continual inclusion of electronics and driver aids that decrease the involvement of the driver. One of these days, Car and Driver magazine is going to change its name to Conveyance and Occupant, and will run articles on how to order an organically certified half-caf latte from your conveyance with a minimum of screen taps on your smart phone.
Yep. Pretty soon forward/side collision avoidance will be standard. As will auto braking if you get too close to the car in front of you-either by your own mistake or theirs.
Wouldn't want to have those pesky electronic devices that will help reduce accidents and make driving inherently safer.
Of course-I am not saying this particular to your excuse-but some on here probably can't afford new cars with these electronics so they knock them.
Yeah, I don't get the mentality. I'm happy to have all the gadgets. You can also drive and enjoy them when you can. I've got a pre-safe option on mine that kicks in when it notices that you switch from the gas to brake quickly. Only had it kick in a couple of times, but those times I noticed as it also tightens up the seat belt and applies maximum braking. Didn't really need it in those instances, but it's nice that it's there and good to know that it still works.
For things like blind spot detection, that's just a more advanced form of a blind spot mirror. And if you're going on a 4+ hour drive, have adaptive cruise control can only help in not tiring out the driver. When you're in traffic for hours, your foot gets tired just hitting the gas pedal.
I'm not sure how much extra all that stuff would've cost on the Outback but we don't need most of it for 95% of our driving. Adaptive cruise control I could actually use the odd time, but I think it would be $4-5k by the time we got a trim level it was available at. I can use regular cruise just fine with only a couple resets in my commute, and my wife's commute is like a car commercial, through rolling hills in the country with almost no other traffic, so regular cruise is just fine.
Lane departure, blind spot monitoring? We are rarely on a multi lane road anyways and if I'm that distracted or my car wanders that much I need a reminder to stay in my lane, I need a rest or an alignment done on my fancy car...
I still like to drive, shift my own gears, and hypermile a bit, so a few actual interactions with the car and looking down the road isn't a problem for me.
Well when you buy used, you look for one that has them. They're hard to find because most people don't buy parktronic, pano roof, bixenons, keyless go and real leather as a combo as each one is a little over a thousand so it all adds up after a while. But when they're listed for sale used, because those options aren't considered major, they don't really affect the price that much. Every time I see one that has lots of options, they quickly disappear, the ones that stick around are the base models with the basic options.
I'm always playing with the dash options, usually sat radio or playing around with the music either via bluetooth or spotify on an ipod. There's other screens like the trip computer, navigation, direction, temperature, tire pressure etc. Some of the other options like keyless go only comes into play when you're getting into or out of the car. Or the front/rear parking sensors kick in when parking although I use the fronts sometimes to get really close to the car in front when in traffic. The pano roof doesn't really come into play much aside from when you're looking around checking blind spots or backing up. It's a cool feature on a sunny day and because it's glass, you don't have to wax the roof. The bixenons are also cool at night, you can see the beams swivel from one side to another when turning the steering wheel.
