Six reasons we'd walk away from a new car

You’ve kicked off your road trip or even that simple across-town shopping adventure and it’s time to input the address you’re headed to… And it’s then that you discover that a whole swag of your car’s navigation functions are disabled… Until you stop at the lights, or worse still, put the car in Park or engage the park brake.

Believe it or not, many car manufacturers (perhaps for legal or liability reasons) disable address input and other key navigation functions while the car is in motion. There are some that even extend this Big Brother-ism to being able to alpha search phone contacts.

There are plenty of systems (the German brands’ for instance) that offer this sort of input in a safe interface. And the inconvenience of having to stop to input an address (when you’re on a freeway for example) is for us a deal-breaker.

Be sure to check whether this is the case in the new car you’re considering. In most cases it’s not something that can easily be changed later.

Some call it OCD, we call it good taste: symmetry. It’s rational. It makes sense; and in some markets, we’d go so far as to say it’s a safety issue – hell, no one wants to extract themselves though half a door into on-coming traffic!

Now we might sound like grumpy old talk-back callers, but asymmetric styling gives us the shits. Three doors on one side, 12 on another… hell, why not 13. Or none. Yes, that’s it: we’ll climb in through the roof and put our luggage in via trapdoor.

Seriously!

Cars have the same number of doors on each side for a reason – it’s so passengers can get in and out of both rows of seats. If you want a coupe, then buy one. Want a hatch? BUY ONE. But stop trying to foist ‘quirky’ crap like the (previous generation) MINI Clubman or the Hyundai Veloster at the buying public in the name of being different.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of asymmetry, in the last 18 months nothing has been more polarising around the office coffee machine than tailgate discussion of the latest Land Rover Discovery. Even when the machine has run out of coffee.

It might have won our Car of the Year award last year, but it dead-set gives us the heebies. Luckily German company STARTECH has a solution to the problem, and for €680.00 we reckon it’s worth every centime.

Leaving your loyal, loving customer and their expensive new car up the creek without a spare wheel is a deal-breaker. Sure, the idea has merit when viewed from the cosy desks of the PR team, but when it’s pissing rain, pitch black and you’re in the middle of God-knows-where, a puny can of goo and an asthmatic inflator kit are about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

Okay, so they save space and weight. We’ll console myself with that tree-hugging bullshit as we walk along a dark, drenched highway in search of phone reception. You see, the can of urethane sealant isn’t the puncture panacea it’s claimed to be. It only fixes small punctures in ideal situations, which believe us, NEVER happen.

Even if it does work, you still have to drive slowly, constantly wondering when the stupid thing will spray its guts over your wheel arch like a teenager who’s had one too many beers. It also makes a hell of a mess for the repair guy to clean up, and almost always means you need to replace your tyre pressure monitor in that particular wheel.

Another definite walk-away. Give us a good old-fashioned spare wheel any day.

Sure, this firmly falls into the category of 'first-world problems', but glacial car voice-command systems can really drive us to distraction.

We know, the technology concerned probably outstrips that which landed the first astronauts on the moon, and it's far safer than averting your eyes from the road to manually use touchscreen, but when you want to simply call someone who's already in your address book and you have to wade through 15 levels of voice-activated misery, it's clear there's still some way to go.

Yes, some systems are way better than others, but when one of our number recently tried to ring his wife on departing the local shops and still hadn't succeeded by the time he actually pulled into the drive, there’s clearly an issue…

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that…"

Yep, it's up there with telemarketers and offshore call centres, but the worst place to experience this 'techno rage' is exactly when it occurs – when you're on the road, and behind the wheel.

We want voice commands that help us, not ones that incite homicide…

Hate is a strong word, but we hate piano black finishes; and certainly wouldn't buy a car if it were included in the interior fit-out.

Piano Black looks great brand new but quickly turns into an amplified mess of greasy fingerprints, dead skin and bacteria. But don't dare try to clean it with a vacuum though, because the bristles end up scratching your fancy, so-called premium finish quicker than you can blink.

Using a microfibre rag with a bit of Windex is about your only option of salvation… and even that scratches some car-makers’ Piano Black surfaces.

The icing on the cake, however, is when car manufacturers add piano black finishes into their cheapest base model variants in an attempt to add some class. Just stop it.

Our Editor in Chief sums up how we feel quite nicely: "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig".

You had one job! Nothing screams after-thought (or US refugee) quite like a foot-operated park brake.

Awkwardly wedged into the driver’s foot well and often intruding on the natural resting position of the left leg, the mechanical park brake maybe out of sight, but it’s never out of mind.

While many designers find their way past this approach, evolving the park brake to a neat button concealed in the middle stack or even to the right of the steering column, others default to 1990s’ design codes.

A blight on design and occupying prime real estate, why do so many manufacturers persist? The mechanical ratchetting effect beneath your foot feels cheap and nasty and in some instances sounds the same! It’s a daily reminder of design inferiority in motion.

Then there’s a serious question of safety in the event of a front-end collision!? Some particularly poorly-placed foot brakes actually skim the driver’s shin. No thanks, we’ll choose a mechanical hand-brake any day.

Regardless of product or price point, the foot-operated park brake is another deal breaker.