Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Talking warning chimes: "key is in the ingnition", "door is ajar".
LOL. My grandparents bought a Nissan and that was one of the "great" features of the car. We were all impressed as it was the early 80's and that was supposed to be stellar technology. My grandfather turned it off after the first week. He said he got tired of the car telling him what to do.
Wasn't there a car in the 50s with a built-in water fountain? As I remember, a hidden door in the flipper (this one had flippers instead of tailfins) flipped-up to reveal the fountain. The commercial showed a 'pretty girl' drinking water while simpering for the camera. I suppose this was to convince men that their water-fountain-car would be a girl magnet at the beach.
Toyota's TRAC, traction control, is one of the more asinine creations of the past decade.
I seriously hope the designer of that "feature" wakes up in the morning and ten thousand flaming scorpions are crawling in his underpants.
Few things are more terrifying than trying to pull out into traffic knowing you have -just- enough space to make it, and then the wheels slip just a smidgen when turning out and TRAC cuts power to the wheels completely for a full second or so. Which feels like an eternity when that 2500 truck is coming at you at full speed.
What's worse, it can't be disabled - you can temporarily, but it resets when you turn the car off.
Gm called is ASR. I have it on my Camaro (actually paid for it as an option - dummy). About all it does is ensure you stay stuck in mud or slush if you forget to turn it off. Also - no burnouts. I really do nto like any time a car takes control of the vehicle away from me.
When I was a kid we had the under dash record player in our 1957 Chrysler New Yorker wagon, and later we upgraded to a 1964 Chrysler wagon with rear facing 3rd seat.
I always wanted to know - did the records skip a lot? I can't even walk around my living room without skipping a record.
When they brought back the Jensen Interceptor in the 1990s, it came with a built in fax machine.
My Subaru XT turbo was full of really stupid features. You could make the car rise up or sink down about 3" on the air shocks. Fun, but no reason for it at all. It had a little video game depiction of the car in the middle of the dash. For no reason at all. It conveyed no information, but it did rise up and down with the car if you used the other silly feature. The car also had a computer that told you a whole bunch of absolutely useless information (along with some useful information). There was a guage that made a little road marker along one side of hte picture of the car that gave you a readout of "turbo boost" First of all there is no reason you need to know this, secondly the car was a total dog with about a 10 plus second 0-60 even with full "turbo boost" (I am guessing at the time - it was a dog though)
One dumb feature in new cars is touch screen controls in convertibles (Jeep is one good example). It is made to be driven with the top down, but with the top down you cannot see the screen and cannot operate the controls.
I cannot remember which car it was, but one convertible had a light that came on on the dash if your top came unlatched. That was in case you failed to notice when the wind caught it and tore the roof off your car.
Another favorite after market option is a laptop holder that mounts in the passenger seat area and holds a laptop computer over the counsel so you can operate the computer while driving.
When you get into the after market stuff is when you get into the really stupid stuff. Hydrogen generators, water injection, all kinds of devices that will improve gas mileage and/or horsepower (except that they do neither). Magic potions to make you get better mileage, more power or have a "cleaner engine" (as if they do not already put detergents in any decent gasoline).
How about those license plate frames where you could prgram any message you wanted to display in tiny letters no one can read unless they are tailgating to the extent the message should simply say "you are about to die"
I have a convertible with a hardtop that has a sunroof in the hard top.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
5 of the silliest automotive features ever
