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Mind you, I'm still holding on to my 85 Toyota Supra for dear life, and I haven't rented a car in 8 years, and I needed to drive to San Diego from Tucson, so to enter one of these high tech gadgetry cars is culture shock to me, along with pain.
At first I couldn't figure out what this beeping was all about, but then I noticed if I got too close to the shoulders on either side of the road, it beeped. If I didn't signal in passing a car, it beeped. And if I got too close to a car it beeped.
Imagine, my driving a car like this across the country, and by the time I arrived I'd be a candidate for a Psych ward.
My Supra remains silent when I don't put on the seatbelt and that was another painful adjustment.
I realize most cars today are keyless ignition, so I begged them at Enterprise to give me a car with no fob and they gave me a Nissan Rogue.
I had a helluva time trying to use the radio, even the heater, too complicated for his 73YO low techie.
And I'm told they're going to install more Nanny devices on the 2025 cars.
I won't be renting a new car in the future, henceforth, I'll fly., use the train, use Greyhound and go somewhere with a good light rail system so I don't have to put my hands on a steering wheel.
Anyone else as frustrated with these new high tech gadgetry cars as I am?
When it comes to new tech, lots of people don't like it, and lots of people like it. While acknowledging that some implementations are slicker than others, in general, I fall into the latter camp, and I wouldn't buy a vehicle without modern ADAS. I was saved from a serious accident in my first week with my 2019 Subaru, due to it's Automatic Emergency Braking.
As far as how often the system beeps - part of it is in the implementation, and part of it is in how you drive - if you signal before you change lanes on a multilane highway, you won't get a warning. If you can stay in your lane when not trying to change lanes, you won't get a warning. If you don't fly up on someone's bumper, you won't get a warning. I get very few "false positives" in my Subaru, and when it does beep, I know exactly what it means, so it doesn't bother me.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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When we bought our Outback with advanced safety features the dealer "tech guy" spent over an hour going over every detail. If you rental car has an owner's manual in the glove box, you can find the way to shut off the beeps there. If not, google the year and make and word "manual" or even "how to shut off warning sounds". Between the manual sites and YouTube you should find it. On ours it's deeply buried in the bowels of the touchscreen, but we are not bothered by them because we rarely
trigger them.
When it comes to new tech, lots of people don't like it, and lots of people like it.
As far as how often the system beeps - part of it is in the implementation, and part of it is in how you drive - if you signal before you change lanes on a multilane highway, you won't get a warning. If you can stay in your lane when not trying to change lanes, you won't get a warning. If you don't fly up on someone's bumper, you won't get a warning. I get very few "false positives" in my Subaru, and when it does beep, I know exactly what it means, so it doesn't bother me.
Agree with all this. I went through culture shock when buying my current car, so I definitely feel your pain OP! I understand that the car you're complaining about was a rental, not a purchase. My previous car was bought new in 1999. When I realized a car purchase was looming on the horizon, I was sort of dreading the catch-up to a nanny car. I am not all that interested in tech, but I also realize the world and time moves in one direction. Neither is particularly interested in catering to me. I have to bend a little in order to remain functional.
Turned out, learning to live with a nanny car wasn't that bad. Partly because I looked up the owner's manual of the car I was probably going to buy online before driving it in person. Partly because I'm an attentive driver. The nanny features don't make a peep the vast majority of the time. If yours do, they're trying to tell you something!
A rental company probably doesn't provide owner's manuals for their cars, but they might if you asked. Tell the rental rep you need some orientation for the car you end up with. I had to rent a new model year pickup shortly before I bought my nanny car so I made a point of asking the rental rep to show me some of the basic operational controls before I left their parking lot. One of my first questions was about "driver assist" features, including how to disable them. The how will vary with the manufacturer.
You probably selected your rental online in advance before picking it up, but even if the car you reserved wasn't the one you ended up with you could have taken some time to have the rental agent orient you before you left and you could also look up the car's owner's manual online and read about its specific driver-assist controls.
Last edited by Parnassia; 02-14-2024 at 03:27 PM..
At first I couldn't figure out what this beeping was all about, but then I noticed if I got too close to the shoulders on either side of the road, it beeped. If I didn't signal in passing a car, it beeped. And if I got too close to a car it beeped.
We rented a Toyota for our trip to Miami and we fully enjoyed all the bells and whistles. You can turn them off; the button was on the dash. I will never take another Greyhound, Trailways or any other bus. I will continue to figure out the technology as long as we can drive.
I am fortunate for my age group, my kids, grands and business has kept me up to speed on most new technologies. I also embrace the help that technology has given so many aspects of our life.
I did have a rent car a few weeks ago, that I had to disengage the lane keeping function, it was just too sensitive for my liking. The rest of the functions, especially the adaptive cruise, were fine. (It did not have the xm activated and that was a long boring week)
All the technology, I still had a lady, in a new Caddy, back into my truck. She said she didn't know what all the beeping was about, and doesn't pay any attention to the camera. I'm surprised the car didn't brake for her, then again, moving very slow, so may not brake below a certain speed.....new door, 6k + 3k in rental fee.
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