Mazdaspeed 3. Not twins, but they're from the same village, same classroom. Cousins maybe.

Attachment 38549

Also reminds me of my Saturn Astra (Opel in Germany.)

May she R.I.P.

And since I got orphaned:

Merkin engineering: ignoring engineering psychology since 19__.

That dashboard would be reason enough for me to not buy a car. You need a passenger to work it for you.

I thought Ford was supposed to be getting better?

BMW 118d.

According to this, it can get 52 MPG, but I only experienced 37 MPG overall.

My goofball friend just brought home a 2012 Charger. I gotta say, the accelerator and brakes are a tad touchy. The controls are better to use but do NOT mess with the touchscreen controls while in motion. The radio sounds good but the interface sux. The CD player looks more like an afterthought. There are mysterious storage spots that are mostly useless. I'm guessing they are filler for something that is an option not chosen. All in all, it's better than the old worn-out Mustang convertible he was driving but he really needs to develop a soft touch. Or I am going to start wearing a neck brace.

You should get into any rental car at night. In the dark, find the headlights, ignition key hole, turn signals, brake pedal, the radio volume and frequency selector knob, seat adjustment, door handle, and the door unlock button ... in the dark. You should not have to search for these at the expense of watching the road. Otherwise, the car has serious design problems.

One Pontiac Sunbird would lock its doors when put into drive. I hate that. A button to unlock doors was forward in a narrow gap between the door and dashboard. It could not be seen except when that door was open. These are not accidents. These happen when cost controls a design.

Mushy handling is often due to no speed sensitive steering. Which every car even 15 years ago could and should have. One reason for not installing speed sensitive steering is a suspension so barbaric as to require extra strong power steering.

True measure of a car is to drive your ten year old car out of the airport. I cannot say how often my better driving and ten year old Accord felt after a week with that crap, new rental car designed in the accounting department.

And a new record level of impractical advice is reached :cheerldr:

The airplane gets to its destination that night. A rental car is first driven that night. Why should anyone spend a full minute searching to tune and adjust volume on its radio? Because the auto was designed by a GM bean counter; not an Apple or Hyundai engineer. Only the most naive, a lover of scammed consumers, or one who then learns the wrath of Steven Jobs would find that impractical.

Every essential function is easily found by touch - even in the dark. But only in better designed rental cars.

But if the airplane lands at 8am? Or 9am? or 10am?.........

I loved my Mini.
The controls were so basic I never had to worry about anything other than driving.
I didn't pass my test while I had it though, and by the time I did I was grateful for the little extras in my Nissan Micra.

It would look like Fred Flintstone's car compared to the dashboards in cars today though.

[aside] I remember a colleague coming into work and moaning that she could not park in the work carpark this week, as she was driving her son's car and it did not have power steering. She couldn't manage the tight spaces and had to park across town instead. My friend and I looked sideways at eachother. Neither of us had ever owned a car with power steering.

This was about 10 years ago, although due to finances I still haven't.

Tonight the 2013 Ford Flex Fail entered a new dimension of user interface horror, as the dashboard dimmer switch wound up switching on the passenger map lights (not the dome light, but the lights at the top of the windshield).

WE COULD NOT TURN OFF THOSE LIGHTS WITH THEIR ON/OFF SWITCH

I can't express how shitty this design is. Now look. I've always had an interest in user interfaces, and now I suppose one could say I'm a professional at it as I make user interface decisions with the websites I build.

THERE WAS NO WAY TO PREDICT THAT THE DASH DIMMING SWITCH COULD PROFOUNDLY AFFECT THE INTERIOR LIGHTING

Any UI designer of any quality would look at this image and shit him or herself immediately. Consider, a dash dimmer switch next to a rear hatch opening switch, flush with their surfaces, next to each other, invisible to the driver:

http://cellar.org/2012/fordflexfail1.jpg

http://cellar.org/2012/fordflexfail2.jpg

You, the UI layperson. One switch will open the rear hatch, exposing the interior and possibly dropping any rear cargo onto the road. The other controls how bright the dash lights are at night. The switches are identical and invisible to the driver. What's wrong with this design?

But that wasn't the problem tonight. The problem tonight is that, somehow, operating the dash light dimmer switch turned on the passenger lights, and they couldn't be turned off with their own switches. It's sort of shocking that this wound up in a released product. It actually angers me, that this is the modern product from the only American car company that seems to be able to get out of its own way.

I get to test drive another Ford or two tomorrow. I'm thinking Explorer and Mustang (raises $ for the school and kills an hour between Polo games)

The only thing I don't like about my Impala is that the driver information controls (oil level, mpg, etc.) are on the dash next to the speedometer. In my Cobalt, they were on the steering wheel. I believe on the higher-end Impala models, the steering wheel controls contain cruise control (which I have) along with bluetooth and radio controls (which I don't).