OT(?) Brain dead car manufacturers

[ARW]

It's not got Radio 2!

[Adrian]

It just gets better.

[ARW]

No Sally Traffic

[pamela]

In that case, you may need to upgrade from that Radiomobile to this Blaupunkt:

Short wave too! You don't get that on a car radio these days.

[Adrian]

Who?

[The Natural Philosopher]

A car without sally traffic is..not a car

[The Natural Philosopher]

[Andy Burns]

So all cars have failed to be cars for 17 months without you noticing?

[ARW]

Something for the weekend?

[Dave Liquorice]

kilowatt

Probably not though the sound system is very good and doesn't clip or overdrive the speakers when wound flat out. Must take and SPL meter into it and see what it can generate, at a guesstimate over 90 dBA maybe >100 dBA. With and without the engine running, if the engine isn't running it limits the maximum volume.

I've not explored everything, principly because the car goes into "battery saver mode" about 5 mins after the ignition is switched off. This turns the infotainment system and interior lights off. The lights go off even if they are in manual on mode rather than automatic. PITA you have navigated down 3 layers of menus then the damn thing gives you a minutes notice of powering down and there is F.All you can do to stop it.

RTFM doesn't help as that doesn't reproduce the menu structures of any part of the infotainment. Same goes for the "smarts" the car has be that what the various terrain response settings do to the engine mapping and transmission, what triggers the Hill Start Assist, or the "ECO" switch the engine off when stationary.

Indeed you won't, it doesn't have FM. B-)

[pamela]

Exactly!

[Adrian]

Because he with most toys wins.

Indicators are only used when they are all on at the same time (the "I can park anywhere lights"), and mirrors are for doing your make up and/or shaving (allegedly).

Adrian

[Tim+]

Gadgets can be very useful, but not always for the expected reasons. I put my back out yesterday (after playing stupid party games) and was in agony this morning. 40 miles with the seat heater on full worked wonders. ;-)

Tim

[jack]

I've never used enough of them to say and wouldn't normally use one in a rented car etc, I'd use my phone instead if only because I am completely familiar with the phone and not the rented one.

I don't actually use the screen much when driving, only for setting up a new route manually. It would be handy to be able to glance at the screen for the time to get there when running very late in heavy traffic etc and I would love to have a fully integrated single screen that normally shows the satnav stuff but auto switches to showing the built in parking cameras in the car when moving into parking spots in the carpark or when parallel parking etc and with that as a fully integrated dash cam and theft surveillance/alarm system as well. Can't justify buying those cars tho, I buy the low end Korean hatches and keep them for decades.

I keep the phone in the bin under the radio where I cant even see the screen at all. Use the voice turn by turn navigation and its handy to be able to pick it up to initiate a new routing etc.

I'm considering having the phone in a booster pack case in my pocket with a bluetooth headset for the voice calls and so I can use full time siri because of the booster pack. In my pocket because we coordinate the garage/yard sale runs using the phone now and so it needs to be with me.

I'd love to be able to use full time siri to initiate a new nav verbally, but its completely hopeless for that, so stupid that it trys to work out how to drive to Wall St New York when I tell it I want directions to Waugh St in my home town.

Works fine for initiating voice calls and SMSs to my contacts tho.

I don't find those as convenient as the phone in the bin under the radio even with the quick release mounts. Bit of a legal problem tho, some jurisdictions do require a mount to be used. Not likely to be caught with the phone in the bin tho except when pulled over for a random breath test etc. We have lots of those, its an unusual month when you don't get tested.

[Chris French]

In message , jack writes

I can stick my phone in and out of the mount in about a second (the mount stays attached to the car, can't be arsed to fiddle about with it each time.. A dedicated mount would be handy as then I wouldn't need to plug in the charge lead.

Not AFAIK an issue in the UK..

Dunno where you are but I can't remember the last time I was stopped for a breath test. Probably about 30 years ago.

[Jethro_uk]

I have a mount on the quarterlite - it puts the phone within sight, but doesn't obscure the main window of vision.

[Jethro_uk]

As far as I can see, the spec equivalent is going from the current level of spec on our C4GP, to the new level. Only the new level now includes sat nav. However, the pas few years have seen a change in my driving ...

1) The *only* use for the phone-car BT pairing is to switch my phone into driving mode to divert incoming calls. I no longer make calls in-car, handsfree or not (and neither would you if you watched and believed handheld-minimyth/ ). 2) The audio/BT interface is painfully clunky - much easier (FSVO easy) to plug a USB stick in, and play from that.

So losing those is no dealbreaker.

Anyway, we have until next month to decide, so it'll be quizzing dealers and maybe writing to Citroen UK for an official answer. One complication is that being Motability, we aren't the end purchasers.

If the spec of the new car includes adaptive cruise control, it would be worth the upgrade. But otherwise, I'm seriously considering extending the lease on out current car for 2 years - so this would be a case of a sale lost.

2018 will see a game changer, as by then all new cars must be GPS- emergency capable, and presumably, that will cut through a lot of proprietary nonsense towards a standard.

[Jethro_uk]

There are plenty of Motability deals which require no additional payment. However (another example of moronity gone wild) the single most "standard" adaptation (an automatic gearbox) which would be of use to 80 of motability customers is called "extra". Meaning a lot of Motability customers are forced to "upgrade" to get an automatic model. (That's if the dealer has a test drive available. Bristol St. Ford in Birmingham didn't, and were shocked when I refused to order a car I hadn't driven.).

[Jethro_uk]

Citroen have a similar offering - It's c. £200 for the (proprietary) dongle, plus a subscription.

Even the salesman (again) pointed out it's uselessness, and (once again) advised you could achieve the same (or better !) with a relatively cheap smartphone. (e.g. the Wilefox Swift I got for Xmas, which is dual (network-free) SIM, and happily tethers with 4G speeds).

[ARW]

Yes but whose car keys did you pick up whilst playing the game!