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Really minor annoyances


BiG said:
Every time I get in my car there’s an alert on the infotainment screen. I’m the kind of person who responds to alerts in my vehicle. So I press the little blue alert in number on the touch screen. It’s invariably a number 1. Cos there’s invariably only 1 alert. And every single time it says “internet is currently unavailable”. And I press OK. I don’t want internet anyway. I don’t know why my car is set up to tell me this. But I have to clear it from the screen by clicking it. Every. Single. Time. I. Start. The. Car.

Same goes for the privacy settings. It tells me every time I get in the car what my privacy settings are. And it demands I acknowledge it and say ‘OK’. I don’t even understand why I need privacy settings. I went into the system to change them. To see if changing the them would somehow result in the car not insisting on telling me what they are. I tried every option. The fucker insisted on telling me what they were regardless.

I reminisce about the times when driving a car didn’t resemble operating an irritating iPad.
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We had a hire car on holiday that alerted everytime we got in that the media subscription had lapsed. Apart from the reversing camera it had become a big screen that did nowt. Something to watch for on modern cars. If it were my car I could see the screen being used as a stick on mount for my phone where I already have a spotify account and don't need to pay a fortune for up to date sat nav.

Also modern car controls. In all my older cars, I didn't need to look to change the heater settings. Want it on the windscreen, turn knob to point upwards. Turn a different one for hotter and colder. I knew exactly where each basic control was and could do it all by touch. Now I have a multitude of little identical buttons with a small display screen showing what I have done. You need to turn and look at what you are doing.
 
S.S.R.. said:
Very minor one: My car has a message that comes up occasionally on the Sat Nav; warning me that taking my eyes off the road causes accidents.

I wasn't looking at the screen until they flashed this message.
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Also auto stop start - does my head in but you cannot disable permanently and have to turn it off every time you get in the car
 
Quite a niche one here.

New company moved into the office next door. Woman in there sneezes INCREDIBLY loudly about four times a day, always in pairs, then says "Oh God, sorry!" in an equally loud voice and then laughs. Last Friday, admittedly hungover, I was a fag pager close to banging on the plasterboard wall and telling her to shut the fuck up. It didn't help that when they moved in, within a fortnight one of them had nicked the two crusty rolls I'd left in the shared kitchen for me lunch.

And before anyone even considers mitigation or sympathy for these two vile crimes, (showboat-y sneezing and roll theft) I'll point out they are a private car park management company, so if you ever got one of those dodgy letters designed to look like an official summons for overstaying your welcome in a shitty ANPR run suburban car park by 30 seconds, these were the type of fuckers who tried to have you over for £75. Bastards.
 
Hawkings Boots said:
Also auto stop start - does my head in but you cannot disable permanently and have to turn it off every time you get in the car
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There is a cold alert on my wifes car, just a little beep when the temperature drops below 4 degrees. But if it is one of those days where it is 4 degrees outside, then it reads below when you get a bit of speed up because of the windchill beeps, goes slightly above if you stop or something is infront, then beeps again. Feels like it constantly beeps at you to say it is a bit cold.
 
Kevj said:
New parents preaching to everyone like they are the fount of all knowledge on all things despite being in the role for two minutes.

More of an observation than anything.
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Its not as bad as people who don't have kids giving you parenting advice....
 
DaveH said:
We had a hire car on holiday that alerted everytime we got in that the media subscription had lapsed. Apart from the reversing camera it had become a big screen that did nowt. Something to watch for on modern cars. If it were my car I could see the screen being used as a stick on mount for my phone where I already have a spotify account and don't need to pay a fortune for up to date sat nav.

Also modern car controls. In all my older cars, I didn't need to look to change the heater settings. Want it on the windscreen, turn knob to point upwards. Turn a different one for hotter and colder. I knew exactly where each basic control was and could do it all by touch. Now I have a multitude of little identical buttons with a small display screen showing what I have done. You need to turn and look at what you are doing.
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I read a news article the other day where that Jasmine Harmon lass who does the buying a house in Spain programmes, was fined in Spain because they spotted her using her touchscreen in the car. Apparently it’s deemed unsafe to do so and is illegal in Spain.

I agree with you. I don’t need an impossible to operate volume slider on the dashboard, what’s right next to the button that alters the aircon temperature in the same way or touchscreen controls that I have to look at and try to hit with a wobbly finger. I knew where the on/off, volume and heating buttons were before, and could locate and operate them quickly without looking.

But a button is old fashioned. Yeah it’s user friendly and it works and everything but we can do THIS now. So that’s what it’s gonna be. Bastids.
 
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BiG said:
I read a news article the other day where that Jasmine Harmon lass who does the buying a house in Spain programmes, was fined in Spain because they spotted her using her touchscreen in the car. Apparently it’s deemed unsafe to do so and is illegal in Spain.

I agree with you. I don’t need an impossible to operate volume slider on the dashboard, what’s right next to the button that alters the aircon temperature in the same way or touchscreen controls that I have to look at and try to hit with a wobbly finger. I knew where the on/off, volume and heating buttons were before, and could locate and operate them quickly without looking.

But a button is old fashioned. Yeah it’s user friendly and it works and everything but we can do THIS now. So that’s what it’s gonna be. Bastids.
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My car does have voice commands though to combat that. You press and hold a button (clearly while not steering) and then tell it something after waiting a few seconds for the beep, making sure there is no other sounds, anyone else in the car is quiet etc. I do have a USB stick with lots of MP3 in there, so "Play USB", at which point it instantly turns fans and heat to max and activated the windscreen heater.

"Turn down heat", "Change heater to 21 degrees", "turn the fans down", etc, all result in a voice coming back "command not understood".

Google maps is pretty bad for wanting interference. That now pops up at me a lot "Is there still an accident here", "Is there still a mobile speed camera here?". I'm driving and you have now obscured the screen I was using for navigation.
 
DaveH said:
My car does have voice commands though to combat that.
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I’m going to explore the ‘activate voice commands’ thing. For safety reasons primarily. But I’m not confident that the minor annoyance that I’ll experience will be less whilst I’m yelling at my car to “PLAY THE NEXT TRACK!!!” or “TURN OFF THE AIR CONDITIONING!!!” or “FIND THE NEAREST FILLING STATION!!!” than that which I experience whilst trying to tap my wobbly finger on a screen or slide a button, whilst driving over a speed bump.
 
BiG said:
I’m going to explore the ‘activate voice commands’ thing. For safety reasons primarily. But I’m not confident that the minor annoyance that I’ll experience will be less whilst I’m yelling at my car to “PLAY THE NEXT TRACK!!!” or “TURN OFF THE AIR CONDITIONING!!!” or “FIND THE NEAREST FILLING STATION!!!” than that which I experience whilst trying to tap my wobbly finger on a screen or slide a button, whilst driving over a speed bump.
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I find with my phone, if a song enters my head I want to listen to, it does a good job at finding that.

The big problem is, in car entertainment and info systems are produced by very small teams and I don't think they have that much backing. As a result, they are bespoke, expensive and badly maintained. But if you could either just have a generic iPhone & Android dock or they just axed the whole division and stuck an android tablet in the dashboard, it would be so much better. Android has far more developers and testers than the likes of Ford Audio will ever have.
 
DaveH said:
I find with my phone, if a song enters my head I want to listen to, it does a good job at finding that.

The big problem is, in car entertainment and info systems are produced by very small teams and I don't think they have that much backing. As a result, they are bespoke, expensive and badly maintained. But if you could either just have a generic iPhone & Android dock or they just axed the whole division and stuck an android tablet in the dashboard, it would be so much better. Android has far more developers and testers than the likes of Ford Audio will ever have.
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Isn't that what CarPlay is for? I bought a new car in Nov last year (a 2023 1-series) and before I drove it off the techy lad came out and pointed the car at my somewhat battered 4 year old iphone using Bluetooth and said "forget the in-car system, CarPlay is a game changer - you won't use anything else!" I humoured him as he seemed a nice lad, but fully intended to use the BMW idrive thing.

To this day, I have used the in-car system once, when the bluetooth on my phone was playing up. Other than that, it's carplay all the time. The maps, the music selection and switching, and the ability to pull up at some car park and sit in the car and use Ringo for example to sort out the car park fees without getting out me seat, it's a belter!
 
DaveH said:
I find with my phone, if a song enters my head I want to listen to, it does a good job at finding that.

The big problem is, in car entertainment and info systems are produced by very small teams and I don't think they have that much backing. As a result, they are bespoke, expensive and badly maintained. But if you could either just have a generic iPhone & Android dock or they just axed the whole division and stuck an android tablet in the dashboard, it would be so much better. Android has far more developers and testers than the likes of Ford Audio will ever have.
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Ford's built-in speech recognition is terrible especially for controlling the Sat Nav. I just use Google Assistant on my phone over Bluetooth.

However, I thought motor manufacturers were moving away from having their own systems and just adopting Android Auto or Apple CarPlay
 
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My car is an absolute twat. Every time I start it up I have to press the button to put my seat into the saved driving position, turn off the auto-ignition thing, turn off speed limit warnings and turn off lane assist so it doesn't fight me if I change lanes without indicating.
 
scott934 said:
My car is an absolute twat. Every time I start it up I have to press the button to put my seat into the saved driving position, turn off the auto-ignition thing, turn off speed limit warnings and turn off lane assist so it doesn't fight me if I change lanes without indicating.
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Would it not be prudent to drive at the speed limit and use your indicators as laid out in the Highway Code.

The fault seems to lie with you and your driving rather than your car.
 
Ageing Grey Mackem said:
Quite a niche one here.

New company moved into the office next door. Woman in there sneezes INCREDIBLY loudly about four times a day, always in pairs, then says "Oh God, sorry!" in an equally loud voice and then laughs. Last Friday, admittedly hungover, I was a fag pager close to banging on the plasterboard wall and telling her to shut the fuck up. It didn't help that when they moved in, within a fortnight one of them had nicked the two crusty rolls I'd left in the shared kitchen for me lunch.

And before anyone even considers mitigation or sympathy for these two vile crimes, (showboat-y sneezing and roll theft) I'll point out they are a private car park management company, so if you ever got one of those dodgy letters designed to look like an official summons for overstaying your welcome in a shitty ANPR run suburban car park by 30 seconds, these were the type of fuckers who tried to have you over for £75. Bastards.
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Or you could just pay in crusty rolls and even crustier snot-rags perhaps?
DaveH said:
There is a cold alert on my wifes car, just a little beep when the temperature drops below 4 degrees. But if it is one of those days where it is 4 degrees outside, then it reads below when you get a bit of speed up because of the windchill beeps, goes slightly above if you stop or something is infront, then beeps again. Feels like it constantly beeps at you to say it is a bit cold.
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Sounds like my wife
 
Big Jeff said:
Would it not be prudent to drive at the speed limit and use your indicators as laid out in the Highway Code.

The fault seems to lie with you and your driving rather than your car.
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I do mostly stick to the speed limit, but I don't need to hear a beep if I occasionally drift over it a little bit. If I'm on the motorway then a lot of the time I will actively choose to break the speed limit, depending on conditions.

And when you are pulling back into the left lane after overtaking I believe you don't need to indicate. Also, if there is nothing on the roads, then I won't indicate to nobody no matter whether I'm going left to right or right to left lane.
 
Opening up supermarket packaging of meat/meal. Peeling the corner and it just ripping off and not even the slightest bit opening up the packaging. Then trying the other three corners having the same result. Concluding in various expletives from myself and stabbing of said item with a knife in a fit of rage.
 
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