Andy Stonehouse
April 23, 2008

I cannot imagine Andy Rooney comfortably being able to drive any modern automobile without going absolutely crazy.

“60 Minutes’” irascible grump, he of the caterpillar eyebrows and complete incompatibility with modern conveniences (and, as a result, my own personal role model), is, to some degree, the person I have in mind when I set myself behind the wheel of a new car and I think, “hmmm … does all this stuff really have to be this complicated?”

Granted, there’s plenty of modern technology that’s absolutely stunning, helping to create safer, more fuel-efficient and comfortable driving experiences. But almost universally — and in direct proportion to the automobile sticker price — the painstaking efforts made by engineering departments to justify their own existences, rather than keeping things simple, are often befuddling, even to those who are not 89 years old.

HVAC nightmares
The Germans and the Japanese are the biggest culprits (there’s some “Fawlty Towers” joke here that I’m not going to make), but suffice to say: What was wrong with the old fashioned fan, temperature and vent controls? I recognize that dual, triple or even quadruple climate zones may help prevent fighting among family members or the passenger-spouse who is always too cold/too hot, but really … the litany of heat flow/recirculation/transmogrification protocols found on many current systems (BMW, especially) is, well, completely insane.

Higher-end BMW systems are more complicated to use than the office air conditioning panel (hence the reason the HR person had it screwed shut so you wouldn’t go poking the buttons every five minutes); they’re part of the reason that BMW’s iDrive system has led to frequent psychiatric hospitalization among its owners. Audi’s similar top-end MMI system uses its real knobs to control electronic pictures of knobs, both go to 11 (just like that movie) and, for the love of God, apparently cannot ever be turned to “off,” except perhaps by yanking the battery out of the engine.

The winner, however, is the Toyota/Lexus family (Honda also goes down this road a bit), which crafts controls for people who, I guess, are not expected to ever adjust the controls: Physical buttons have been migrated to a subset of controls contained within a touchscreen controller. This is convenient if you live in, say, Carmel, where it is the same temperature every day of the year; those of us who live on parts of the planet with temperature variations will find ourselves poking the screen in endless frustration, especially when trying to defrost the windows or turn off the hurricane forces after accidentally hitting the “automatic” setting. The new Subaru Impreza I drove this week was fine: old-style knobs and no digitized guesswork. Evidently their engineers didn’t get the obfuscation memo.

Navi/audio chaos
I think I may defer to aftermarket heroes such as Garmin because of their pure simplicity: Buy one at Costco, throw some batteries in the unit, park it on the top of the dash, and in most instances, it will get you to your hotel, and not fight with you all the way like your cranky but now properly heated or cooled, know-it-all spouse. Open the glove box of most modern automobiles with built-in navigation systems and you will find a small Bible attempting to explain the controls (the new Lexus LX 570’s manual is literally 732 pages, and that may just be the annotated version). Consequently, trying to fake your way through most navi systems can be more than a challenge.

Even better, rules passed (I would assume) by the federal safety administration require that some systems be inaccessible and unprogrammable during travel, meaning that you will indeed be that out-of-town doorknob stopped in the middle of the street trying to figure out where your brother-in-law’s condo is. Granted, many systems now allow voice-activated access, which is a godsend; attempting, even when parked, to enter a numerical address (such as the Trail’s own 40780 U.S. Hwy 6 & 24) often takes longer than flagging down a passer-by.

Get it programmed and, depending on the origin of your vehicle, you will also frequently have the joyful experience of a mean-spirited robotic voice repeatedly scolding you for not attempting to conduct a u-turn in the middle of I-70 to reach a community which, despite being programmed on the GPS, has not been in existence since 1875 (Audi’s DVD-based system, for instance, recently substituted some ancient railway water stop for Wolcott, and then insisted for 30 miles that I attempt to turn around to go back there).

Keyless conundrums and panic buttons
Sure, they’re cool as hell on a Ferrari F430, useful if you’ve crashed during a race and are upside down and need to kill the engine. But the spawn of new push-button starters and, more irritatingly, the proliferation of keyless keys, seem like the clearest example of engineering for engineering’s sake.

Valets have now grown weary of customers who drop off their high-end ride only to abscond with the all-important keyless key, leaving the valet with a running automobile which cannot be unlocked, stopped or started — this is even more amusing if you’ve left the car with an airport valet and are already on your flight to Acapulco, and realize the key is still in your pocket. It’s great that many systems will unlock and light your car as you approach, adjust your seat and even set the radio and A/C to your preferences; the majority leave you with a gigantic lump in your pocket and a starter button component that I can only imagine will cost a few bucks to replace when it goes on the fritz. I miss the jingle of metal keys.

Air America
Finally, after approximately driving 400 different vehicles in the last four years, the one system which never, ever, ever works is the tire pressure monitoring gizmo. Beyond the many other overly sensitive electronic monitors (I got the BMW 335xi to generate an “engine broken” light on the display, which scared me quite a bit but went away after I turned the car on and off a few times), the tire pressure warning light has been permanently illuminated in, maybe, 50 of the cars I’ve driven.

Again, apparently a nice idea if you live in Carmel and never change altitude or temperature; Colorado’s extremes seem incompatible with the technology. Go to NAPA and buy a $2 air gauge instead.