For some time now I have been lamenbting the lack of choice in a car market supposedly devoted to have it your way. it started with the near mnadatory sunbroof on most cars, even though these add weight up high and are used maybe 2x per year. When I ordered my M3 sans sunroof the dealer had a fit. Now on many cars if you want the good options like say leather others which frankly suck are mnadatory. At mercedes the nice stereo comes with keyless, go, i dont know anybody who like keyless go, althogh maybe some people do. Then whats with the obesession with big wheels which destroy ride and add unsprung weight. Was looking at jaguar Ftypes this weekend. And big mtor option come swith madatory 20 inch wheels. Maybe those work in arizona but they are a no no in the Ne, yet you cant get the car without them. You cant get a Range rover with the V8 unless you have a glass roof, which for me sucks, I dont wnat to be in a greenhouse, or pay for worthless crap. Do people really demand these so called options, or do manufacturers have sucha markup on them that they are mnadatory on upscale car/option group. In fact I dotn get the new Rr at all. No doubt its a lot lighter than the previosu one and performs better, but the new interior is uninspired and frankly looks like a cheaper less creative option compared to the one before. Yet the car is sold out, so what do I know.
We had a thread on this not long ago and the consensus is that "women dictate the car buying decision in most households". So the manufacturers appeal to women. Every SUV on the market (with the exception of G Wagon) is is an aluminum, mall crawling POS. I hate every car on the road. I'm now restoring "older" cars to make as my DD and fun cars. Lot's of benefits to this. I hate all new cars. I'm done with them.
I hear you about women dictating the suv market. Yet that does not explain the big wheel pehomenum. But yeah Mercedes keeps on trying to get me to trade in my old Gl450 for the "improved" one. I have written to them several times that they would need to make a car i woudl want to buy. the steering on the new one is so horrid as to be beyond description. Loose isa compliment to describe it, apprently women prefer a lighter feel. Or at least clinics tell them that. Then the motor has a crappy V8 ersatz burble, maybe cool in an amy sedan, I prefer my mercdes V8s in big cars and suvs to be more turbine smmoth and quite. Frankly I think they dont have a clue. I fear for Gm, they seem obsessed with market metrics now and auto drive functions for the new caddy, how about making good cars in stead of faking it with electronics? The survival of the Gwagen shoudl be a clue to mercedes that bank vault build and sold feeling swich gear has an appeal to a lot of people, just to name one or two features. Freind came by with his new BMW 335Ix, what a pos, barely felt like I was driving, in fact how do you drive when you are so divorced from the controls and the whole process. Probably safer to have auto drive then. Going to buy a challenger as its one of the few real cars still biult, maybe awarngelr too. In a few years its going to be mandatory rader braking systems, vtv etc.
Manufacturers like bundling because it reduces complexity compared to an a la carte options menu, and it increases sales prices by adding content. Chrysler has gone against the trend in the last few years and said you can order your car (or at least the Dart--that's the context I heard this in) any way you want, and opened up many options to be selected individually.
I get that part. But it seems to me the option bundles include options people dont really want, like keyless go with a nice stereo, maybe its a way to shove poorly concieved things down the consumers throat. Or even worse dub wheels on any performance option, which engineers say marketing forces on them. I woudl love to see the takeup rate on lane departure systems at say BMw where it really is a stand alone option. I also love the way the idiotic germans are trying to sell mandatory stop start as some type of feature we may actualy like. Maybe the consume are just clueless. But then I am reminded that untill recently BMW built an entire brand on selling cars to the non clueless. Just like VW is sustained by Golf GTi sales. Still the RR is backordered for 6 months. All this for a car thta replaced an origional and stylish interior with a flat pannel of leather with two TFT screens.
They are marketing to..... 1. Women 2. The clueless who know nothing about the mechanical workings of a car. My new G63 has that "ECO" on/off function which is beyond bizzare to me. Other than that I love the car. It will continue to get worse. Next time you are at Disney or any other theme park have a look around at the people. This is America. Fat and Dumb.
My wife drives a Caddy SRX with 20" wheels (performance pkg. option), and the panoramic sunroof which covers nearly the entire car. It was her decision and I kept my opinion to myself because she liked the looks of the rims and sunroof. If you've been married for any length of time, you'll understand why it's better to keep one's mouth shut and just keep the little lady happy!
Yes I know, it works to fudge on the euro co2 test cysle. It does little to nothing on the US epa cysle. It is an irritant at best. Yet european manufacturers are apparently so contemptuous of their US clientale that its mandatroy from them here, and they sell it as a standard "feature"
In my experience. Starting and Stopping an engine causes more wear and tear than letting it run. Is there anything new about these engines that this isn't the case anymore?
It is driven primarily by profit, with some pushing from the government. Higher gross sales mean higher profits. If you put option X in virtually every car, the cost per unit goes down. So adding lane departure warning (really, you need the car to tell you there is someone in the NEXT LANE????) to all cars will reduce the cost greatly if a stand alone option. Keyless go is another answer to the question no one asked. Is it really that hard to take out a key and put it in the slot for the ignition? I think a lot of the "bundled" options add things not many of us want. The government also "encourages" things, such as stop/start. At least on most cars it is defeatable, but no debating, it does add some cost to the car if you don't want it. But its purpose is to improve the CAFE numbers, which is a legitimate concern of car companies. Selling cars to the "non clueless" was BMW and some of the P car products. BMW M division used to build real driver's cars, with a minimum of extra stuff. That really changed with the E60 as the idea was to create a greater sales base (read people who can't drive a 3 pedal manual). Still build very good cars, but too much junk technology (piped in engine sounds!!!) and porking up (F10 M5 about 4400 lbs.) The new M3/4 is the size of 2 generations ago 5 series. So everything gets bigger and heavier. In defense, the new M3/4 series has dropped some weight, gone with high tech, high revving turbo 6 cylinder, so there is some hope yet. Similar over at Porsche, 997 is the first gen 911 with an auto turbo S only; no manual. Only the regular turbo has the 3 pedal manual. 991 GT3 has NO MANUAL. MB AMG started whoring themselves out sometime around the takeover of AMG as an independent company to come in house with MB. All about making a profit; understandable, but they are diluting the halo brand that the German's have worked so hard to establish. At least IMHO. Switching back to decaf........ Regards, Jerry
Bah. You obviously have not researched Audi. We have a 2014 S7, just passed 1 year of ownership. Start/stop is standard in Europe on the twin turbo V8; it was not offered at all on the North American version of the S7. Forget about BMW, they lost the plot for the Ultimate Driving Machines a decade ago. You'll want an Audi once you have a look.
I just restored a 1983 Defender 110. Loaded it out with all sorts of goodies. Next stop is an "older" Porsche. I wanna pull it apart and put it back together then drive the hell out of it. A new one is over $100K. There's plenty of room to do these projects. I saw a 1998 BMW 750 yesterday. I love that Body Style. Pick one up cheap and do a frame off restoration. Make it look showroom new and you have a really nice car that nobody else has. Take it to the stereo shop and have a bluetooth/nav soundsystem installed and it's as good as what comes in these new cars. All the new cars look the same. They're all too fragile and really designed to be disposable. I'm not giving them my money anymore.
And meet eminent Euro legislation that requires cars that are stopped to have their engines off -- even if they don't have stop/start. (I'm sure that's great for engine life.)
Drove a friends A6 and it was a superior machine, too bad about their crappy riding SUV though. In any event as good as the audi cars may be I literaly hate Audi's and here is why. Their blind spot warining sytem works on K band, so not only are you radiatong yourself, but you set my detector off. To an extent I can spot and audi on the valentine because its 3 signals in kband. Mostly the audis are going so slow that we pass them in good time and get rid of the signal. Still its an example of manufacturer clueslessness to install a system that inteferes with a system most perfoirmance drivers use ie a detector. Yes I know you can defeat K band on your detector, but some states and cops still use it, so then youa re flying blind. Still it makes me hate audis, listening to them set off beeps and muddying the signal I need to detetct. i juts think the germans are pretty cluelss or arrogant about road and driving conditions in the USA, except in some perverse way parts of BMW who still offer astick in the m series, but that is an anomolous act.. Yeah BMW seems to have lost the plot, but hey they incresed sales, at least for now. Dictating cars leads to loss of sales in the long run, that is why ferrari is "volontarily decreasing" sales to below 7k units now in order to "maintain exclusivity", and why VW sales crashed after the public reliased thye were driving "americanised cars" ie crap. Yes I know sergio said he would increase ferrari sales, but to do that he will need some more product, something that appeals to entusiasts as opposed to just capuchhino bar broker valet parkers.
The good part about Europe is its current relevance to the world is as an adult theme park for historic sights, wine and reteraunts. Besides German car manufacture its almost completly irrelevant golbaly and maybe after putin takes it over thye will get real. Bizzare pedestrian standards have given us ugly cars from europe, we also always hear the hi perf euro manufactuerers talking baout fuel economy allt he time. Here is a clue Porche, the person spending 100k on your car is not so sensitive to nth degree fuel economy, sell that story in euroland. How many people have been prvably saved by the ero pedestrain laws, in ero land and in the usa. in fact in the USA we can probably measure the difference, and its probably close to zero hence nothing published.
This. When I inquired about ordering a Cayman without a nav system the salesman looked at me as though I had requested the diesel option. That said, I generally like Porsche's approach -- choose whatever options you want. I've had several Audis, also, but always get stuck with one of three choices ("Prestige", "Premium Plus" or "Premium") that has crap I didn't want.
What's not to like about keyless go? Does inserting and turning a key make you feel like you're more connected to the car?
LMAO! True. Were you able to get one wihout NAV? I've never seen one without it. MB and Mazda seem to be enthralled with the idea of an iPad lookalike affixed to the dash. Hideous to me and ensures I won't buy one. BMW also seems to be keen on screens that stick up high on the dash. Mildly more integrated but equally hideous. Would love to get an E class with no nav, no sunroof, but still have great leather...from what I've seen, can't be done. Also agree that the huge wheels are a turn off. A friend got his E90 M3 with manual trans, 18" wheels and IIRC no sunroof. Dealer argued against said purchase as it would be "sale proof" later. Ridiculous. The one feature I find ages my daily drivers faster than any other is the NAV system. Yet, it's hard to get a car without them. Stupid. Asked about ordering a new Land Cruiser without NAV, was told it's not possible. Sale lost. So stupid. I'm about to the point where Jason is. It's starting to make more sense on several levels(other than crash safety) to just start restoring cars I actually LIKE to be used as daily drivers.
