For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, with most of the ire directed toward in-car infotainment.
For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, with most of the ire directed toward in-car infotainment.
I guess a lot of cars are putting most of their controls behind infotainment systems. I know a lot of the EVs do this (Tesla, and Chevy for certain), so I think it’s more a backlash against that.
I don’t have any of that in my car, except for Apple CarPlay, and I’m fairly satisfied with it. My previous car had OnStar, and that included built in navigation, satellite radio, and wifi. Quite frankly, with the exception of the emergency services OnStar has, I don’t miss the rest of it, and I’m sure as hell glad I don’t have to access climate control and other options thorugh a touchscreen. Fuck that.
Amen. Give me knobs! I can adjust volume, station, temperature, fan speed, wiper speed, and my headlights without looking away from the road.
Really tempted to swap for a system with phone integration for the maps, but not if I sacrifice safety. I’ll just keep using my dash mount for my phone!
I had a 2019 Jetta GLI. I set the temperature the day I got it and never bothered fiddling with it in the 4 years I had it. The fan speed and airflow looked after itself just fine. Temperatures here swing between -35 to +35, so it’s not like we don’t have variability.
It had rain sensing wipers and automatic headlights which worked perfectly. It did have physical controls for those, but I only used the wash and high-beam switches.
It had built in navigation, but I tended to use Apple Carplay and Google maps and Spotify for music.
Now that version of the Jetta had physical controls for heated/cooled seats, HVAC and audio functions. I just never used them aside from the seat heat/cool.
It also had a pile of redundant controls on the steering wheel. That’s where I controlled volume or selection.
I have the 35th Anniversary Edition. Absolutely one of the best cars I’ve ever owned. It’s almost perfect, and I love driving it. It’s exactly how you explained.
Some manufacturers are rolling back on this shit. Hyundai for a lot of hate and pushback for putting everything in the touchscreen on some cars and I assume they sold worse. They’re moving back to physical controls.
I like touchscreen controls for touchscreen functions. I have an Audi from 2019 when they were (I assume) trying for a best of both worlds approach using a touchless screen with console mounted controls including a weird touchpad and a control wheel. I might not want to drill through multiple menus to turn the ac up, but I do want to control my audio by tapping a screen rather than fiddling with console controls that require me to scroll through every available on screen widget with a scroll wheel.
My 2019 GLI has some of that; the radio controls are on the touchscreen, as well as some other functions for safety, drive mode, etc. but climate controls, cruise, lights, etc. are all manual. Thank God. Most of the touchscreen options related to the car are not available when driving…thank god again.
I test drove a Volt, and almost everything was on the touchscreen. Did not like. There is a comfortable medium. You’re right, no one wants to navigate through a bunch of menus when a knob does it so much easier, AND it’s so much safer.