[arunramaswamy]

Too many Electronics, too many features that starts with "Auto" including the GB and hatch-on-stilts claiming to be SUV. Just dilutes the pleasure of driving for me.

[Miyata]

Things I find distasteful on cars -

1) Large grills - "Hideous" would be one words to describe them.

2) Body creases and sweeping lines - I know these are passing fads and will change from generation to next. I am yet to see an example where they've made things better and beautiful.

3) Car reverse sound and beep - In a country where noise pollution is already so high, when did this trend really start? More importantly, will it ever end? If I had just one pick to get rid of from cars, I would pick this.

[arun_josie]

• Chrome touches are fine but these days its just too much around the car. There are even special chrome packages available as accessories to jazz up your car. In the end, it just looks tacky.

• Too much of electronics that assist driving takes away the fun in driving.

• The speed beep which is made mandatory now.

[bigben]

Projector lamps and DRL's in mass market cars:

Projector lamps really blind oncoming traffic. Most of the drivers of these cars drive with high beam and that's an issue.

DRL's - a safety feature but used the wrong way can be problematic. For e.g. Driving only with DRL's at night

[Ithaca]

Few pet peeves.

A few cars I test drove last two years have 6 way / 8 way electronic seat adjuster for the driver side only and not the front passenger.
If manufacturers do not wish to provide this for passenger, I hope they sell it as an accessory.

Top end automatic variant sometimes misses the goodies that the top end manual variant has. Creta is what comes to my mind. SX(O) vs SX+ variant.

Heat protection / Insulation for the bonnet cover missing or smaller in size.

Some car makers do not give customer the option to opt for tyre manufacturer of his choice.
It all depends on the current supplier at the factory.
Why not give the customer what he wants as an option during the buying process.
The first purchase for most buyers on this forum seem to be tyres and alloys.
We replace the OEM tyres with tyres of our preferred manufacturer.

Replacing parts instead of repairing components is another trend that is catching up here.

[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

3. 9-speed (or more) gearboxes - The new CR-V and some Mercedes-Benz cars come with 9 speed gearboxes! Is it really required or has the number of cogs in a gear become just a spec-sheet number now?

Well, with the narrow torque curves in newer engines, more gears are actually required. Keeps the engine in power band always. Not just a number. Mostly because of strict emission laws and smaller capacity engines.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by bigben

Projector lamps and DRL's in mass market cars:

Projector lamps really blind oncoming traffic. Most of the drivers of these cars drive with high beam and that's an issue.

DRL's - a safety feature but used the wrong way can be problematic. For e.g. Driving only with DRL's at night

Projectors don't blind, my friend. Projectors only enable an even spread of light where it is directed, while also providing a sharp cut off at the top so as to not blind oncoming traffic. Projector is only the optics, and it is superior to your basic reflector in every way. It is the choice of bulb and color temperature which causes problems. You use those blue-white LED bulbs in a reflector based headlight directly, and the resulting glare will be so much worse.

Also, mass market cars offer projectors for the low beam only. The high beam is a simple reflector based halogen as always. Nobody offers a dual projector setup under 25L

[Rajeevraj]

• The prevalence and push of the 'AMT' Automatics.
  
• Less focus on the engine and other drivability parameters and more on all the nice to have things and related blings
  
• Sad looking LED DRLs.
  
• Focus on fuel efficiency and the race to call out big ARAI numbers irrespective of the compromises.
  
• The trend towards lighter feeling builds even by the manufacturers known for focusing on solid builds.
  
• Regular irrelevant face-lifts and special editions just focused on increasing the price.
  
• Like with most things out there now, everything looks the same with small small differences here and there. Miss the fact that there are very few models being launched that really really stand out from the crowd. The Tiago JTP would be a decent example. Nobody seems to be interested in doing that.
  

[bigben]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

Projectors don't blind, my friend. Projectors only enable an even spread of light where it is directed, while also providing a sharp cut off at the top so as to not blind oncoming traffic. Projector is only the optics, and it is superior to your basic reflector in every way. It is the choice of bulb and color temperature which causes problems. You use those blue-white LED bulbs in a reflector based headlight directly, and the resulting glare will be so much worse.

Also, mass market cars offer projectors for the low beam only. The high beam is a simple reflector based halogen as always. Nobody offers a dual projector setup under 25L

The new generation of Maruti cars- the Baleno, swift and Dzire have these lights. A single projector with both high and low beam and no halogen for high beam.
Whatever you say may be true about the beam cut off. Irrespective of this, I still find them blinding.

[MalluDude]

Touchscreen for climate control! You now have to take you eyes of the road to adjust the temperature/fan speed, whereas earlier you could have done it on the blind.

And of course, the back wiper for hatchbacks. Thankfully, cars like Baleno are bucking the trend.

[GTO]

Lovely thread, Kanad! Thanks for sharing. Couple of points from me:

- Automatics are increasing in popularity, but few manufacturers are thinking about the brakes! Most ATs have the same braking hardware as their MT siblings when the fact is, they should have stronger / larger brakes due to the lack of / lesser engine braking in ATs. Even the 20-lakh rupee Creta AT has brakes that leave you wanting for more.

- Somewhat related, but a trend I don't like in modern India. I truly respect Maruti & Hyundai for their well-deserved success, but the duopoly is restricting our access to great cars from other brands. Every MNC car maker is scared to make more investments here because of this duopoly. The fear of a non-Maruti / non-Hyundai car flopping is extremely high.

- Bling has become more important than sheer engineering to customers.

- I hate how cars now feel so 'disconnected', even the best of them. Just drive the new Octavia vRS versus the iconic 1st-gen car and you'll know what I'm talking about. That "raw" mechanical feel is missing. It's one of the biggest reasons that I have retained & enjoy driving my Jeep. Every time I'm behind the Jeep's wheel, it's a throwback to a different era. She leaves me smiling.

- Lighter feeling build. Manufacturers have to strengthen the basic structure for safety, so the doors etc. get thinner sheet metal. I don't like flimsy exterior panels.

- Service & maintenance bills going up, up, up. Today's cars aren't built for repairs; they are built for replacements. I am honestly shocked when I see the service invoices of some mass-market cars on Team-BHP. Spending 10 grand on a hatchback's service is no longer a big deal. Just swipe your credit card, baby or PayTM the amount!

- Overworked workshops. India now sells 3 lakh new cars a month, but we haven't seen the same expansion in service stations. I have yet to see an authorised workshop that has a comfortable level of work load. Everyone is stressed & some even have waiting periods of 2 - 3 weeks! Under-capacity usually leads to quality lapses.

- I would partially agree with some BHPians on EPS, but will say that some of the new EPS' are fantastic. You don't feel like you're missing out on anything. Of course, there is no comparison to the purity of well-calibrated hydraulic steerings like that of the Civic or Linea.

- AMTs . Sure, I understand their relevance to India because of cost & fuel efficiency, but they suck in terms of smoothness & response time.

- Styling: There are very few cars that wear timeless clothes today. Compare the BMW F10 to the weird G30.

- Simply impractical wheel sizes. 17" wheels on MPVs & 18" on sedans. That is crazy for India. Large wheels + short sidewalls lead to poorer ride quality, tyre damage and more expensive replacements (even the scheduled ones).

- Luxury cars losing their luxurious ride quality. In the 90s, nearly all luxury cars gave you a magic carpet ride. Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find 50-lakh cars that offer exemplary ride comfort like the Duster or Hexa - related thread (Why does ride quality suck in so many luxury cars?).

- Luxury car prices going up, up, up - related thread (The ridiculous price hikes of German luxury cars - Mercedes, BMW & Audi). All of them are grossly overpriced IMHO. I shudder at the thought of a C-Class costing 50 big ones.

- Smaller engines & triple-cylinder motors . What's worse, 6-cylinder petrols are almost inexistent in India, while many manufacturers have discontinued 6-cylinder diesels from their cars (e.g. Audi A6).

- Thick A-Pillars. I understand they improve passive safety via a stronger structure, but they destroy active safety with the kind of blind spots created.

- Shrinking fuel tanks (e.g. Amaze with its 35-liter fuel tank!). Is this to save weight or for packaging?

- Diesels becoming a bad word. Yes, they are to blame, but come on...there is nothing quite like the torque of a well-tuned turbo diesel. Some of the new diesels are revv happy too.

- Manuals disappearing from the luxury cars. I still miss the driving experience of my C220 with its 6-speed MT.

[roy_libran]

All of the above, and then - curves!

Any car that I see, I miss the squares, right angles, acute angles, sharp lines, pointed features. It's as if the entire world has contrived to round-ify and curv-ify every single car. I just hate that!

[ashis89]

The following trends come to my mind which I don't like:

1. Touchscreen, anywhere in the car. For me, that's a big distraction while driving.

2. KESS systems. Again I love the manual key with a few buttons on the remote.

3. Too many electronics, including the ones I mentioned above. These increase the chance of failure, expensive repair/replacements and fear of getting stranded.

4. Small engines with a lot of focus on fuel efficiency which impacts the low end performance. With increasing traffic, for daily city use, the low end performance is more important than a strong top end. However, today's engines are more focused towards FE and top end.

5. Fancy features such as projector headlamps, sunroof, DRLs, LED lights, LCD displays and so on. These increase the overall cost of ownership of the car over its lifetime.

6. Due to point 5, OEMs are reducing the overall quality to keep costs in control. In the process, the average life of the vehicle reduces a lot. Somewhat like planned obsolescence.

7. Low profile big tyres which look good but are not suited for Indian roads.

8. Introductory pricing by the OEMs and then silent increase in prices and/or removal features early into the model's life cycle.

9. Decreasing service intervals of vehicles even if the service includes just general check-up. It is a wastage of time for the owner and easy money for the service centers.

[shebin]

Originally Posted by Samba

I miss the timeless design of the old cars. Specially the no-nonsense body lines. They were simple yet elegant.

From 90's (Toyota Supra in 90's)
Attachment 1820595

The exterior of modern cars are filled with creases and looks so busy and cluttered.

From 2018 (Toyota Supra in 2018)
Attachment 1820596


The interior of the old cars looked simple and gave a feel like, we are inside a car unlike the modern day cars which feel like a cockpit or as if we are in front of a complicated computer!

Interior of an old car-
Attachment 1820597

Today's car-
Attachment 1820598

Few other points-
The bad time is yet to come for the driving enthusiasts -

Manual cars are slowly getting replaced by automatics.
Electric cars will spread rapidly by next 10 years.
May be autonomous cars will be the future!

Disclaimer- I am an old school guy & i love retro designs, so my views may be biased! The changes are off-course for a better tomorrow. I am just being selfish!

All the above pics are shared from Google.

Agree.that's the reason whenever i see a well maintained old esteem,baleno,First gen city,skoda octavia etc my heart beats fast.Nowadays none of the new cars except Ocatvia makes me feel that way

[Nav-i-gator]

1. Lack of bonnet insulation sheet, and more so, boot lid cover. Instant dislike when I see a naked boot lid.

2. Never experienced one, but electronic parking brake! No matter what, I would feel safer with a mechanical one.

3. Chrome enough said.

4. While a lot of members are lamenting trend of "pseudo-SUVs" and "Hatchback on stilts", it is still much better than "pseudo-sedans" - sub-4m hatches with a pinched out boot

Aside, I can see a lot of members talking about too much "auto" thingys in cars. I don't mind. After all, we are talking about AUTOmobiles here. But seriously, I wont mind auto settings as long as there is a manual override available for those features.