I drive a Kia Seltos and while I got it because I wanted AWD, I found that anything past that has really made me second guess what Kia thinks a driver needs in the present day.
The first thing that I found wrong, was when I went to plug my IPod Touch into the USB socket in the front of the vehicle, underneath the control deck with the A/C. To find that it didn’t work except charge the IPod. When I did this with an old Sportage I drove, that was how I got my music when I didn’t want to listen to the radio.
But Kia thought we didn’t need this functionality. No, I will not fumble with ApplePlay to get music, because fuck Apple. Instead, I have to connect the IPod via Bluetooth which meant I could never pause/play, I have to risk taking my attention off driving to fiddle with the IPod to pause/play. I could also never see what song was playing nor can I navigate easily, because everything was No Info.
Speaking of this issue, I’ve had moments where I had to fight with the connectivity of the IPod and my vehicle. Where, the IPod would not be playing through the vehicle’s speakers, it would try to play from it’s little speakers. I don’t get this, it’s charged, it’s connected, the bluetooth connectivity is connected when I check both the device listing on the home dashboard and the IPod itself. But this is what the vehicle decides to do with my IPod instead of retaining connection to allow it to play on the speakers.
I actually have to randomly press buttons like disconnecting or changing devices and even sometimes having to stop Android Auto from hogging everything to finally get things working. SOME OF THE TIME, mind you.
Since I mentioned it, let me talk about Android Auto. I’m not a fan of it, it is a hog and practically takes hold of everything. Sometimes I can’t even change over to the IPod because Android Auto wants you to disconnect everything to even switch! Thanks Kia, for incorporating this level of obnoxiousness.
Other things I hate with Kia is when they feel they need to tell you what’s playing on the little screen where you need to know PSI, MPH and all that. When, we already see it on the bigger fucking interface screen on the dashboard!
The need to always hit ‘Confirm’ when presented this lecture of driving safely. Fuck off. I can ignore it when I go in reverse or just drive as normal, it’ll take awhile for it to go away.
Driving in reverse, presents the backup camera. I’ve noted that the backup camera will still remain on for a little longer even when driving forward. Why?
That stupid Auto Start/Stop system. A lot of vehicle manufacturers adopted this stupid feature. Kia included. I don’t see the point. Quite frankly, I see nothing but a huge safety hazard. What if you’re dealing with slippery conditions? What if you’re in snowy climates? What if there is no time for that when dealing with speedy drivers and heavy traffic? Who thought this was a good fucking idea?
I don’t care for Kia’s idea to digitize the dashboard and interface to finger-touching. Looking forward to cold conditions fucking it up if not already by making them dimmed or so. It’s just ugly.
Engines with start-stop have beefier starter motors. Electric motors can be sized for basically any task - the motors in my EV are not going to wear out and their duty cycle is crazy compared to a starter motor! So it’s just a matter of cost and size.
Sounds insane to require drivers to disable start-stop to pass a test - where’s that? You mention stop signs so that sounds like the US. I’m afraid I don’t really trust US driving tests to accomplish anything sensible…
Wait hold on… why’s that? Is there any juristiction where there are traffic laws, but no stop signs?
Stop signs are not a big part of driving in some countries. I obviously don’t know about everywhere, but in other countries I’m familiar with (Europe), most USA “stop” junctions are give way/priority/yield junctions where you don’t have to come to a complete stop, so stop-start would have no impact.
In the UK, you only get Stop signs on junctions where your view is so extremely limited that anything less than a stop or absolute dead crawl would just always be dangerous. They’re very rare. In comparison, Yield signs in the USA are comparitively rare (in my experience) and most junctions where you most yield priority are governed by Stop signs.
I guess the part of Italy I live in stop signs are best described by your second paragraph, but they’re pretty frequent. These roads get wild sometimes.
This is in Italy, it IS insane, and admittedly I don’t know how much my grievances against S&S are mitigated by automatic transmissions (never used in tests).
Tests do not require you to disable S&S, instructors simply tell you not to let out the clutch while in neutral to avoid it, but the strictest examiners see engine shutdowns as “failure to correctly operate the vehicle”, like stalling - if it happens once, we all make mistakes, if it happens twice, come on man, if it happens three times k gg bb, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a feature of the car.
There are arguments that having your engine off on the road is unsafe, I guess those examiners are just being zealous? If they even exist, I’m trusting my instructor’s tales on this factoid, but drivers’ ed here is very strict so I’m inclined to believe him.
Most of the people who turn S&S off do so because they find it annoying, I myself try to use it effectively but I prefer driving responsibly rather than playing chess with a half-metric-ton deadly weapon.
I do know that S&S systems require better starters, but that just means they cost more, right? And even if the increased cost is marginal, the increased fuel consumption on short stops is still a problem.
I see. That sounds very over-zealous to me, yes. The delay in moving off is so small that it doesn’t really have a safety impact (and the idea that a delay in moving off is a safety issue is way overblown in general, because the occasions when it comes up are so rare compared to the occasions when adequate braking comes up.).
The beefier motors do cost more, and I haven’t seen a cost comparison. I would imagine they don’t cost much more though, and soon pay for themselves if you’re driving in the city. And they won’t overall increase fuel consumption - that much is clear from measurements. A random reddit post claimed that the break-even point in stop-start is a mere 7 seconds, which is basically every red light. Idk if that’s reliable but it gives you something to consider.
I’d still like to be able to engage S&S with a button without shutting of the oil pump and whatnot, tbh.