Newer Cars Rant, Why must they complicate things so much?!? Options

[d3ath2009]

Just wanted to rant about how newer cars are becoming less and less customizable. Honda has done a mid-life refresh of my current car that has a few little odds and ends I would LOVE to have on mine, but such things are impossible because of how stupid auto manufacturers have become. This refresh includes a new, much cleaner layout for the gauge cluster as well as an updated infotainment system. The new cluster looks better, but swapping is not possible due to everything they have routed through it (think new safety features, adaptive cruise, etc.) and forget about trying to update the odometer. The new infotainment, however, is the best upgrade to the whole damn car. It's amazing how something so simple as bringing back a volume knob instead of a stupid sliding feature on a touchscreen (and Apple Car Play) will make you envious. And of course that can no longer be swapped as modern units are coded to the cars computer and VIN. Stupid, stupid, stupid.. Whatever happened to the easiness of swapping out newer parts for newer features without needing a coding expert or dealership to make it work? I fear the golden age of easy customization and upgrading is behind us... Rant over... for now.

This post has been edited by d3ath2009: Nov 26, 2017 - 9:55 PM

[Box]

We're back to keeping up with the Joneses, back before the 70's cars went through a refresh every year in order to make people want to go and trade in for the new model. Then for some reason they decided it was easier to keep refreshes to every 3-4 years. It's just part of it, with having gone away from a universal standard for radios in most all cars (the Toyobaru twins being the only exception I can think of) you better like what it has from the factory. I don't agree with it, but it's what the en masse seems to want in their cars. Especially now with most cars routing things like climate control and etc... through the infotainment system it's impossible to change any of it. Moral of the story, buy a Toyobaru or something old.