Car Articles

Well we have heard of perforated seats that are climate controlled. And now we have driver seats that range from flat benches to the sort of hip-huggers that you find in an F-15, but some of them might actually be less comfortable than they claim to be. The BMW 7 Series features a massaging driver's seat, but the throbbing motions made by it can be felt downright Frankenstein compared to a real massage. In some of the more expensive models of Mercedes Benz, active side bolsters automatically inflate to hold you in as you take a corner. Now, they are real convenient on highways and winding roads, but the 90 degree turns in the city are a different thing altogether. They may result in a sudden rib pinching as the seats go hog-wild to keep up. So you might want to avoid heavy and oily food before you start your commute on the car. Otherwise you can wade through the Benz's onboard computer menus to turn the feature off.

No typo there, you read it correct enough. Volvo's Personal Car Communicator monitors the cabin and starts a signal on your keyfob if there has been an unexpected visitor inside the car. One of the TV ads show that a woman approaching her Volvo S80 in a deserted parking garage, seeing the warning and hightailing it away. From safety perspective, this feature is good. But just imagine, what kind of paranoia a person must suffer from to have this feature in their cars.

Navigation systems have become one of the most important car features for most people these days. While some of the voices are good, some sound quite bored, or even annoyed. Land Rover, as is suitable to its brand, utilises a nice British voice, but most other cars employ a female American voice whose intonations range from casually disinterested to downright annoyed. Some systems even go ahead to pronounce the local street names, but more than often the result is anything but clear.

The German luxury car manufacturer trio, Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz, has similar dashboard interfaces. But BMW's iDrive may drive you total nuts sometime. Directional inputs land you to several submenus, but in most models there are no shortcuts or previous screen buttons around the knob. In most of the BMW models, street labels are placed on a horizontal plane no matter the direction of the street, and if you want to scroll along the map you have to spin the knob to move east/west, then click it down and spin it again to move north/south. Quite a task for a feature which is intended to ease your driving maneuver.

The self-parking feature is optional on the Lexus LS sedan. What you have to do is: line up the superimposed square in the backup camera with your intended parking spot, then gently let go off the brakes and the sedan will slowly negotiate steer around adjacent cars as it backs into the spot. Press the brakes at the end to bring the car to a halt. But why do we need a feature like this: come on, we have all heard of something called valet parking.