Cars

I want a car with all of the modern safety features - pre-collision braking, lane departure warning, blind spot warning. And luxury features - adaptive cruise control, automatic bright lights, electric seat adjustment, heated seats, leather wrapped steering wheel.

BUT -

I will not buy a car with a sunroof/moonroof. Every sunroof that I have owned has either leaked or rattled (Volvo, Acura, BMW, Honda). They take up an inch or more of headroom and add, as I recall, about fifty pounds at the worst possible location (for center of gravity). Yours doesn't leak? - wait until the drain clogs. Then they will need to remove the carpet to dry it out or risk permanent mildew. Then they will have to avoid oil spots on the carpet and get it back in correctly. Good luck. I won't be taking that chance.

Leather seats? - no thanks. They are hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and slippery. You can add a seat heater which does NOT solve the cold problem because it turns on after you sit down. You can add a seat ventilator which does NOT solve the heat problem because it turns on after you sit down. And worse, if the manufacturer decides to save money by heating the seats via the ventilator, the heating becomes useless - slow to turn on and not hot. I will not buy a car with leather seats. (Of course vinyl is essentially bad quality leather.)

Cars need ground clearance. I will not buy a car that scrapes speed bumps and driveway ramps and bottoms out on common potholes. Five inches minimum - six inches if I can get it.

A touch screen is a TERRIBLE user interface in a car. There is no tactile feedback. And with the typical small touchscreen buttons and vibration induced positional error, they take way too much visual attention and are way too easy to miss.

I hate gas stations. Give me a BIG gas tank.

Why can't you cool the car when it's parked in the sun. Heat rejecting glass might help, but it doesn't fix the problem. Why not have a fan to keep the interior cool?

I want a bumper on the front of the car. Don't give me an ugly grill that has no protective value.

When are we going to get a U-TURN signal on cars? More and more roads require u-turns to get where you want to go. And the u-turner has the right of way over a right turn on red across the street. But you can't signal a u-turn so you often get cut off from your turn.

And stop with the UGLY styling. I don't care how "bold" the styling is. I have to look at my car several times every day as I approach it to get in. I don't want to think "God that's ugly" every time - it puts me in a bad mood. And I don't care if all of your cars look the same or distinct. I want pretty. I want to think "that's a nice design" and get in feeling happy.

And NEW CAR STINK is NOT good. It is noxious and offensive. (I leave my new cars in the sun to heat the interior and bake out the new car smell as quickly as possible.)

What is the point of fog lights? I have never found them useful, even in fog. What a waste.

What happened to door ding strips? I don't like door dings - give me some protection.

I don't know if this is a common issue - it is on my 2012 Camry. When it's cold outside, the ventilation pipe, underneath the center cup holders and storage bin, heats anything above, ruining cold drinks and cooking anything in the bin. How about some insulation?

Again with my 2012 Camry - random mode for a collection of songs should not mean choose a song at random from the folder. It should mean sort the songs in a random order. There is a big difference. After I've heard half the songs, over half the time I'm getting a repeat song.

I have now given up on Volkswagen, Honda, Acura, Mercedes, BMW, and Volvo because, after buying one or two cars that were okay, they decided to stop making anything that I want (this covers 38 years of owning cars). Volkswagen - no more Scirocco, terrible reliability. Honda - no more CRX. Acura - no more Integra, horrible option choices. BMW - rain leaks, no ground clearance, attractive cars replaced with ugly. Volvo - no more S40, limited options.

I understand that I'm outside of the mainstream. Some companies used to market to niches. Why no more?

Does ANYONE want my business?