For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, with most of the ire directed toward in-car infotainment.
Shocking. They’ve been trying to make the car a second living room, and in doing so sacrifice the driving experience by foregoing buttons, levers, and switches for capacitive surfaces and touchscreens.
The turn signal on the Tesla Yoke is shocking to me. It screams of tech boys adding “cool things” before thinking about whether or not it’s useful.
Then there’s all the anti-consumer practises. Buy a car, but don’t own it. Yes we shipped it with heated seats, which you obviously paid for, but to use them you’ll have to pay a monthly fee. And no, you’ll still pay for all the energy used, that’s not on us. But hey we’re actually giving you a better deal on it!
It’s all BS.
My gf’s Subaru makes me literally yell. No touch screen, but my god, all the controls are identical pushbuttons, pale grey symbols or tiny letters on silver. You have to squint at a pale LED readout to figure out what the HVAC is doing. Nothing is intuitive.
Meanwhile, in my 2002 Spyder and 2004 F-150, twist knobs, receive joy.
I love my subaru, but I do have everything on a stupid touch screen. I would have gone in that 2022 Forester that still had a bunch of real buttons, but it didn’t come with a turbo option so I went with the Outback where everything was integrated. Even then the Android auto experience could definitely be better.
Then there’s all the anti-consumer practises. Buy a car, but don’t own it. Yes we shipped it with heated seats, which you obviously paid for, but to use them you’ll have to pay a monthly fee.
“Existence as a subscription service” should’ve been nipped in the bud long before automakers worked up the nerve to pull this nonsense but I’m afraid it’s now too late. We’re all just sentient ATMs being bled dry every month by corporations that feel entitled to our money and have no interest in doing anything to actually earn it.
I just learned that higher-end Kia vehicles don’t have wireless CarPlay but the cheaper, smaller models do. It has something to do with the built-in navigation those models come with… which I would happily ditch to not have to be tethered to the car with crappy Apple iPhone wires. Love the vehicle but the head unit software is terrible. They can’t get the most basic things right because they’re too busy giving us pointless stuff we didn’t ask for.
As someone who drives a higher-end Kia SUV, and sells them, this is untrue. Off the top of my head without looking, I’m fairly positive the ONLY model to not get wireless is the Rio. Even then I think it may still get it.
So much wrong in your post. My ‘22 Stinger GT2 doesn’t have wireless AA or CarPlay. It absolutely does have to do with the built in GPS as the newer, less expensive vehicles/trims WITHOUT built in GPS allow wireless AA and CarPlay. Redline Reviews has mentioned this in his YouTube videos of KIA/Hyundai products, too. It is some kind of dispute between the maker of the maps for the factory GPS, KIA/Hyundai and Google/Apple. I have read numerous times that the hardware is present but it is blocked software side.
Aside from that, if you truly are selling these vehicles you need to brush up on the tech side.
So my 2023 Limited trim Hyundai Elantra is the same way. (And correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure KIA and Hyundai are more or else ‘the same’ at this point? Made by the same people or something?)
I ended up getting one of these: AAWireless 2023 - Wireless Android Auto Dongle - https://a.co/d/hXeBrWT
It’s not ideal but at least it elimates some of the wire mess and my phone itself isn’t physically tethered any where.
Works pretty solid for me so far.
My solution is for Android but surely there’s something similar for iPhone out there too?
Shouldn’t have to jump through hoops for this, especially for higher end models but here we are…
