Car Features That Were A Horrible Mistake

For as long as there have been cars, manufacturers have been packing them with as many features as possible. These often make our lives easier by making the car more comfortable or more practical while some features make it more efficient and affordable to operate. Features can be necessary systems that are required for full function or they can be superfluous additions that exist just to make life easier. Often, they just look cool — and may not even have a productive purpose.

We have seen some brilliant additions to the automobile like satellite navigation, remote start, and even fuel injection. These make the cars objectively better. Still, sometimes engineers and designers get things wrong. Sometimes the government mandates things that maybe should have been left alone. When a feature goes awry, it usually creates bad press that gets even worse in the rumor mill. Here we have a list of some auto features that proved to be horrible mistakes.

From the 1950s until today, automakers have put much effort into making cars safer. We reported that Nash first offered a seat belt as an option and Volvo first made them standard. Technology in safety advanced significantly from the 1950s to the 1980s, and laws requiring the use of seatbelts reduced traffic fatalities in this time period. Sometimes, automakers introduce a feature to enhance safety with convenience. Automatic seatbelts are one such idea.

In many cars of the early 1990s, shoulder belts were attached to a buckle that moved along the door frame on a track and automatically secured the occupant upon closing the door. In some models, it was simply attached permanently to the door and the act of opening the door itself allowed you to enter the vehicle. This left the lap belt to be fastened manually. Everyone who rode in one of these cars hated these seatbelts. Jalopnik says that this feature existed to appease NHTSA regulators and avoid installing more expensive airbags in their cars. Because they were so annoying, many people simply unhooked them or never bothered to fasten the lap belt, making the ride potentially more dangerous.

Including the BMW iDrive system on this list is, admittedly, a bit controversial. The focus here is on the earliest versions of it, as it has been updated and upgraded continually for around two decades. BMW has a fervent fan base that will stand by just about anything they make, including early iDrive, but detractors can be found. According to the manufacturer, the first BMW with iDrive was the 2001 7 series.

Early iDrives consisted of a screen in the center of the dashboard and were operated with a rotary dial and a couple of variable function buttons. The biggest complaints come from the complexity of the system and the lag. It features extraneous menus that must be navigated to accomplish functions previously handled by a button. This did give the designers the ability to clean up the interior and offer a less cluttered cabin. It would be tough to say it is a universally panned feature. Motor Trend acknowledged early adopters finding it a bit complicated and that it required eyes off the road for too long for some functions.

Current iterations of iDrive are vastly improved and highly intuitive systems. It took a long way to get there and the company had to start somewhere. But for some, early iDrive cars are models to avoid.

While not officially an automotive feature seen on any production cars, a jet engine was built into cars that were actually made and driven on public roads. Ford experimented with a turbine and, In 1963, Chrysler built several prototypes as a sort of proof of concept project. Car and Driver explains that Chrysler actually built 50 of these cars and they were far beyond the prototype stage and were the result of years of development. Chrysler executives had it in their heads that turbines could be the way of the future. It was the Jet Age after all. In the end, jet engines are way too expensive and not ideally suited for stop-and-go traffic.

Of the 50 cars that Chrysler created, most of them were destroyed. Sadly, people would not be buzzing around with the familiar whirr and whine of a jet turbine down Main Street. There are two remaining vehicles though. One of them is, of course, owned by Jay Leno and is part of his massively impressive collection of automobiles and more. The other has been housed in a museum in St. Louis and was put up for sale as recently as 2021.

Cylinder deactivation is among the many ways modern cars achieve efficiency, but it is not a new concept. Cadillac created a V8 engine with cylinder deactivation for their 1980 model year and dubbed it the V8-6-4. The idea is that when the car starts out, it would act as a regular V8. Then, when it gets to cruising speed, cylinders would deactivate until it could run down the highway on just half the available cylinders, thus reducing fuel usage significantly. As Hemmings notes, the system was woefully inadequate for its purpose. The software that ran it was not fast enough to keep up and the solenoids that released compression failed. It did not last long.

The problems with the V8-6-4 are almost legendary. Cadillac discontinued the system after only a year and many, if not most, owners had their dealers deactivate it not long after buying their cars. Finding a Cadillac with a working V8-6-4 engine could be a difficult task today.

After carmakers developed the machines to be more than just mechanical devices that could move under their own power, extra features have been added. As cars' complexity rose, so did the number of features added. Eventually added features became superfluous options that anyone could live without, but enjoyed the added convenience or comfort they offered. And with the extra features cam pricing models that allowed consumers to sometimes pick and choose what features cam on the car. Sometimes this would be done in packages or a customer coil special order car with specific options to their liking.

In this advanced era of technology, the array of possible features is dizzying. Furthermore, many of today's options are nothing but changes to the software that differentiate one model from another, in basic terms. As such, the new trend from manufacturers is to offer these software-based changes as a subscription-based service. As recently as 2020, Consumer Reports reported on this phenomenon coming on top tier vehicles like Porsche and Cadillac. The options that were once taken for granted as a permanent feature are things such as remote start or adaptive cruise control. It seems the era of owning the entirety of a car at the point of purchase is ending, and this ongoing revenue model is an insidious cash grab for manufacturers, and Forbes predicts this is just getting started. With any luck, consumer backlash will let the auto manufacturers know that this is a horrible mistake.

This feature will elucidate a more fervent response specifically from anyone who was a kid in the '80s. Several cars across the GM range had rear windows that only rolled down a few inches or, shockingly, did not open at all. Scores of Gen-X kids rode around in mid-size sedans often in hot climates with no relief except for whatever breeze was available from the front windows. Finding a car today without factory air conditioning is exceedingly rare, but in the eighties, it was still an option that not every car had.

Jason Torchinsky at Jalopnik pondered the origin of this so-called feature, noting that it infected GM A and G-bodies from 1978 to 1983, and four-door Chrysler K-cars in 1981. And it turns out the origin of the sealed back window is a mystery. Rumors exist that this was done for safety reasons, but no information exists to back up that claim. Also, it was not for cutting costs as other manufacturers managed to make a dollar while including opening windows on all four doors of their sedans. Fortunately, it only lasted a few years and children need not suffer this calamity anymore.

Carmakers have a long history of including styling flourishes meant to invoke something of a past era of transportation, such as the aircraft-style elements of the jet-age cars. Many of the finest automobiles from the early 20th century sported fabric roofs that gave the cars a distinctive style.

With the 1956 Cadillac Eldorado, Auto Trader tells us, the faux vinyl roof made a splash. It was recreating a look started in the 1920s with vinyl rooks that emulated a movable top but served as a permanent roof. That lasted until steel replaced the vinyl. But with the Eldorado, the vinyl served no functional purpose. The Eldorado Seville was graced with a vinyl called Vicodec to give it the distinguished look of its convertible Biarritz stablemate. The full or partial vinyl roof has graced the tops of many models from practically all the manufacturers since then.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, vinyl graced the roofs of cars from lowly economy cars to hefty muscle cars, and became a staple of the luxury segment. Almost no self-respecting Cadillac or Lincoln could be caught without the faux droptop fashion. The dark side of the landau roof is age. As the cars sat in the sun and were exposed to the elements, these vinyl abominations cracked, faded, and peeled away. The trend finally subsided in the 1990s and only on a select group of terrible custom cars did aftermarket installer put a custom vinyl roof on anything.

Toyota vehicles are known for their legendary reliability. It is one of the biggest reasons for the company's sales success. When people ask about a reliable vehicle, Toyota is reliably the answer. In the truck market, reliability is not the only factor as customers also want something that is strong and rugged and Toyota delivers in this category as well. Originally known for their line of small pickups, Toyota has built a long line of simple and dependable trucks that could endure the harshest environments and overcome just about anything thrown at them.

We reported that a class-action lawsuit was brought against Toyota that resulted in a settlement of about $3.4 billion in which Toyota would replace the entire frames of about 1.5 million 2005 to 2010 Tacoma compact pickups and other models. The settlement concludes that the trucks had inadequate rust protection which caused them to rust through, literally leaving some vehicles to break in half.

Toyota frames have long used a fully closed box channel frame to make their little pickups extremely strong. It is likely the reason they can handle so much work for their size. Toyota admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement, so there is no official proof the frame design caused any rust and older Toyotas had no issues. However, it is interesting that, according to Tread magazine, the American truck manufacturers have recently adopted the box frame while Toyota has now switched to the open C-channel.