Safe Speed Forums

Haha nooo! I mean...

I want the inside of the car to be whatever the outside temperature is, plus or minus a few degrees. As long as it is within my minimum/maximum temperature ranges. It makes sense in my head but probably is just silly.

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Andrew.

My last four cars have been from VAG.

The first, a Golf VR6, had a really crappy intermittent wipe system. You had to turn on the wipers and immediately turn them off again. When you needed your next wipe, you turned them back on to the intermittent position, and the length of time that they'd been off became your wipe interval. The problem was when you wanted to change the interval, whereupon this setup becomes even more confusing. Trust me, an interval control thumbwheel on the wiper stalk is so much easier!

As for auto wipers with rain sensor, my next Golf (V6 4-motion) had that, but I was not impressed. There's nothing worse than an automatic system that cannot be relied upon to do exactly as you wish, and therefore has to be monitored/overriden. I could have had that system on my last two cars, but decided against it.

Climate control on older cars (c1990) was crap. But on my last three cars it has worked wonderfully. I do sometimes override the fan speed and direct air to the grilles only, but this is a personal preference I use if, for example, I've just got into the car after strenuous exercise. There's also a very useful emergency demist button which can be used to direct all air to the screen and turn the fan to full speed.

I like.

Rain sensing wipers - fantastic because I don't have to switch them off when they start to screech across the windscreen.

Climate control is great because I don't have the old get in the car on a cold morning, turn heat up to max then be sweltering 10 mins later and turn it down only to be freezing 5 mins later, rinse repeat.

Automatic headlights, a better option than DRLs, I do use them but only because they agree with me on when the lights should be on, 99% of the time. The main advantage to me is not having to turn them back off. But they are a real PITA on a pool car when you don't know if they are active or not and have to turn the ignition off to find out.

ABS, yes I could cadence brake but to do that successfully needs regular practice.

Remote control electric doors, so good to be able to open the door from 10 feet away so the kids can be in and ready for their seatbelts before I get to the car.

cheers folks, think I'll take the plunge, they're not too expensive anyway.

one option I really would like to see though is electric elements in the heating system, would help window clearing/car heating immensely when you first start her up on a cold morning.

And, horror of horrors, it's gonna be an automatic:) hey I live and work in central london...

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

Air con helps a lot with window demisting.

The Citroen GS had electric heating elements to boost the heater beacuse it had an air cooled engine.

Lots of diesels these days have a supplementary diesel powered heating system because the engines are so efficient there isn't enough spare heat from the engine in cold weather.

And of course there are heated front screens but once you find those tiny wires you'll see them all the time.