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22/05/2012 07:29 | By Andy Enright, contributor, MSN Cars
Car design that drives you mad
The most annoying car design features ever
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"That engine ruins the car." As annoying features go, the Toyota GT86's engine is a doozy. Gutless through most of its range and about as tuneless as the rejected cuts from a One Direction album, it does its best to spoil what is otherwise a winning formula.
Most annoying automotive features aren't anything like as obvious as the Toyota's punch-drunk boxer engine. Instead they sneak up on you surreptitiously before whipping you into an impotent rage at the sheer idiocy of the person who signed them off.
They crop up everywhere, from the cheapest cars to the most expensive. Usually on the most expensive, come to think of it, and here we take a trawl through 20 of the most annoying. I won't have got them all, so join the conversation and tell us your stories of when design ineptitude happens.
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16Comments
22/05/2012 07:33
Citroen C3 Pluriel:
I saw 3 of these in one day! WOW!!!
I am surprised that people buy these. They must be blind, deaf and arm and leg-less. No one wants these especially in orange!
22/05/2012 20:53
Best written and funniest car article on MSN for ages now - 3 x "Huzzahs" and a large Balvenie for Andy Enright.
Had a Peugeot 405 about 20 years ago which had windscreen washer pipes along the wiper blades. Quite possibly one of the worst design flaws around at the time - if you drove at over 30mph, the water just raced up and over the roof before the next wiper sweep. Sensational levels of visibility. Winter motorway driving is really quite dull now by comparison.
22/05/2012 12:14
Funniest car article I've read for a long while, thanks Mr Enright! My contributions to your list...
AUDI A4 (2002), driver's armrest:
Marvellously comfortable, well-designed and smoothly capable 2.9 cabriolet - with a driver's armrest that is set low enough to get in the way of using the handbrake. And couldn't be adjusted to sit clear. Stupid.
TVR S2, rain gutter for the boot:
Designed on the back of an envelope in a Blackpool pub, yet a thing of retro-beauty, the 3-litre Rover engine S2 featured a flush-fitting boot lid, opened by a dodgy electronic switch just above the driver's knee (and another for the list). The rain-water gutter around the edges of the boot emptied via a single drain-hole....on the one side only. Hence I made the mistake of parking my Trevor on a steep driveway, wrong-side down, during one of the worst rainstorms in Welsh history. In the morning, the boot contained a pond that required bailing out like a dinghy.
22/05/2012 11:15
This piece had me chuckling. Great bit of writing, top reviews, some of which I was nodding along with. Personally I found a torque wrench a good solution to the iDrive.. But if our paths ever do cross again I may try the ball-pein hammer or maybe even upgrade to a lump hammer... bloody annoying i agree!
22/05/2012 10:17
Really?? This is the only thing you could find wrng with a a GTV. I had one and the list is literally endless - as you get around or used to one quirk another rears its ugly head. Lovely cars tho.
23/05/2012 14:23
For every innovation that Lancia introduced, they had to tarnish it by introducing 5 mistakes. Those electric window switches must have been very annoying.
You would think the Audi trick dampers would actually make a big difference since they already had experience with it in the 2nd gen Audi TT. I have not driven the car before but you maybe right about the "placebo effect" becausei have issue 106 of EVO magazine. While they never compared it to the steel version, they did like it.
You would think the Audi trick dampers would actually make a big difference since they already had experience with it in the 2nd gen Audi TT. I have not driven the car before but you maybe right about the "placebo effect" becausei have issue 106 of EVO magazine. While they never compared it to the steel version, they did like it.
22/05/2012 12:41
ha lol xx
24/05/2012 12:16
2002 Seat Leon - Window regulators!!! I have had one of these for 5 months and have had bothe the front passenger and the rear drivers side go. Cost - £150 for the garage to fix or hours and hours of your time trying to use one of the repair kits!
Useless design and an absolute pain when all of a sudden your window drops through the door!
Useless design and an absolute pain when all of a sudden your window drops through the door!
24/05/2012 11:10
ENJOY EVERY MINUTE.
WAR IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER NOW.
TIME HAS RUN OUT.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
YOU DO NOT BELIEVE ME.
YOU WILL BE IN A NEW WORLD SOON.
DON'T BELIEVE YOUR LEADERS LIES.
THIS WILL HAPPEN!
IT'S PLANNED.
AND IT'S GOING TO BECOME A REALITY.
22/05/2012 12:35
I've been enjoying the read until now. It seems that you've totally missed telling us how ridiculous this feature is. Ok I see one will most probably hurt ones thumb ???
22/05/2012 10:50
How can you call the GT86 boring? and that the engine ruins the car.... It's the first release of a new model.....just with any new model of car they won't release the hottest version straight away!!!! Look at RS focus, Audi RS and S models, M powered BMW's, VXR's....If a car company released the hottest version from release then no one would be looking at basic spec models....
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