What’s the Most Oversold Feature?

Once upon a time – in the Before Time – your typical new car came with pretty much nothing. Everything except the shell, the glass, the drivetrain and the tires was optional. It was not thought to be a bad thing. People were free to buy as little – or as much – as suited their wants as well as their budgets. There were Cadillacs with everything – and Pintos and Chevettes with nothing.

It was nice while it lasted.

In our time, all new vehicles come with everything that was once optional – including AC, power windows and locks, a stereo and also automatic transmissions. In the Before Time, the standard transmission in most cars (and trucks) was a manual transmission and that’s why, once-upon-a-time, the two terms were synonymous. The fact that new vehicles now come with everything that was once optional as standard may be very nice, assuming you want all of these things and can afford them. But if not, then it’s something like discovering the only homes on the market are McMansions that start at $400,000 to start when all need (and can afford) is a decent place to live.

Am interesting aspect of all of this is that many once-optional things have been sold as necessary-to-have things. As things you dare not do without. But is that so? And which of these things are the most oversold things?

All-wheel-drive is surely a contender for the top spot.

Before the late 1990s/early 2000s, AWD was still a relatively rare thing. Subaru and Audi made a big thing of selling AWD vehicles back when almost no other car company did. Today, every car company sells AWD vehicles. In fact, most vehicles either come standard with it or offer it as an optional feature. It is getting difficult to find a new vehicle without AWD.

The interesting thing is most people managed to get where they needed to go without AWD until fairly recently. What changed? Well, the marketing did. AWD was pitched as a thing you’ve just got to have – for safety, of course. Also played upon was people’s fear of getting stuck in the snow. There is some truth there, if it snows. If it doesn’t – or not much – then AWD is something like wearing a heavy coat all year long in that it is a fine thing to have on the handful of days each year when it’s cold enough to need a heavy coat. If it even snows. If not, then you’re just paying extra for the extra weight (of the AWD) that your vehicle is lugging around, which costs you gas money and also (inevitably) repair/maintenance costs that would not exist if your vehicle didn’t have AWD.

So-called “assistance technology” is another top contender.

Like AWD, “assistance technology” – as it is styled – is marketed as a gotta-have, for safety. The implication being that a vehicle that lacks “assistance technology” is unsafe and who would want to risk driving an unsafe vehicle? This pitch plays well to women and women-like men. But is it true that cars that do not have “assistance technology” are  unsafe?

If it is, then it would mean that all cars made until about 10 years ago (roughly) were “unsafe.” Do you think a Mercedes S-Class sedan made in say 2000 is “unsafe”? When it was made, it was considered one of the safest cars ever made, because it was built very solidly and that protected its occupants from impact forces in a crash. Yet this same car – if it were made today as a brand-new car – would be derided for being “unsafe” because it does not have Lane Keep Assist or Brake Assist or Speed Limit Assist – all of which are more accurately intervention technologies that attempt to pre-empt and correct the driver. Whether that has anything to do with “safety” is open for debate. It has been observed that a car that constantly corrects you via beeps and other distractions is unsafe – because it distracts and annoys the driver, who is thus less focused on the road.

How about so-called “keyless” ignition (and door locks)?

Just about every current-year vehicle has this feature, which is sold as a great convenience – but is it, really? More to the point, is the convenience worth the cost? When you buy a new vehicle that has keyless ignition/door locks, the salesman probably doesn’t tell you what  it will cost to replace one of the electronic transmitter fobs you’ll get in lieu of keys with your new car. The replacement cost – if you lose or damage one of the fobs that comes with the car – can be as high as several hundred dollars. Each. As opposed to less than $10 to get an old-style metal key cut at Lowes or pretty much any hardware store. The metal key can go through the wash, too, without hurting it. If you forget a fob in your pants pocket and it goes through the wash, you may have to pay to buy a new one – and it’s going to cost a lot more than $10.

Well, but what about the convenience? It may be helpful to turn this around. Is it that inconvenient to insert a metal key into a lock and turn it? You do of course have to pull it out of your pocket or purse first. But is eliminating that minor inconvenience worth several hundred bucks a pop for that new fob you’ll inevitably need? Not to mention the more elaborate/failure-prone and expensive to replace keyless ignition and door locking system?

Electric parking brakes.  

Over the past roughly ten years or so, the manually engaged parking brake (which also served as an emergency brake) has been replaced by an electrically actuated parking brake. Instead of pushing down on a pedal or pulling up on a lever, you just push a little button. In some of the newest cars, this is done automatically – as soon as you put the (automatic) transmission in Park. It automatically disengage when you move the gear selector from Park to Drive.

The system is sold as (again) a convenience but while it may be that – if you think it’s a chore to push down on a pedal or pull up on a lever – it is really a cost-cutting measure that reduces vehicle assembly costs. It eliminates the need to have a line worker install/adjust a cable so that the tension is just right. Instead, everything is plug and play electronics – much faster and so cheaper to install as the car moves down the assembly line. But it is also a lot cheaper to adjust/replace a loose/snapped cable than it is to diagnose and repair an electrically-actuated parking brake system. You also lose the emergency brake function, at least insofar as losing the ability you have with a pull-up lever to modulate the braking pressure, so as to avoid the wheels locking up and the car going into a skid.

All of the above stuff is sold to us because after more than 100 years of refinement, the “car” is just about perfected. There’s less room for huge improvements and so there’s less to sell that’s actually worth what it costs.

That doesn’t mean they won’t try to sell it, however.

. . .

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