We Love Cars, but These 6 Things Really Grind Our Gears
There are a lot of things to get angry about in the car world, like gas prices and out-of-production parts and careless owners and stuck bolts. We try not to focus on those too much, but each of us still have those little things that just … ugh. They just get on our nerves. This week, we decided to get nit-picky. In the spirit of good humor, we’re sharing our automotive pet peeves: the various features, behaviors, and perspectives that get under our skin way more than perhaps they should. No—on second thought, we are exactly as irritated as we should be because double parkers are the actual worst.
Pet Peeve #1: Switch Blanks
This is petty, I know, but for me, it’s switch blanks. Those are the little rectangular inserts, usually black plastic, that cover up where a switch for a control—whatever, be it a turn-off for automatic start/stop; fog lights; traction control—was supposed to go, but this particular vehicle doesn’t have that feature.
A switch blank bothers me for two reasons: One, it messes up the symmetry of the dashboard or console to save the manufacturer the small expense of covering it up by design, instead of a plug, and two, it advertises the fact that no matter what you spent on the car, there was some feature or features you couldn’t afford. Your car is loaded? No, it isn’t, because you have an eyesore switch blank. And it isn’t just cheap vehicles—I tested a $223,000 car a few weeks ago that had a switch blank. OK, end of rant. — Steven Cole Smith
Pet Peeve #2: Stereotyping a Person Based on Their Car
Saying X car is for Y kind of people. Based on the stereotypes that run with my car history, I’ve been a hairdresser, a redneck, someone who doesn’t know how to use turn signals, a retiree, an NPR listener, and who knows what else. (Bonus points to anyone who can accurately guess the cars I’ve owned based on the above.) What someone thinks about others based on their car often says more about the observer than the observed. — Eddy Eckart
Pet Peeve #3: Doing a Burnout Leaving a Car Show
Not exactly a controversial opinion but … doing a burnout when leaving a car show. You don’t look cool. You’re not cool. Nobody above the age of 15 thinks you’re cool. You’re making the rest of us look bad. You’re making the venue nervous. You’re annoying the police and the neighbors.
These kinds of burnouts are dangerous, and not the sexy, glamorous kind of danger but the pointless, sad kind. Oh, and all those people lining the road recording your obnoxious exit? They’re there to get a clip of you crashing and looking like an idiot. — Andrew Newton
Pet Peeve #4: Unpredictable Drivers
I get annoyed by car owners who don’t want their car to be touched. It’s just a car, but since you keep calling it “your baby,” let’s face it, you were—happily—going to wash and wax it for a third time this week anyway, so calm down.
Pound for pound, however, it’s the people who don’t understand right of way that win top prize: Four-way stops are all too often an exercise in frustration, and heaven forbid the power goes out and the traffic lights start to blink.
Drivers who stop to let pedestrians cross mid-block, making wild assumptions that everyone else will stop, too. Be predictable, not polite.
Oh, and there’s a special place in hell for drivers who come to a stop on freeway on-ramps. — Stefan Lombard
Pet Peeve #5: Multi-Spot Parking Job
I considered a handful of answers for this question as I drove to the grocery store to run a quick errand, but the RIGHT answer smacked me in the face as I pulled into the parking lot.
Hands down, my biggest pet peeve is folks who intentionally park their cars to take up multiple parking spots. Oftentimes the perpetrators here are just regular pickups, SUVs, or cars; there’s not anything inherently priceless about them. You just couldn’t be bothered to be considerate of anyone but your immediate self.
I bet you don’t return your shopping carts either. — Nate Petroelje
Pet Peeve #6: Maniac Merging
Some onramps around metro Detroit are criminally short, or curved, or both, and construction is omnipresent, but merging should not be this chaotic. Whether we’re merging left to right to avoid construction, or right to left following an onramp, Michigan seems to completely misunderstand merging. You’ve got the aggressively proactive law abiders, who move over the minute they see any sign, even the ones reading “lane ends in one mile,” and you’ve got the normal people who wait until the lane is actually about to merge—when they can actually lay eyes on the light-up arrow signs, or because they counted down on their GPS or odometer from that “one mile” sign, and are planning to nudge over, at speed, with a comfortable 0.2 miles to go.
These opposite behaviors produce the strangest dynamics: People slamming on their brakes to merge as soon as they know a merge is coming, no matter if it’s a mile or half a mile away, and get behind each other in the most courteous yet most dangerously chaotic way, and the others shotgunning past those obsessively orderly cars, who of course honk at anyone who “cuts” the line. Anywhere else, that cutting would just be regular merging! — Grace Houghton
A four way stop in Arizona in the summer the car with all their windows down goes first.
A new one to me is leaving your vehicle at the gas pump while you go inside a mega gas stop to shop or have lunch. We were boxed in by 3 such A***H***S last week & had to wait for the sole person that wasn’t parked to finish pumping before we could get out. I actually had to stand behind that car to prevent another one from boxing us again.
Mine is on city streets with multiple lanes and a left turn lane a block ahead. Driver in lane #1 (curb side) stops to let a car come out of a driveway to get across traffic. Of course that means driveway car pulls blindly into high speed traffic in lane #2. Extremely dangerous and possibly fatal.
Lane numbering starts on the left just like reading.
Blank spaces…
When I ordered a Mercedes, if you didn’t order an option, you didn’t get a blank button, instead the real wood was uninterrupted. But then you had asymmetrical switch locations. Being OCD, I ordered the options. Glad I did, I love the Xenon lights.
The CLK 320 I had with two rows of switch pods only had two populated. The little old lady that owned it before me must have been cheap.
So many angry people on here. Did someone piss in your wheaties this morning?
patches o’hoolihan said he drinks his own urin ‘…because it’s sterile and i like the taste’. i think he was angry, too
“… if you can dodge a wrench…”
Stereotypes are usually there for a reason.
And anyone who listens to Car Talk, is not a real car guy. Real car guys don’t listen to advise from someone they don’t know.
Besides, they are anti Studebaker bigots.
Nate Petroelje….Get over it! I park my Grand Cherokee and F150 across several spots for a few reasons. Parking lots owners in effort to get as many spots in the lot that are possible tighten the lines so only a Honda Civic can park without being the subject of an errant momobile or uncaring citizen flinging doors open leaving marks. Even though I park away in the back I still seem to be the target of uncaring and ignorant persons.
Also in your picture it looks like the Grand Cherokee is a reasonable distance to safely open the driver door. The white sedan is just being an A-hole.
I love squeezing my snotbox car into the remaining half space, on the driver’s side of the offending vehicle. Don’t be a genitalia-head.
Eddy Eckart, That Boxter is just another chick car. Ride in it with another guy and you’re gay. Even Jeremy Clarkson admitted as much on Top Gear. If you wanted to project masculinity you should have gotten a Cayman.
Good job confirming my point.
Good article. Totally agree on switch blanks, they are awful. Often they do not even represent the options you skipped. Many Porsches of the last 15 years have a multitude of switch blanks, particularly on the centre console. You couldn’t even fill them by checking all options. And the two-door 911, Cayman and Boxster use the power window switches from the four-door Porsches, so they have switch blanks for the rear windows — atrocious and uncalled for in this high, “prestigious” price bracket. Make a bloody extra piece for your pricey vaunted coupes. One good thing about the proliferation of digital screens: the death of switch blanks.
Stefan Lombard: Your remark about owners getting upset about ‘viewers’ touching their cars isn’t abnormal. Whatever happened to the respect rule ‘if it doesn’t belong to you don’t touch it. Most vehicles at a car show versus a coffee and cars scenario have been painstakingly detailed to bring out the best appearance possible. Having said that why can’t show-goers be content to look rather than touch? I say see the second sentence above.
My grandson and I detail my 41 coupe before going to car shows but I leave the doors, trunk, & hood open and encourage youngsters to look, touch, even get inside (they really enjoy honking the aoogah horn). Hopefully I’m encouraging some of them to enjoy and get involved in our hobby when they get older.
I always wonder about people, especially guys, who refer to their cars as female, i.e. She’s ready to go, or she’s my baby etc. I feel like asking them if there’s a special place on their car that identifies the car’s sex, because I’ve never spotted anything on any car I’ve owned that would that would give me a clue about my own car.
Maybe because like they do with females they have spent a fortune on it.🤣
About my Grand Prix. She’s beautiful, she’s well built, she’s high maintenance, she gets lots of stares and I love her.❤️
I always consider non daily drivers as “mistress cars” They are great looking and I love to be with it and the feeling you get but no way could live with it as a daily.
How about those wheelchair idiots who insist on crossing in the middle of the street, or at uncontrolled crosswalks? Seeing them is as easy as seeing someone sitting on the curb.
Wheelchair idiots? Wow.
How old is your Ferrari?
See? Stereotypes are fun.
Hope you don’t have to ever shuffle around in a wheelchair. I’m pretty certain those folks aren’t intentionally trying to ruin your air conditioned trip.
Pretty sure that was tongue in cheek, but I do agree with the sentiment of ANY idiots crossing in the middle of the street and expecting cars to stop for them. I was in a chair for months in recovery and always wheeled to the protected cross-walks or lights.
Can you write another story about cell phone use in moving vehicles and why there’s not a law against it?
Their use kills and injures more adults and children than DWI by far. It’s also the simplest thing to prevent.
If the stupid thing isn’t connected to any type of hands-free operating system, it doesn’t work!
I’ve seen drivers on their phones, talking mapping, and texting, while driving new Volvos, BMWs, and even a Maserati. You can’t tell me that these vehicles aren’t hands-free equipped.
No phone communication is important enough to kill for.
It’s the law here in BC, Canada all cells have to be hands free. I know it’s a start but how many people that are distracted because either they are pushing buttons or arguing with the person they are talking to, paying no attention to the road.
.It (cellphone use) is as bad a distraction as DUI,
and is an offence as DUI here in New Jersey, USA
It’s hard to park a oversize truck in a small space between two lines. Especially annoying is that many of these people have never locked in the hubs because they keep pushing the switch blank. Seeing the Jeep double-parked reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw on a jeep that said…it’s a jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand”. Riding my bike the other day and saw 5 people in a stretch of six miles not use turn signals and concluding they are just plain lazy.
How could you miss those people who believe that their turn signal stalk is the “right of way” stalk. They figure as long as I have my turn signal on, it’s up to YOU to yield.