The Fault in Our Cars: 6 Design Flaw Highlights

Cars are like children. You love them to death (and some of you might love your cars more than your children), but they all come with their share of flaws. Whether it’s something as small as a radio button being… well, too small, or something as important as a lack of cupholders, your car will never be able to please you one hundred percent. On Reddit’s /r/cars board, a thread titled “What are your car’s biggest design flaws?” was submitted on January 7 by user elbekko. Users quickly jumped on this opportunity to complain and discuss some of auto manufacturer’s worst design flaws. Take a look at some of the highlights of this thread below, and see how quickly you can relate! 1. Incorrect corresponding symbols User Tibbel, who drives an ’08 Subaru Legacy 2.5i, submitted this picture with the caption “Maybe this isn’t the biggest design flaw, but I can’t figure out why it’s this way.” It’s pretty self explanatory… 2. The largest radio button isn’t for the volume. You’re proud of all the bells and whistles on your dash, and you know how to operate each one like a fighter pilot. But what’s the use if the most important knob, the volume button, isn’t even the most obvious? User Enemyboatspotted complained that in their ’10 Mazda 3, the tuner button is by far the largest button on his console, and to make matters worse, it’s accented in blue. Apparently, their poor clueless friends have “fallen victim to the useless giant center knob.” 3. Cheap interior trim. In his ’11 Kia Forte, user mcKempt wished their interior was more impressive. Instead, they have to deal with something that’s “meant to be like ‘carbon-fiber-ish’ but misses the mark.” Hey, some cars come with basically all-plastic interiors, mcKempt. Consider yourself lucky that you don’t have to deal with living in a drivable baby rattle! 4. No AUX input line! User Moynia raised this issue. Don’t you hate it when there’s no way to seamlessly connect your modern-tech phone into your ancient car? Even worse, like Moynia’s ’08 Mercedes C300, the only line in is for an iPod touch first gen, and it’s in the glovebox with an extremely short cord! Luckily, that’s why radio tuners were invented – but even they’re not perfect. 5. It’s Frozen – and you just can’t let it go! Ah, winter. It’s everyone’s favorite season to own a car. In fact, why get in your car when you can stand outside in the cold admiring it? That’s what user Science_Monster had to say about their 2013 Ford Fusion – “The door handles freeze shut when there is any ice, and the windows frequently can’t roll down because they’re frozen closed.” You can just imagine Elsa the ice queen standing behind you, saying, 6. Cupholders… cupholders… and oh, did we mention – CUPHOLDERS?!??!? Boy, us humans sure do love our beverages. And what do we love more than beverages? Places to store them! Unfortunately, it just seems like no auto manufacturer can get it right – and this thread is proof. Here’s just a few samples of the cupholder conundrum… User charvenastoise: ” My cup holders are right behind my shifter so I can’t have any drinks in them while driving because I won’t be able to shift.” User slopecarver: “In my old 97 outback the cupholder popped out of the dash. I couldn’t put anything larger than a 12oz can/cup in there or adjust the HVAC with something in the cupholder but I could shift no problem.” User PuroBugatti: “My Bmw doesn’t even have cup holders. I think it’s a problem with German cars in general.” User HugeSaladFork: “My sis had a popup headlight era Celica with my favorite design flaw: Cup holders right in front of the CD player. Whenever she braked, coffee dumped directly into the player, as if it was designed to do that. It was hilarious.” Design flaws make owning a car look like a dreadful endeavor. Maybe you should just get a bike and call it quits. But then again, maybe we’re all just picky. Maybe the engineers did the best they can to please everyone… Just get a bike.