Pleased with the new car
Jul. 14th, 2022 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtbcHaving now had more opportunity to drive around, including out to Dyce, I am pleased indeed with my fourth-generation Honda Jazz, and look forward to heading to Dundee on Sunday to spend some hours with my children. The being pleased grew markedly one morning:
The car was chiming at me when I exceeded 30mph and I found this rather annoying, especially in 40mph zones. On the way to a more distant errand, I thought I'd drop into the local Honda dealership on the way and seek their help. First, getting there was difficult because I don't know Aberdeen and Google Maps' help was dreadful. Eventually I determined that it somehow appeared to be in
As I approached one of the dealership's staff, they saw my mask and donned their own. To determine what was going on with my car needed a couple of tries and a couple of people but it turned out that there were speed alerts set for 30mph and 50mph and these were easily disabled once found. Those speed alerts were buried inside yet another set of menus I had not yet discovered and were unrelated to the speed limiter that one can set and to the speed limit warnings that the car can issue on the basis of reading traffic signs along one's journey.
I am surprised to have a car that can read road signs but that does not offer a rear-view camera for reversing, though it offers various proximity alerting. It makes a curious noise while reversing, I shall try to remember to decide if it sounds a bit like one of the noises on Cylon basestars in the reimagined series.
The car is much improved by the lack of a beep on reaching 30mph. I love the adaptive cruise control. It is good at speeding up out of roundabouts then keeping a good distance from the car in front. I may learn to like other features, like the automatic rain sensing for the windscreen wipers, once I have more control and experience of them; it has a large user manual and I am busy mostly with non-car errands. I shall get around to figuring more of it out as I plan to own the car for many years. I liked the rain sensing in a European-branded car that I rented years ago.
The complication of the features and user interface is not ideal for me. Especially if wanting a modern hybrid, I figure that I don't have any choice in the matter. Simplicity is not much valued and I am limited to what the market offers so I make peace with that accordingly. My favourite car, the sports car I had, gave me direct control over plenty, not only the gear shifting. For example, there were lights on if and only if I had turned them on. However, much as I loved that car, I can't now buy a normal petrol car in good conscience, even without a charging point at home. The saving grace for me of my new car is that, where it does do things automatically, so far it makes decent choices. It doesn't even beep at me for starting the engine before putting my seat-belt on.
My car's registration plate and service record indicate that it started its life out down in England near where my aunt lives. I shall mention that to her when I next write, perhaps she saw it before I did, not that it would have drawn notice.
A longer-term concern is the cost of insuring wider family to drive my car. The obvious other candidates would be either new drivers or under-25's or both, none an existing policyholder, and I fear difficulty in finding any affordable means of enabling them to drive it.
The car was chiming at me when I exceeded 30mph and I found this rather annoying, especially in 40mph zones. On the way to a more distant errand, I thought I'd drop into the local Honda dealership on the way and seek their help. First, getting there was difficult because I don't know Aberdeen and Google Maps' help was dreadful. Eventually I determined that it somehow appeared to be in
on footmode, rather than
carmode, but that doesn't explain why its directions were clearly getting my location very wrong, nor why it again became so keen on having
upbe neither due north nor my direction of travel. In
carmode, Maps then did far better.
As I approached one of the dealership's staff, they saw my mask and donned their own. To determine what was going on with my car needed a couple of tries and a couple of people but it turned out that there were speed alerts set for 30mph and 50mph and these were easily disabled once found. Those speed alerts were buried inside yet another set of menus I had not yet discovered and were unrelated to the speed limiter that one can set and to the speed limit warnings that the car can issue on the basis of reading traffic signs along one's journey.
I am surprised to have a car that can read road signs but that does not offer a rear-view camera for reversing, though it offers various proximity alerting. It makes a curious noise while reversing, I shall try to remember to decide if it sounds a bit like one of the noises on Cylon basestars in the reimagined series.
The car is much improved by the lack of a beep on reaching 30mph. I love the adaptive cruise control. It is good at speeding up out of roundabouts then keeping a good distance from the car in front. I may learn to like other features, like the automatic rain sensing for the windscreen wipers, once I have more control and experience of them; it has a large user manual and I am busy mostly with non-car errands. I shall get around to figuring more of it out as I plan to own the car for many years. I liked the rain sensing in a European-branded car that I rented years ago.
The complication of the features and user interface is not ideal for me. Especially if wanting a modern hybrid, I figure that I don't have any choice in the matter. Simplicity is not much valued and I am limited to what the market offers so I make peace with that accordingly. My favourite car, the sports car I had, gave me direct control over plenty, not only the gear shifting. For example, there were lights on if and only if I had turned them on. However, much as I loved that car, I can't now buy a normal petrol car in good conscience, even without a charging point at home. The saving grace for me of my new car is that, where it does do things automatically, so far it makes decent choices. It doesn't even beep at me for starting the engine before putting my seat-belt on.
My car's registration plate and service record indicate that it started its life out down in England near where my aunt lives. I shall mention that to her when I next write, perhaps she saw it before I did, not that it would have drawn notice.
A longer-term concern is the cost of insuring wider family to drive my car. The obvious other candidates would be either new drivers or under-25's or both, none an existing policyholder, and I fear difficulty in finding any affordable means of enabling them to drive it.
