Four useless things drivers here waste money on
SINGAPORE — Here at CarBuyer we’ve tested a lot of cars (it’s probably numbering in the thousands by now). Which is why we cringe when looking at the spec sheets of some, since there are features that are as much use as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
Car spec sheets include every single thing about a car in an effort to convince you you’re getting more, but this list tells you what you’re better off without.
1. Fog Lights
“Hey it’s dark and foggy out there Jim, could you turn your fog lights on?” is a phrase nobody has ever said while sober, sane or upright here. The only use we can think of for fog lights are irritating other road users with fog lights that are brighter than your actual main headlights. Then again, some people think mullets are cool.
I’ve personally never had to use fog lights, ever, and that includes while driving in actual snow and actual fog. And they’re also extra useless now that lights such as Audi’s Matrix LEDs mean you won’t ever need them anymore.
2. 2+2 Seats
When you see “2+2 seats” in a brochure, it means there are two front seats and two vaguely seat-shaped spaces behind them. No actual humans could fit in those seats (as you can see from the excellent units of the Lotus Evora, above) unless they 1. Have no legs or 2.Have no sense.
2+2 seats are the invention of the Devil who’s simply trying to assuage the guilt of your buying a two-seat sports car and to compromise the handling. Besides, everyone knows that buying a two-seat machine is a point of pride, not shame!
3. Colour Change Interior Lights
Colour change interior lighting is a fad that seems to have taken off in recent times, with the chief instigator being Mini, which hid its colour change LEDs in the cabin amidst a forest of illogical controls. Kia did it in the previous Koup (pictured above), while Ford has included it in the Kuga SUV. All we can say is the designers must have been krazy, since it’s the sort of feature that can entertain for about five seconds while you change colour rhythmically and pretend to be at a tea dance circa late 1990.
Beyond that it seems to have no actual purpose unless you’re five years old. Toyota’s new Alphard has a colour-diddling light bar too, presumably to entertain the adults while the children watch arthouse movies on the in-built DVD player.
4. Sun/Moon Roofs
Now, before you dismiss this as irascibility, there is, from an engineering standpoint, no good reason to include a sun/moon/asteroid roof in a car: It detracts from the overall strength of the frame and bodyshell, it adds weight at the highest point of the machine (thus raising its centre of gravity) and it makes cars hotter.
Cars, as we all know, have no problem becoming hot here. For those who can’t let go of how cool sun/moon/sky roofs are, we can say just save your cash and wind down the window the next time you need to check if the sky is still there.
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