The Return of the Sedan?

[vdeane]

I'd say a new small car could maybe make you more attentive to the road than an old large SUV. Less room for error when you're in a vehicle hundreds/thousands of pounds lighter and several inches shorter than the cars around you.

The new car will also have a lot more in the way of driver assistance features.  That 93 Bronco might even predate the era of ubiquitous cruise control.

as it makes sense that children don't want to grow up and drive the same kinds of cars that their parents drove them around in.

I guess I've never understood this.  My Mom always drove Honda sedans and I've kept the habit.  Sure, I don't see myself driving a F150 like Dad, but that's because it's bigger than what I need and because I prefer a trunk over a truck bed, not out of some desire to avoid driving what my parents did.

[Max Rockatansky]

One of the biggest advantages of getting a small sedan is having "more" of a margin for error in tight spaces and narrow roads. 

[1995hoo]

as it makes sense that children don't want to grow up and drive the same kinds of cars that their parents drove them around in.

I guess I've never understood this.  My Mom always drove Honda sedans and I've kept the habit.  Sure, I don't see myself driving a F150 like Dad, but that's because it's bigger than what I need and because I prefer a trunk over a truck bed, not out of some desire to avoid driving what my parents did.

I've never thought about cars from interstatefan990's point of view at all, but I guess overall I drive similar cars to what my father drove. Back in the early 1990s, my second car was one that had been his—a 1982 Honda Accord sedan. He sold it to me when he got a 1991 Accord. Since then, I've had a 1986 Acura Legend sedan, a 1997 Accord coupe, a 2004 Acura TL sedan that I still have, and a 1988 Mazda RX-7 convertible as a second car (sold it a few years ago). My father, meanwhile, replaced the Accord with a 2004 Acura TSX; he also had a 1998 Acura 3.5RL (he gave that to my brother) and later a 2018 Volvo S90 (which is now my mother's sole car after she sold her Volvo to Carmax).

I think I largely picked up on my father's overall viewpoint of getting something practical and reliable that doesn't particularly draw attention on the roads (bearing in mind that attention can be both good and bad). The one car my parents had when I was growing up that I never would have wanted was a 1979 Volvo 265 wagon—I'm sure most of you can picture the ubiquitous 1980s-era Volvo 200-series "mommymobile" station wagons that were everywhere. Very sensible cars for mothers to drive back then. Utterly uncool cars no kid would then want. They had replaced that with a Volvo 740 sedan by the time I hit driving age, but my first car was a clunker I bought from a guy in my dad's office anyway. (Small world, he is now on the opposite side of the same columbarium wall as my father.)

I think the relatives of ours I mentioned in my earlier post must overall take their cues from their parents—both boys drive pickups like their father, and the girl who is approaching driving age is thinking about an SUV like her mother (a less expensive and simpler one overall, which makes sense).

Our other nephew down in Broward County wanted a Hyundai Genesis coupe (at the time, his parents had an SUV and a minivan), but the insurance would have been prohibitive and instead he drives a Kia Forte.

The new car will also have a lot more in the way of driver assistance features.  That 93 Bronco might even predate the era of ubiquitous cruise control.

The rental car I'm driving is a Camry hybrid. Coming back from dinner the other night, I was going 55 mph approaching a curve in the road and I took my hands off the wheel. The car steered itself around the curve due to the lane-keeping assist and then started flashing a warning to put my hands back on the wheel. Our nephew had no idea it would do that—he's only noticed his helps keep you in your lane.

We were talking about those types of features last night and one of our relatives said he hates the lane-keeping thing and the adaptive cruise control and always turns them off. I wanted to—but did not—ask whether he signals when he changes lanes (a lot of people, perhaps even a majority, here in Florida do not). My wife complained about the car fighting her when she first got her TLX and I then realized she wasn't using her blinker. I pointed out that if she just flicked the stalk, the blinker would blink three times and the lane-keeping wouldn't fight her. Problem solved. And I like the adaptive cruise control to keep my speed down. Especially in this rental car. The speedometer has a digital number, but it also has a needle-like graphic that shows something related to fuel efficiency rather than speed. I'm not used to it and it throws me off as to what I'm seeing, so setting the cruise control (including on arterial streets around Fort Myers) helps.

But certainly the prevalence of tailgaters in Florida can make adaptive cruise control dangerous because of how aggressively the system can slam on the brakes, especially if someone cuts you off. Our relative who said he doesn't like it says he feels like he's not in control with it.

I sometimes wonder to what extent there is some generational difference in some features. My mother will not use her backup camera, period. I guess I understand it being hard to overcome 60 years of muscle memory turning your head, but on the other hand, when I drive a car with a camera I overcome almost 40 years of muscle memory because I use the camera. (My brother is two years younger than I am and he agrees with our mom.)

[Rothman]

Heh.  My parents started off with a mid-1970s Plymouth Duster and then a 1981 Chevette as their sole car and then minivans with a small sedan (Chevy Nova then Honda Civic) when a second car was necessitated.  I've just driven what I could afford -- used little sedans.  I don't think my parents' preferences have had much of an influence over my lifetime -- until they gushed about their Subarus they started buying about 10 years ago or so -- got our first Subaru SUV last year. 

But, I've never desired to buy a minivan, despite having a couple of kids.

[Max Rockatansky]

My dad was all over the place with vehicles.  When I was born he had a 1969 Camaro and a 1982 Corvette.  He traded in the Corvette for a Z car since it had a small back seat.  He ended up buying a Shelby K Car before cycling through several S10s.  I ended up buying his 1997 1500 Silverado after high school because he wanted to downgrade to a Sun Fire.  His last vehicle was a Hummer H3.

My mom was a little bit more consistent on the style of vehicle she drove.  She had a Vista Cruiser station wagon when I was born.  She switched to one of the original Caravans after my sister was born.  After the Caravan she went through two Astro Vans before getting a Chevy Blazer.  When I was in high school she had two W Body cars (a Monte Carlo and Impala) which she hated.  The last two vehicles she had were an Equinox and an SRX.

[noelbotevera]

I sometimes wonder to what extent there is some generational difference in some features. My mother will not use her backup camera, period. I guess I understand it being hard to overcome 60 years of muscle memory turning your head, but on the other hand, when I drive a car with a camera I overcome almost 40 years of muscle memory because I use the camera. (My brother is two years younger than I am and he agrees with our mom.)

Navigating tight spaces is night and day with a backup camera. My 2013 Corolla doesn't have one and has a deceptively large trunk (in my opinion) relative to the rear windshield. I have the paint scrapes on the rear right corner from misjudging some reversal maneuvers -- mostly when backing up out of a parking spot surrounded by pickups and SUVs. Later I learned I could just put nearly my entire body halfway out the window so I could see...

Then I drove my dad's car (2019 Nissan Kicks; pronounced dead when the CVT failed) which has a backup camera, and I never have any issues reversing. Backup cameras also make parallel parking easier in my experience since I don't have to guess how much leeway I have on the rear right corner. Then again, it's also a hatchback, so the trunk doesn't stick out. I couldn't say which helps more, but I do know I'm worse at reversing in the Corolla.

My opinion on tech in cars is a little biased because I was part of Penn State's team for the SAE Autodrive Challenge* (got a trip to GM's proving grounds in Michigan out of it). I think the "small" self driving features are pretty useful (up to and including GM's "super cruise")...when people use them correctly. Most people don't (as explained in your post, earlier) so these features have a rep as taking away "muh freedoms" when it's the driver's fault for using the systems incorrectly.

*Long story short -- build a level 5 autonomous vehicle that could do everything everywhere. When I was there the car was at level 4 since it could drive on the test track perfectly.

[Scott5114]

Lane keeping assist seems like it would be even more annoying in a city with Botts dots than it would be otherwise. So not only do I physically feel the edge of the lane, you're going to beep at me too? Gee, thanks.

Navigating tight spaces is night and day with a backup camera. My 2013 Corolla doesn't have one and has a deceptively large trunk (in my opinion) relative to the rear windshield. I have the paint scrapes on the rear right corner from misjudging some reversal maneuvers -- mostly when backing up out of a parking spot surrounded by pickups and SUVs. Later I learned I could just put nearly my entire body halfway out the window so I could see...

I had trouble backing up for years...until I had to drive a moving van from Oklahoma to Nevada. No backup camera, no rear view mirror, just side mirrors. And you know what? Once I was forced to learn how to use the side mirrors to back up that giant van, turns out that skill works on regular cars too!

Having never owned a car with a backup camera, any time I rent one that has one I sort of forget it's there and just use the mirrors like I normally do.

[vdeane]

We were talking about those types of features last night and one of our relatives said he hates the lane-keeping thing and the adaptive cruise control and always turns them off. I wanted to—but did not—ask whether he signals when he changes lanes (a lot of people, perhaps even a majority, here in Florida do not). My wife complained about the car fighting her when she first got her TLX and I then realized she wasn't using her blinker. I pointed out that if she just flicked the stalk, the blinker would blink three times and the lane-keeping wouldn't fight her. Problem solved. And I like the adaptive cruise control to keep my speed down. Especially in this rental car. The speedometer has a digital number, but it also has a needle-like graphic that shows something related to fuel efficiency rather than speed. I'm not used to it and it throws me off as to what I'm seeing, so setting the cruise control (including on arterial streets around Fort Myers) helps.

But certainly the prevalence of tailgaters in Florida can make adaptive cruise control dangerous because of how aggressively the system can slam on the brakes, especially if someone cuts you off. Our relative who said he doesn't like it says he feels like he's not in control with it.

I do use my turn signal and I find the lake keeping assistance can be annoying.  The Prius at work has that and adaptive cruise control and figuring out how to time the auto lane change is not easy (I might have figured it out once, but I'm not sure and I've forgotten in any case).  I'd turn the signal on and it would still want to fight me at first, or I'd try to let it use the auto feature and it wouldn't bother.  Eventually one of my coworkers just turned the thing off.  I'm also curious how the lane keep assist performs if you have to quickly swerve around some debris or a pothole.

I find how fast the adaptive cruse brakes varies by following distance.  At the default maximum distance, the braking is subtle - so subtle that sometimes I don't notice anything happened until I look at the speedometer and notice that I'm going a couple mph slower than what it's set for.  At closer following distances, it brakes hard.  It doesn't seem to know to anticipate when it will need to slow down and adjust before the other car is directly at the minimum following distance set.

[Max Rockatansky]

Double tap the cruise control in the work Prius.  In my Corolla that will enable standard cruise control.  I'd imagine the same procedure is universal to Toyota.

[noelbotevera]

Navigating tight spaces is night and day with a backup camera. My 2013 Corolla doesn't have one and has a deceptively large trunk (in my opinion) relative to the rear windshield. I have the paint scrapes on the rear right corner from misjudging some reversal maneuvers -- mostly when backing up out of a parking spot surrounded by pickups and SUVs. Later I learned I could just put nearly my entire body halfway out the window so I could see...

I had trouble backing up for years...until I had to drive a moving van from Oklahoma to Nevada. No backup camera, no rear view mirror, just side mirrors. And you know what? Once I was forced to learn how to use the side mirrors to back up that giant van, turns out that skill works on regular cars too!

Having never owned a car with a backup camera, any time I rent one that has one I sort of forget it's there and just use the mirrors like I normally do.

You mean the double mirror setup like in a U-Haul? I did eventually work out how it works, but most U-Hauls don't let you move the mirrors from the car (unless I was supposed to move them myself). I've used the side mirrors to back up, but usually to get a view of the curb (for parallel parking) or a view of stuff that I can't directly see from the rearview mirror. Still, backup cameras help me (despite the fisheye lens they use creating distortion on the edges) since blind spots created by the pillars are more or less eliminated.

Re: lane assist; I find that it's not very helpful.  I drove a rental that had it, gave it a go, and it took its sweet time changing lanes. I get it's meant to be smooth, but somebody could've overtaken me in the time it took it move over (luckily I did this test on an empty 4 lane section of US 11). If I'm changing lanes frequently (because the US loves building 10 lane wide hellholes), I probably don't want lane assist. I do find a mirror object sensor that detects if something is close by is helpful; my sister's car has this feature.

[Scott5114]

Re: lane assist; I find that one redundant because of cruise control.

*blink*

*blink*

...You do realize cruise control only controls speed and not anything else about the car, right?

[noelbotevera]

Re: lane assist; I find that one redundant because of cruise control.

*blink*

*blink*

...You do realize cruise control only controls speed and not anything else about the car, right?

This is what I get for not reading. I had cruise control on the mind but meant to write about lane assist.

[Rothman]

Double tap the cruise control in the work Prius.  In my Corolla that will enable standard cruise control.  I'd imagine the same procedure is universal to Toyota.

In a 2025 Sienna, you hold the cruise control down, rather than double tap.

[1995hoo]

Double tap the cruise control in the work Prius.  In my Corolla that will enable standard cruise control.  I'd imagine the same procedure is universal to Toyota.

It's something similar to that in my wife's TLX except I think you hit the master cruise control button twice (that is, the button that turns the system on or off, not the button you use to set your speed). I'm not positive because we both use the adaptive cruise instead of the conventional type, so we haven't changed it.