2 posts tagged “carpacolypse”

This past weekend I was attending the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill (and my own photo gallery of said event), an absolutely insane endurance race of epic proportions that is great fun.  If you happen to be within driving distance of Willows, CA (a little more than an hour north of Sacramento) it is a highly recommended way of spending a December weekend.

While I have another entry filled with hate towards the airline on getting down there, once I actually made it to to the rental car kiosk and filling out paper work I was in good spirits.  I had my rental car booked through Hotwire, got a killer rate for the weekend and was eager to get up to the track.

The car the self-service kiosk randomly gave me was a new Ford Fusion.  I thought it was fitting, given my last entry was effectively hating on US cars.  No Hyundai for me!

I give the car a walk around, and I've seen plenty on the road so it wasn't for aesthetic purposes.  Once I get in I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised.  The Fusion isn't a luxury car, but it certainly isn't an econobox.  The interior met my expectations in this regard.  For the most part, a finish on a car that satisfied the expectations and in the price point I think it was a fair car.  Inside I was starting to doubt my assessment from my last blog post.

Then I started driving.

I believe in constructive criticism, whenever possible.  I am by no means a car designer, but I'm certainly qualified to confidently state my opinion given the sheer number of miles I drive in my adventures (which, admittedly are lacking lately... the side effect of kids).
 
The first part of my constructive criticism is very meta.  There are a lot of very qualified people who travel and rent cars frequently.  Find the (probably huge amounts of) people who hate your products, like me.  I avoid GM and Ford products as much as possible.  I'll pay extra to get that Mazda.  Then simply give them the car for their trip for free (work with the rental company to get a completed survey at the end, in exchange for a free rental).  Read that survey, and ask for honest feedback.

Since Ford and GM don't have a program like this in place, I'm going to give my feedback here and just suck up the cost of the rental because my company paid for it anyway.  This is really just isolated to my top 3 complaints about the car, though.  I have some more things that are more vague and highly subjective which I'm keeping to myself.

First, think about placement and angles of panels.  The stereo on the Fusion was well positioned, but the heater is tucked under the stereo panel and then actually recessed.  While driving, it made it awkward to change the temperature (which for some reason I had to do much more frequently than I would expect with climate control).  It wasn't difficult, but just frustratingly awkward.  The solution (in my mind) would be to have it angled up towards eye-level, so the recess makes it more visible and also a more natural reach for the driver.

Second, the cruise control system was simply difficult.  My primary transport is a Toyota Sienna (which I love, and if Toyota wanted to kick me one of their parked Sienna I'll give it a positive review every day of the week) and the cruise control operates very well.  You push the On/Off toggle, and a light turns on that says "CRUISE ON" and then you simply set or resume.  Done.  On the Fusion, there is an awkward rocker switch on the steering wheel with the "Off" on the outside and "On" on the inside.  This makes it so that it is much more difficult to quickly use your thumb to hit the "On", since it isn't really intuitive.  Next, when you push the button nothing actually happens.  No lights, there isn't any tactile feedback.  The car simply ignores it, seemingly.  After pushing the "On" button 5 or 6 times I finally just tried to hit the "Set" button, and then the light comes on telling me that I've engaged the cruise control.  This is where I'm confused, and think that either Ford User Interaction Engineers or Ford customers are really, really dumb.  When I enable the cruise control I expect feedback, since I've enabled something previously not enabled (or conversely disabled).  When I engage the cruise control, I get feedback.  Namely in the form of the car depressing the gas pedal all on its own and continuing its movement forward with a near constant velocity.  What I don't need is a little light telling me that the car is doing that.  The car doing it is enough feedback to know the car is, in fact, doing it.  If I had a little light telling me that I could engage cruise control, I'd be happier.

Finally, the last of my little nitpicks with Ford that honestly would keep me from buying one, is the clock.  Analog clocks are prestigious and elegant, in the right setting.  The center dash of a near-Economy car is not one of those settings.  When a person is driving and happens to want to know the time, they should have a sense of urgency about them.  Taking eyes off the road is not something you want to encourage, and having to figure out big-hand-little-hand settings is just one more distraction.  Additionally, the clock in the Fusion at night was hard to see anyway; the little hand and matching glistening silver hour markers were difficult to distinguish between.  Digital clocks can look decent enough, and they have the added benefit of being immediately readable at a mere glance.  If you really want the analog clock, figure out a good way to have the digital clock visible to the driver, too.  Redundancy in some cases is a very good thing.

So, that's it.  I hope Ford can take this and think about the idea of not only trying to give out cars to the haters (especially, or even exclusively to, those who want to be constructive) and also my points that would improve the Fusion.  In the mean time, I'm going to be trying to convince my wife to go look at a Hyundai Genesis.

This past weekend I was attending the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill (and my own photo gallery of said event), an absolutely insane endurance race of epic proportions that is great fun.  If you happen to be within driving distance of Willows, CA (a little more than an hour north of Sacramento) it is a highly recommended way of spending a December weekend.

While I have another entry filled with hate towards the airline on getting down there, once I actually made it to to the rental car kiosk and filling out paper work I was in good spirits.  I had my rental car booked through Hotwire, got a killer rate for the weekend and was eager to get up to the track.

The car the self-service kiosk randomly gave me was a new Ford Fusion.  I thought it was fitting, given my last entry was effectively hating on US cars.  No Hyundai for me!

I give the car a walk around, and I've seen plenty on the road so it wasn't for aesthetic purposes.  Once I get in I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised.  The Fusion isn't a luxury car, but it certainly isn't an econobox.  The interior met my expectations in this regard.  For the most part, a finish on a car that satisfied the expectations and in the price point I think it was a fair car.  Inside I was starting to doubt my assessment from my last blog post.

Then I started driving.

I believe in constructive criticism, whenever possible.  I am by no means a car designer, but I'm certainly qualified to confidently state my opinion given the sheer number of miles I drive in my adventures (which, admittedly are lacking lately... the side effect of kids).
 
The first part of my constructive criticism is very meta.  There are a lot of very qualified people who travel and rent cars frequently.  Find the (probably huge amounts of) people who hate your products, like me.  I avoid GM and Ford products as much as possible.  I'll pay extra to get that Mazda.  Then simply give them the car for their trip for free (work with the rental company to get a completed survey at the end, in exchange for a free rental).  Read that survey, and ask for honest feedback.

Since Ford and GM don't have a program like this in place, I'm going to give my feedback here and just suck up the cost of the rental because my company paid for it anyway.  This is really just isolated to my top 3 complaints about the car, though.  I have some more things that are more vague and highly subjective which I'm keeping to myself.

First, think about placement and angles of panels.  The stereo on the Fusion was well positioned, but the heater is tucked under the stereo panel and then actually recessed.  While driving, it made it awkward to change the temperature (which for some reason I had to do much more frequently than I would expect with climate control).  It wasn't difficult, but just frustratingly awkward.  The solution (in my mind) would be to have it angled up towards eye-level, so the recess makes it more visible and also a more natural reach for the driver.

Second, the cruise control system was simply difficult.  My primary transport is a Toyota Sienna (which I love, and if Toyota wanted to kick me one of their parked Sienna I'll give it a positive review every day of the week) and the cruise control operates very well.  You push the On/Off toggle, and a light turns on that says "CRUISE ON" and then you simply set or resume.  Done.  On the Fusion, there is an awkward rocker switch on the steering wheel with the "Off" on the outside and "On" on the inside.  This makes it so that it is much more difficult to quickly use your thumb to hit the "On", since it isn't really intuitive.  Next, when you push the button nothing actually happens.  No lights, there isn't any tactile feedback.  The car simply ignores it, seemingly.  After pushing the "On" button 5 or 6 times I finally just tried to hit the "Set" button, and then the light comes on telling me that I've engaged the cruise control.  This is where I'm confused, and think that either Ford User Interaction Engineers or Ford customers are really, really dumb.  When I enable the cruise control I expect feedback, since I've enabled something previously not enabled (or conversely disabled).  When I engage the cruise control, I get feedback.  Namely in the form of the car depressing the gas pedal all on its own and continuing its movement forward with a near constant velocity.  What I don't need is a little light telling me that the car is doing that.  The car doing it is enough feedback to know the car is, in fact, doing it.  If I had a little light telling me that I could engage cruise control, I'd be happier.

Finally, the last of my little nitpicks with Ford that honestly would keep me from buying one, is the clock.  Analog clocks are prestigious and elegant, in the right setting.  The center dash of a near-Economy car is not one of those settings.  When a person is driving and happens to want to know the time, they should have a sense of urgency about them.  Taking eyes off the road is not something you want to encourage, and having to figure out big-hand-little-hand settings is just one more distraction.  Additionally, the clock in the Fusion at night was hard to see anyway; the little hand and matching glistening silver hour markers were difficult to distinguish between.  Digital clocks can look decent enough, and they have the added benefit of being immediately readable at a mere glance.  If you really want the analog clock, figure out a good way to have the digital clock visible to the driver, too.  Redundancy in some cases is a very good thing.

So, that's it.  I hope Ford can take this and think about the idea of not only trying to give out cars to the haters (especially, or even exclusively to, those who want to be constructive) and also my points that would improve the Fusion.  In the mean time, I'm going to be trying to convince my wife to go look at a Hyundai Genesis.

PS., I found out today that my mom apparently reads my Vox blog.  I feel like I should start using more profanity now.