Anyone else disappointed with progression of Car Interiors?

I'm looking forward to seeing the new Civic interior in the flesh, really like the look of it from the pictures, the center console is neat and simple, but there's enough going on elsewhere to not make it a plain morbid looking interior. Others will find it fussy but the problem with a complete neat & simple interior is they do end up looking really bland.

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The lack of buttons for the screen would annoy me however, touchscreen buttons are not intuitive to use in such an environment.
 
I also loathe the shiny plastic trims you get in cars, whether its fake plastic wood effect or piano black trims etc, they look so nasty and cheap and the fingerprints and reflection can get annoying.
 
I know they are real on the 'higher end' cars, but I can't tell the difference to be honest, they look exactly the same as the fake wood trims in my car which I ended up wrapping in fake brushed aluminum effect vinyl, but it looks tons better now.
 
Housey said:
I was in a Jag dealers the weekend before last and spent quite a bit of time in the F-Type. The interior seemed to have been improved from the early one I sat in, felt it was up there this time around, good quality, looked and felt better. Have they upped the spec/materials/build?
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Nothing drastic other than typical production refinement. Key part would be the AWD / Manual intro also changed to the XF Style cluster with the higher-res central 5" TFT screen. The main infotainment home page for the main screen has also been updated to look like the newer Incontrol Touch system; with the red British telephone box.



The better seats also come with premium leather for the Dashboard. And the upper environment has the leather or suede cloth options too that further lift the feel.

Probably the worst part for me is the cupholder and cover panel, its a terrible hard plastic. The manual cars actually get rid of that to help with arm clearance when the cover is hinged open.

 
The wood in my Jag is lovely. I wouldn't have it any other way. I personally think the wood in something like the F10 5-Series looks great too and I also think that the silver trim they put in M-Sport models in place of the wood cheapens them.
 
I think the first Jag I sat in looked very plastic, the new one I sat in felt very leather. Suspect that was the key difference, plastics on the first one just looked crappy.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
The company that makes some of the plastic parts might be, Jaguar define the shape, colour, interfaces and materials. I can't remember designing any Ford parts...
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Isn't Visteon one of your suppliers? Their website suggest they are.

Edit: and if you did design it, well done, I much prefer it to BMWs, Mercedes and Audis! One of the reasons my next company car is a Jag! :D
 
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Jonnycoupe said:
Ah the TFT screens. Yes they may well be, but again built to a spec, in our case minimum 8". I thought you were referring to touchy feely curvy stuff. Thanks but I'm only a cog in a very big machine!
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Apologies, no I meant the instrument cluster and infotainment screen. I think they both are from Visteon's technologies (built to your spec), which is a similar case to Ford.
 
The companies that make (and often design for the OEM) are often the same across board... be it Kia, Ford or JLR or Merc etc..... They sell their technology to these OEMs, who don't often invent stuff themselves, more cherry pick what's on the shelf.... (Power train is about the only in house items these days) a lot is done by "Full Service Suppliers"

The issues will start in the styling studio.... where wacky ideas and infeasible concepts get requested of the suppliers... often by very young inexperience "designers" who have been let loose with the crayons......
While some of the designs come from the OEM, often its not feasible and the supplier has to negotiate a better solution, or rip it up and start again.... as the "offshore low cost country resource" used by some OEM's has made a pigs ear of it.... The design process has been devalued by the accountants and engineers relegated to spread sheet and metrics chasers.
So while we have been making cars for a century... sometimes it seems we haven't move forward as much as we should have.....

Next is the budget constraints, with the need always to try and drive down costs, so yes even the likes of Audi etc end up using more hard plastics and less soft touch mouldings.
Customers want to pay as little as possible, so cost reduction is huge activity in the mainstream vehicles/OEMs...(while others are terrible at it) The balance of quality and features vs cost will then vary to suit the segment they sell in... compromise ...that's all it is.

I also think companies are struggling to find ways to be unique and different from their competitors, while being competitive on cost. So we either end up with a few disaster interiors or they all look the same !
 
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