I asked Brian Smith my sales representative about a recent Consumer Reports study that dinged Acura for its reliability, which, personally I found very surprising. He shared that they think it comes from recent buyers coming back to the service department complaining about some aspect of the car like, "My wipers come on and I didn't turn them on," which of course comes from having rain-sensing wiper systems. They just don't understand how to operate all the new systems.
Having just purchased an RLX Tech Hybrid about six weeks ago, I understand the befuddlement with the technology. There are more bells and whistles that you can count. It used to be lights, heater, wipers, radio, handbrake. Today you have multi-position seats with memory, heated and cooled seats, multifunction climate control; intermittent and rain-sensing wipers; lane departure systems; blind spot warning; collision avoidance; automatic cruise control; FM/AM/XM/MP3 hard drive stereo systems; hands-free entry systems; touchscreens; navigation systems; built-in garage door openers; and Bluetooth for your phone and music connectivity. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, tire pressure monitoring; push button electronic transmissions and hybrid technology.
With an older demographic buying some of these cars, they are not digital natives and sometimes not digital immigrants. They walk in as digital idiots and walk out with a highly sophisticated automobile that has all these systems that don't include hand-crank windows.
I recall my aunt trying to help my grandmother adapt to an automatic transmission. She kept taking her left foot and slamming on the brake because she wanted to shift the car after getting up to about 10 miles an hour. In the end my aunt put a new engine in the old 1950 Plymouth car that was 18 years old and you could see the road through the floor boards because it was rusting out. Grandma could not adapt to the "new" technology.
I'm doing my best to keep up with it. I do know my own mother could not drive our new car. Too much tech!
