Most useless feature on your Q?

[Skibane]

Everyone raves about neat features and nice touches on the Q like the seat/steering wheel memory system, double sun visors, active suspension, etc., but there are at least a few 'features' that are as useless as Tom Cruise at a sorority house lingerie party.

So, what item on your Q adds absolutely nothing to your enjoyment? In other words, where did Infiniti spend upteen hundred/thousand dollars that could have been better spent on truly useful items instead?

Mine would have to be the automatic trunk lid closer - If my state of advancing geezerdom ever reaches the point where I can't slam shut the trunk lid without some extra help, please feel free to put me out of my misery!

Your nominations?
Modified by Skibane at 12:27 AM 9/25/2006

[CrimsonQ]

G50= nothin useless

[QFortyFive]

I have an 02 and I would have to say the tapedeck.

[maxnix]

Yeah, maybe the tape deck.

[Blamecanada999]

Cup holders inside the armrest. Or maybe the Scarface-esque, foot long phone that came with the car. My G50 still has the jack for it too. I keep debating on whether to waste the time trying to get service back or not.

[Skibane]

Yep, the tape deck also ranks pretty high on the Feckless Factor - only slightly less useless than an 8-track (anyone else around here old enough to remember those?)

Warbly, hissy sound, takes up to several minutes to access a tune at the other end of the tape, limited to just 90 minutes of program material, prone to permanent damage in hot weather...There is just so much else that could have been done with the space that the cassette player occupies.

While we're on the subject of audio systems, I'm not particularly fond of a radio antenna that insists on extending and retracting itself each and every time I turn the radio on or off. During a typical day of errand-running over a dozen stops, my antenna sees more extensions and retractions than a nickel peep-show...
Modified by Skibane at 5:43 PM 9/26/2006

[Jesda]

LOL, how about the motorized door on the Bose head unit! Soooo freaking cool and pointless. "Bzzzt. Bzzzt." Very Star Trek. When you get bored on the highway, do you find yourself hitting the "O" button just for the hell of it?

I love the tape deck on my Alpine HU. It lets you skip 'tracks' very quickly, and you can choose the number of 'tracks' to skip ahead or behind. The sound quality is fantastic, and I currently use it as an input for my DVD/MP3 drive.

The Bose tape player on my previous Q was a POS. In the summer or after about 500 miles it would get hot, choke, and die. I'd have to turn it off and wait for it to cool down before I could use it again. God damned piece of sh** OEM sound system.

The center tray in the 90-93 Q, while useful because of how large and accessible it is, is also quite useless for the very same reason. There's no cover, and because its shallow, things often fall off the back and end up in the rear seat footwell under hard acceleration. "Where's my wallet? Damn it!" Most frequently, my two remote controls (XM and DVD) keep falling out.

The most useless feature of all is the god damned voice recognition on the F50. Note that I speak perfect diction English. I swear to God, I have the most perfect intonation and pronunciation in the world. Maybe if I speak Engrish the Q will understand me.

Amusingly, a lot of Cadillac STS owners say they have better luck with their VR when they add twang to their voice! For example, "windows daiwn" instead of "windows down" seems to work better.

I wonder if MB voice recognition is more effective if you do a Nazi salute. Like Jeremy Clarkson said, the satnav system is permanently pointed at Poland.

[HashiriyaS14]

I wonder if MB voice recognition is more effective if you do a Nazi salute. Like Jeremy Clarkson said, the satnav system is permanently pointed at Poland.

[bullittandy]

I have to say that I've found the tapedeck very useful-not for tapes though. I use it to store cigarette butts--just kidding.I actually use a tape converter for my satelite radio. I've used wireless and wired F/M modulators, a P.I.E. connector as well as a minijack direct connection and nothing gives the sound quality of the tape deck converter. I was very surprised by the results so keep this in mind if yourgetting an external audio device.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I HATE those trunk-closing mechanisms. My aunt had what I think was a Monte Carlo with one of those (I was really young and the memory has since faded).

All I remember about it was that instead of making the trunk easier to close as it was intended to do, it made it so you had to close the trunk JUST RIGHT for it to work at all, and to make things worse, the "just right" happened to be about as counterintuitive a way as one could imagine. Tell me what, exactly, is so hard about letting go and watching gravity do the work...

I haven't got a Q, but I'll tell you what the most ueseless features of my Maxima are...

Cup holders. Why? They're not really cupholders. They're like some sadistic trap that Nissan engineers designed into the car to get a laugh. They're too wide and too small for any cups every seen on earth, and so shallow that even if you were to find a cup that fits the diameter, it would have to be shorter than 2 inches tall to remain seated when moving. And not only do they utterly fail at holding cups, but they also get in the way of an otherwise brilliantly placed stuff-tray.

Power antenna. Do you really need to ask?

Power seatbelts. Who doesn't like being garroted by their own car? Or how about having your sun visor get munched alive because you forgot--again--to get it out of the way of the Nazi Seatbelt of DOOM. It's also fun when you go to get out but find that the seatbelt lock mechanism has rebelled against the seatbelt retractor mechanism, and you're stuck in the middle of the fight.

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

Cup holders. Why? They're not really cupholders. They're like some sadistic trap that Nissan engineers designed into the car to get a laugh. They're too wide and too small for any cups every seen on earth, and so shallow that even if you were to find a cup that fits the diameter, it would have to be shorter than 2 inches tall to remain seated when moving. And not only do they utterly fail at holding cups, but they also get in the way of an otherwise brilliantly placed stuff-tray.

Power seatbelts. Who doesn't like being garroted by their own car? Or how about having your sun visor get munched alive because you forgot--again--to get it out of the way of the Nazi Seatbelt of DOOM. It's also fun when you go to get out but find that the seatbelt lock mechanism has rebelled against the seatbelt retractor mechanism, and you're stuck in the middle of the fight.

Haha that sucks.

Even though the Q45 has certain "useless" features...I still want one really bad. As for my car...the only useless things really are the rear seats and power antenna.

[lakeq45]

Trunk Closer....

Think wife carrying your little one and the stroller just won't sit right with the grocery bags, she can either A) put your son in the 5000 degree car and come back to close it B) balance the kid in a daring act of motherly acrobatics while she jumps up and down on the lid, or C) she can push gently on the lid to engage the close and go on with her day.

Healthy males are not the only people that drive Q's

It may not be a necessary feature, but it is not without its uses.
Modified by lakeq45 at 10:17 AM 9/25/2006

[bretfraz]

1. The cup non-holders are totally worthless. I keep my garage remote clicker in there.

2. The trip odometer display. Tells me almost nothing and I can't adjust or scroll thru any functions.

3. The idiot lights. Not only are they super small but sunlight reflects against the display, washing them out during the day. Why bother having an idiot light if the idiots can't see them?

[Jesda]

Jumps up and down on the lid? Are there springs or something?

Some Cadillacs and Lincolns have this feature too, as well as S-class MBs for the doors. Its very elegant, but silly. The one time I see it being useful is when I want to drive somewhere and kill someone in the middle of the night. I would need to load/unload my guns from the trunk without having to wake anyone up by closing it.

Cadillac got rid of it.

I second the power antennas. They were neat back in 1985, but now they're a nuisance. Built-in windshield antennas are the way to go. No scratch that, XM is the way to go.

Useless on the G50: The "transmission malfunction" error. EVERY GOD DAMNED THING comes up as "transmission malfunction".

[LongBeachQ45]

The most useless thing I can think of are the "brake pads worn" warning that stays on regardless of having brand new brake pads or sensors. This problem is so lame that an article on here had to be written on how to disable it.

[Skibane]

Trunk Closer....

Think wife carrying your little one and the stroller just won't sit right with the grocery bags, she can either A) put your son in the 5000 degree car and come back to close it B) balance the kid in a daring act of motherly acrobatics while she jumps up and down on the lid, or C) she can push gently on the lid to engage the close and go on with her day.

...or, she could just sit the kid down on the lid to close it!

Seriously, it doesn't require more than a few pounds of exertion to close it that last fraction of an inch - and the power closer mechanism still does absolutely nothing until you manually pull it down to that point.

What's next? "Power Door Slammers" for the other 4 doors?
Modified by Skibane at 5:43 PM 9/26/2006

[Romeo5k]

OK ppl.. i have a 93 Q and im really trying to understand this trunk thing everyone is complaining about. I close my trunk wit ease. Slam the dam thing and it closes. Push it down and it closes. All this cadillac and junk are not like my Q.. Those cadillac have motorized trunk where u tap it and that dam motorized thing closes it for you.. And i hate that dammed thing since i was like 10 yrs old.

I closed someones trunk for em and thought the trunk didnt close correctly so i tried to lift it back up with my hand and all of a sudden i felt it lett down on my fingers, i almost cried, since then i ated the casddilac trunks. But my Q dont have that, its like a regular trunk u wouldl find in a 64 chevy. That stupid brake light is a nuisance. I just changed that stupid thing. Wish it would go away and stop making my car look like its ragedy when someone gets in and says "you need to change your brakes" how about u stfu

Ill admit, i used to have a 92 LS400 and i liked haveing the option of having a couple holder, what happened to the Q when they made it?

Tape deck, im not worried about it, because i took that whole dam thing out, and replaced speakers and all.

3. The idiot lights. Not only are they super small but sunlight reflects against the display, washing them out during the day. Why bother having an idiot light if the idiots can't see them?

I think its a bulb gone out on that thing or something on mine because mine did that too. Then weeks later it only showed when it wanted to. Even at night it would be pitch black with a little orange on it, then 3 mins later it may work perfectly fine... i wont disown taht yet.

For the FINAL question, What was the point of having a gas tank in the trunk rather than being under tha car like other cars???

[szh]

For the FINAL question, What was the point of having a gas tank in the trunk rather than being under tha car like other cars???

Safety.

Least likely place to get damaged seriously in an accident. Even in a rear-end collision, the fuel tank can stay pretty intact.

Z

[szh]

I detested the "auto-dimming" in the rear-view mirror. Yeah, it had a button to disable it, but I had to do it every time I started the car ...

Z

[konatown]

#1: Power Antenna#2: Car-phone. ITS SO BIG WHAT IS THAT?!#3: Cigarette lighters in the rear doors.#4: rear shelf compartment I've never put anything in there.

[szh]

Cup holders inside the armrest. Or maybe the Scarface-esque, foot long phone that came with the car. My G50 still has the jack for it too. I keep debating on whether to waste the time trying to get service back or not.

If it is the Motorola phone (with the main cellular box in the trunk), you can no longer get service for it. It is an Analog AMPS phone. Feel free to pull it out!

However, as an aside, it was an excellent phone. Well integrated (mic and speaker) and it sounded great. It had other nice features - like automatically muting the stereo when receiving or making a phone call, etc.

Job well done, but the technology is now gone.

Z

[szh]

#4: rear shelf compartment I've never put anything in there.

The miniature FSM fit perfectly in there!

Z

[Q45denver]

Don't use the electric headrests too often.

[Romeo5k]

#3: Cigarette lighters in the rear doors.#4: rear shelf compartment I've never put anything in there.

I actually like the cig lighters in the back.. Makes it look different. That middle compartment i took out and installed 2 6x9 speakers

[Skibane]

I actually like the cig lighters in the back

I do too - They're kind of a big FU to political correctness. Every time I notice them, they remind me of an old ZZ Top song:

Easin' down the highway in a new CadillacI had a fine fox in front, I had three more in the backThey sportin' short dresses, wearin' spike-heel shoesThey smokin' Lucky Strikes, and wearing nylons, too...
Modified by Skibane at 5:44 PM 9/26/2006

[elwesso]

There is no feature useless on the Q45. The engineers were gods among men, no way they would put anything in there that wasnt 120% needed...

My most useless feature on the car? The automatic transmission.

[Jesda]

LOL, good one Wes!

What's next? "Power Door Slammers" for the other 4 doors?

MB did it in the 90s, and still do!

I actually use my rear ciggy lighter for my power inverter, which then powers the ghetto home subwoofer I put in the rear footwell. My front cig lighter is hidden in the dash and powers my XM tuner. Basically, I have one socket left. Time to put in a surge protector and get a fax machine and coffee maker going.

[Peterofdevon]

There is no feature useless on the Q45. The engineers were gods among men, no way they would put anything in there that wasnt 120% needed...

My most useless feature on the car? The automatic transmission.

AMEN

The 540i auto vs the manual test drives last week drove this one home. D a m n, how cool and great the G50 would be with a manual. The 6 speed manul BMW was a DIFFERENT car than the automatic.

Peter

[Cyrus]

the most uselss thing... i'd have to say is the whole non-cup holder feature... it sucks... i have no cup holders... and i need me some cup holders... if it's the center console... it's not working... so can anyone elaborate on the cupholder issue please?

[Falkdesigns]

Y33 has 2 nicely placed, and cleanly hidden when not in use front cup holders and it has 2 more in the rear armrest.

I also dig the rear door cig lighters, even though no-one would ever smoke a cigarette in my Q, they're still cool. Y33 has 3 cig lighters and 1 power plug.

I have to say, I wish the Y33 had the new BMW 7 style trunk closer that closes it all the way by itself.

I'd like to loose the power antenna and have a windshield or shark fin type antenna.