A monsoon swept through Detroit this week. And most of the rainfall landed on the head of my teenage daughter.
It happened as she stood outside the '10 Range Rover I was driving. I watched in anguish as my carrottop's stylish coif dissolved -- along with her usually pleasant disposition.
Why? Because I was frantically and futilely searching for the door-unlock button. James Lovell suffered less anxiety in the cockpit of Apollo 13 than I did pondering the Land Rover's myriad controls.
You may ask where I was looking. Well, ... ON THE DOOR, OF COURSE!
Buttons that lock and unlock doors should be on ... the ... door. Period.
I'm not picking on Land Rover. General Motors Co.'s CAMI plant is pulling this boner on a three-shift production schedule.
CAMI is home to the Chevrolet Equinox, deserving Ward's Interior of the Year winner among popular-priced trucks. But, like the Range Rover, the Chevy's doors are locked and unlocked by a button on the center stack.
While I'm ranting, what would possess an OEM to approve a map light that is activated by a separate button? I need a light to find the button!
Kudos here to Ford's F-150. Its chunky map lights are integrated with activation mechanisms. So you need only to push on the lights themselves.
Jaguar takes this convenience one step further. Simply wave your hand under the XF's map lights and on they go.
And by the way, if OEMs are so keen to accommodate mobile devices, why hide the USB ports? I had to turn myself inside-out to connect with the Buick Regal. A '10 VW Golf I drove recently didn't even have a USB port. And youth-oriented Mazda gives similarly short shrift to this feature in the Mazda3.
In the Equinox, GM makes up for its button blunder by locating a USB port at the base of the CUV's center stack. And beneath the port is a handy tray to accommodate an iPod.
The new Hyundai Tucson has a similar setup.
That said, I expect answers to the above questions at the Ward's Auto Interiors Conference on May 19.
Maybe I'll bring my daughter.
