Hacker News Reader

Comment by flyingfences | Hacker News Reader

In my first car, I defrosted the windshield by twisting a knob with a physical linkage to the baffle in the airbox; it blew on the windshield and I could see where I was going. I have a newer car now, with a button going into some electronic HVAC controller. Some cars now have touchscreens with user-facing software to control it all. It's not an improvement. I wish I could still get a decent car with mechanical climate controls.

View on HN

I need to buy a vehicle with a back seat in the next couple years and I'm not sure where to start. I don't want a touch screen control panel. I want knobs and buttons. I want to be able to repair most of it myself. My current vehicle is a base model from 2005 and I don't know whether I can get a vehicle under 5 years old that isn't loaded down with tech.

If you know of anything, I'd love to hear about it.

I don't know of anything that's actually the "old-school car" we're looking for, but I've been hearing that the new Civic has knobs and buttons (electronic, not directly mechanical) for the important controls and has a surprisingly roomy back seat and trunk.

I'd rather stick to a couple years old at the most recent. My husband loves his old Civic though. If it ever gives out on him, it's good to know there'll be some options out there.

With the market as it is now, cars a few years old cost almost as much as new cars; it may be worth considering.

Very true. I just got burned when I was younger buying a used car that was under a year old. Everything went wrong with the damn thing and apparently it was just a crappy year for that model. I'm a little gun shy about buying something newer than 2 years old at this point.

I drive Skoda Octavia III. The whole AC is electronic but with physical buttons and knobs (encoders) for everything (except steerwheel heating, but that turns on/off on setting last used when seat heaters turn on/off, which are on physical button). That said, only buttons I use are for defrosting front/back windshield in winter, seat heat and sometimes recirculation for smelly cars. The automatic temperature control works really great, I basically never have to adjust temperature manually. Its matured, ergonomic, thought out, responsive and always working.

Stay away from octavia 4 tho, its their pioneer of "software for everything" (whole climate control on touchscren), and its buggy af. 25% of time something basic wouldnt work, (such as the whole climate control, or even turning on lights!), with more challenging things (like phone pairing) failing basically every second ride.

The 3 is a solid quality no bs car, tho

Whoops, I forgot to mention that I'm in the US. Sounds like those would be good options for me though.

Mazda is pretty allergic to touchscreens and views them as a safety risk. Environmental controls are physical button and knobs in all models I’ve seen, and even the infotainment feature are controlled with buttons and a central knob. I never have to reach up and touch the screen. The screen isn’t even responsive to touch while the car is in motion.

In my Miata I had to disconnect the heater hoses to avoid them rubbing against the turbo hot side and so the AC is more efficient. Now I find myself manually cranking the window down a bit when it gets foggy. Maybe you don’t have to go to this extreme but all the HVAC stuff is commanded by a wire and flappers that go “FLOMP” every time you move them. This might be satisfying for you.

Mine is a 90 but they were like that for a long time. The 2010 ones might be the same way.

I have an NB1, so I know exactly what you're talking about. I love it. No turbo, though.

Always the answer

Most American vehicles (Ford, Chevrolet, even Cadillac) still retain the electro-mechanical controls for the HVAC (buttons & rotary encoder with the seven-segment display within for temperature display) even in the 2022 revisions. These are highly reliable devices that use embedded software (think micro-controller or RTOS) to communicate simple messages between the various control modules. 20 years ago some of this was still done entirely in assembly language, the code of which was often documented in 1000+ page paper volumes that would make your average full-stack developer cringe in disbelief.

It appears sanity has prevailed - though Ford sells some higher-end models that have adopted a Tesla-style large portrait display that includes the HVAC. I suppose when you need to sell shiny things to gullible people to move vehicles off the lot....

Reply on news.ycombinator.com