Steering wheel audio controls

It's still a Honda and not a Mercedes. It does not sell for Mercedes money.

Plus, if there were not these apparent cheap-outs, there would be no reason
to upgrade to, say, an Acura, would there? Honda has to try to gently nudge
buyers upstairs, no?

 

I have 08 Ridgeline RTL. Steering wheel is lighted and it is convenient.
Don't know why Honda (and Toyota?) didn't do this previously.

It's still a Honda and not a Mercedes. It does not sell for Mercedes money.

Plus, if there were not these apparent cheap-outs, there would be no reason
to upgrade to, say, an Acura, would there? Honda has to try to gently nudge
buyers upstairs, no?

 

I have 08 Ridgeline RTL. Steering wheel is lighted and it is convenient.
Don't know why Honda (and Toyota?) didn't do this previously.

It's still a Honda and not a Mercedes. It does not sell for Mercedes money.

Plus, if there were not these apparent cheap-outs, there would be no reason
to upgrade to, say, an Acura, would there? Honda has to try to gently nudge
buyers upstairs, no?

 

We also have an '04 EX-L. The steering whell controls are not Backlit.
believe on an '05 they are.
Scot

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What??? $10???? Bottle: maybe $1 difference, if THAT much. Float
switch. Onesie pricing is around $.80. Add almost $.10 worth of
wiring. The computer and software are all there. Another $.10 for
wires to the dash, maybe $.18 for an LED. NRE per vehicle probably
ran under $1.

 

What??? $10???? Bottle: maybe $1 difference, if THAT much. Float
switch. Onesie pricing is around $.80. Add almost $.10 worth of
wiring. The computer and software are all there. Another $.10 for
wires to the dash, maybe $.18 for an LED. NRE per vehicle probably
ran under $1.

 

Remember, the US has CAFE. Weight is a BIG issue in CAFE, and every ounce
counts.

As far as price goes, literally every penny counts too, so over however
many tens of thousands of cars, a buck is a huge amount. When I was in the
Atlanta Ford plant some years ago, some of the engineers were involved in a
many-month, laborious process of changing the vent symbols on the Taurus
dash from printed to molded-in. This had turned into a long, drawn-out
thing because the tooling company was having trouble getting the symbols
rotated "just so" on the molds. The savings from molding versus printing?
18¢ per car. 18¢ was a /very/ significant amount. I was told even /five/
cents would be more than important enough to pursue.

 

Remember, the US has CAFE. Weight is a BIG issue in CAFE, and every ounce
counts.

As far as price goes, literally every penny counts too, so over however
many tens of thousands of cars, a buck is a huge amount. When I was in the
Atlanta Ford plant some years ago, some of the engineers were involved in a
many-month, laborious process of changing the vent symbols on the Taurus
dash from printed to molded-in. This had turned into a long, drawn-out
thing because the tooling company was having trouble getting the symbols
rotated "just so" on the molds. The savings from molding versus printing?
18¢ per car. 18¢ was a /very/ significant amount. I was told even /five/
cents would be more than important enough to pursue.

 

especially with ford. they are absolutely incredible in the corners
they cut. and yet their cars are the same price as /far/ superior
product.

relentless pursuit of savings - that's why we don't have safety features
like amber rear turn signals - cheaper to lobby a politician to keep the
nhtsa off their back than it is to pay for a couple of extra bulbs and a
few feet of wire.

 

especially with ford. they are absolutely incredible in the corners
they cut. and yet their cars are the same price as /far/ superior
product.

relentless pursuit of savings - that's why we don't have safety features
like amber rear turn signals - cheaper to lobby a politician to keep the
nhtsa off their back than it is to pay for a couple of extra bulbs and a
few feet of wire.

 

One is always free to purchase one of these many other vehicles if it
is so disturbing to not have lighted controls.....

 

One is always free to purchase one of these many other vehicles if it
is so disturbing to not have lighted controls.....

 

The labor to install is far more costly than the component costs.

 

The labor to install is far more costly than the component costs.

 

The mold tooling alone can be very expensive, depending on the amount
of cavities and frame size used. Even for a small machine (30 ton)
with a small frame size, they are in excess of $20k....

 

The mold tooling alone can be very expensive, depending on the amount
of cavities and frame size used. Even for a small machine (30 ton)
with a small frame size, they are in excess of $20k....

 

You do not have to look up at mercedes to find this popular feature...
2004 Honda's Accord direct competitor, 2004 Volkswagen Passat
has all this features, including streering wheel illumination, bigger
windshield washer fluid bottle and the low fluid sensor...

Well, if this is your opinion how Acura should upscale their cars, fine...

For me, the proper way would be for Acura to ADD features on top of
these which are common in the car segment where Accord is placed and
not trying to stand out in comparison with Accord just simply by dumbing
down the Accord...

For example they could compete with mercedes,bmw,audi,lexus instead of
adding features which are already available in simple cars like volkswagen
and making a big deal out of it...

 

You do not have to look up at mercedes to find this popular feature...
2004 Honda's Accord direct competitor, 2004 Volkswagen Passat
has all this features, including streering wheel illumination, bigger
windshield washer fluid bottle and the low fluid sensor...

Well, if this is your opinion how Acura should upscale their cars, fine...

For me, the proper way would be for Acura to ADD features on top of
these which are common in the car segment where Accord is placed and
not trying to stand out in comparison with Accord just simply by dumbing
down the Accord...

For example they could compete with mercedes,bmw,audi,lexus instead of
adding features which are already available in simple cars like volkswagen
and making a big deal out of it...

 

Why would you state the obvious? This is not the point here...

The argument was made here, that Accord not having illumination
on the steering wheel is intentional and helpful: you do not take the
eyes from the road to "look" at the controls, you need to remember
where there are. Contr argument was that many cars have this
feature without any "harm" to the driver This leads to a believe
that this is just a missing feature and we should not make lame
excuses for honda doing this

We do not buy other cars just because they have illuminated wheel.
We want to drive better accord with illuminated wheel instead of
making lame excuses this is intentionally made for the driver benefit

 

Why would you state the obvious? This is not the point here...

The argument was made here, that Accord not having illumination
on the steering wheel is intentional and helpful: you do not take the
eyes from the road to "look" at the controls, you need to remember
where there are. Contr argument was that many cars have this
feature without any "harm" to the driver This leads to a believe
that this is just a missing feature and we should not make lame
excuses for honda doing this

We do not buy other cars just because they have illuminated wheel.
We want to drive better accord with illuminated wheel instead of
making lame excuses this is intentionally made for the driver benefit