Mountain Clams

What the truck?

Now that I have had a chance to drive the Tundra around for a few hundred miles, I have noticed a couple really minor things that I think are "wrong" with it. These are really just cosmetic things. None of these in itself would have prevented me from buying the truck, or favoring some other vehicle over the Tundra, so I'm just being nit-picky.

The first thing is the cruise control's... well, control. It's on a little stick that is mounted on the steering wheel. This means that whenever I turn the steering wheel, the little stick has moved to a fun new location. Sure, it's a predictable new location, but I just haven't gotten used to finding yet. Besides going for a ride on the steering wheel, this little stick moves in three different directions (up, down and towards the driver), with an added little button to turn it on. This is not what I would call good design. From just the perspective of using it (assuming you've already found it), this means you have to know if the cruise control is already on or not. Sure, you can look down at the dashboard to see if the little green "Cruise" light is on, but that's an extra step. If it isn't on, you have to push the little button to turn it on, then push the stick down to set the speed. That's two steps where there should be only one. If it is already on and you do this, the first thing you did was turn it off so setting the speed kindly ignores you.

The second problem has to do with the competition between the door handle on the driver's side and the window controls. The way it is positioned, when the door is closed, the handle does its best to block the window controls from the driver's reaching arm. It makes it uncomfortable to open and close windows in the truck. At least the back window is not subject to this, since it's in a completely different place. But you would think that the truck designers might have tried to open and close the windows while the door was closed at some point and said, "Hey! Dis thingy here gets inda way of doze thingies dere." Gotta love how the car engineers in my head talk.

Finally (for now - give me a break, I'm still getting used to it), there is a little nub on the floor that holds the floor mat in place. This little nub sticks up only a little bit, but it's in the perfect place that I rest my foot on it every time I drive. I'm wondering how difficult it would be to cut the little nub off, but I'm afraid it might void my warranty, like opening my computer case does.

It's still a nice vehicle, to be sure.

Labels: truck

posted by Brett @ 5:11 PM