Reviving Buttons: Volkswagen's New Design Overhaul

Music. It's time to buckle up for this week's Let's Talk Wheels with Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum.

Today, we're talking about one company that's adding buttons back. Oh, I love buttons. Is your Honda's paint peeling off, especially the white ones? We have good news if it is. And also a discussion on Nissan's fate. You know, some people have been pretty, you know, the sky is falling about Nissan. We're going to find out about that because I've also got an Infiniti SUV review, and it's one of my favorite ones. So today, folks, buckle up to learn about these news stories and much more.

Welcome to your favorite auto show, Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Herzing, and every week we give you the automotive and power sports news interviews, car reviews, and classic car information from my co-host, Jeremy Bierenbaum, based right there in Los Angeles, California. How you doing, buddy? Just come on in. Hey, hey, hey, I'm doing well. Well, I am actually, I still feel full from Thanksgiving a week later, if you can believe it. I gained five pounds. Yeah.

So, you know, I had a good Thanksgiving. I was very thankful and thankful for all the listeners and everyone and, you know, what we get to do. So that's fun. But, you know, I was really surprised at how many police were on the road on my drive back, you know, Thanksgiving weekend, busiest weekend in the States. And 80 million people are traveling and whatnot. And I saw highway patrol everywhere on the highway. And I think that goes into our first little bit of news in regards to Waze.

Yes. As a matter of fact, you know, everybody that I know of keeps telling me, you got to use Waze. You got to use Waze. It tells you the police are. So between that, between the Wazers and my escort radar detector, I am pretty good shape. But, you know, everybody in Texas drives fast anyway. But, you know, Waze is really handy. But, man, a couple of times lately, I've gone back to Google Maps because it seems a little bit more accurate. How about you?

You know, I have a tough time using Waze. I feel like the map is very cluttered with logos and branding. You know, they advertise for restaurants and whatnot on the maps. And then I don't like all the lefts and rights they make you do to avoid, you know, one minute of traffic sometimes. So I'm actually an Apple Maps guy. So I'm not even a Google guy.

But we used my wife's phone on the way back home and she has Google and it was telling us about, you know, some police officers on the road as well as some stalled vehicles. That's a newer feature that they've been ruling in through Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. So that was nice, but it's. It's interesting. I guess you would put interesting would be a good term.

I mean, for us, it helps because there's, I like the stuff where it says there's stuff in the road, pieces of tire or somebody's ladder or something. Hey, there's debris in the road. Be careful. So if you're on your motorcycle, that's really important. You know what I mean? No, definitely. And as a driver, it's nice to know a heads up, you know, stalled vehicle on the left or whatever. And I like to, you know, kind of report those.

And yes, it's still here or it's gone or whatever. but man I was seeing these highway patrol officers they were straight hiding they were looking for people this trip and they were you know in all the spots you'd never or you would expect them but where you can't see them until you've already passed them so using one of these apps is definitely beneficial you know in that respect if you are going to highball it a little bit you know my plan is

always I stay with the flow of traffic and just try and blend in if everyone's going 80 I'm going to go 80 but if everyone's going 75 I'm not going 80 you know what I mean Yeah, I know. That's where you, especially if you're by yourself, you know, I hate being all alone. And then you're like, oh, they're like, you're the only one there to get. But you know what? It's all right. It all works. I've been on the freeway before.

I'm with a big group of people. We're all going 80. And then all of a sudden I look around, I go, where'd everyone go? It's just me. And then all of a sudden I see that highway patrol officer and I'm on the brakes hard. Yeah, well, that's how it works. Speaking of works, you know, one of the things that we love about Mazda is that Mazda doesn't use, it uses a lot of buttons because it's not all touchscreen because you take your eye off the road for using touchscreens.

And it looks like Volkswagen is now kind of going to have a big design overhaul. Of course, Volkswagen has got some cars that people don't really want right now. They've got some that people really want, like the ID Buzz and things like that, but they don't have enough of them. And some of their designs, you know, they wanted to change the design direction a little bit. And they're all going to improve interior quality and all this kind of stuff. But they're adding buttons back.

I think that's great, don't you? I do, too. From a driver's perspective, you know, strictly with, you know, your hands on the wheel and you're trying to pay attention to the road, being able to reach out and kind of feel where the buttons are. You know, after you get used to your car, you know where they are. You can feel them. You don't have to look down. With these touch screens and all these haptic buttons, sometimes you can't tell where your fingers are at.

And you do have to, you know, advert your glaze, your gaze from the road a little bit, you know, down to the center stack. And that's a little dangerous.

Averting my glaze i mean i've had too many donuts this morning as it is this no i'm just kidding but but you're right i think it's that's one of the things you know it's funny people think about they love the escalade and and some of the top end mercedes s-class this or that but they don't have buttons they have this stupid haptic button things and touch screens and stuff like that i don't like that i really don't i like a little bit of both it's how i am i think it was something that,

you know, one manufacturer started doing, everyone else goes, oh, look at this. We can, you know, cut out the amount of buttons we need to make, you know, clean up the dash a little bit. And they never really thought about how the driver or the user is going to react to that. And then everybody jumps on it. And now all of us as drivers are saying, we want the buttons. We like the buttons. We don't like digging through three, four menus just to turn your heated seat on.

I don't want to have to take my gloves if it's really cold and I just get in there. I don't want to take my gloves off to push the Tupa's touch screen. Think about that. If you're wearing gloves and all like driving gloves or anything like that, or if you're in a Jeep or something like that, you don't want a touch screen. You want something you can actually touch, you know? And, and so it all makes a difference.

Folks, Mike Herzig, Jeremy Berenbaum, let's talk wheels. We're talking about the different car companies and things like that. Let's talk about Honda's white paint. I remember when GM had that problem with some of their commercial vehicles, I don't know, probably the early. Mid-2000s, maybe 2010, 2012, it seemed like every white GM van or truck had the paint peeled off of it. You'd always see it right above the windshield and above the doors.

And now Honda is having this issue, and this issue is being brought up in terms of a class action lawsuit, you know, stating the paint not only peels, but it bubbles, flakes, delaminates. And, you know, their argument is that Honda has had these. Tactical service bulletins and warranty extensions about the peeling paint.

So basically, they're kind of, Honda is kind of admitting they know about it, but they haven't really done anything to, you know, help out all these individuals who are encountering these issues. You know, it's Acura MDX, Honda Odyssey, which is, they all have the white diamond pearl paint, as they call it, and the taffeta white paint, both those paint colors. So it's Honda Pilot, the Honda Fit, the Honda HR-V, and it's in white orchid pearl or Bellanova white paint.

But these are all 2013 to now. They're all doing it. I mean, that's a lot. I mean, that's 11 years going on 12 years of paint problems. Yeah, and the interesting thing is it doesn't seem like it stems from, like, the preparation on the vehicle. It actually seems like it's the paint itself that is defective when it is applied to these vehicle exteriors. Well, they filed this class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California about that one.

And so you have the attorneys all making lots of money and the people get, you know, $12 or something. I don't know. But it's just going to be, it's nasty. But, I mean, I think it's kind of sad either way. But, you know, whenever you do these lawsuits, it's like the attorneys are the only ones that really win. You know, you're a thousand percent right. You know, the attorneys are the ones that. But, you know, isn't that always works? They always get their money no matter what.

Either way, we're not going to go down that rabbit hole. All right.

Coming up next, folks, we have our car review on the Infiniti QX80. We're going to tackle questions mailed to Mike at Let's Talk Wheels dot com. Then we're going to finish up the show with Keith DiPlessis from ATG, Appearance Technology Group. Great people. And I met them at SEMA, and they've got all kinds of stuff to get your vehicle looking exactly brand new. All of this on today's Let's Talk Wheels. Be right back, folks. Music.