I get it but these are sport utility automatics. The extent of my manual shifting doesn’t go past using it for mountain passes. No spirited driving going on here.

 

Same here....

 

The best shifters are the gated design from Toyota and Lexus. Mercedes used to do the same thing as well. I am not really a fan of the dials or small shifters they use today. Bit's LC500 design looks great. The Buick LaCrosse shifter lit up at night which was snazzy. But I like the gated designs the best.

 

I like the gated designs the best too

 

I guess my age is showing - after having had my Model S for a few weeks, I prefer the very simple up/down column shifter. It's so simple and straightforward - I think all cars should be like that. 😃

 

My issue is the dramatic differences. I preferred when the industry had one or two approaches to transmission shifters.

 

Why? all the brands are just trying to be creative and different.

 

Because when you switch back and forth between vehicles its really obnoxious. I have two cars I drive routinely that have totally different approaches to shifting and I have to adapt to each for a while every time after I have been driving the other, and I rent a lot of cars and its the same issue. All your cars have the same approach to shifting and controls. My wife could not get the Mercedes into reverse until I showed her how, and my sister in law got stuck in a parking lot trying to drive my 2014 Grand Cherokee because she couldn't figure out how to use the shifter. Thats insane.

Important controls aren't the place to be "creative and different" IMO, it just makes cars annoying and dangerous. Gearshifts should be gearshifts, steering wheels should be steering wheels, horns should be horns, turn signals should be turn signals.

 

Agreed. Every time I park my wife's car in an attended garage, I hear them rev the engine because they can't get it out of park into drive. Worst yet are automatic cars with no park position, which need to be shut off to go into park, or rely on parking brake.

 

Exactly, and in the Mercedes I routinely try and shift into reverse when maneuvering and wind up in neutral and rev the engine and I've put 15,000 miles on it. Stupid design.

 

In my E70 that I had for almost 10 years, when I quickly switch from D to R, often I don't click the side button hard enough, and it stays in drive, makes a loud chime and interrupts the back up camera on the screen with the shift procedure instruction, that I have to cancel out of to get the back up cam back. It's especially amusing when trying to pop a quick u-turn in traffic or parallel park with traffic behind you.

 

Yep, exactly when that happens to me in the Mercedes. Then in neutral it rolls...real safe.

 

Shifting design should be regulated. Just like you can’t have your brake pedal on the right side and accelerate on the left.

 

Absolutely it should be. Couldn't agree more. The regulations once stipulated a straight/linear PRNDL layout for the column or shift-lever......for a reason. Some automatic-equipped GM cars, before the first regulations applied in the mid-1960s, used a PNDLR pattern, which not only was confusing for drivers who regularly used rental-cars and often switched back and forth between the two patterns, but sometimes caused serious transmission or vehicle damage by having Reverse directly next to Low gear. Yes, it made rocking the vehicle back and forth in snow easier to help get it unstuck, but drivers sometimes accidentally went past low and hit reverse at higher speeds while attempting to downshift from Drive, ruining the transmission. The famous three-and-a-half-mile 10%-slope Summit-Mountain grade on U.S. 40 at Uniontown, PA, which I have driven (and spoken of on Car Chat) several times, was notorious for many downshifts and damaged transmissions before the PRNDL regs took hold. When the new regulation took place, putting Reverse gear in between Park and Neutral, and requiring an extra motion with a lever-button or gear-lever pull to get in and out of Park or Reverse vastly lowered the number of times that people were damaging their units.

True, today, no matter what shift-type or pattern you have, computers can prevent an accidental unsafe shift, but not all vehicles are foolproof in that regard, have anti-shift computers, or prevent the accidental engagement of Park while the vehicle is in motion. And, of course, different button/lever/tab/column/or touch-shift mechanisms can still be confusing to drivers that drive more than one vehicle. I'm generally not a great fan of trivial or needless government regs, but, IMO, this is one that is definitely needed.

 

I couldn’t imagine being a valet attendant.