This is great from a safety aspect, but the increase in complexity has led to almost all new cars fitting a touch screen for controlling all the new features of modern cars. 

This may look modern, clean and elegant compared to having a dash full of buttons. However, this movement away from buttons towards screen-based controls can be fraught with issues if they aren’t designed in a thoughtful and easy to use way. This can directly impact the safety and useability of your car. 

For example, imagine it’s a very hot day and your car has been sitting in the sun and is baking hot. On return, you put the air conditioning on to max and open all the windows for a minute, then jump in, put the windows up and drive off. With effective modern car air conditioning, within 10 minutes the car's temperature should have dropped significantly and you want to turn down the fan and increase the temperature a bit so you don’t freeze. You also want to adjust the air to blow on the windscreen instead of directly on your face. However, you’re in the car alone and the freeway traffic is dense and very start-stop, requiring your full attention.

Many modern cars have completely removed physical buttons to adjust the climate control, instead you need to go into the touch screen menu and find the specific area for climate control, then find the bit for temperature, adjust that, then find the vent controls and adjust that and then the fan speed and so on.  Without a passenger to help, this can mean significant time with your attention away from the road. If adjusting the climate control settings is something that you do frequently then you will know how important it is to have separate controls on the dashboard with basic climate control functions.  Some cars have this to a greater or lesser degree. However, knowing which certain dashboard functions that you use are where on every car in your shortlist could be a very time consuming process. 

Therefore to increase your safety, reduce your stress levels and increase the useability and liveability of your car, having separate controls or shortcuts you can set up for commonly used functions could be a critical factor in deciding which is the right car for you. On the other hand, if you are one of those people who set their climate control and vents to a certain setting and never adjust them, then having the climate control functions buried in a sub-menu on your touch screen is unlikely to cause you too many hassles. 

It is this personalised approach that differentiates the pure drive car buying experience from any other. The initial time we take to understand you and your car situation makes all the difference in your day to day living with your car. 

At DrivePure, we don’t make assumptions, if we don’t think we can get an accurate picture of your driving style through our assessment process we will actually come for a drive with you!