Car Features You Don’t Need

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While at the dealership selecting your perfect car, you might be tempted to listen to the sales pro and go all in on the super luxury uber package. After all, you deserve it, right? But hold up a minute and think about how much those features will cost over the life of the loan, and how often you will use them. Odds are, you will never get your money’s worth, but the dealership sure will. Below is our list of 10 Car Features You Don’t Need…

Heated Seats

Sure, heated seats are nice when it is horrible out. But even in Alaska, the winter ends, and this pricey feature goes unused. Heated seats are prone to failure after a while, and are difficult for the DIYer to repair. Just sit your butt in a standard seat and it will quickly warm up. Save your cash.

Dealer Installed Under-coatings

Anti-rust coatings make sense. That’s why the factory does it. This isn’t the 1970s when two year old Toyotas were trying to return to the Earth. When was the last time you saw a rusty car less than 20 years old? And some dealership dingus with a $5 rattle can is going to do any better? Save a few hundred bucks and do it yourself if you’re that worried.

LED Lighting

Audi started the recent trend of LED lighting on the front of modern cars. The problem is it only looks good on Audis. You’re not fooling anyone with your Kia, and they don’t help you see any better. Why did you check that box?

Auto-Park Assist

You’ve seen the commercial: kids lets go of wheel, and the car parallel parks for him. First of all, when was the last time you parallel parked? Unless you’re a regular cast member of a police procedural, you’re not parking downtown. No one is. Second, parallel parking is an annoying right of passage that everyone should have to go through. Don’t take this annoying lesson away from your kids.

Appearance Packages

No manufacturer gets this right. The cheesy gold package Camry; the goofy 35^th anniversary Camaro stripes; the lame 40^th anniversary Mustang badge; the 40^th anniversary Nissan Z that no one noticed. No one gets it right, and it always looks worse than the regular edition. Save your money and look better without this option.

Heads Up Display

Seriously, you need this? I get it that it looks slick to have your speed or revs projected onto the windshield. It looks neat, but are you willing to drop thousands for “looks neat?” Remember, you’re in a Corvette, not an F-22. You aren’t dodging enemy missiles on the way to the target, you’re dodging potholes on the way to the country club.

Oversize Factory Wheels

The Camaro has base model 18” wheels. They aren’t terrible, but could be better. Upgrading to 20” wheels will cost you $2,000. Oh, and they don’t look any better. But they are heavier (hurting your performance), and will make replacing tires noticeably more expensive. Instead, you could have saved your cash, and bought aftermarket 20” wheels that look far better and weigh less than the factory lumps.

Special Paint

Distinctive colors are a great option for making your ride stand out from the sea of beige. Unfortunately, some brands have crazy high prices. Porsche, king of high priced options, offers ultraviolet paint on the 911 GT3. It’s cool, but not $3,100 cool. BMW gets crazy with Pure Metal Silver, a pearlescent silver/chrome that will set you back a good ten grand. Think that’s nuts? Mercedes Alubeam Silver on the SLS AMG costs as much as a new Toyota Yaris.

Entertainment

Backseat drivers and whiny kids exist due to a lack of entertainment. Give you passengers back there something to do, and they are suddenly less annoying. Most large SUVs and minivans have an entertainment package available. Chrysler wants to charge you a thousand dollars for 7 inch screens and a Blu-ray player. For that price, you could buy 2 iPads, and have a more flexible, and portable, rear seat entertainment system.