how hard do you want it? how hot do you want it? where do you want it?

My car is still mainly like this.

It has a touchscreen thing but it's only for the entertainment and it has steering wheel controls as well so there's an alternative to using the screen while driving.

It’s true. I hate my touch screen to control airflow in my car. Every time I go to adjust it, it fucks up and I’m distracted while driving.

It's really interesting that I agree with you, but so many people insist that they're new and fancy tools are somehow making their lives significantly better. And obviously it's an opinion question, it's not like they're lying, but I just don't see the value that many of them do.

Let me play devils advocate…..

One of my cars has the hvac controls on the screen and it’s usually fine, because it is actually smart. I only need to set the temperature and it remembers that.

For example now that it’s getting cold, I almost never need to touch those controls

• I can preheat through an app (no subscription needed)
• when I start my car, the thermostat is set to 69 (heh heh) where I last left it
• the car goes through a progression: heating steering wheel and seat first, then automatically off when the cabin temperature comes up
• the glaring problem is defroster. Aside from initial heat up I don’t know a good way to switch to that while driving. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be automatic and fails or if there is a shortcut somewhere

That has 5 moving parts, while a touchscreen has none. It's much easier and cheaper for the manufacturer to install the touchscreen. But instead of passing the savings to you, they probably keep it or pass it on to investors.

My 2018 vehicle has intuitive tactile knobs & buttons. Easy to operate without eyes ever leaving the road. I am grateful.

my '93 MR2 has buttons and a slider. Perfection.

I wish more companies did this.

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The larger temperature controls and the vertically, slightly curved stack make so much sense to me.

I long for the days it was two horizontal sliders. Cold to left, slide to the right the warmer you wanted. Low to the left, slight to the right for high fan. Now it's all this digital horse shit and it takes years of me being bored at red lights to be motivated to explore all the menu drudgery on the console. Now it all has fucking wifi and tracker nonsense too.

One of my knobs broke and to this day, I can't work out how to replace it. Where do you even buy them from??? 🙃

I have this and I will not change.

I'm not wealthy enough to own a car that has anything newer than this lmao

I bitch about this every time I'm drive anything but my old truck that still has these!