Hard to believe normal operation causes alarms, warnings, voice alarms, or warning lights for no reason or that a car like acting up like that wouldn't put off a prospective buyer.
It does put off current owners. They come in regularly complaining about this stuff. As for prospective buyers- I suspect that most people don't appreciate the impact of many of these features during a normal test drive where their attention is focused elsewhere. Some of the salesman will also disable the most irritating features where possible before the test drive.
My Brother drives most of the day for work. All that he drives for work is late model Nissan vehicles, rarely more than a year or two old. Below are some examples that he mentioned.
Drive up close to something or another vehicle, like pulling up to a gas pump behind another vehicle, and it starts to squawk at you when it thinks that you are getting to close. Keep going and the auto-breaking slams on the brakes stopping the car. On some vehicles it isn't gentle either he said. Your head gets jolted because it thinks that it is preventing a collision.
If any door is open when you aren't in park and it squawks at and you can't move the vehicle even if you want to.
Unlock the doors to let someone in or out and if you are not in park it relocks them right away on you. Many vehicles will only lock the doors when you release the brakes but apparently not all use this logic.
Move to one side of a lane to avoid a pothole, or any obstacle, and it starts squawking to warn you. Don't move back and the lane assist steers you back and you slam through that pothole.
Drive-by-wire shifters that will not allow you to leave the car in neutral and take your foot off the brake at the same time. If you do release the brakes the computer puts the vehicle in to park whether that is what you want or not. This one really pisses customers off because it makes it impossible to go through an automatic car wash. This feature can't be turned off. There is a process to override it but the process is purposely complicated to discourage people from disabling this safety feature. The result is that people can't remember how to do it and it must be done every time that it is needed.
Vehicles with keyless ignition that do not have a proximity feature to unlock the doors or an exterior button to unlock the doors. You don't need the faub to start the car but you still have to dig the faub out of your pocket or purse to push the unlock button on the faub to get in to the car. That is a real genius bit of design engineering right there.
There were a few other things that he mentioned but I don't remember what they were now. He told me that some features can be turned off but many of them can not be in the name of safety. Much of what can be disabled can only be disabled for that one ignition cycle, meaning that it must be done every time that the vehicle is started, which in itself becomes irritating as you must keep doing it over and over again if you don't want it.
I don't know which of these features are present on which Nissans. He mentioned a few models while telling me about this but I couldn't tell you which ones they were now.
He jokingly told me that he enjoys getting in to his old dumb car at the end of the day because he can enjoy a quiet nag-free drive home.
