FCA’s Stupid Shifter Is A Symptom Of A Bigger Problem In Automotive Trends

The problematic FCA shifter shows that if attempts at cleverness continue to override common sense, we'll all be in a heap of trouble
FCA’s Stupid Shifter Is A Symptom Of A Bigger Problem In Automotive Trends

Here’s your official disclaimer for this article: what follows is a whole bunch of opinion based on a bit of experience behind the wheel of hundreds of different vehicles new and old. Some of my more memorable rides include 600bhp+ prototype muscle cars, highly-strung Japanese pocket rockets, a hearse, an ambulance, and an incident with a 2010 Taurus getting slightly airborne at Ford’s Dearborn proving grounds. Point being, despite being a non-traditional automotive journalist, I’ve driven lots of cars from just about every genre you can imagine.

Stepping beyond experience, however, is something I like to call common sense. And to mix that with a little science I’m reminded of Occam’s Razor - a problem-solving principle which basically says the best solution is the simple one. I had a personal run-in with this concept a couple years ago when, in a fit of engineering madness I attempted to design a brilliantly complex cookware rack in my kitchen. I’d finished three pages of schematics before I realised my wife had already set a simple wire shelf with some S-hooks between the upper cabinets. Problem solved, quite eloquently I might add, in about 30 seconds.

FCA’s Stupid Shifter Is A Symptom Of A Bigger Problem In Automotive Trends

A few months later I had another run-in with Occam’s Razor, this time behind the wheel of a 2014 Dodge Charger with - you guessed it - the infamous FCA electronic shifter for the automatic transmission. This particular car was a V6 all-wheel drive model that was in my care for a weekend and the better part of 200 miles, and it was rubbish. The interior was surprisingly cramped for such a large sedan, visibility was terrible, power was adequate but utterly uninspiring, the handling was flaccid, and then there was that stupid shifter.

First thing’s first - yes the shifter did indicate what gear the car was in, but after three days I still wasn’t used to glancing at those reference points to triple-check whether P, N, R or D/S was illuminated. And I absolutely needed to triple-check, because numerous times I found myself in neutral instead of drive, and worse yet, reverse instead of park. That’s because the movement of the shifter is very subtle and quite fussy. Simply bumping it forward or backward didn’t always affect a gear change despite feeling it bump against the stops.

For me, decades of driving automatics with fixed positions for the shifter would not be undone by a weekend of this glorified toggle switch gear selector. Perhaps it would’ve become second nature with time, but since this crackpot design has been linked to well over 200 accidents, 68 injuries and possibly the death of a young Hollywood movie star, it’s clearly not second nature to a whole bunch of people with presumably much more seat time than me.

FCA’s Stupid Shifter Is A Symptom Of A Bigger Problem In Automotive Trends

And now, Fiat Chrysler’s fix is a software patch that takes three and a half hours to install and is designed to automatically engage park when the door is opened. Except it still isn’t available on all models using this shifter, so those people will make do with enhancements to “the warnings and shift strategy.” And for people like my brother who loads vehicles onto car haulers with the driver door open slightly to ensure it’s straight on the ramps, I suspect their jobs will be a bit tougher. Still, better than having your skull smashed when it rolls backward on you.

Obviously this whole mess could’ve been avoided if FCA hadn’t tried to solve a problem that didn’t exist in the first place. I’m not anti-technology, but I am legitimately concerned about the increasing technical interfaces manufacturers are developing to control basic vehicle systems. BMW’s iDrive has long been a source of frustration for many for its complicated functionality, and Ford’s Sync system isn’t too popular either.

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I’m not going to get into a deep analysis of such systems here, but the fact that so many people consider them a hindrance should hopefully be a wake-up call to manufacturers. And by wake-up call, I mean a gigantically fat kick in the plums to remind them that cars are forms of transportation first and foremost, not mobile internet hubs, movie theatres, or 24th century interstellar shuttles. If you want to deck out your models with a bunch of tech, fine. But at least leave the basic controls, you know, basic. I figured that was common sense. Am I wrong?

Cars will continue to evolve, like it or not. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but for crying out loud, let’s keep some perspective here. Whether or not the tragic death of Anton Yelchin does turn out to be the result of FCA’s ill-conceived electronic shifter, I sincerely hope auto manufacturers learn a very important lesson here: clever isn’t always better.

Comments

Anonymous

Slightly offtopic, but funny how Clarkson once talked down the first BMW iDrive system back in 2005 and people nowadays still rant about it, even though it’s one of the simplest ones out there at the moment.

07/03/2016 - 15:04 |
37 | 0
Tyler Fassett

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Hell, I drive a car with one of the earliest iDrive systems and after you get past the initial learning curve, it’s a very intuitive system. Yeah, it’s frustrating to learn, but it took me all of ten minutes to get acquainted with it.

07/04/2016 - 15:23 |
0 | 0
UltimaSanctus

There was a bmw 535i that refused to start in the middle of the road. I stopped to help and because it had that stupid electronic shifter it took us about half and hour to figure out how to keep it in neutral to push it out of the way

07/03/2016 - 15:06 |
5 | 0

That’s something I hadn’t considered. In the event of a car that stalls, won’t start or has a dead battery, how does one engage neutral so it can be pushed? Anyone have direct experience on this?

07/03/2016 - 17:03 |
4 | 0
Clint 1

Does it not say what position it’s in on the dash?

07/03/2016 - 16:04 |
1 | 1

That’s a fair point, but do you check EVERY TIME you touch the gear stick? I know I don’t. I pull up, pull up the hand brake, push the gear stick forward till it stops, turn the engine off, grab my stuff and get out

07/03/2016 - 16:22 |
1 | 1

They do, but if you pushed an automatic shifter forwards as far as it will go, you’d be right to expect the transmission was in park without a second thought. The problem is that the shifter just doesn’t work, it feels more like a slot machine than a selector.

07/03/2016 - 16:25 |
2 | 0
Christopher Smith

In reply to by Clint 1

It does, but it’s not glaringly obvious or as intuitative to glance at these places as you would expect, especially if you’ve driven conventional vehicles for years. And go by feel. I equate it to driving a manual with a common shift pattern, then switching it up so the pattern is the exact opposite. Would take some time to get used to, if ever. But that begs the question, why even change the pattern in the first place?

07/03/2016 - 16:38 |
1 | 0

it certainly does. and it tells at you if the door is opened in anything but Park

07/03/2016 - 17:14 |
0 | 0
Ross Beaton

Is it really that hard to look down and see what letter is lit up? Ffs people these days need their hand held for every little thing.

07/03/2016 - 16:14 |
6 | 3

That’s not the issue. One instance I had with the Charger was backing out of a parking space in a busy lot. While looking outside at traffic I pulled the shifter back to what I thought was drive. Gave it some gas, continued to move backward. Apparently I hadn’t pulled the shifter back far enough to affect the gear change. Looked down to see what was going on, pulled the shifter hard once, it shifted to neutral. Pulled it hard again, shifted to drive. Meanwhile I’m sitting in the middle of this aisle for about five seconds; people are starting to honk. A couple extra seconds of diligence to visually check which gear is engaged doesn’t sound like much on paper, but on a busy street or parking garage it can be extremely frustrating, especially since the electronic shifter offers no advantage over a normal automatic stalk. It all becomes very easy to understand when you drive
one.

07/03/2016 - 16:51 |
20 | 0
Jakob

The selector levers used to have these weird gates for exactly that reason. Sure, they looked ugly as hell, but you always knew what notch you where in and you couldn’t just accidentally switch into another. Why don’t they want this anymore? They are just making it more complicated than it needs to be.

07/03/2016 - 16:18 |
4 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Jakob

Are you talking about the zig zag prndls? I always thought those were ugly and unnecessary

07/03/2016 - 16:53 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

Its 2016 and i’d still take a car with manual eveything

07/03/2016 - 16:22 |
13 | 0
Christopher Smith

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

One of the reasons I enjoy driving my slow Mustang, sitting in the garage with a good ‘ol five-speed manual and three pedals. No stability control, no traction control, no launch control, and no hope for oncoming traffic when I pull out of Starbucks!

07/03/2016 - 16:54 |
29 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Manual everything, you say…

07/03/2016 - 18:39 |
15 | 0
DeLeon

I liked the “shifter” of the 2013 (i think it was) SLK when I had it for a few days (I drive manual normally). You could really tell which mode you were in.

07/03/2016 - 16:25 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Just wondering then is the Audi A8 shifter different because to me it looks almost identical to this fca one.

07/03/2016 - 16:27 |
0 | 0
Christopher Smith

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

I haven’t had the opportunity to drive newer Audis with the electronic shifter, and I do my best to avoid commentary on subjects like this without direct behind-the-wheel experience.

07/03/2016 - 16:57 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

all i’ll say is i’ve worked for 2 chrysler dealerships, and have moved HUNDREDS of these cars with this shifter, and have never had an issue with it. why? because i pay attention. it tells you, right on the dash where you’re usually looking, what gear you’re in. it’s not that difficult. i bet a majority of these “accidents” are people simply failing to pay attention to what they’re doing

rant over, bring on the downvotes!

07/03/2016 - 16:36 |
178 | 16
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

i should also add that nobody that i have worked with, nor any of my customers, have had any issues with it either

07/03/2016 - 16:39 |
9 | 1
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Thaaank you!

07/03/2016 - 16:54 |
1 | 0
Christopher Smith

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

No down vote. UP vote for sharing a valid opinion based on personal experience. Well done!

07/03/2016 - 17:06 |
74 | 0
Nobody

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

It is still pointless. I got a lever on my steering column for my automatic and I know exactly where it is at all times without a display or LEDs.

07/03/2016 - 20:00 |
3 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Personal experience is all well and good, but don’t make the mistake of thinking your experience invalidates anybody else’s. Chrysler itself has admitted to the glitch in the shifters, and issued a huge recall. Yelchin hadn’t gotten the recall work done yet. Would there be a huge recall if there was no problem and “people just weren’t paying attention?”

NHTSA wrote that the shifter’s design “appears to violate several basic design guidelines for vehicle controls.”

07/03/2016 - 20:04 |
17 | 1
Anonymous

I’m still wondering who were the moronic people who thought it was a good idea to make the shifter go back into the neutral all the time. What are they going to do next? A manual shifter that always go back into the neutral position after every gear change?

07/03/2016 - 16:37 |
0 | 0

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