What Are The Best Bells And Whistles From The Top Car Brands?

When you’re buying a new car, you focus on the important things first. Engine size, fuel efficiency, safety, and reliability are all crucial. However, the bells and whistles sweeten the deal.

The top car brands all offer some great bells and whistles that improve your experience driving their cars. Here are some of the features you can expect.

Telematics

One of the best bells and whistles can actually save you money. Telematics for car insurance refers to the tracking technology that allows your insurer to assess how well you’re driving. If you follow certain guidelines, you will get significant discounts on your insurance.

Telematics is something that comes included with some cars but which insurers will install at your request. It takes data including your speed, the sharpness of your turns, the rate of acceleration, how hard your stops are, and more. It is there to reduce the cost of insurance while getting you to drive safer, rather than to punish you for bad driving.

Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB)

An important and increasingly common feature provided by top manufacturers is autonomous emergency braking (AEB). AEB uses sensors on your car to warn you about collisions. If necessary, it will autonomously apply the brakes to avoid hitting someone or something.

AEB can be lifesaving, whether it simply warns you that you are close to another vehicle or actually stops you from hitting it.

Adaptive Cruise Control

Cars have had cruise control for a long time now, and it is something of an underrated feature. However, it is becoming all the more useful, with adaptive cruise control now enhancing what it traditionally did. Instead of simply keeping you at a specific speed, it automatically changes speed based on what it senses is happening ahead and behind you. It is extremely useful for drivers who have to take the freeway often.

High Beam Assist

When driving at night, visibility can be a huge problem. This is especially true on roads where street lights are absent or not working. In these cases, putting on your high beams can be the best way to improve your visibility. However, it can also be problematic for drivers coming your way if you fail to turn them off. This puts both of you at danger.

High beam assist detects oncoming traffic and dims your beams automatically. As such, you don’t have to worry about turning your beams on and off every few minutes when a car comes your way.

Blind Spot Detection

Checking your blind spot is an important lesson when learning to drive. The fact is that if a car or person is in your blind spot, you risk swerving into it without knowing it is there. Even the most careful driver can forget to check, leading to collisions. Blind spot detention helps prevent this. It uses sensors to detect when there is a car in your blind spot and will alert you.

The most basic blind spot detection will beep if you start changing lanes with another car in your blind spot. Advanced versions will actually steer or brake for you.

Parking Assist

This is one of the bells and whistles that people love most. Parking can be difficult, no matter how good a driver you are. It is also something many drivers feel embarrassed about, especially when parking in front of people. Parking assist uses cameras and sensors to judge the space available and guide your car in.

Emergency Assist

Not all car accidents happen in traffic. If your car overturns on an empty stretch of road and you cannot call emergency services yourself, emergency assist will detect the accident and contact them for you. This can be lifesaving in particular situations.

The above bells and whistles are available from all of the top car brands. Many new cars will have them included as default modern safety features.