Some of the comments are great around the electronic door locks. The amount of times that people get stuck trying to get in my cars because the driver door unlocks doesn't mean any other ones have unlocked... With the Subarus if people pulled the outside handle just as the locks were trying to unlock it would jam and I'd have to relock and unlock again. Now I had this issue with my family for I think 14 years and somehow they never learned. My Honda Pilot it just doesn't unlock or lock the doors they way anyone would expect or can explain. I have to get the fob 98% of the time and press the unlock button 2x. And if you don't open the door fast enough it relocks. My family still can't figure out that they can't be like "unlock your car" and wait 10 -15 minutes to try and open the doors. I think they re-lock after 2 minutes or so.
I don't know why it's not more programmable but we keep having to change how we do things with cars.
Dipstick wise, I never really got great readings anyways and it came up way more for me than you'd think it should because various Subarus would use oil and the computer would freak out at being .5qt low on a 7qt engine. I had to carry oil around with me. That said, I don't trust the sensors 100% - I like the extra options but I've had my Honda stop moving in a parking lot because some dogwood fuzz stuck to the bumper one time and because a leaf stuck to the huge Honda logo another. It'll freak out about being too close to something in front of me when I'm in REVERSE and backing out of a parking spot. I don't think they're all programmed smartly yet is what I'm saying. I still get annoyed by not having a temp gauge - what if I want to know if the heater is warmed up yet, or watch for it suddenly going up before it's in the red? Same with a dip stick, I might (as other commentators said) want to know if there's sufficient oil in a car that's been parked for a bit before running the engine for 5 minutes so the computer can give a reading. I might also want to check the oil or trans fluid consistency. I still remember my last Outback - the manual said to check the trans fluid at 30k miles, but no dipstick. I asked the dealer to check it and they wouldn't cause I wasn't having issues. New trans (on Subaru's dime) at 55k miles. Now IDK if the fluid was bad or not, or if checking at 30k would have found anything, or if changing it if it did find anything would have prevented the issue - but I do know there was some reason that was printed in the manual. Although TBH I'm still not sure if the dealer just wiffed on that diagnosis, cause the "slipping" got much worse after the replacement and further diag showed 3 coils? injectors? on the engine were bad.
What's my point in the rambling? IDK, I think making it hard for people who want to learn or care to understand fluid checks is a bad thing, and is convincing people to trade a few hundred every 15k-30k miles in fluid checks/changes for a destroyed car at 50k to 100k miles with "lifetime fluids". As they seal these things up more it's just planned obsolescence in fluid lifetimes rather than actually wearing out cars - you know, the 300k lifetime after successfully fighting rusting and older less well designed tech wearing out is too long, so have to just crap out the fluids so more new cars can be sold. Otherwise I don't see the legit reason for 12k-20k mile oil change increments or "lifetime" trans fluid.
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