QOTD: Is The Haptic Touch Experiment Over?

by Tim Healey

Published: March 26th, 2026

qotd is the haptic touch experiment over

Volkswagen is saying " our bad" about the move away from buttons.

We've chatted about this on our podcast. I just had a Tiguan tester and enjoyed a lot about it, but the haptics drove me nuts.

It's not just VW -- a lot of automakers have gone in this direction, and they've all faced pushback.

On the other hand, I did read -- and I can't recall the outlet, otherwise I'd link it here -- that automakers want to stay with haptic touch because it costs less.

What say you -- are automakers finally going back to buttons, or are we stuck with the haptics?

Sound off below.

[Image: Volkswagen]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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2 of 39 comments

Mar168698710 16 hours ago

I hate that I have to take my eyes off the road to look for the touch screen to adjust the temperature in my truck. As well as many other things that used to be simple and muscle memory would take your hand to the needed knob.

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D 14 hours ago

When I bought our truck there were so many complaints about the 12 inch screen delaminating that I refused to buy any of the trucks that the dealer had on the lot. I ordered a trim with a smaller screen, no friggin GPS and lots of old fashioned buttons. Within 3 months of delivery there was a recall on all the trucks on this guy's lot. He was faced with a stop-selling order for all of them because the screen malfunction ment no access to critical functions. I kept on driving mine.

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