Probably it is a few dolars cheaper. Not enough to change the bottom line, but as always, any short term cost cutting is enough to give brain-dead Harvard MBAs multiple orgasms.

Dollars? I've worked with car manufacturers and they would sell their soul to save pennies. OTOH they tend to be very conservative with anything that actually impacts the driving part of the car.

My Ford Fusion has one of those rotary dials. Didn't like it at first, but it is nice having that air space free (not able to accidentally knock it out of gear, more room for an extra cup holder). Also the cars with a physical gear shift lever still work by activating switches, there hasn't been mechanical linkage for years in a lot of models.

>> We've had PRND(L) levers as the standard for shifting in automatics for over 50 years now, and the dial offers no advantages that I can see.

My guess is that the dial costs less, so it is done for the company not the customer. Many cases of bad design come from prioritizing the manufacturer over the customer.

Pray tell what make and model this was so I can run as fast as my legs can take me in the opposite direction if Hertz tries to palm one off on me

I rented a Ford Edge two months ago that had one. It was quite distracting. At the end of a week, I still hadn't internalized how it worked. I had to think about it every time.

On my old Chevrolet Tahoe, I can tell what gear I just shifted into by feel (shifting into D, it has a slight tendency to overshoot the normal overdrive mode and end up locked into 3rd). And of course, this is essentially a nonissue on manual transmissions.

Most cars have a stop at D; e.g. for the ones where you pull the stem towards to to leave park, you can let the stem spring back at neutral and push it down until it stops at D, and for the ones with a button you can release the button at neutral.

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Honestly if the rotary dial had similar tactile feedback, it would probably be fine. No worse than when they moved it off of the tree as bench seats were retired for safety reasons.

Like I said - it has such a stop, it's just old and a bit worn.

It's column shift despite bucket seats.