If you have ever fought your own dashboard to change the temperature in your car or answer a phone call, the data now backs you up. Infotainment systems have become the single largest source of complaints from new-car owners, and while nearly every other part of the modern vehicle is getting better, the screens are stuck in place. Roughly a quarter of everything owners gripe about now traces back to the multimedia stack.

 

That figure comes from JD Power, which surveys tens of thousands of new-car buyers and lessees about their problems and then sells the aggregated data to the companies building the parts. The short version for a shopper: the touchscreen is now the weakest link in an otherwise improving product, and the companies making these systems have every financial incentive to keep it that way.