I came up to an intersection, and got cut off by some douchebag in a thunderbird, so i slammed on the brakes and my (closed) bottle of water flew out of the cupholder and onto the floorboard. I proceeded forward a bit and came up to another intersection not more than 50 feet forward, with a red light. I hit the brakes to stop at the intersection, and THE BOTTLE IS IN THE WAY. I managed to knock the bottle out with my left foot and come to a screeching halt at the red light.

You'd think a $42,000 luxury sedan would have cupholders better than the ones in my American-made (puke) $9000 Chevy Cavalier.

Anyone have ANY suggestions as to how make the cupholders at least DECENT to the point where i don't end up with stuff in my lap even if it's only a bend in the road?

 

I feel you.....What year do u got..?

i have the same issue with my 97 since day one i pick up the car...the cup holder just wont hold any things secure(from Small to Medium) not even think about putting a larger size on that space. whenever you take corner a bit harder it just flip on the the driver/passenger side.

 

what i do is, quickly place my hand on the cup before i hit the brakes..

 

Exactly. It's become my subconcious reaction to do that in every car I drive...

Might be the way I drive, but I'll blame the cupholders while I'm in the ES.

 

I'm in an 01...

And yeah I usually grab the cup/bottle/can (etc) before i come to a stop, but this time I missed it. I still feel I shouldn't have to worry about that for the amount of money I paid for the car...

Edit: They seem to have fixed them for the later models. My mom has an 04 ES330 loaner right now (she blew a tire on the RX), so I tested it with the same bottle and I couldn't get it to fly out. I'm gonna look into this more tomorrow and see if I can maybe replace the springs in the expansion arms to increase tension, or put some sort of rubber or sandpaper on the bottom platform of the cupholder and see if that makes any bit of a difference.

 

It's a shame that the nicest body style gets the worst cupholders.

I was going to pop out the woodgrain underneath the cupholders and take it to the workbench and prototyping ultra-deep cupholders... but it may take well over a long time to finish.

 

I dont think its the car design fault at all. I always lay my plastic bottle water flat in between the seat and the middle consil because I know it doesn't fit in the cup holder in my car in the first place. I have heard of people that have gotten cut up with glass from bottles being in their car.

 

plus its not a $42k car. Max it is a 35 or 36 thousand brand new. You should have noticed that the cup holder on our es's is not adjustable to smaller cups/bottles.

 

The 92-96 cupholders SUCK as well.

 

I agree with all of you on the cupholder issue with the '97-'01 ES. It's not the most well designed, and I'm quite jealous of the cupholder in the 2nd-gen GS It's more recessed, and can hold 2 drinks pretty well without major problems. However, compared to the cupholder in the '92-'96 ES, this one is more accommodating for 20-oz drinks

 

This is a product of our fascination with Super Sizing. I guess the Japanese didn't know how to deal with it. Yeah, I've had that happen before, where something gets wedged under the brake pedal, pretty scary, not recommended for the faint of heart.
BTW, your original post reminded me of a really old Saturday Night Live skit, with Garrett Morris announcing the arrival of "Lord and Lady Douchebag".

 

the germans have the right idea. No cupholders in their cars in germany. They figure....that when you are in your car driving....that you should only be driving!

 

Don't drink and drive. This is not limited to just beer!

 

There is a reason Lexus / Toyota states the cupholder is only intended to be used when the vehicle is in use!

 

Yeah but I probably would have been safer NOT using the cupholder while the vehicle was in use.