Whether it’s because you’re the second or third owner of a car acquired in a private sale, or the fault of an inadequately informed salesperson at the dealership, or you just didn’t read the manual, it’s not unusual any of us to be blissfully unaware of features and niceties built into our vehicles.
It’s usually the smaller things that elude detection or go unnoticed, but sometimes important – indeed, crucial – features may be completely unknown to some drivers. In college, a buddy of mine went a full month thinking his Ford LTD (pretty sure it was an LTD) simply did not have high beams. As you have probably already guessed, the car did have brights, but they were activated via a button on the floor, not a stalk control. “What does this even do,” he lamented, stomping the button on the way to lunch. “It’s the high-beam switch, dum-dum,” I replied helpfully. He had never tried the thing at night.
More recently (like, 30 years more recently), my Mom was shocked to discover the CD player in her 2008 RAV4 could actually hold six discs. Six! She was popping out Whitney Houston to put in Dionne Warwick, and I was like, “You know you can put both in there, right? Plus four more?” Sadly, she was doing this from the passenger seat because she no longer drives and missed out on a full decade of not having to swap discs, but at least we had a good laugh on the way to Dollar Tree. And then we got ice cream.
Small conveniences are often far more appreciated than expected when one has suffered long without them. When I showed my wife her rear seats could be folded down via remote latches in cargo area, she was thrilled not to have to open each rear door and walk around the car to flip the seats directly. The little holder-thing on the gas door, so the gas cap doesn’t just dangle against the paint? A revelation. And don’t get me started on how many people have been thrilled to discover there’s an arrow on the fuel gauge that points to the side of the car with the fuel door.
Your turn: What Feature Did You (or someone you know) Not Realize Your Car Had For Way Too Long?
Top graphic image: Toyota
I’m loving these stories!
I bought my Indy Red 5-speed Stratus R/T coupe new in July 2005. There is a big knob on the side of the driver’s seat whose function was not clear to me. I had turned it and although something felt different, I could not quite tell what it was, so I cranked it to where it was most comfortable and just left it there for the next 18 years.
In April 2023, for some reason I pulled the manual out and discovered the knob adjusts the height of the seat cushion. I had set it to the lowest position, which worked fine for me (I’m 6’1″). My 5’3″ wife had always hated how low she sat in the car and hated driving it. Now that she can raise the seat enough to see over the dash she does not mind so much driving it, but she is still mad at me for being a man and not reading the instructions for 18 years.
Or else for not monkeying around with every control to see what it does. What kind of man are you? ; >
LOL I couldn’t tell what it was doing when i was sitting in the seat while turning the knob. I thought maybe some sort of lumbar support since I could sorta feel a difference in my lower back, but one day it hit me that didn’t make sense because the knob was on the lower cushion, not the seatback. When I looked it up it suddenly did make sense why it turned much easier in one direction than the other – I was trying to lift 200+ lbs.
I didn’t realize my Fleetwood had the V4P towing package, until I hit a deer and had to replace the radiator
TBH I was always aware of the fancy features I just preferred not to use them. I’ve owned my VX Since 2002 and I have used cruise control about 2-3 times. I set my seat for comfort and haven’t adjusted it since. I drove my Jensen Healey for 8 years without interior door handles. I have just started using my heated seats in my Camry, I wish I had started using those earlier but I also wish the back was heated for sore muscles. I installed a new radio in the VX and have never set the time or set radio stations.
Heated seats are so nice for a sore back.
I had a new 2009 Dodge Challenger about a year before a stranger told me I could remote open the windows by holding the unlock button down. I don’t think that info was in the owner’s manual. A ton of people don’t know their sun visors will extend for side window use.
My ’06 Altima did the power window thing. And my parents had no idea their ’08 Taurus X’s sun visors extended until I used that feature while driving. They’d owned it for over a decade!
I have a friend in his 70s who saw me extend the visor in my car about a month ago. He was astounded. He didn’t know any car could do that!
Whenever I get into a car without that feature I’m immediately furious.
My 1994 Bronco had two sets of sun visors; one was the main windshield, and the other would swing down if you moved the main ones to the (door) side to block the sun.
Plastic covers on Audi lug nuts.
Cursed the Audi factory for sending the car out with a lug wrench too small for the lug nuts.
AAA guy reaches into glove compartment, grabs the plastic tweezers pinned to the door, then pops the lug nut covers off.
You have to be F&*!iing kidding me!
My beloved Toyota T-100 had a little vent register just below the steering column. A “crotch vent” if you will.
I didn’t realize it because I bought the truck in the pleasant late summer and never needed to use the fans, heater, or A/C. I was working the graveyard shift at the time and fired up the heater for the first chilly autumn morning after work and I thought that I’d pissed my pants.
Ol’ Crotch Vent and I got to be good friends as my interest in distance running and hiking flourished.
We called that the ball warmer lol
My Fit has what is basically a glorified upshift light- it’s basically like a ring of light around the speedometer that changes from green to light blue to dark blue, depending on your efficiency or whatever. I drove that for about six months before I noticed it and realized what it was doing.
If my Fit had this feature I wouldn’t have known as it was dark blue all of the time lol
And you’d still be getting 35 mpg carrying all your stuff because Fit!
Goodyear GT whatevers lasted 36k mil and got 33mpg and however were better than the Fuel efficient OEM that absolutely sucked in snow. Those OEM’s though bl got upwards of 41mpg with a tailwind, 38mpg average. ’07 Sport automatic. 78mph Iowa interstate. Probably 90k in that I35 – I80 corridor.
Edit to add: 160,000 miles put on it with the follow the manual Ikea maintenance. I did the air filters and let Honda handle the oil/trans/coolant changes. Trust me when I was like, is there a timing belt change at 80k and found out I have a chain. Honda is the Japanese Lancia. My Storm Silver Metallic Bullet. I’m disappointed I didn’t get white over tan, but happy overall. The Fit is Go.
It’s the only vehicle I’ve purchased brand new. My parents bought brand new 1G EX and 2G SE. ’90 Chrysler T&C that they purchased in ’91 and some how offloaded a ’86 Colt sedan carburetor equipped for like the same price the bought it for. That was a stout 3.0l Mitsubishi v6
Holding the safety system key in my 340i for 3 seconds switching the electronic nannies off was a dream come true.
Have you found the secret turn indicators yet?
When I was in high school, my father borrowed my uncle’s 1956 Chevy Bel-air station wagon. We went to a car show, and on the way home we needed gas. We pulled up to the pump, but the gas cap was nowhere to be seen. We looked high and low for it. An old-timer walked up to us and, with a chuckle, twisted a hidden part of the taillight, allowing it to flip down and reveal the filler cap. We looked like such dipshits!
Ha! I had a 65 Comet with the gas filler under a piece of trim above the license plate. In Oregon couldn’t pump your own, mostly went to an off brand place owned by an older couple who dailied their 63 Falcon so that was always a fun chat and I’d leave with an exceptionally clean windshield. Anywhere else I’d usually have to get out and show the gas jockey what to do.
The fuel filler behind the license plate was the best…never had to think about which pump to use!
I’ve shown friends little features they didn’t know they had like the lock-operated window open/close on past VWs. Some are mundane, like a friend that didn’t realize the back seats in their Elantra folded down, or another friend forgot her Accord had a power seat until they remarked on the feature in a rental Outback on a trip.
The handiest find on my GTI was 3-4 years into ownership, when I found I could change the keyless access settings to have the exterior handles unlock both doors on just that side as an option. I think the sequence was 1-2-all doors. Not sure if the Mk8 still does, some cars (Honda) don’t even let you do the traditional driver then all doors now, it’s one or the other.
I found out about the unlock/window/sunroof thing on my 88 Audi 80… During a winter storm…Tried to unlock, key stuck, all of the windows rolled down and the sunroof opened before I could get the key back to resting position. Last time I locked that car!
My 2017 Volkswagen AllTrak has a CD player in the glove box that I found 2 years ago… Also there’s a storage box under the driver’s seat that I found after 6 years of ownership.
We bought a 2017 Golf TSI from the dealer in 2018 they got as a trade-up. Hadn’t had a chance to do anything to it so they were reluctant to let us see it before they had a chance to add the Tru-Coat, but they had a live one on the hook so they let us check it out still dirty. Wife is driving, I’m pressing all the buttons making sure everything works, and the CD player is playing “The Seven Pillars of Catholicism”. Took me about 10 minutes to find the CD player before I figured out the car wasn’t possessed by St Boniface, just the former owners now orphaned CD. Hopefully his soul survived intact.
I’d take that as a great sign that the car was always driven under the speed limit.
Yeah it’s the base model, he probably traded up to one with a sunroof for the rapture.
Did you buy the unpossessed car?
Y’know I’ve been looking for one of my CDs for a while – I bet it’s in there!
Separately, our prior car was stolen several years ago. We got it back about a week later, and the thieves had stolen my case of CDs, but they’d ADDED a “Best of Kid Rock” CD, which they left in the player. That was thrown out immediately.
I changed the radiator in a 1st gen CR-V for a friend who had like 280k miles on it at the time, most of those miles she drove that thing for. She camped in it, and even lived in it full time while doing some environmental study thing in some remote location.
…I could see her visibly get angry when I showed her the secret folding table in the trunk. She had the look of “…ALL THIS FUCKING TIME I HAD A TABLE, THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE WHEN I WAS LIVING IN IT AAAHHHHHH!”
Fantastic story!
Okay that’s understandable that she didn’t know but also her fault for not figuring it out.
I think for most of us Americans, it has to be that our vehicles have a flash to pass feature. Usually it’s on one of the stalks, but how many people know that exists? Or even what it’s for?
For me specifically, it’s that my SN95 Mustang has an adjustable lumbar support on the driver’s seat. Ford purposely went back to these bad old days retro style seats (as cool as they look), but then figured it’d add a random modern convenience?
Well I just found out what my flash to pass feature is for after driving for 45 years.
I always thought it was the flash the dumbass to tell them to switch to low beams
Good point. I once actually flashed to pass someone, on a rural road…they caught up to me at the next light and started screaming obscenities at me, obviously thinking I was being objectionable.
I read much, but not all, of the 600+ pages of my ’25 Civic owners manual, and was frustrated with the adaptive cruise control for about 3 or 4 months before I figured out there’s a button on the steering wheel that adjusts the vehicle spacing. (never had adaptive before)
And there’s a way to disable the adaptive cruise…hold down one of the buttons ( I forget which) until the car disappears from cruise icon on the dash
Whoa! Will try that.
My 2013 Titan’s head unit has no dedicated button to toggle to Bluetooth audio. For months after getting it I thought the only way to play tunes from my phone was to toggle through the inputs using the Source button on the steering wheel, which if I’d been listening to FM radio required skipping past both a second fM input and three useless satellite radio inputs, plus the Aux input. Then one day I realized all I had to do was tap the Aux button on the radio twice.
Other secret “features” for these are the ability to reset the airbag light yourself, and to have the vehicle go in to “test” mode to see what’s not working.
No tools required. Good youtubes about it.
I wish there was a hack to remove satellite radio from that cycle. Satellite radio and the customary SiriusXM trial are anti-features.
Yeah, I try to go to the radio stations on my wife’s new car and there are a butt-ton of subscription playlists I need to scroll past to get to the free music. It’s easier to listen to the same old songs on my phone.
My dumbass was using my keyfob to unlock my doors when they didn’t automatically unlock after my BMW was shut off because I could not locate the lock/unlock button on the fucking doors like every other normal fucking car and figured ze germans were fucking with me… then one day I was curious what the hell the button below the hazards, just above the radio did… oh wait, what the hell is the key symbol for… Oh fuck me, I’m a tard
I never understood why they put it there. Fools everyone the first time.
Oooo, Astras had something like this for at least one generation. I had a 2008 Saturn as my first car (my usernamesake), and dropping people off for the first time often involved a small panic attack on their part because the doors (in Opel’s infinite wisdom) also didn’t unlock when you put it in park. If I wanted to fuck with them, I’d freak out a bit about being locked in before pointing it out to them; the door unlock button was in the center stack, just below the hazard button.
This just makes me think of the tech support story where someone was being instructed on how to install software, and when they were told “insert disc 3”, they replied “it doesn’t fit”…
I have to ask did they insert disc 1, then disc 2 without ejection of disc 2 then try to jam in disc 3?
Yes, that is correct.
I have discovered, after over 10 years of ownership that I can FF/REV the audio track by simply holding the skip next/prev button. I don’t know why it has never occurred to me, I’m a computer programmer ffs so it’s not like I’m some old geezer afraid of modern tech. Oh the times that I abandoned podcast episodes because my car would lose it’s place and I really did not feel like listening to the first 45min I’ve already listened to. Eureka!
I am an old geezer and this is the same way tape recorders work so it was automatic for us old farts.
It does my heart good to read stories like this.
Really? That’s how a lot of tape and CD players work(ed) outside of cars.
Our 2024 Trax is the first vehicle we owned with a capless fuel filler. Last fall, when preparing it for storage I attempted to put a few ounces of Sta-Bil™ in the tank prior to filling it with ethanol-free premium fuel. As I tried to pour in the Stabilizer, it started to go into the tank, but it did not want to go all the way down. So I tried to add some premium fuel from a gas can. That didn’t want to go in, either, and ended up spilling down the side of the vehicle. It made it past the first fuel flap, but apparently there’s a second flap 5-6 inches inside the first flap. Then I ended up having to re-wash and wax the Trax for winter storage.
After researching this, I discovered Chevrolet included a special funnel under the spare tire which was under the rear floor. It was included in the Styrofoam circle under the tire. That funnel fits into the fuel filler flap and keeps the 2nd flap open as well for the times where you have to use a funnel to add fuel.
It sure would have been nice for our dim-witted salesgirl to have told us this when we bought the vehicle.
If salespeople know anything about a car, it’s an aberration in North America. I swear that their only qualification is being able to convince someone to sign up for financing. I just had a flashback to a moron at a Honda dealer I went to a friend with when we arranged a test drive of a 3rd gen Fit to see if friend wanted to order a brand new 2019 mode with a manual. After correcting every wrong thing he said during the test drive of the only Fit available in the local dealer group (a 2015 with a CVT), he then had the audacity to ask what he could do to get either of us into that car. I replied that he clearly wasn’t paying attention; friend wanted a manual, not a CVT, and I wasn’t doing anything without my wife’s involvement. I was more polite than I had to be when I said “We have a Yaris scheduled for a test drive next door in 2 minutes, goodbye.”
Our sales-girl basically just wanted to help us sign up for the MyChevrolet™ app. Once she found out we didn’t own smart-phones, she basically told us we knew more about the vehicle than she did, wished us luck, and sent us on our way.
She tried to send us over to the financing department. We asked what the best rate we could get was with an 830+ credit score. They came back with over 7%, which was a joke.
The connected services are the important part!
We don’t own phones so we don’t have to worry about connected services.
The cars themselves are connected now.
I stopped at my local Toyota dealership over the weekend because I’ve been meaning to test drive a manual GR86.
The sales guy I spoke to had *never heard of a GR86*.
When I went to order my 1998 Monte Carlo Z34 back in 1997, I had to go to 4 dealerships before I even found one that I would even consider. I had a good job, with lots of travel (with incentives) and $$ was not an issue. The first place I stopped after work one day (in jeans and a t-shirt) flat out asked me if I thought I could afford one… So I just left.
The next place I went to the salespeople were playing cards when I came in to ask about the car. (I had heard that the 3800 was going to be the standard engine and wanted to know if this was true) When the receptionist called out to a salesguy he sighed, tossed down his cards, and came over to me like I was interrupting something. I asked him what information he had on the new Monte Carlos and he pointed me to the brochures and headed back to his game… So I just left.
The 3rd place was 80 miles away from where I lived. I thought if I went to a larger city, I might get better treatment. The kid working the sales desk was nice, but knew nothing about Chevrolet vehicles. I told him I was interested in a 1998 Monte Carlo and he dug around and found me a brochure for the 1997 model. I told him what I really wanted was a new Impala SS but they did not make them anymore. (sadly, they stopped making them in 1996) – He said he’d never heard of an Impala SS… So I just left.
The 4th place, only 12 miles from my home, but in a different direction from my work, was the charm. The owner was a die-hard Chevy guy, my salesman drove a Grand National and knew every specification about the Monte Carlo Z34 I was interested in, and the woman in charge of the maintenance department daily drove an early ’80s 4X4 Chevrolet square-body (before they were called that)… Needless to say, I bought 2 vehicles from them before I moved out of that area.
Sometimes I vacillate between whether car salespeople or real estate agents are more stupid. I have to interface with RE’s a bit in my work, so I’m leaning in that direction. Sometimes I simply resent them for making so much money while being so obliviously stupid.
A good, competent, and knowledgeable realtor is worth their weight in gold. A terrible one is far too easy to find. :\
Even worse situation, you know there is a special funnel. When I went to look for it someone had removed it.
That sucks.
Bought a used BMW and months passed before I realized the trunk also opened with sensors under the rear bumper.
I was in a rental car with my father in law driving. We pulled up to a gas station and he asked me which side the fuel cap was on. I showed him the arrow by the gas gauge that indicates the side of the car the cap is on. He didn’t believe that most cars have this and we had to do a tour of his cars when we got back home.
See my post elsewhere. This was a major revelation to me, and it only took several decades..
I read your post after I wrote this. Yeah, I don’t think most people are aware of it
I knew of this feature I was disappointed that my cars didn’t have them. Really how hard is it to paint an arrow or apply a sticker?
There used to be correlation with the side of the little gas pump icon the handle was on, but somewhere thru the years that broke down and became inconsistent.
When the Miata was first released, an older gentleman bought one of the first that the dealership had. A few weeks later, he brought it back and told them that he saw some convertible versions of his new car, and he’d rather have that. The salesman took his hardtop off. He was so mad, he left it there.
Okay that’s funny I don’t care who you are!
I had a 1990 Ford Probe through 3 PA winters before I discovered that pushing in the headlight switch while turning would turn the lights off while leaving the pop-ups in the up position.
Thinking of the several cold nights where I would chip ice off of them before heading somewhere, I suddenly felt very dumb.
That does seem a little hidden. My Saturn had an “OPEN” setting in between the off and parking lights. Honda and others I think usually had a separate button to hit to leave open.
With the lights on the ice just melts away after few minutes. No chipping required.
How did ice get on lenses that were hidden away?
We picked up a 2018 Kona for my wife. She gets paranoid about locking the doors, and will hit the lock button on the remote a few times. A little while after we bought it, she pressed the lock button three times just quickly enough… and the thing started. We had no idea it had remote start. Scared the hell out of her. There’s no remote start button on the fob, either.
My rental-spec 2017 Hyundai Veloster beeps if you double-tap the lock button (good both for confirming and for finding it in a parking lot), does the Kona not have that?
Maybe it’s a “traded” feature in favor of remote start, since mine still needs a key.
No – her 2016 Kia Forte had that, which I think is what she was looking for. The Kona is push-button start. The lights will flash, but no beep.
Not me but late 2010’s gm cars often had screens that moved up and down to reveal a secret storage compartment. So few customers know about this, I love showing to them. Always makes them laugh!