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
After about six years of ownership of our Outback I discovered you could change the rear view camera setting so the camera would stay on for a bit once you move out of reverse, makes parallel parking much easier!
For the first couple of months of owning my old 2006 BMW 330i I thought pushing the shifter to the left (marked as “M/S”) just put it in manual-shift mode. Then one night I realised it’s actually sport mode until you try to shift the gears yourself.
On my Crown I thought the auto tilt-down on reverse function of the side mirrors was a bit useless as they only tilted down a tiny amount. It wasn’t until I was playing around with Techstream that I discovered the amount of tilt could be adjusted – the previous owner had almost entirely dialled it out. I reset it back to default and voila, fully titling mirrors, makes reverse parking a breeze.
My mechanic once popped the trunk of my Mazda6 (2016 model) when I was at his shop by pressing a button by the taillight. I stood there amazed as I’d owned the car for 4-5 years at that point and didn’t know that button was there.
I had my GTI for 4 years before realizing there was a “custom” drive mode I could select. That was life changing.
I learned that my Passat had umbrella compartments in the front doors after I sold the thing. I think I learned that here actually.
I had a Kia Forte for a while, and it had hill start protection, but I didn’t know it for a time. I thought I was just spectacular at finding the clutch’s sweet spot.
Hill Start Assist make me stall the engine in my Jeep and GTI
My mom packed her new Lexus SUV full of family to go to a holiday dinner and they had somehow not driven it far enough the week before, or (my theory) something parasitic stayed on too long. It had enough power to let them in, but not enough to start the engine, and the starter drained the battery so the power doors wouldn’t open. After several annoying minutes, they found the manual handle hidden up inside the armrest of the door, but they didn’t realize they had to pull the manual lever twice in quick succession to get the door open. They were trapped for over 20 minutes. They almost sold the car after that embarrassing experience.
This power issue happens twice a year. Been in the dealer several times, always coming out with a clean bill of health. I wonder if a major remote OS update happens at night, and their not-quite charged battery gets drained down far-enough not to start the car.
That my VB WRX can turn off traction control easily.
My wife was looking in the manual for something entirely different several months into owning our A4 allroad and discovered that not only was there a USB port and an SD card slot for loading music which we expected, but also a DVD player hidden in the glove compartment so I guess we could watch movies on the center screen while parked in our driveway or something…
You didn’t even try it?
We tried it out once because we were curious and actually it was the only DVD player we owned for a couple years before I bought an external drive for my laptop because I needed access to some old DVRs which weren’t backed up…
I wonder if you can pile a bunch of MP3s on a DVD and then use it as an alternative to an SD card for music. I used to make MP3 CDs for that purpose; I assume it works the same on a DVD.
I just put them on flash drive now as all cars have USB ports now. My PC and laptop didn’t even come with optical drives
It had the USB and SD card so I never bothered trying the DVD drive for that but I am sure it would have worked for MP3s as well. My brother in law has a DVD loaded up with MP3s basically permanently in the aftermarket head unit in his Tacoma and it’s not a bad system.
All my recent cars have had CarPlay so we just have Spotify or Audible going when regular radio fails us.
I’d had my 911 at least five years before I discovered it had a map light just above the glove box. It was hidden on the underside of the dash pad.
Back around 2012 I bought a 2005 Subaru Forester, my first ‘grown-up’ car replacing an old Rav4. It was a pretty high spec model with all sorts of fancy features like heated seats, and a huge glass roof. A few days after I’d bought it I noticed it had these buttons in the ceiling, and imagine my surprise when I pressed one of them and a motor was activated, sliding the whole glass roof back and out of sight.
I drove my 2014 Mustang for several years before I realized that both the tachometer and the fuel gauge have ‘active lighting’.
When you hit redline, the whole tach lights up red (a la 2rd gen Viper). All the numbers and all the lines. You can’t miss it – although you’re a nanosecond away from a fuel cut at that point, so not all that useful.
The fuel gauge also fully illuminates red when there is 5 miles to empty. This is after repeatedly ignoring a screen image and audible ‘I’m a Ford!’ chime at 50, 25, and 10 miles til empty.
Don’t lecture me about fuel levels and keeping the fuel pump ‘cool’. I live in SC, a full tank of gas in my car on a summer day is somewhere between ‘hellscape’ and ‘sun’s corona’.
Ah yes, the little known 2rd gen Viper, it was only made for a very short time after the 2nd gen went out of production, and before the 3rd began. What a glorius mishmash resulting in a very rare car indeed!
I think of all the Vipers, the 2rd was the sh*t.
I prefer the look of the 2nd, or the engine of the 3rd, but I acknowledge the 2rd (pronounced turd, in case anyone is not familiar) does have a certain charm about it.
My now ex-wife and I replaced a BMW X5 with an Acura MDX. She never read the owner’s manual, which was admittedly voluminous, and complained about how the steering wheel always felt cold. I showed her the button to heat it up and she was a much happier camper. And this was in SE Texas, where it really doesn’t get that cold.
I enjoy researching our vehicles to learn what I can. A favorite on our ’21 Outback is that you can program the lock button on the tailgate with a five-digit code to unlock the doors of the car. It’s an easy way to leave the keys locked in side and not have to worry about getting back in.
Setting it up was when I realized that there was a lock button in the first place, further to the right under the lift handle. Then I checked our ’14 Mazda3 and found it had one, too. Oops.
My ’98 Chevy C1500’s stereo had only odd-numbered radio preset buttons…took me a while to realize that pressing two at once would access the ‘hidden’ even-numbered presets.
I love the clever features of modern cars which make them easier to use. Even the cheapest manual transmission vehicle has auto-hill-hold and auto restart when you depress the clutch after killing it. Our little Renault Clio had rain-sensing wipers, which I love, and would turn on the rear wiper when you put it in reverse while it was sensing rain.
We’ve had our Outback for 9 years and I have never bothered to programme that feature, nor have I coded the keys to each seat setting. Really lazy right? Also I go kayaking and I really should programme that button so I don’t have to take the key with me in a dry bag…
I had like 2 knobs on my 1964 VW and it took me too long to discover that by turning the headlight knob you could dim the dashboard light. It was a 6V so the diference was ridiculous
Such a luxurious feature in a very basic car ?
Dimming the interior lights is a safety feature, not a luxury. That’s a typical method of dimming them on older vehicles.
I just assumed that for whatever reason, my VW Polo beeped to let you know you’d put it into reverse (but only the first time).
It wasn’t until I went looking for how to disable it, I found someone mentioning that their parking sensors had failed, and now their car was just doing a long beep when they put it into reverse….
I actually had to go out and check my car, and yup, sure enough, I have parking sensors in the rear bumper, presumably at least one is broken.
In the end I decided a single beep is less annoying than the multiple beeps of a working system, so I’ve never fixed it.
Found out during oil change, that my VW T4 Eurovan has a real alumin(i)um elongated oil pan with ribs and everything, just like my old BMW motorcycle!
They could just have slapped a regular pressed steel bucket on there, like one every other car, it’s not like a big (for Europe) diesel gets very hot or anything.
Over engineered details like this just make you think you’ve chosen the perfect car. Love it!
When I got my W116, I couldn’t find a way to open the gas filler cover. No matter what I tried, it was stuck. Then I got into the car, and later when I tried to open the cover, it opened right up.
It turns out the central lock also locks the gas cover. Who would have thought.
My old BMW e46 did that. It’s pretty nifty!
I destroyed a center console trim piece adding in a USB quick charger in my Corvette in place of the original cigarette lighter (back before the ones we have today that fit entirely within the socket itself) and fiddled for over a year trying to make it look better and more integrated before just giving up and always driving with the cover closed
Then I realized that C4s had a dedicated, labeled accessory wiring loom, with the option of having it be switched power, tucked under the center console trim that I could have wired the phone charger into instead and then just dumped it in the center cubby while retaining the cigarette lighter. I found it 4 years after I bought the car when I was gutting the interior to change it to the 1990-1993 interior style; luckily before I cut up the new lighter surround to make the charger fit. As I understand it was specifically intended for hard wiring radar detectors.
I accidentally found out my Acura’s fob has some combination of presses that triggers some kind of mode where some windows and the sunroof all partially open. I don’t know what the combo is, or what that mode is for. I triggered it accidentally twice.
It’s interior venting for hot days. Usually it’s a short press followed by press and hold on the lock button.
Yeah lexus had that feature for awhile until they decided to make the setting off by default and only enabled by the scan-tool, because people kept doing it accidently
My partner’s Honda Pilot has that feature. I only know because I accidently opened the windows when it was raining. Didn’t realize until the next morning. The interior was soaked. We had to use damp-rid for a week to get the water out.
Oh no 🙁
Mini had that for some time on the Cooper; my boss bought a new one when they came out and illustrated that to me. What I found amusing however, was that the hood release for his car was on the passenger/right side of the car. I guess being that Mini was for/from England, and they all drive on the right side, they left the lever over there in the American cars. Not sure if that was changed down the road, but a fun fact nonetheless!
It’s fairly common for RHD cars to have the release in the passenger footwell for the bonnet in the passenger (left side) footwell too, especially cheaper cars. I’m 99% certain that my old Skoda Fabia and Seat Ibiza both had the release on the left side.
The most annoying thing is when they don’t move the fuse box over, and it takes up half the glovebox on RHD cars. French cars used to be notorious for this, but VW Group have also done it with the MEB platform EVs (eg ID.3, Skoda Enyaq)
Omg omg me me me! Just a few weeks ago we discovered that our 2018 BMW X1 HAD A HEATED STEERING WHEEL!
Unlike any of several BMWs I have owned the heated steering button wheel is bizarrely hidden on the left of the steering column completely out of view. Our daughter discovered it when she was helping to clean the car!!
No kidding. I read these comments and was inspired to search for why my rav4 doesn’t open all the doors when I unlock using my hand on the driver’s door. Turns out there a menu option in the settings I didn’t know about. 4 years of frustration solved (basically) by this story and comments. Thanks!
With a decent scanner, there’s a lot more you can program than that. How long the courtesy lights stay on when unlocking the car. How long headlights stay on after exiting the car. Whether none, one, or all doors unlock when shifting to park. List goes on.
My 08 Escape has keyless entry, and if you put in the 5 digit code, followed immediately by a “4”, it will unlock all of the doors instead of just one.
It took me a decade of owning my 2011 Legacy to realize that if I needed to see the odometer while the car was off, I could press the tripodometer button to get it to light up. I only got to enjoy that for 2 years.
Not really a feature discovery, but while repairing the factory “subwoofer” (which is a 4 inch speaker in a box under the driver’s seat) on my 1987 MR2, I found that Toyota used the same circuit for the non-existent power antenna to power the sub. Once I ensured that was connected on the adapter harness to my aftermarket head unit, the sub worked, and I’ve been able to enjoy that for longer than the trip button trick.
I’ve also learned that if you try the fob-in-pocket-touch-the-lock trick on newer Toyotas AND the other fob is still in the vehicle, it won’t lock and will beep incessantly at you. It will let you press the lock button on the fob though and lock the other fob in.
Meanwhile, it’s been a decade and I still don’t understand how the dome light buttons in my wife’s 2015 Focus work, I’ve just given up and hope I don’t accidentally mess with them.
My previous boss bought a Land Rover and complained about the steering fighting him when he tried to change lanes. I told him to use his turn signal. He eventually figured out how to turn the lane assist off
So he wouldn’t have to learn to use his turn signal? Gotta conserve that precious blinker fluid!
Sounds like the Subaru owners who bitch about their lane departure warnings constantly going off when changing lanes. Use the fucking turn signals, meathead!
I had a BMW E90 for a year before I found out that you can turn the traction control off by holding down the traction button. If you press it once it only disables it for a second or so