What’s a silly/useless feature your car has?
-
This is our 2019 Toyota Highlander. Bland, boring, basic 3-row crossover SUV. It is the Limited model with AWD, but we haven’t even had to use that because (thanks to climate change or whatever you want to believe), it never snows here anymore.
On days where it is below 40-ish degrees, the Highlander thinks I need to see a snowflake icon on the information display next to the outside temperature. Even better - the snowflake blinks for 10 seconds every minute or so. This is to apparently warn me that there “could be” icy road conditions.
What say you, Oppo? What feature does your vehicle have that is borderline useless?
‘90 Pontiac Sunbird LE
‘16 Mazda6 Touring
‘16 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring -
@mazda616 Coolant temp gauge in the Mini. If it moves from its normal position, the head is already warped!
04 Mini Cooper S
02 Corvette Z06
99 Audi A4
08 Lexus LS460 -
I have that snowflake on my Volvo, but it doesn't bother me much (though it also doesn't blink). I'd vote for the button that folds down the rear headrests. Doing so really doesn't help much with visibility, and isn't needed to fold down the rear seats. Seems like a lot of complexity for very little value. Plus when I took my test drive, one was having trouble staying up. I eventually got it to lock, but now I'm terrified to unlock it.
-
@mazda616 Our Work truck we had a few years ago, a 2500 Silverado displayed a "caution roads may be icy" when you started it up when it was below 32 deg. So I'm sitting there at a project site in 4WD mashing through about 2 feet of snow with this stupid warning light on the dash.
Also a built in compass on the rear view mirror, like who cares and how accurate is that anyway?
And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"
-
Mine has the snowflake, too, although it looks more like a ship's wheel.
On the feature side, any of the Entune apps for me, or the Eco mode displays. I never use them. The silly feature I like is the windshield wiper warmers.
-
@mazda616 SAT radio
E46 M3 | 1502 Hotrod | 11th Gen Civic Si
-
@facw No kids? Because I am pretty sure that's just a button to drop the headrest on your kid to get him/her to shut up. At least that's how it works in my V60.
I like the snowflake icon, it makes even menial drives to the grocery store seem a little more dangerous.
-
@mazda616 said in What’s a silly/useless feature your car has?:
On days where it is below 40-ish degrees, the Highlander thinks I need to see a snowflake icon on the information display next to the outside temperature. Even better - the snowflake blinks for 10 seconds every minute or so. This is to apparently warn me that there “could be” icy road conditions.
That might be useless to you, but as someone whose drive to work is 70kms south, losing about 200m of elevation that is a very useful feature on the way home. Its way more practical than guessing at what point the road goes from wet to icy (although I have a pretty good idea from experience at this point)
Had that feature on my 2002 9-5 wagon and I thought it was great.
-
Our Matrix S has the 2.4l engine instead of the 1.8l one that comes in the non "S" variations. This larger engine gives only about 26hp more and is a 5mpg hit to fuel economy in the real world. Useless in my opinion to have the larger engine.
-
@sovande Yeah no kids. Though honestly, if I had kids, I'd assume that it would mostly be used by older kid in the front seat to harass younger sibling(s) in the back.
-
How about dangerous features?
My Taft has this heating coil indicator that mimics the state of the glow plugs in the engine.
Daihatsu removed this "feature" on the next-gen Taft because of fire hazard. The dashboard of my car was burned down when my father's friend borrowed the car and didn't know about this coil.
Do other Diesel-powered cars also have this thing?
🔒 Opposite-Lock Gold™ membership is required to view this signature.
-
@facw said in What’s a silly/useless feature your car has?:
one was having trouble staying up
You should talk to your mechanic about Stellantis
-
@mazda616 Sat radio, ASC, TC are about the only "useless" features on our 2018 GC.
-
@Mazda616 Almost all of them? The ZR2 has sooo many more features than my old 2001 Dakota QuadCab that it's hard to choose. Weather warnings, WiFi, phone charging pad, child in the back seat alert, TPMS, offroad gauges/pages, and on and on... But I'm come to love them all. The silliest feature it has to me is the standard rear sliding window. I don't think I'll ever use it and I'd rather have a one piece. I never missed it in my Dakota (my first truck without one). At least it's heated.
-
@annoying_salman I've never seen this on a glow plug equipped diesel, usually they just have a dash light indicating operational reediness. I guess if you wanted to light a cigarette while waiting for your car to start this would be one way to do it.
And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"
-
Honestly I think the snowflake feature may be the most useless feature on my car too. It dings when the temperature goes below 40°F, so when I'm on my 40 mile commute to work and the temperature outside bounces between 39° and 40° depending on my elevation and location, I will get that ding and a notification on the dash display a couple times.
It's the same ding as every other critical and non-critical notification in the car, so when it happens on the highway my first thought is "shit, low tire ... oh nevermind it's just my car letting me know that the temperature has dropped from above freezing to still above freezing ..."
ERROR
Sorry, your signature
cannot be longer than 75
character(s). -
I wish my moto didn't start flashing the fuel gauge on one bar when there's still 1/3 of a tank until dry.
-
My Cobalt has the same "Ice Possible" warning that pops up in the dash on cold days. Thanks car, didn't notice that when I walked outside in the freezing cold to start it up and scrape the frost off the windows.
My 2014 F-150 gives me a little laugh sometimes too. I bought an FX4 because I wanted the dif lock, and I liked the appearance package they got as well. Skid plates were a bonus. Well because it's the FX4 it's also got the inclinometers in the dash (maybe they all do? IDK) and hill decent control. Here's the thing, I bought the crew cab, 6.5' version of the truck, on stock tires, no lift and factory running boards. There's no way a truck that long and low is ever going off road enough to need a feature like that. Sure I've played with it once or twice, and it works, but it's wholly unnecessary.
-
@highlander said in What’s a silly/useless feature your car has?:
Also a built in compass on the rear view mirror, like who cares and how accurate is that anyway?
I love that feature for my backroads exploring. Unfortunately the compass in my LJ is flaky, but my WJ has been accurate.
-
@mazda616 My truck has a button to turn on the rear defroster. It will light up if I push it. The truck doesn't actually have a rear defroster though (base model lyfe!).
-
@mastermario said in What’s a silly/useless feature your car has?:
@facw said in What’s a silly/useless feature your car has?:
one was having trouble staying up
You should talk to your mechanic about Stellantis
ROFL!
-
My 2010 MS3 has a boost guage that is neither accurate nor useful - the turbo is on the back of the engine and I can hear it spool. It's just a little light show in the middle of the cluster.
The Gladiator has all seemed useful so far. The rear defrost button would be useless on the soft top but it has heater mirrors that activate as well so there is some mild utility to it. It also has a light in the cup holder which...why? The footwell lights (also pointless) have a dimmer wheel but the cup holder light is tied to the gauge and dash dimmer. I don't need any of those lights, and if there are 2 dimmers one should control all the non-necessary features.
2020 Gladiator Rubicon, 1956 F100 project, 1993 Eagle Summit race van
-
My car is pretty basic, so there's not much in the way of things that are silly/useless. The only one that I can think of off the top of my head is the fact that there are two cupholders in between the front seats - great - one of them has little flexible rubber things that stick into the cupholder to help keep the cup from moving and hold it securely.
...but they are only on ONE of them. So it's sortof a useless feature in the sense it's a GOOD feature, but why only on one of them...???
-
@sovande said in What’s a silly/useless feature your car has?:
@facw No kids? Because I am pretty sure that's just a button to drop the headrest on your kid to get him/her to shut up. At least that's how it works in my V60.
I like the snowflake icon, it makes even menial drives to the grocery store seem a little more dangerous.
I wish I had something like that in my Suburban! It has power folding seats, but that button in the in rear cargo area.
-
My GMC Canyon has two weird design features on its dash, first is a slot that can hold a credit card, I can't think of a single reason I would need to store a card there, you can't even see it when sitting since the steering wheel obscures it so you really have to bend over the wheel to see it.
There's another credit card holding slot under the center console lid that is equally useless, I keep my costco card in there because I figure I wont lose it.
There's also this storage cubby(?) on the center of the dash between the heated seats buttons. It's entirely useless since its only about 3 inches wide and 1 inch deep. I dont know what it is for except to gather dust.
1981 Pontiac Trans Am
2019 GMC Canyon
