Features I never knew my car has

Indricotherium · 18-02-2012 9:33am #1

A friend was driving me home the other night as I'd had a pint and I made a startling discovery.

My car will not start without the clutch being pushed down. I've had the car 4 years and never noticed this simply because I always put my foot on the clutch before I start any car.

My friend however puts the car in neutral and then starts it. So the two of us were sat in the car and it wouldn't start. We swapped around and I gave it a go and away she lit. Swapped again and dead. Took ages to figure it out. I thought he was taking the piss tbh.

I presume this is some sort of safety feature, but as I said I had no idea about it. Has anyone else ever discovered a feature after Driving a car for years???

Mc Love · 18-02-2012 9:46am

Never knew that the focus had a guide me home lights until I read it in the manual one day! Comes in pretty handy

racso1975 · 18-02-2012 9:50am

Yup discovered if you keep the open button pressed on the fob all the windows open and close if u keep the closed button pressed

conzy · 18-02-2012 10:47am

Never knew that the E46 had a little glove box on the drivers side, and a torch

biko · 18-02-2012 10:53am

I bought a s40 once from a guy that had it from new, 11 years.
During the test drive I reached under the steering column and pulled the lever and adjusted the steering wheel.
The guy had never noticed that feature in 11 years.

Doom · 18-02-2012 10:56am

In my car if you press a button on the dash it shoots missiles, well thats what Q tells me;)

Berty · 18-02-2012 10:56am

Took me months to figure out my VAGs had auto open/close windows.

Took me 3 months to find out my rental can had 6 gears instead of 5.

Took me 5 minutes to learn not to lock my keys into the boot of my own Passat yet took my colleague 1 hour to do this in his new 2012 Passat(last week).

:D:D:D When the car is locked and you hold down the boot key the boot pops open and when you close the boot the entire car locks itself completely. He obviously left the keys in the boot when he closed it. Never happened to me because I'm afraid of it happening when I am 350kms from the spare keys.

maclek · 18-02-2012 11:02am

On my passat, if you turn off the engine and press the wiper lever down, the wipers go to a up position, this is so you can lift them off when cleaning.

Comes in handy if you're driving in drizzle and there's a leaf or something under the wiper causing a big streak. Come to a red light, open the window, turn off engine, push lever, reach out and remove leaf. Hope light isn't too short!

vectra · 18-02-2012 11:09am

Discovered after several days of fun the my vRS had a third pedal..BRAKES

On a serious side I had my car sitting with the windows down a few inches when it started to rain.. Wife shouts at me.."It's raining and your windows are open"
I ran fro the keys and went outside but they were closed..Forgot they were rain sensing

colm_mcm · 18-02-2012 11:09am

My avensis diesel has a fast idle feature when cold, you need to turn fan position to 1.

(actual feature, checked the manual afterwards!)

Toyota don't really do nice little features that you only notice after a while.

milltown · 18-02-2012 11:13am

If one of my brake bulbs fails, the car uses the fog light on that side as a substitute until the brake bulb is sorted.

smcelhinney · 18-02-2012 11:16am

Took me 5 months to realise my car had cruise control

Im very much blonde.

eringobragh · 18-02-2012 11:28am

heated mirrors - mk2 MR2 ...hit the demister for the rear window and the mirrors started to clear...pleasant surprise

qz · 18-02-2012 11:37am

milltown wrote: »

If one of my brake bulbs fails, the car uses the fog light on that side as a substitute until the brake bulb is sorted.

That is very cool, so long as people don't assume the car has fixed itself and carry on driving regardless.

alwaysadub · 18-02-2012 11:44am

I have my car over 7 years, only discovered a few months ago( by accident) that you can set it so the doors automatically lock themselves.

alexmcred · 18-02-2012 12:07pm

Found out the other day accidentally that my car has a lighter socket under the dash on the passenger side giving me a total of four power points in the car.

colm_mcm · 18-02-2012 12:15pm

alexmcred wrote: »

Found out the other day accidentally that my car has a lighter socket under the dash on the passenger side giving me a total of four power points in the car.

Some sort of Renault?

Can't remember what you drive, thought it was a BM or something?

Edit, just saw you have a 118.

alias no.9 · 18-02-2012 12:40pm

milltown wrote: »

If one of my brake bulbs fails, the car uses the fog light on that side as a substitute until the brake bulb is sorted.

Similar on my recently disposed E39, if the sidelight goes, the indicator bulb illuminates on that side.

Many years ago, I had a first gen Opel Astra, and I could never figure out how to switch on the interior light other than opening the door until one evening while waiting for someone, I was fiddling with the headlamp switch, pulled it towards me and hey presto, interior light was on.

RandomAccess · 18-02-2012 12:45pm

I only had my car a short while when as I was storming down the motorway an orange light came on in the dash! Pulled over fearing terminal engine damage, but after scrambling for the manual it turned out to just be that one of the tail lights had blown.

Not on par with the others on here, but if I had known about it I wouldn't have been freaked out.

YouTookMyName · 18-02-2012 12:51pm

colm_mcm wrote: »

My avensis diesel has a fast idle feature when cold, you need to turn fan position to 1.

(actual feature, checked the manual afterwards!)

Toyota don't really do nice little features that you only notice after a while.

That fast idle wrecks my head, When you turn the fan in it goes to 1100 rpm.

tom petty · 18-02-2012 12:53pm

We've had a Freelander for nearly 10 years now ( wife's car ) whilst testing it after changing ABS pump last week I was irritated when the rear wash/wipe seemed to operate randomly putting it down to another fault to be looked at.
That was until it was sarcastically pointed out to me that the wash/wipe gives two sweeps when reverse is engaged.......Duh.....

RandomAccess · 18-02-2012 12:54pm

colm_mcm wrote: »

My avensis diesel has a fast idle feature when cold, you need to turn fan position to 1.

(actual feature, checked the manual afterwards!)

The cabin heater fan? Why would the feature be user selectable, I thought it was an automatic emissions thing?
I hate when my car goes to fast idle on startup (not a toyota), for one thing its totally unpredictable when it will decide to do it, and the main problem is it makes it a pig to drive in tight multi-story car parks as it accelerates itself when you really don't want it to.

guil · 18-02-2012 12:57pm

i kept thinking i was turning on the back wiper but realised it comes on automatically if the car is in reverse and you turn on the wipers, being able to open and close all the windows is a cool thing aswell

L1011 · 18-02-2012 1:05pm

Panda wipers go to lowest speed if you come to a stop and then resume their original speed when you move off.

Never really noticed it until I started getting really pissed off having to change wiper speed at every set of lights in traffic in another car.

All lights turn off when the ignition key is removed unless you push the indicator stalk forward, and you can then select a single side for the parking lights if you want to. Has probably saved me a dead battery on a few occasions and you can also leave the car parked with the outside parking lights on for 2x as long as you could with both obviously.

Indricotherium · 18-02-2012 1:29pm

guil wrote: »

i kept thinking i was turning on the back wiper but realised it comes on automatically if the car is in reverse and you turn on the wipers

I love neat little things like this.

colm_mcm · 18-02-2012 1:39pm

RandomAccess wrote: »

The cabin heater fan? Why would the feature be user selectable, I thought it was an automatic emissions thing?
I hate when my car goes to fast idle on startup (not a toyota), for one thing its totally unpredictable when it will decide to do it, and the main problem is it makes it a pig to drive in tight multi-story car parks as it accelerates itself when you really don't want it to.

Makes the car heat up quicker if left idling. AFAIK, the D-4D models had an idle up switch instead.

O.A.P · 18-02-2012 1:45pm

On an old mark 3 astra I had, I found out after 2 years of owenership that by pushing down on the wiper switch water got sprayed on the back windscreen and it got three rubs from the wiper. It got well washed for a few days after this discovery.

mikemac1 · 18-02-2012 1:46pm

Was driving for three years and I used to curse when drivers behind me were distracting me
Only later did I find out there is a switch on the rear view mirror that you can flick to deflect the light

Mazda in for a service and work so the garage gave me a Ford as a run around for two days.
Was struggling for ages to get reverse, pushing and pushing the gear stick.
Was then shown you have to lift the top of the gear stick and then select gear
Wasn't obvious to me, I was driving Jap car all my life before that and they don't do this

colm_mcm · 18-02-2012 1:48pm

soounds like you were trying to get reverse?

L1011 · 18-02-2012 1:50pm

Any Jap car I've driven recently has a switch to allow selecting reverse also... unless the box was shagged it should only have required a lift for reverse.

colm_mcm · 18-02-2012 1:54pm

6 speed gearboxes are becoming commonplace now, hence more lift up jobbies.

Features I never knew my car has

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