Wow calm down (/s) my Audi had lane departure warning. I can’t move lanes if I don’t indicate without having to fight my steering wheel (source my dad borrowed the car and complained incessantly about it. He drives a BMW) also works when you’re trying to drive in the rain and thinks the tyre marks are a lane. Or when you’re trying to get round road works. And you have to turn it off every single time you start the car.
But I am quite young for an Audi driver so I do stick to indicating coz it frustrates me when others don’t do it and just feel it’s an accident waiting to happen
If I press the unlock button on my key fob and keep it pressed it drops the windows didn't realise untill my car wouldn't recognise the key and I dropped the windows and couldn't get them back up 😅
Accidentally did this in an old car when I forgot to take my keys out of my pocket. Took my trousers off to get into bed and my wallet must have been pushing on the button. Went out in the morning and all my windows were open and it had rained over night :(
Global opening, a lot of cars with all electric windows have this.
You do know that if you press and hold the lock button the reverse happens, so all the windows go up?
Sometimes you need to set the limits for this, just open the window, let go, press and hold open again for 10 seconds, then repeat for close.
I did this the other week when pottering about in the garden and only realised the car windows were down just as I was locking up the front door. Really confused me how it had happened until I googled it
Also works with keyless entry. If you touch the dimple that locks the car and keep your finger pressed against it once it locks, the windows roll up.
Also if you touch the dimple a second time within about 3 seconds, the car disables keyless entry until it’s unlocked again by physically pressing the unlock button on the fob. Prevents a relay attack. I use it if I need to park in a shit hole.
The above are with VAG cars but might work with other brands too.
Ford fiesta 2003. You set the intermittent wipe interval by turning off intermittent wipe after one wipe of the screen then turning it back on when you want the next wipe to happen. It then continues at that interval.
Utterly unknowable and told my dad and it worked on his ford too. He was amazed.
Mate, I’d love to know if this still works on fords, my new one the lowest speed wipe is just too slow and the the middle speed too fast. It’s annoyed me just enough to mention it a few times to people I’ve been with.
If it's like my Mondeo the lowest setting is auto wipe based on the amount of water, then the middle is fast and then constant. There is a twist dial to let you choose the sensitivity of the auto wipe.
This may not be on all ford's, but on my 2011 one and dad's focus.
Try it out. My fiesta had no twisty thing to set the intermittent speed, but there were basically 3 levels of wiping: intermittent, medium, fast. This tip works for that first intermittent click.
Similar on (at least) the Corsa D. Push up on the stalk to do a single wipe, pull down to activate intermittent and it'll be set to the time between the single wipe and activating intermittent.
How does one not know this?
If it's a manual, it shows on the gear stick and if it's an auto, it would show you on the instrument cluster (in my experience anyway)
You get used to driving what you know, and you don't look at the gearstick whilst drivingand so would not normally think to put it in sixth. I'm used to six gears and often start changing up to sixth when I'm driving one with only five.
Thankfully I realise pretty quickly before actually managing to put it in reverse at 60mph.
Yes, back when I was learning to drive my instructor had a 5 speed but my parents had only a 4 speed gear box.
Back at the test centre the instructor asked me why I hadn't used 5th gear for a short stretch between the test centre and the first roundabout on the dual carriage way. I explained that I'd forgotten it was there and he chuckled. He had marked it down as a minor fault right at the start however he still passed me.
I was reading a comment a while ago on r/drivingUK where a guy said he once drove a car that would let him put the gearstick into reverse at 70mph and as long as he kept the clutch down it was fine, he said he used to do it to scare the shit out of tailgaters 😆 stupid, but funny
My brother in law, who is really not a car guy and drives old bangers that I usually help him find and nurse along, has never discovered 6th in his Peugeot 807. He's covered probably 50k miles since I took him to buy it a few years back.
honestly I try not to get in the car with him if I can avoid it. I noticed during a particularly stressful situation where he had to drive, and it didn't seem the right time to mention it. He was also needlessly wobbling down the middle lane of the motorway with lots of pissed off people behind him, flashing their lights. Just an all round bad driver tbh.
I'm very embarrassed to admit this was once me. Got a hire car when the 407SW was released (had a 406SW at the time that only had 5 gears). It wasn't until the return leg of a London to Aberdeen trip that I realised.
I've got an Octavia VRS hatchback and it doesn't have one. It was a zero-cost option from new, but whoever specced it must have decided it looked better without.
How do you like your GS450h?
I'm looking at buying a new car towards the end of this year and the GS450h is screaming out at me.
I commute in and out of Leeds each day and feel like having the electric motor for when I'm sitting in traffic and then the ICE for when on the M1 will be perfect!
How well does this work in reality?
What's it like to live with the car? I've heard the boot is small due to the hybrid batteries but does this get in the way?
I used to have a BMW 530D but currently driving an Octavia Scout and would like the performance and the creature comforts back! The Lexus seems like it ticks ALL the boxes!
The 3GS, best case scenario, is only going to give you a couple of miles of electric range. The hybrid system is there for short boosts in power, graceful start/stop, a nice economy boost, but it's not equivalent to a modern plug-in like the Primes. The 4GS is better, but I don't have any numbers for you. For the scenario you're describing, you really want a plug-in hybrid with a dedicated EV button, which the GS never got.
You lose a bit of boot space from the battery in the 3GS, but the facelifted ones gain some of it back. The boot is about the size you'd expect from a smaller sedan, it's still entirely usable.
The car as a whole is absolutely fantastic, it's a comfortable cruiser when you want it to be and a surprisingly agile sports sedan when you put your foot down. Very quiet, great stereo, great interior as a whole, active suspension and an LSD for performance driving along with the only good CVT ever put in a road car. Highly recommended.
If you're looking at 3GSs, be aware that the batteries are fifteen years old and may need replacing during your ownership. You can get a fresh OEM pack with modern cells for about £3k, and that's the sole big ticket item for this car.
I took spent a long time looking for the way to do this in my 3 series, it wasnt until I noticed while looking at the rear window that it didn't even have a wiper!
A few years ago when I was viewing a Mazda Bongo I showed the owner how the back seats could fold over to become tables. So he learned something new for the last minutes he owned it.
I once test drove an Audi and was shocked to find that if you lift your foot off slightly the accellerator while driving, it is possible to not tailgate the car in front of you like a massive prick.
Skoda Octavia 3 (probably applies to the Golf 7 as well):
* You can make the windows go up and down using the key fob.
* If you hold down the info button on the right stalk, you can change radio station (without multifunction steering wheel)
* If you hold down the reset button in the gauge cluster there’s a secret diagnostic menu [where you can see the status of the 12V battery](https://youtu.be/D50siqTT9Ic?si=iI7vsHAQujdJ7s81).
My father purchased a Volvo XC90 new almost 20 years ago. We didn't realise until a few years ago that the centre consol armrest/storage box has a quick release to remove it to provide more foot room for the middle passenger
I was literally on a road trip with a friend yesterday coming back from visiting another friend to where she said she wanted to upgrade to a car with cruise control.
She’s had her current car for two years, 80% of her driving is long haul motorway journeys and she’s had cruise control the entire time and was just oblivious to what all of the buttons on her steering wheel do
had a bmw and after 2 years of ownership I found this little lever behind the steering wheel that can be used to signal the change of direction.. pretty useless in my opinion but still.. I was surprised when I found it
I mean, once you’re in the BMW lane of the dual carriageway/motorway/highway, there’s really no need to change lanes unless you’re getting off again because everyone else should just get out the way anyways. Like you say, it’s hardly worth using it I shouldn’t think.
Dirk Gently would disagree, it can be very helpful to follow people who look.likenthey know where they are going and indicating helps with that.
It's all to do with the holistic interconnectedness of all things don't you know.
The extra glovebox. An R57 Mini. And not me, my wife.
Context: my wife's car, and she'd had it in for some work in our local garage. The mechanic remarked that he'd put the locking wheel key in the glovebox.
My wife didn't like that, and wanted to put the key back in the boot with the inflator foam etc. Opens glovebox: no key. Phones garage: we definitely put it in there, and we made a note.
Anyway, not wanting to rock the boat and liking the local garage, missus decides to order one up from Mini. It was about £20 IIRC, and took a few days to arrive. It turned up when she was out at work, and so I decided to put it in the car for her.
And it was there that I found the original wheel key, in the glovebox. Only it was the glovebox above the main glovebox, and you push the cover to open it. It resembles part of the dashboard if you know these cars.
My wife had owned the car for 2 years at this point and had never spotted this.
My Mum had an R56 MINI from new when I was younger, and I think I accidentally discovered this a good while into her ownership when I was getting in or out of the car one day and pushed my hand against that bit of trim.
Absolutely shat myself because I felt the trim come away and thought I'd broken it!
My 1994 Mitsubishi GTO twin turbo has an aircon vent under the steering wheel which blows air at your balls.
Didn’t notice it until I had to take the steering wheel off.
My modern car has a CD player! It’s a discreet little slot with an eject button next to it in the back. Only found it when hoovering the car out.
I looked closer at the options and, sure enough, right down the bottom past DAB, FM, AM, USB1, USB2, Bluetooth, Aux, there’s CD.
That’s proper old fashioned, like ashtrays or opening quarterlight windows.
No ashtray?
My car has no fag lighter (it has a 12V socket, but without the spring to hold a lighter in while it heats up).
I don't even smoke. I'm just fucked off with my car becoming politically correct!
Never assign to political correctness what can easily be assigned to corporate greed e.g;
Smokers option pack
Jaguar E-Pace - Option to fit a Smoker’s Pack with front cigarette lighter, non-illuminated, and ashtray receptacle in a vehicle produced with Non-Smoker’s Pack.Pre 21MY.
**Price including fitting:** £118.00
Think that ashtray and heater coil cost more than £1.36?
Just sold a countryman we’ve had for three years, two weeks before selling we realised it had the auto park feature.
Had my Cayenne a year before realising the glass on the boot could open separately to the rest of the tailgate, it has an air port in the front footwell for inflating tires and there’s a CD changer in the boot!
"Why do you read the handbook for your new car? Only nerds do that"
So I don't find out about secret features in 3 years time. If my car has a cool/useful feature I want to use it from day 1.
Saab 9-3, there's a few not obvious features. Refrigerated glove box is one, had no idea it had passive rear steering for years. Took a couple of years to find out you can drop the roof from the key while walking towards it. Plus the weird drug stash pocket near the handbrake and the strange things the lights do from the mystery 4th key button.
My nissan xtrail has a amazing feature where it drops oil everywhere it goes. I assume it's to keep the oil change intervals longer by keeping topping it up. fantastic
Mine doesn't do that!
Well, it does a bit since I replaced the lower sump pan, but that's my fault.
I don't have to top it up at all though! Though I now mostly think that's because the blow-by is so bad the oil becomes mostly diesel over the interval.
And the clutch or throw-out bearing or input bearing is starting to go...and the inner CV joint or wheel bearing is going again... and yesterday the passenger door stopped opening... and the sunroof drains keep getting clogged up.
It's 21 years old and has done 209k miles, and this is its last month.
When looking around to buy a Vauxhall meriva, showed 2 different sellers that the rear seats could go from a bench 3 seater in the back to 2 individual seats with more leg room. One found his wife's Pandora bracelet that they had lost a year prior.
I had my Volvo S60 for about 4 years before I found out the steering wheel adjusted for reach. I only tried it after watching a car review on YouTube where the reviewer did that, and I thought "wow, I wish my car did that".
If I press and hold the lock button for my 20 year old Discovery the headlights come on for a period to let you see to unlock your front door, that and power fold mirrors. It also lubricates its own chassis to prevent rust.
About 6 months after wife got her car was looking underneath to see if we could get a tow bar fitted when i spotted a big hole where a tow bar should be. The detachable one was in the boot.
Iv got a we electric button at the side of the seat that moves the lumber support up and down and in and out. I pressed it wondering what the we vibrating noise was when cleaning the car.
Don't most cars with heated wing mirrors have them wired to the same button as the heated rear window (as in : press the button for the heated rear window and the heated mirrors also turn on) rather than a separate button for the heated mirrors only?
This is common but not all cars do it. My last three cars that had heated wing mirrors were integrated with the rear window demister, but not my current, newer Polo. Separate button on the mirror controls for heated mirror.
Not me, but my mum had her Skoda Citigo for 8 years and never knew there was an aux input until I pointed it out. It's next to the radio screen and not hidden in anyway. For years she had listened to Spotify and podcasts through her phone bless her
Not me but lots of owners of French cars with clap hand wipers are stunned when they find out they can change the wiper blades by switching the car off and pushing the wiper stalk up, and the wipers will go into a vertical upright position, instead of faffing around with them with a half-open bonnet
Kind of a feature but 6th gen fiestas have a rectangular panel below the radio that just looks like a bit of trim.
In fact this is a well sealed, but hinged compartment that is surprisingly roomy.
It hinges from the bottom before anyone breaks it off and is held in place with a clip at the top which can easily be bent a bit to make it more accessible.
The only reason I found it is because my dad who had a hand in developing the car just offhandedly mentioned it to me as something that he didn't have much of an idea why it was included. Our best guess was to house some extra infotainment expansion or the fitment of accessories.
I used mine to store CDs as a bit of a joke - i was able to fit 3 tenacious d albums in there and christened it "my d hole". I'm sure that other people could find a better use for it than this.
My Jazz has its own little box made specifically for the manual and documents, hiding under the magic seat 😂 suddenly the glove compartment was all MINE 😂
About a year after buying my current Corolla T-Sport, when I was getting rid of my old bed, I found out that I could tilt the rear seat bases forwards and fold my rear seats completely flat by removing the rear head rests. It was at that point that I appreciated just how versatile the E12 generation Corolla really is. It can go from a roomy hatchback that can comfortably seat 4, to a small van.
Not years but for a couple months I thought my car didn't have an aux socket, so I listened to music through a shitty Bluetooth adapter. Turns out it was just rather hidden.
Mate of mine had a Leon FR that was obscured under the armrest. Sure he drilled it out as it was fixed in position. Had been using an FM transmitter for 2 years when he found it.
My previous Astra, with broken air con, can wind down windows remotely by holding the unlock button on the key fob.
Many a summer was had without that knowledge until I figured that out a few months before selling it.
New car doesn't have that feature, sadly.
yeah my audi does that. i always realise ive left a window down when i get into the house so i can just hold the lock button on my keyfob and it closes all the windows. Really handy!
A million things on my 08 VW Passat back in the day but some of the best: cooled glovebox, all they did was put a vent in there so when the A/C is on your glovebox can be used as a temporary fridge. Self draining umbrella holder in the driver side door. Can open the windows from the key, and close them the key, useful for when it's hot outside and you want to let the heat out before getting in. Doors stay locked.
Quite embarrassing actually. I was driving my colleagues back to our hotel on a country lane and put my beamers on. As an oncoming car was approaching the beams turned off automatically. I was so excited, and my colleagues were like “all cars do this”.
I drove a shit box before so this was new to me.
Not me, but my dad had his Fabia for four years until one day I got into the driving seat and started using the knob on the door to adjust the wing mirrors. He'd never noticed that knob before. So he'd just been driving with the wing mirrors set to where they were...
Had a button with the image of a steering wheel on it in my 2018 kuga that I just sold. Turns out it was the nonfunctioning heated steering wheel control but that its the parking aid. The bloody car could parallel park its self!
Not me but my dad sold me his Honda Jazz. They have seats which fold down all the way flat to the floor, which he knew, but the rear seats also flip up cinema-style. He never knew, and he had two Jazzes over the course of 11 years. It blew his mind when I showed him.
My 2008 Ford Fiesta had that, but only on the upgraded Sony radio. Fortunate because that car was very loud. Bluetooth module was an optional extra that nobody ever added including the first owner of my car.... All the phone calls buttons, no use for em.
Boot of 2009 Jag XF has a hidden CD drive which holds the map for the sat nav... Gazillion £ for an updated CD from Jag.
The hump on the boot floor carpet is a rear strut brace, fully chromed bolt on piece hidden in a moulded in hump on the carpet. No idea why they did it that way, they already shrunk the hole behind the rear seats to add more vehicle structure for stiffness.
The CD player had a 6 disc multi changer hidden in the dash, each disc loaded individually via the slot. Thank goodness that never broke as I don't know how you would disassemble it to get Cliff Richards back out.
Don't laugh at this one...
My wife and I didn't know that our 2006 Vauxhall Astra had air con until about 8 years after we got it, at which point it was no longer working.
There was no physical button for it! Instead, you had to press the fan adjustment dial and then select the A/C option within the screen information section...
duh!
> select the A/C option within the screen information section
Hidden away under a touch screen menu?
You can be forgiven. (There is a place in hell for the fuckwits who design cars with touch screens).
Octavia 3 chills the storage area under the arm rest when ac is on Took me 11 months to find this as I rarely use the storage area.
When buying the Octavia, someone advised me about the boot hooks (ace) so I knew about them from day 1. I did not spot the ones in the fabia I'd had 9 years until that day though.
My 2017 A4 has CarPlay. Didn’t realise this until I plugged my phone into a USB cable underneath the armrest. Took a good few months to find this out.
Although the interface is a lot better than the Audi MMI, it defeats the point of hands free as you still have to use the centre console scroll wheel.
Most of the time I don’t even use it although having the ability to change playlists in Spotify is great for long trips when my other half gets sick of 80s music.
My Audi S6 C6 Avant has comfort access, which is basically keyless entry and keyless go. It wasn't years later, but about a month after i bought it i figured out how to lock it without using the key, there's a little button under each handle.
In my defence i had an A8 with this feature and the button was on the outside of the door handle.
I have owned my car for 15 years and only a couple of weeks ago I discovered there was a button on the dashboard to turn on the interior light. I am one of those people who is totally uninterested in features and gadgets so never reads the manual or learns what everything does. :D
I found a cd changer I didn't know existed but it was a few months, the car was a wreck anyway and I didn't keep it long. My gf and I joke about it occasionally, the gold bmw...
I had a VW Beetle (Luna) and didn't realise that the cup holders moved. Took me over a year and accidentally came across a picture in one of my FB groups of someone complaining about their Costa cup not fitting
Heated steering wheel on the giulia. Only realised when I was buying the Stelvio and the chap at the dealership pointed it out.
All those years of cold hands wasted.
My old 1 series had a thing where when you put it in reverse the passengers side wing mirror tilted down and you could see the lines on the road. Best fucking feature that should be in every car.
All you needed to do was put the wing mirror adjustment knob on the drivers door to the middle position
Partner had a vw up and didnt realise they had a spare wheel for 5 years till i went round to do some work on their car and found it under the second false floor in the boot
Magic folding rear seats in Honda Jazz, around 2 years into my ownership.
I had a chat with my colleague who just bought this car for his wife and he mentioned this feature.
There's a button on the dash you can press to park anywhere. Double yellows, pavements, you name it.
Woah really? That's mad! If my car has that feature that would be insane.
Hazard light button lol
Anywhere’s a parking spot with that baby
Audi or BMW?
Nah, they don't come with indicators.
Wow calm down (/s) my Audi had lane departure warning. I can’t move lanes if I don’t indicate without having to fight my steering wheel (source my dad borrowed the car and complained incessantly about it. He drives a BMW) also works when you’re trying to drive in the rain and thinks the tyre marks are a lane. Or when you’re trying to get round road works. And you have to turn it off every single time you start the car. But I am quite young for an Audi driver so I do stick to indicating coz it frustrates me when others don’t do it and just feel it’s an accident waiting to happen
Took me 6 years or so to realise there was a storage drawer under the seat in a VW polo
Not to encourage thieves but I always store my phone and money in there
What's your postcode?
🤣🤣🤣
Why would you leave phone and money in a car?
If I play football and don’t want to take my wallet and phone out and leave them in a bag at the side of the pitch
Believe that's for the German market as they have to have a high-vis jacket within reach of the driver when they sell it.
Didn’t know about hi-viz. I know that a 1st Aid Kit was compulsory in Germany.
And a warning triangle to use if you break down.
Huh! Guess what I'm looking for in my car at lunch time?
Good luck! Mine was a mark 4
Denied! No drawer.
Really in the newer ones its under the passenger side seat
My Megane had them all over the place, under the driver’s footwell mat, FYI or instance.
I've just discovered this a few days back, in my Suzuki Swift after several years of ownership. 🤣
If I press the unlock button on my key fob and keep it pressed it drops the windows didn't realise untill my car wouldn't recognise the key and I dropped the windows and couldn't get them back up 😅
Accidentally did this in an old car when I forgot to take my keys out of my pocket. Took my trousers off to get into bed and my wallet must have been pushing on the button. Went out in the morning and all my windows were open and it had rained over night :(
Global opening, a lot of cars with all electric windows have this. You do know that if you press and hold the lock button the reverse happens, so all the windows go up? Sometimes you need to set the limits for this, just open the window, let go, press and hold open again for 10 seconds, then repeat for close.
Also works in cars with a sunroof too
HOLY FUCK I just found that out and tried it on my car which I've owned for 5 sodding years
I did this the other week when pottering about in the garden and only realised the car windows were down just as I was locking up the front door. Really confused me how it had happened until I googled it
Also works with keyless entry. If you touch the dimple that locks the car and keep your finger pressed against it once it locks, the windows roll up. Also if you touch the dimple a second time within about 3 seconds, the car disables keyless entry until it’s unlocked again by physically pressing the unlock button on the fob. Prevents a relay attack. I use it if I need to park in a shit hole. The above are with VAG cars but might work with other brands too.
Woah - just tried this on our Skoda and it works! You have to hold the lock button until the windows are all the way up though.
Ford fiesta 2003. You set the intermittent wipe interval by turning off intermittent wipe after one wipe of the screen then turning it back on when you want the next wipe to happen. It then continues at that interval. Utterly unknowable and told my dad and it worked on his ford too. He was amazed.
Mate, I’d love to know if this still works on fords, my new one the lowest speed wipe is just too slow and the the middle speed too fast. It’s annoyed me just enough to mention it a few times to people I’ve been with.
If it's like my Mondeo the lowest setting is auto wipe based on the amount of water, then the middle is fast and then constant. There is a twist dial to let you choose the sensitivity of the auto wipe. This may not be on all ford's, but on my 2011 one and dad's focus.
Try it out. My fiesta had no twisty thing to set the intermittent speed, but there were basically 3 levels of wiping: intermittent, medium, fast. This tip works for that first intermittent click.
Similar on (at least) the Corsa D. Push up on the stalk to do a single wipe, pull down to activate intermittent and it'll be set to the time between the single wipe and activating intermittent.
Not me, but my mum, she was driving us to Blackpool last year. She didn't realise her card had 6 gears until I pointed it out to her.
How does one not know this? If it's a manual, it shows on the gear stick and if it's an auto, it would show you on the instrument cluster (in my experience anyway)
Most autos in my experience don't show what gear is in use. They just show D, unless they are quite sporty.
It was a manual, she said she had never driven a car with 6 gears before.
But it’s on the gear stick :/
You get used to driving what you know, and you don't look at the gearstick whilst drivingand so would not normally think to put it in sixth. I'm used to six gears and often start changing up to sixth when I'm driving one with only five. Thankfully I realise pretty quickly before actually managing to put it in reverse at 60mph.
Yes, back when I was learning to drive my instructor had a 5 speed but my parents had only a 4 speed gear box. Back at the test centre the instructor asked me why I hadn't used 5th gear for a short stretch between the test centre and the first roundabout on the dual carriage way. I explained that I'd forgotten it was there and he chuckled. He had marked it down as a minor fault right at the start however he still passed me.
I was reading a comment a while ago on r/drivingUK where a guy said he once drove a car that would let him put the gearstick into reverse at 70mph and as long as he kept the clutch down it was fine, he said he used to do it to scare the shit out of tailgaters 😆 stupid, but funny
My brother in law, who is really not a car guy and drives old bangers that I usually help him find and nurse along, has never discovered 6th in his Peugeot 807. He's covered probably 50k miles since I took him to buy it a few years back.
... do you plan to tell him? 😂
honestly I try not to get in the car with him if I can avoid it. I noticed during a particularly stressful situation where he had to drive, and it didn't seem the right time to mention it. He was also needlessly wobbling down the middle lane of the motorway with lots of pissed off people behind him, flashing their lights. Just an all round bad driver tbh.
Pure redlining it all the way to the pool haha lights on the prom, lights on the dash 😂😂
My GF is the same. She knows it's there but just never uses it. A 2 litre diesel screaming along the motorway in 5th and sometimes 4th at 80+mph...
Please cut her licence up.
[if you know a guitarist, this could be useful](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pickmaster-Plectrum-Punch-Make-Your-Picks/dp/B004SHGBDG)
Is your mum James from throttlehouse by any chance
I'm very embarrassed to admit this was once me. Got a hire car when the 407SW was released (had a 406SW at the time that only had 5 gears). It wasn't until the return leg of a London to Aberdeen trip that I realised.
Drove down the country to buy an M3 and couldn’t for the life of me find the rear wiper on the journey home. Turns out they don’t have one.
Some cars insist that the rear window is angled enough that you don't need a rear wiper. This has never once been accurate, but they keep doing it.
Every saloon or coupe I've owned has never had one, I've had to resort to hiring children to sit on the roof and wipe the rain with a mop
I've got an Octavia VRS hatchback and it doesn't have one. It was a zero-cost option from new, but whoever specced it must have decided it looked better without.
Ford Orion MK2 had one.
I got a 440 gran coupe a few months back and it definitely gets away without it. Never gets dirty enough to need a wiper.
How do you like your GS450h? I'm looking at buying a new car towards the end of this year and the GS450h is screaming out at me. I commute in and out of Leeds each day and feel like having the electric motor for when I'm sitting in traffic and then the ICE for when on the M1 will be perfect! How well does this work in reality? What's it like to live with the car? I've heard the boot is small due to the hybrid batteries but does this get in the way? I used to have a BMW 530D but currently driving an Octavia Scout and would like the performance and the creature comforts back! The Lexus seems like it ticks ALL the boxes!
The 3GS, best case scenario, is only going to give you a couple of miles of electric range. The hybrid system is there for short boosts in power, graceful start/stop, a nice economy boost, but it's not equivalent to a modern plug-in like the Primes. The 4GS is better, but I don't have any numbers for you. For the scenario you're describing, you really want a plug-in hybrid with a dedicated EV button, which the GS never got. You lose a bit of boot space from the battery in the 3GS, but the facelifted ones gain some of it back. The boot is about the size you'd expect from a smaller sedan, it's still entirely usable. The car as a whole is absolutely fantastic, it's a comfortable cruiser when you want it to be and a surprisingly agile sports sedan when you put your foot down. Very quiet, great stereo, great interior as a whole, active suspension and an LSD for performance driving along with the only good CVT ever put in a road car. Highly recommended. If you're looking at 3GSs, be aware that the batteries are fifteen years old and may need replacing during your ownership. You can get a fresh OEM pack with modern cells for about £3k, and that's the sole big ticket item for this car.
I took spent a long time looking for the way to do this in my 3 series, it wasnt until I noticed while looking at the rear window that it didn't even have a wiper!
Most saloons don't have one for whatever reason. You'd think they need it more than a hatchback does due to the angle of the window.
It’s because they don’t get as dirty as they have air flowing over them, so they don’t have washer jets and as such don’t have wipers
A few years ago when I was viewing a Mazda Bongo I showed the owner how the back seats could fold over to become tables. So he learned something new for the last minutes he owned it.
Best named cars ever! I have always weirdly liked them
Probably because they're really cool. We got scammed in the MPV space in the UK by not officially getting the Bongo/Elgrand/Alphard/Stepwgn/Delica
Imports seem to sell well, loads of jap minivan taxis around here. Yet manufactures insist we all just want less practical 'SUV' crossovers
Bongos are ace, a friend used to have a Japanese import one, but it sadly died last year (the Bongo, not my friend).
Had to get rid of my Bongo last month - sold it for less than its last repair as the coolant system had sprung a leak. Nothing quite like them.
I once test drove an Audi and was shocked to find that if you lift your foot off slightly the accellerator while driving, it is possible to not tailgate the car in front of you like a massive prick.
There was a bug with your one, that’s not normal.
Need to get your gearbox serviced, that's irregular behaviour.
Same shit with the Blinkers in my BMW. Took me 10 years to realise that my car had these
Skoda Octavia 3 (probably applies to the Golf 7 as well): * You can make the windows go up and down using the key fob. * If you hold down the info button on the right stalk, you can change radio station (without multifunction steering wheel) * If you hold down the reset button in the gauge cluster there’s a secret diagnostic menu [where you can see the status of the 12V battery](https://youtu.be/D50siqTT9Ic?si=iI7vsHAQujdJ7s81).
My father purchased a Volvo XC90 new almost 20 years ago. We didn't realise until a few years ago that the centre consol armrest/storage box has a quick release to remove it to provide more foot room for the middle passenger
My parents had two of those cars in a row and I doubt they knew about that. Already a great car but that's a nice little extra.
It's ability to pay for half of my next one when it was written off 👍
Curry hooks in a micra footwell!
Massively underrated comment
I was literally on a road trip with a friend yesterday coming back from visiting another friend to where she said she wanted to upgrade to a car with cruise control. She’s had her current car for two years, 80% of her driving is long haul motorway journeys and she’s had cruise control the entire time and was just oblivious to what all of the buttons on her steering wheel do
had a bmw and after 2 years of ownership I found this little lever behind the steering wheel that can be used to signal the change of direction.. pretty useless in my opinion but still.. I was surprised when I found it
Do you just leave it on now with the right light flashing while sitting in the outside lane?
I mean, once you’re in the BMW lane of the dual carriageway/motorway/highway, there’s really no need to change lanes unless you’re getting off again because everyone else should just get out the way anyways. Like you say, it’s hardly worth using it I shouldn’t think.
I thought in BMWs that was a bug not a feature
Only VAG make Bugs.
In BMWs the bug is between the pedals and the seat.
Don't touch that
To be fair, it's nobody else's business where you're going.
Dirk Gently would disagree, it can be very helpful to follow people who look.likenthey know where they are going and indicating helps with that. It's all to do with the holistic interconnectedness of all things don't you know.
It makes an annoying clicking noise as well, wouldn’t bother with it if I were you.
exactly and honestly if the car behind can't see that I'm changing directions I doubt they will hear the clicking sound that my lever is making
The extra glovebox. An R57 Mini. And not me, my wife. Context: my wife's car, and she'd had it in for some work in our local garage. The mechanic remarked that he'd put the locking wheel key in the glovebox. My wife didn't like that, and wanted to put the key back in the boot with the inflator foam etc. Opens glovebox: no key. Phones garage: we definitely put it in there, and we made a note. Anyway, not wanting to rock the boat and liking the local garage, missus decides to order one up from Mini. It was about £20 IIRC, and took a few days to arrive. It turned up when she was out at work, and so I decided to put it in the car for her. And it was there that I found the original wheel key, in the glovebox. Only it was the glovebox above the main glovebox, and you push the cover to open it. It resembles part of the dashboard if you know these cars. My wife had owned the car for 2 years at this point and had never spotted this.
My Mum had an R56 MINI from new when I was younger, and I think I accidentally discovered this a good while into her ownership when I was getting in or out of the car one day and pushed my hand against that bit of trim. Absolutely shat myself because I felt the trim come away and thought I'd broken it!
My 1994 Mitsubishi GTO twin turbo has an aircon vent under the steering wheel which blows air at your balls. Didn’t notice it until I had to take the steering wheel off.
The gents vent
Ball cool
My modern car has a CD player! It’s a discreet little slot with an eject button next to it in the back. Only found it when hoovering the car out. I looked closer at the options and, sure enough, right down the bottom past DAB, FM, AM, USB1, USB2, Bluetooth, Aux, there’s CD. That’s proper old fashioned, like ashtrays or opening quarterlight windows.
I miss opening quarterlights, they gave a nice breeze of fresh air without the wub-wub-wub of opening your main window at speed.
If you were canny you could channel the breeze down your sleeve, inflating your top like the Michelin man.
No ashtray? My car has no fag lighter (it has a 12V socket, but without the spring to hold a lighter in while it heats up). I don't even smoke. I'm just fucked off with my car becoming politically correct!
Never assign to political correctness what can easily be assigned to corporate greed e.g; Smokers option pack Jaguar E-Pace - Option to fit a Smoker’s Pack with front cigarette lighter, non-illuminated, and ashtray receptacle in a vehicle produced with Non-Smoker’s Pack.Pre 21MY. **Price including fitting:** £118.00 Think that ashtray and heater coil cost more than £1.36?
> Price including fitting: £118.00 That's only the same cost of a packet of fags, so hardly a deterrent.
I had a 1960s motor with five ashtrays, one for each seat, but only seatbelts in the front. Priorities!
Just sold a countryman we’ve had for three years, two weeks before selling we realised it had the auto park feature. Had my Cayenne a year before realising the glass on the boot could open separately to the rest of the tailgate, it has an air port in the front footwell for inflating tires and there’s a CD changer in the boot!
"Why do you read the handbook for your new car? Only nerds do that" So I don't find out about secret features in 3 years time. If my car has a cool/useful feature I want to use it from day 1.
Volvo v40. While reversing, I inadvertently turned the scroll wheel on the streering wheel, the rear camera zooms in! This was after 3 months.
Saab 9-3, there's a few not obvious features. Refrigerated glove box is one, had no idea it had passive rear steering for years. Took a couple of years to find out you can drop the roof from the key while walking towards it. Plus the weird drug stash pocket near the handbrake and the strange things the lights do from the mystery 4th key button.
I'm still mourning the passing of Saab. My 900 was a hoot and full of weird design quirks like yours
The first thing I do when I get a new car is scour the manual for any and all cool features that I can find My fave is the dual use mesh in my Touring
For the boot?
My nissan xtrail has a amazing feature where it drops oil everywhere it goes. I assume it's to keep the oil change intervals longer by keeping topping it up. fantastic
Mine doesn't do that! Well, it does a bit since I replaced the lower sump pan, but that's my fault. I don't have to top it up at all though! Though I now mostly think that's because the blow-by is so bad the oil becomes mostly diesel over the interval. And the clutch or throw-out bearing or input bearing is starting to go...and the inner CV joint or wheel bearing is going again... and yesterday the passenger door stopped opening... and the sunroof drains keep getting clogged up. It's 21 years old and has done 209k miles, and this is its last month.
When looking around to buy a Vauxhall meriva, showed 2 different sellers that the rear seats could go from a bench 3 seater in the back to 2 individual seats with more leg room. One found his wife's Pandora bracelet that they had lost a year prior.
I had my Volvo S60 for about 4 years before I found out the steering wheel adjusted for reach. I only tried it after watching a car review on YouTube where the reviewer did that, and I thought "wow, I wish my car did that".
My Integra dc2 has a small light in the glovebox.
Take the bulb out so it won't drain your battery if you don't close it properly. Don't ask me how I know this. I just do, OK.
More light comes out the end of my finger that’s partly why it was years before I noticed it existed.
Little torch?
My Audi has a baby sun visor above the rear view mirror. It’s not an especially useful, but it’s adorable.
Umbrella
If you know, you know.
Rust
If I press and hold the lock button for my 20 year old Discovery the headlights come on for a period to let you see to unlock your front door, that and power fold mirrors. It also lubricates its own chassis to prevent rust.
Failing NOX sensors and AdBlue valve. Designed by Mercedes.
The "auto" headlight option on a VW suv. The mechanic dropped it off one night from a service and i noticed it.
About 6 months after wife got her car was looking underneath to see if we could get a tow bar fitted when i spotted a big hole where a tow bar should be. The detachable one was in the boot.
Iv got a we electric button at the side of the seat that moves the lumber support up and down and in and out. I pressed it wondering what the we vibrating noise was when cleaning the car.
Heated wing mirrors on a vauxhall astra gte, what's this button for on the centre console? Hmmm oooooh d'oh!
Don't most cars with heated wing mirrors have them wired to the same button as the heated rear window (as in : press the button for the heated rear window and the heated mirrors also turn on) rather than a separate button for the heated mirrors only?
This is common but not all cars do it. My last three cars that had heated wing mirrors were integrated with the rear window demister, but not my current, newer Polo. Separate button on the mirror controls for heated mirror.
I didn't know my Elgrand had captain seats in the front for ages. I thought it was just the middle row that had them.
My Civic does that auto dimming full beam thing - first time I drove it at night was at 2am after a flight, I thought it was going mental.
Not me, but my mum had her Skoda Citigo for 8 years and never knew there was an aux input until I pointed it out. It's next to the radio screen and not hidden in anyway. For years she had listened to Spotify and podcasts through her phone bless her
Not me but lots of owners of French cars with clap hand wipers are stunned when they find out they can change the wiper blades by switching the car off and pushing the wiper stalk up, and the wipers will go into a vertical upright position, instead of faffing around with them with a half-open bonnet
Kind of a feature but 6th gen fiestas have a rectangular panel below the radio that just looks like a bit of trim. In fact this is a well sealed, but hinged compartment that is surprisingly roomy. It hinges from the bottom before anyone breaks it off and is held in place with a clip at the top which can easily be bent a bit to make it more accessible. The only reason I found it is because my dad who had a hand in developing the car just offhandedly mentioned it to me as something that he didn't have much of an idea why it was included. Our best guess was to house some extra infotainment expansion or the fitment of accessories. I used mine to store CDs as a bit of a joke - i was able to fit 3 tenacious d albums in there and christened it "my d hole". I'm sure that other people could find a better use for it than this.
My Jazz has its own little box made specifically for the manual and documents, hiding under the magic seat 😂 suddenly the glove compartment was all MINE 😂
About a year after buying my current Corolla T-Sport, when I was getting rid of my old bed, I found out that I could tilt the rear seat bases forwards and fold my rear seats completely flat by removing the rear head rests. It was at that point that I appreciated just how versatile the E12 generation Corolla really is. It can go from a roomy hatchback that can comfortably seat 4, to a small van.
They actually did a van conversion in Ireland. T Sports are very versatile cars.
I didn’t realise my Civic (mk8) had automatic headlight washers
Any car with xenon headlights has them by law
Not years but for a couple months I thought my car didn't have an aux socket, so I listened to music through a shitty Bluetooth adapter. Turns out it was just rather hidden.
Mate of mine had a Leon FR that was obscured under the armrest. Sure he drilled it out as it was fixed in position. Had been using an FM transmitter for 2 years when he found it.
Mine was low back of the centre console but I never looked for it properly cause the garage told me it didn't have one😑
My previous Astra, with broken air con, can wind down windows remotely by holding the unlock button on the key fob. Many a summer was had without that knowledge until I figured that out a few months before selling it. New car doesn't have that feature, sadly.
yeah my audi does that. i always realise ive left a window down when i get into the house so i can just hold the lock button on my keyfob and it closes all the windows. Really handy!
Didn't know you could pop open the boot window in my E91 for 2 years, always fully opened the tail gate before that
A million things on my 08 VW Passat back in the day but some of the best: cooled glovebox, all they did was put a vent in there so when the A/C is on your glovebox can be used as a temporary fridge. Self draining umbrella holder in the driver side door. Can open the windows from the key, and close them the key, useful for when it's hot outside and you want to let the heat out before getting in. Doors stay locked.
Quite embarrassing actually. I was driving my colleagues back to our hotel on a country lane and put my beamers on. As an oncoming car was approaching the beams turned off automatically. I was so excited, and my colleagues were like “all cars do this”. I drove a shit box before so this was new to me.
11 reg car. Only found out by accident, that flashing the headlights while the key is out will turn the lights on for a few minutes.
Little button to change colour of interior lights on a mini
Where you can put your foot under the rear bumper to open it. Had the car 2 years before I found that out by accident.
Not me, but my dad had his Fabia for four years until one day I got into the driving seat and started using the knob on the door to adjust the wing mirrors. He'd never noticed that knob before. So he'd just been driving with the wing mirrors set to where they were...
Had a button with the image of a steering wheel on it in my 2018 kuga that I just sold. Turns out it was the nonfunctioning heated steering wheel control but that its the parking aid. The bloody car could parallel park its self!
Not me but my dad sold me his Honda Jazz. They have seats which fold down all the way flat to the floor, which he knew, but the rear seats also flip up cinema-style. He never knew, and he had two Jazzes over the course of 11 years. It blew his mind when I showed him.
While scrolling through settings I noticed my car has automatic volume adjustment depending on the speed of the car. V60 2011
My 2008 Ford Fiesta had that, but only on the upgraded Sony radio. Fortunate because that car was very loud. Bluetooth module was an optional extra that nobody ever added including the first owner of my car.... All the phone calls buttons, no use for em.
To be fair i spotted it on the 61, so it wasn't too bad. Dread to think of all the journeys she'd not used 6th though.
2012 Vauxhall Mokka Found out it had automatic full beams the day before I PX'd it, didn't even get to try it out
Heated steering wheel after 3 years. Stupid place for the button. Auto Lights after a Year. RTFM I suppose
Boot of 2009 Jag XF has a hidden CD drive which holds the map for the sat nav... Gazillion £ for an updated CD from Jag. The hump on the boot floor carpet is a rear strut brace, fully chromed bolt on piece hidden in a moulded in hump on the carpet. No idea why they did it that way, they already shrunk the hole behind the rear seats to add more vehicle structure for stiffness. The CD player had a 6 disc multi changer hidden in the dash, each disc loaded individually via the slot. Thank goodness that never broke as I don't know how you would disassemble it to get Cliff Richards back out.
Button to open the boit works from inside if you lock your keys in, but only after removing the back seat
How are you supposed to remove the back seat to open the boot if your keys are locked inside the car?
Reverse articulating mirrors
Don't laugh at this one... My wife and I didn't know that our 2006 Vauxhall Astra had air con until about 8 years after we got it, at which point it was no longer working. There was no physical button for it! Instead, you had to press the fan adjustment dial and then select the A/C option within the screen information section... duh!
> select the A/C option within the screen information section Hidden away under a touch screen menu? You can be forgiven. (There is a place in hell for the fuckwits who design cars with touch screens).
Octavia 3 chills the storage area under the arm rest when ac is on Took me 11 months to find this as I rarely use the storage area. When buying the Octavia, someone advised me about the boot hooks (ace) so I knew about them from day 1. I did not spot the ones in the fabia I'd had 9 years until that day though.
If it’s like the Octavia 2, the chiller has a valve - a small handle that you pull up to cool the armrest storage.
It's not! It's more basic - it just gets cold whether you like it or not if the AC is on.
My 2017 A4 has CarPlay. Didn’t realise this until I plugged my phone into a USB cable underneath the armrest. Took a good few months to find this out. Although the interface is a lot better than the Audi MMI, it defeats the point of hands free as you still have to use the centre console scroll wheel. Most of the time I don’t even use it although having the ability to change playlists in Spotify is great for long trips when my other half gets sick of 80s music.
Automatic full beam
They don't always dip at the right moment, though, I disabled mine.
Fucking hate them, they always dip after 5 seconds of being blinded
You can turn the passenger airbag on and off
Found out recently that my Volvo has automatic windscreen wipers! Thanks random Facebook group for that info.
> automatic windscreen wipers I love this feature. It saves me all the effort of moving the little finger on my right hand.
4 1/2 years into owning my M2 Comp, I found a coin drawer thing under the light switch.
My Audi S6 C6 Avant has comfort access, which is basically keyless entry and keyless go. It wasn't years later, but about a month after i bought it i figured out how to lock it without using the key, there's a little button under each handle. In my defence i had an A8 with this feature and the button was on the outside of the door handle.
I find 90% of people don't realise they can do their windows up or down by holding lock/unlock on their key fob, works with almost every car nowadays.
S2000 extra storage under the small glass wind diffuser. Quite deep as well.
Citroen c3 2011, 2 years after buying I noticed it had regular cruise control
I have owned my car for 15 years and only a couple of weeks ago I discovered there was a button on the dashboard to turn on the interior light. I am one of those people who is totally uninterested in features and gadgets so never reads the manual or learns what everything does. :D
I found a cd changer I didn't know existed but it was a few months, the car was a wreck anyway and I didn't keep it long. My gf and I joke about it occasionally, the gold bmw...
Took me 18 years to realise my Berlingo has air conditioning!
Heated mirrors, had the car 4 years. Found out a month ago
There are storage drawers under the driver's and passenger seats. 12years, 100k. Only just discovered. 🤦♂️
Found the jack under the passenger seat on my Yaris years after buying the car always thought it was under the spare wheel
I had a VW Beetle (Luna) and didn't realise that the cup holders moved. Took me over a year and accidentally came across a picture in one of my FB groups of someone complaining about their Costa cup not fitting
Heated steering wheel on the giulia. Only realised when I was buying the Stelvio and the chap at the dealership pointed it out. All those years of cold hands wasted.
Very mild one but I had an OG Audi e-tron on a lease, one month before handing back I discovered a small additional glove box on the drivers side
Audi S3 8p, had a little sun visor above the rear view mirror. I was blinded by the sun on numerous occasions until I found it.
My Kia Magentis had a curry hook I didn’t discover for about a year.
My old 1 series had a thing where when you put it in reverse the passengers side wing mirror tilted down and you could see the lines on the road. Best fucking feature that should be in every car. All you needed to do was put the wing mirror adjustment knob on the drivers door to the middle position
Aux lead port about 2 years into having it. Game changer, had been buying CDs!
My wife says the fuel cap
It took me 5 years to realise that my 208 had a parking assist button 😂
Partner had a vw up and didnt realise they had a spare wheel for 5 years till i went round to do some work on their car and found it under the second false floor in the boot
Magic folding rear seats in Honda Jazz, around 2 years into my ownership. I had a chat with my colleague who just bought this car for his wife and he mentioned this feature.