[Arjun Reddy]

Eco mode on my 250d.:

Park assist.

Ambient lighting. Mine has been set to warm white from day one and haven't changed it.

Never folded the rear seats down in any of my cars.

Ashtrays in the cars.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by narayans80

Am sure outside the community, the car manual would be among the rarely used 'features'

To my earlier post. A Jaguar comes with a very thick owner manual and usually separate manual for maintenance and in my case also a separate manual for the navigation.

Even so, Jaguar produces a 45 minute video, because not all the features are mentioned properly in the various manuals.

Appropriate Vivaldi music in the background for your typical Jaaaag owner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9yafT5ggCQ

And unless your read all the books and watch all the video’s (there are actually 2) you will never ever find all these features. In fact my favourite Jaguar forum maintains a special thread on hidden features. They stopped producing my X308 XJR in 2003 and owners are still finding hidden features to date!!

Jeroen

[vb-saan]

Not sure of the air purifier thing, but I find most of the other features mentioned in the OP as useful ones. For e.g.; rear seat belts – if you always travel with no rear passengers that can be a seldom-used feature, but otherwise belting up is a good habit to acquire.

Voice recognition system is something I thought will be a redundant thing, but considering how the technology is getting better every day, I feel it will soon become a real useful tool. Siri on Apple devices was a joke sometime back, but now I am heavily reliant on that

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by GTO

Cruise control is another feature I find useless for India.

To oversimplify, it depends on your highway usage, the type of highways you drive and your driving style. My city:highway ratio on my current car is 1:4 and sedate for the most part. Bulk of my mileage is on cruise control.

Among my mandatory selection criteria in 2018 was cruise control.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

They stopped producing my X308 XJR in 2003 and owners are still finding hidden features to date!!

Its not a car, its a treasure hunt

[Carpainter]

Originally Posted by vb-san

. For e.g.; rear seat belts – if you always travel with no rear passengers that can be a seldom-used feature, but otherwise belting up is a good habit to acquire.

There is no doubt the fact that rear seat belts are just as important as the front ones and infact in some countries it's mandatory to wear seat belts for rear seat passengers as well but in a country where using front seat belts was rare a decade ago and even today half the average Joe wear it to escape traffic challan, finding all the rear passengers wearing seat belts in India is a very rare sight. Only a government mandated police enforcement can make it happen. This is the perfect example of a feature that is essential but rarely used in India. I think we had a separate thread for this.

[sparameswaran]

Interesting that some of the features I have in my Linea T Jet (emotion), which I use regularly, are labeled 'not useful' by many.

Quickly coming to mind are 1) Cruise control 2) Auto headlamp 3) Rain sensing wipers

I use all these 3 features consistently - the headlights are always left in the auto mode, I invariably use the rain sensing wipers during rain (rarely had I to 'intervene' and adjust the wipers myself) and I can't imagine how my trips on TN highways will be without the cruise control. I use the cruise control function extensively - most of my drives in the linea are on highways. It can be still fun to drive on cruise control and it is not that you are 'dull' driver if you cruising. You can always accelerate of decelerate without coming off cruise control (by a flick of your finger!). It defenitely helps me in avoiding over speeding on empty highways. If I buy another car in future for use on highway trips, I will not buy one without the cruise control feature.

I didn't notice anyone mentioning 'follow me home' function of the headlamps. Of the 6 years with my T Jet, this feature was hardly ever used for first 3 years. However, I have a garage for past 3 years and it is located behind my house with the surroundings not well lighted (at night). So I am using the follow me home feature whenever I park my car in my garage after dark. A very handy thing to have.

I am also intrigued by the mention of rear seat belts. I don't allow anyone on the rear seat, unless they are willing to be buckled up all the time. However, the Fiat service staff seems to think those seat belts are useless and used to tuck them under the seat during regular services! I developed the habit of instructing the service staff NOT to do it, whenever I leave my car for servicing!

The only features I haven't used more than a couple of times during the 6 years are 1) All window locking function 2) Rear fog lamps

Of course, the slot for DVD/CD is useless now - I got a mobile holder fixed in the CD slot!

[reignofchaos]

Few of the things that I have never used in my v40:

- Auto parallel park aka Park Assist Pilot. Never bothered using this as I can park on my own.

- Heated seats. Who on earth would anyone need heated seats in Indian weather LOL

- Speed limiter - I mean seriously why would anyone want to manually limit their speed and turn on a buzzer.

All these are unnecessary useless features IMHO.

[landcruiser123]

In my 2012 Ford Fusion, the list of features that aren't used much:
1. Ford Mykey - Programmable keys for valets & teen drivers
2. CD Player - Now have a phone holder
3. The high RPM performance - I don't exceed 2500 RPM for 98% of the mileage; 80 mph (~130kmph cruise) @ ~2500 RPM
4. AM - I do occasionally tune in AM 1610 KHz for local traffic updates in the US


I do use cruise control & FM radio a lot though.

[vredesbyrd]

I'll share my list then:

1) Heated wing mirrors. Why is that even there? It's not like we're in Russia or something

2) Rear sunshade. Already miserable rear glass area would be gone too but at least it can keep the car slightly cool

3) Fog lights as cornering lights below 50 km/h. Many times I've waited at a signal with the turn signal on and people have walked up to me "fog light is not working" because cornering lights! I keep them on most of the time, not like they are going to blind someone. I'll disable AFS altogether through VCDS soon.

[amods]

Originally Posted by Carpainter

Fog Lamps

Attachment 2095026

Personally I don't use it too often unless the weather condition demand for it or on the highway. Although there are many drivers who use it regularly albeit unnecessarily, how many bhpians use it on a clear sunny day or night.

Although it is a topic for separate discussion, I use them all the time(not in the day though )
On dark roads, I use fog lamps regularly to avoid looking like 2 bikes coming in parallel and avoid getting hit by someone confused about it. Has happened more frequently with me - both as a car driver and while riding a bike.

Sometimes it is easy to mistake a car without fogs on for 2 bikes on dark roads.

[Zinda]

I generally dont use these features in my XUV500:

3rd row Seats
Conversation mirror
Voice command

[navaneeth]

The button to disable passenger airbag. I am not sure when this feature needs to be used.

Review
Image Source: Toyota Fortuner, Official

[RR96]

Along with most features mentioned, I would like to add one which wasn't mentioned by anyone.

Under-Seat storage bucket in Maruti Suzuki Wagon R

Even though it is a cool feature, I have rarely used it. It is not that the need for it doesn't occur, I simply forget that such a feature exists when a need arises. I think most of the Wagon R users have hardly used it. It was even mentioned as clever and innovative feature in a thread (The cleverest & most innovative features you've seen in mainstream cars), it is indeed clever but not cleverly used.

[shashi792]

On my ecosport, the feature which I have used rarely are

1. Cargo Management Feature
2. Cigarette Lighter
3. Ford MyKey

Features which gets used.

1. Rear Arm Rest (Ecosport does not have roof grab handles, so this kinda help rear passenger to hold on to something)
2. Rear Seat Belt
3. Sunroof (Mostly while stationary/driving below 10kmph in some scenic location: Mostly used by my 2 yr old daughter)
4. Auto Wipers
5. Auto Climate Control (This is something, I miss in my Duster)
6. Auto Headlamps
7. Auto (Default) Equalizer on my ICE (Not an audiophile, do default settings works for me)

And most of the time, the auto feature feels enough for me. I usually do not fiddle around to much.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by shashi792

[*]Cigarette Lighter

You mean the 12V socket at the front? Because I have a dashcam, it's the one feature that's always used. Heck, even the rear 12V socket gets used generously during roadtrips. The AUX too since I prefer to use that over BT to conserve phone/iPod battery.