Things you found on your car, after a period of ownership

[littlebasher]

It was a good 18 months before i sussed out that the Mrs car has directional headlights

[Vanin]

My 1967 classic was shipped out to Hong Kong to first owner. It was returned to UK in 1978 and I bought it in 1996.
The other day I took out the carpet and sound deadening and found a 1967 Hong Kong coin.
I was going to say "just my 2 cents" on this thread but in fact it was 10 cents. Does show the car has not been restored though.

[anonymous-user]

fleas.

A broken ingersol watch

[Ciaranrb5]

Our 2013 Passat has a valet mode for the front wipers.
Turn ignition off and push stalk down and they go vertical and stay there.
Spent two years holding them 2mm from the windscreen with great difficulty to clean under them as the pretty much fold
under the bonnet.
Found by accident getting out of the car clumsily one day.

Also know somebody who borrowed an imported pajero, upon returning it he stated it was terrible on fuel as he had done
50 miles and put in £50 of fuel.
Turned out when he went over XX amount of revs it flashed up a wee fuel pump momentarily to tell you that you are
driving uneconomically. He thought it was the low fuel light and had put in £10 five times.

An impreza has handle down the side of the seat to make the whole driver seat go flat (why?)
Any way sitting in traffic with a tidy in a 911 next to me so I "puff" myself up by straightening up
In the seat and the seat belt is caught round the reclining lever.
Seat goes flat as do I, my foot slips off clutch, car stalls and jumps forward, somehow I didn't hit the car in
front of me but recovered to the said "tidy" pissing herself.
Was that funny I phoned and told the wife

[Tin Hat]

C Class

Pressing the brake to stop, then releasing and pressing again 'holds' the brake on- great for a swift start away from the lights.

Took me 3 years to discover that........

[MSamps]

8 months after owning my Chimaera I found under the passenger dash there is an air vent for the heating. It was closed so I decided to open it and since then everyone has complained they're legs are too hot

[BigBen]

Tin Hat said:

C Class

Pressing the brake to stop, then releasing and pressing again 'holds' the brake on- great for a swift start away from the lights.

Took me 3 years to discover that........

My E-class has this and a coast to a halt thing where if you are in a traffic jam it sort of half applies the brakes so you can accelerate when there is a gap and it brings you to a gentle halt. Probably the same on the C-class, something to do with pressing the brake and the cruise lever at the same time iirc

[RobM77]

I owned my first Caterham for three years. Three hot years - every time I wore shorts my legs got burnt and with the hood up I had to wear a t-shirt, even in the depths of winter. The day before I sold it I was giving it a jolly good clean for the new owner and I discovered a small black heater control lever buried deep under the dashboard - it was on full.

Several years into Elise ownership, the one thing that bugged me was that the heater could only be directed onto your legs or the windscreen. I then started dating this gorgeous girl who was about 5'4", which it turns out is just about short enough to see the heater controls properly, and hidden from my view was the option to direct the warmth at your face..

[boombastictiger]

A 2nd 12v socket under the glove compartment. Had the car 6 months

[Mustybadger]

Not car specific necessarily, but took me a good 10 years of driving before realizing that the arrow above/next to the fuel icon on the dash told you if the filler cap was on the left or right side of the car.

Mind was blown..

[FerdiZ28]

Discovered two months into ownership that the "P" sign (same font as that on a motorway layby sign) that appeared when the front parking sensor bar thing did wasnt just telling me that the system was activated and to expect beeping, it meant the car was scanning for a parking space so it could potentially park itself.

Clever system, what astonishes me is that the salesman didnt mention it, is this quite standard now on newish cars?

[veccy208]

My CherokeeXJ interior lights stayed on permanently and the alarm went off every time I locked the doors. My solution was to pull the fuse and put it down to a dodgy aftermarket alarm. After a few weeks I was cleaning the interior and twisted the headlights toggle.
It went click, I went hmm and put the fuse back in.
Results = interior lights off and a perfectly working alarm!!

[Efbe]

carlove said:

lexusboy said:

Not a car I owned but a car I worked on

BMW 320si I think it was. Carried out an oil and filter change, filled it up with oil and then went to check it in the dipstick. 'Ummmmmmmmm where's the chuffing dipstick?'

To my mate 'Yo, come over here and find the dipstick for me?'

My mate 'Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm I cannot find the dipstick'

Bummer.

Ended up ringing a mate that works at BMW 'Oh yeah its got an electronic dipstick which you access through the on board computer'

Half an hour it took me to check the oil level

I would not trust an electronic dipstick, my 159 had an electronic dipstick and in the 3 years of ownership it was always full, luckily it also had a normal dipstick.

how do you do the electronic dipstick?

[romeogolf]

BigBen said:

Tin Hat said:

C Class

Pressing the brake to stop, then releasing and pressing again 'holds' the brake on- great for a swift start away from the lights.

Took me 3 years to discover that........

My E-class has this and a coast to a halt thing where if you are in a traffic jam it sort of half applies the brakes so you can accelerate when there is a gap and it brings you to a gentle halt. Probably the same on the C-class, something to do with pressing the brake and the cruise lever at the same time iirc

I have a C-class with the hold function. Not heard of the coast to stop function. Can you give any more info?

[Shakermaker]

Took me a while to realise I could get the wing mirrors to fold in when I parked the car by holding the remote fob down when locking the car, rather than using the internal switch everytime

[Snails]

I don't know if this is the same on all cars, but all Mk2 Clios have a hook on the inside of the fuel filler flap at the bottom to hang your keys whilst filling,

[Efbe]

Snails said:

I don't know if this is the same on all cars, but all Mk2 Clios have a hook on the inside of the fuel filler flap at the bottom to hang your keys whilst filling,

isn't that to hang the cap on?

[bomma220]

Apologies if we've already had this but the twin sun blind system on my Saab 9-5 Aero - means you can have one sun

blind on the windscreen & another on the side window at the same time


In a shed of a Volvo estate my nephew bought from auction - it had one of those 'hidden' compartments between the

boot floor & the spare wheel well - a sawn-off shotgun! Took it straight to the BIB who then spent several hours

examining & fingerprinting the car. He sold it on shortly after that.

[Alex_225]

On my Saab 9-3 there's buttons on the keyfob to lock/unlock the car and open the boot. They have symbols and a line on another button, I'd never bothered pressing it until a couple of weeks ago.

Turned out it switches the interior light on and sidelights, I guess so you can either see it in a car park or in the dark. Cool little touch.

Also in my CLS I went through the Command settings and set it up so the steering wheel moves away when you take the key out of the ignition and mirrors fold in when locking the car.

I'm sure there's other features I've not found yet but I'm pretty sure the previous owners hadn't bothered looking!

[WreckedGecko]

bomma220 said:

Apologies if we've already had this but the twin sun blind system on my Saab 9-5 Aero - means you can have one sun

blind on the windscreen & another on the side window at the same time

Have that on the Rangie too. Great feature. Still didn't notice it for a solid 4 months, despite it being right in front of me...