# Car features I don't understand - educate me **URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-features-i-dont-understand-educate-me/1023741 **Category:** In My Humble Opinion **Created:** [October 7, 2025, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-features-i-dont-understand-educate-me/1023741 "2025-10-07T09:14:37Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 47
### Author: ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia) #### Post date: [October 7, 2025, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-features-i-dont-understand-educate-me/1023741/47 "2025-10-07T22:06:02Z")
My unrequested opinions: Dual climate controls are an absolute godsend for couples who operate at different temperatures. We’ve owned two vehicles with this feature and really miss it in the cars that don’t have it. 3rd row seating is one of those things that you may not use very often but when you need it its the only thing that will suffice. We owned a Suburban with triple bench seats. Not the most comfortable rig but when we needed to haul a bunch of people it was a lifesaver. I love the adaptive cruise control and lane-stay assistant. The adaptive cruise control really is exponentially safer than the old-school type. My Kia has a sunroof and the only benefit I’ve found is to let heat out on hot sunny days. Which, admittedly, is very nice. It also has the mood lighting. Stupid, pointless, distracting, and something I turned off before leaving the dealership on the day I bought it and have never turned back on. However the stupidest modern car features are electronic parking brakes: > [@Season of the Kvetch (October mini-rants)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/season-of-the-kvetch-october-mini-rants/1023563/87): > > I hit a deer on my way to work this morning. The front of my car is pretty fucked up but it didn’t deploy the airbags so I think it’s repairable. My rant isn’t with the deer. Well, ok, it is with the deer. Fuck that little asshole for deciding to commit suicide with my car. My rant is with Kia engineers for thinking they know more than the people operating their vehicles (which, admittedly, may be the case for some/many people). My car is a '23 Soul, FWIW. So I hit the deer, pull over, call m… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-features-i-dont-understand-educate-me/1023741)._