9 Potentially Annoying Car Features to Avoid in Your Next Vehicle

A subset and even more aggravating aspect of automakers’ efforts to reduce the number of buttons and knobs in vehicles is employing electronic controls for physical features such as side-mirror and steering-wheel adjustments. Blame Tesla for creating this trend by burying these controls in the center infotainment screen, with EV automakers Lucid, Polestar, and Rivian as well as Ford and Volvo following this folly and forcing car owners to fumble with a touchscreen rather than just reach for a physical button or switch.

USB ports have become a vital feature in modern vehicles, with automakers touting their quantity in a car as a selling point. Maybe it’s because we auto journos jump from vehicle to vehicle as part of our occupation and don’t always leave a USB cable plugged in, but it defies logic that car interior designers place USB ports in awkward locations like far back in the storage area under a center console or in a dashboard cubby only large enough for a child-sized hand. Make sure to plug and play while testing your next car to make sure you don’t have to twist yourself into a pretzel just to get power for your portable device.

Driver-monitoring systems (DMS) use an infrared interior camera to look for signs of distraction or fatigue and then issue a warning if certain conditions are detected. The European Union mandates that all new passenger and commercial vehicles be equipped with DMS tech. The U.S. also passed a law in 2021 requiring that DMS be included on all new passenger vehicles starting in 2026 to “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired,” although the regulation is currently delayed due to privacy and political concerns. Although DMS is an important safety technology in these days of increasingly distracted driving, some systems (we’re looking at you, Subaru) border on badgering since they issue warnings if a driver just glances away from the road for a few seconds. Fortunately, DMS features can be turned off; unfortunately, they activate automatically each time the car is started. So, test their alarms, sensitivity, and warnings on any test drive.

Some automakers think piano-black interior surfaces signify luxury, but anyone who owns a vehicle with this kind of finish will also tell you it’s also a magnet for fingerprints and smudges. The same applies to infotainment touchscreens, which after a while can look like a child’s messy finger paintings in a certain light.

Some automakers also use aluminum or similar shiny silver materials in vehicle interiors such as the dash or center console for a sleek, modern aesthetic. And while they do look cool, when the sun hits these surfaces at a certain angle, they can reflect light like a mirror and temporarily blind a driver.

Seat-belt, airbag, and tire-pressure reminders are mandatory on all new vehicles, but some cars create a cacophony of driver assist and other warnings and have added new ones such as rear-seat reminders. Alarm fatigue is a real issue in the medical field and can cause nurses to overlook important notifications and make dangerous mistakes, and it’s increasingly coming to cars.

Automatic locking and unlocking vehicle doors that activate via a proximity sensor in the key fob can eliminate a driver having to dig into a pocket or purse for the fob to access the vehicle. But if the vehicle is parked nearby, it can turn into an annoyance since the feature usually emits a beep and flashes the car’s lights to verify a lock or unlock activity. One car owner told The Wall Street Journal that while watching a Fourth of July fireworks display near his vehicle—and doing its own version of auto lock/unlock pyrotechnics—other spectators started protesting. Although the feature can be turned off via a vehicle’s settings menu, the owner resorted to covering the car’s front end with a quilt to mute and shroud the unwanted and annoying sound and light show—and quiet the crowd of hecklers.