What’s The Most Confusing Button Ever Installed On A Car?

Weird Buttons
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Who doesn’t love a good gadget? From clever tools for DIY projects around the home to electronic functions on the latest tech, the wow factor of gizmos holds undeniable appeal. However, some of these gadgets can be unnecessarily difficult to decipher for the uninitiated, particularly in cars. From electric roller blinds to heated cup holders, automotive creature comforts can be tricky to use, especially outside of our semi-secretive hive of handbook readers and button enthusiasts.

David’s submission for a confusing button is Porsche’s valved exhaust button, which looks like a pair of binoculars (see above). This is especially weird because Porsche’s loud mode button is labelled better than most, with the bumper cut for the exhaust tips appearing on the icon. Then again, it’s easy to see how less technically-minded people or those not used to modern performance cars would have difficulty finding what the icon references.

4runner Party Mode

Another solid contender is the Party Mode button on Rob’s Toyota 4Runner. I thought party time was all the time in a modern 4Runner? Anyway, this button whacks up the bass on the stereo equalizer and shifts balance to the back for tailgates and festivals. From the front seat, it just makes the stereo sound a bit crap, which doesn’t seem like much of a party.

The REST button on a 2006 BMW 325i

Oh, and who could forget the button marked “REST” found in many German cars? Does it make the car tired all of a sudden? Not quite. Instead, it circulates warm coolant through the heater core when the car’s off so you can pop into the shops in the winter and come back to a warm cabin. Now that’s a thoughtful touch.

The automotive kingdom is filled with confusingly-labeled controls, so we want to hear from you. Is there a button, switch, or knob you’ve found absolutely perplexing? Let us know in the comments below.

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161 thoughts on “What’s The Most Confusing Button Ever Installed On A Car?”

  1. My GM wagons had a button for “rear release” in the glove box. For the tailgate obviously. What was confusing is the way it was wired. They only worked with the key turned to Run. One would think that the safest and most obvious time to open the gate is with the car off and key removed. I took care of that on my longtime daily driver.

  3. I don’t look at the manual often, but when I do, it’s usually because of a button (or warning lamp) that I don’t know what it’s for.

    Our 2013 Prius was the first time I experienced the “pollen” button, or whatever Toyota calls it. Basically just recirculates the cabin air through the cabin air filter at a high fan speed. I believe it’s intended to be used when you first get in the car, to freshen up the air.

  4. Out of the three buttons in the top image, the “binoculars” are the only one that I can decipher. Clearly has something to do with the exhaust. The other two are the ones that are completely baffling, especially once I learned they are on a Porsche.
    Left: Disengage Smart car crane? Rear view mirror audio Off?
    Right: Pothole levitation mode?

    1. The left one might be to disengage the alarm when car is being towed.But if so why have a manual switch?Usually such a thing is automatic (via a mercury switch).
      Maybe to dissuade football jocks from moving your car?It is a smart after all XD

      The right one is off-the-scale levels of mystery. Test soap holder function?? Winking koala face????

    4. they’re Jason fucking with us. The Porsche anti-theft button is almost always on the bottom of the B pillar, never the dash, and it depicts a Porsche. I wish the gumdrop in a sinkhole button existed, but it does not. Depending on options, the PSE button will either be on the left or right hand side of an ever present blank, flanked by the spoiler up/down button or PASM/Sport Plus. Also, I could be wrong, but I think he pulled the same trick on us on the old site.

  5. The Caprice Classic my grandparents bought new in ‘89 had an A/C mode labeled “BI-LEV” (one of three settings -MAX—NORM—BI-LEV under the “AIR COND” part of the slider. My grandparents were under the impression that BI LEV was simply the lowest setting of AC. So they would keep it on BI LEV even on the hottest days and the damn car would never get cold.
    When they gave me the car 7 years later I flipped thru the owners manual, noticed that BI-LEV meant bi-level, which would put heat on your feet and cool air from the ac ducts- a nice and thoughtful feature for those cold but sunny days when the light thru the windows can toast you in your heavy coat.
    I’ve had that car 26 years now and I think my grandfather was the last person to use BI-LEV!

    1. I remember BI-LEV. The modern (to the extent it’s not on a screen) button with the arrows hitting the stick figure’s chest and feet is def more intuitive.

      I maintain that MAX A/C is one of the all time most confusing settings for most people. It’s really about efficiently using the system, but it sounds like something you don’t activate until it’s baking cookies on the dash hot.

      1. For most modern cars, that arrows button just blows the same temp air out at feet and chest level. Bi-lev would blow different temp air… warm on bottom, cool on top.

  6. ADDvanced has eloquently pointed this out before, but older Porsche climate controls, specifically the sliders.

    They just have an unmarked, uncolored scale of some sort that’s exceedingly unclear as it what it could be indicating. I think maybe they’re for blending airflow, but how much does that matter in a tiny car with a fake backseat?!

  7. In my experience is German cars that have the most confusing buttons, or unique labels that you never seen before. Japanese or American cars are pretty straight forward

    Now everything is behind a screen with a clear label

  8. My wife’s Volvo has a “W” button next to the gear selector. When enabled, it forces the transmission to start in third gear when pulling away from a stop to help improve traction in slippery conditions. Once you get moving, you’re supposed to turn it off. It’s pretty useless unless you have absolutely no throttle control.

  11. ASR on the z28. Took off in the rain from a tollbooth and the read end tried to overtake the front. Ahhh Trackton control. My dad and I raced to see who could turn it on faster.

    1. My Mustang has TRAC OFF which is fairly obvious to someone like us, but always wondered if normal people got it. I preferred the previous icon of a slipping tire (that matched the dash light).

  12. I grew up near Portland, OR in the 60s and 70s. Zidell ship wreckers was a huge resource for anything Mil surplus back then, from odd little gadgets to entire aircraft and capitol ship divetrains. I bought some cockpit control panels from some military airplane and wired the switches, levers and knobs so they changed random lights and gauges, then mounted them all over the cockpit of my ’67 Ford Falcon Supervan. They were a wonderful confusion for anyone else behind the wheel. They were also a great distraction from the fact that the van was always about fifteen minutes from a major, road-side wrenching break-down.

    I also had the canopy from some little trainer jet–T4?–mounted as a skylight.

  13. Had a Freightliner rental recently that had an air toggle switch with just “|ON” “-OFF” markings on it. It made air noise but did nothing as far as I could tell.
    Nothing in the manual. Never figured it out.
    I assume it’s the Freightliner equivalent of the Saab “Extra” button.

  15. Here are a few I can think of:

    1) In the same vein as the “REST” button, older Mercedes (and probably other cars) have an “EC” button. This stands for “EConomy” and means the automatic climate control will try to reach the temperature you have selected, but without running the A/C compressor. (Other cars, including newer Mercedes, just call this “turning the A/C off”.)

    2) Some Mercedes (and again, probably other cars) also have a symbol that looks like a lollipop or the text “LIM” near or on the cruise control. Turns out this is to enable/disable the speed limiter function that warns you if you exceed the set speed.

    3)The vent control knobs for the R129 SL, W140 S-Class, and some others that are in the middle of the dash but control the air flow through the side vents. These have little arrows next to them pointing to their respective vent, but I doubt anyone would make that connection unless they already knew what those knobs did.

    4) One day my dad asked me why his Lexus had an “AFS OFF” light on the dash. (Since I am one of those weirdos who reads owner’s manuals, I am the manual for my parents’ cars.) Turns out this means the headlights that swivel with the steering are disabled. The button is way down on the lower dash by your left shin and you probably would never know it was there, even if you knew what “AFS” (Adaptive Front lighting System) stood for in the first place. It is labeled at least…

    5) I never knew what the “slightly misshapen looking light symbol with 3 horizontal lines crossed by one vertical line but pointing the other direction from the other light symbols” and the “P with lines coming out of its head and arrows pointing left and right next to it” meant (rear fog light and parking lights, respectively) until more recently than I care to admit. I blame the fact that none of the cars I’d driven until then were nice enough to have fog lights of any kind or parking lights that let you select which side to light up…

    6) The “BASS”, “MID”, and “TREBLE” knobs on 90s Toyota radios. These knobs are normally nearly flush with the front panel, but pop out when pressed to allow you to adjust the sound. I only found out recently (as in a few months ago) that you can also pull the knobs further out to adjust the balance and fader. In retrospect this is obvious from the labels below the knobs, but I always ignored those labels since I never had a reason to adjust those things…

    1. #6: There is another car that does this, but I cannot remember which. I know it’s not a 90s Toyota, because I have never owned one of those. In fact I have never owned a Toyota, which is kind of strange as I have owned dozens of cars and trucks.

      1. My Saab 9-5 stereo has the same functionality. You push the buttons to pop them out and twist them for bass and treble, then pull for fade and balance.

  16. Try looking at the control panel of any semi-modern tractor. All the buttons are pictograms, its like reading hyrogliphics. Cause they were too cheap to print the buttons in english, french, spanish, german, etc.

    My old 1991 regal had a button that turned the digital speedo from mph to kph. Kind of fun to flip it on the interstate and see if your passengers notice we are doing 120!! Or screwing with your buddy when hes driving.

    Also turning on the dome light in that car. Its the slider next to the headlight button. Controls the panel brightness. Full bright turns on the dome. Only way to turn the dome light on in that car with the door closed, there is no button on the light

    1. Ah, this reminds me of a couple more:

      1) In this video, starting at the timestamp in the link there are several icons shown on the machine’s dash that you would have no idea what they meant without the labels underneath (some of) them or without someone telling you:
      https://youtu.be/eq9-J66Gr3o?si=L62u_xA6-PDDxN3C&t=454

      2) Some school buses have a switch for “NOISE” and “NO NOISE” on the dash. The icon is the word “NOISE” crossed out. Very helpful. (Apparently this turns off loud stuff like heater fans, for things like railroad crossings.)

    2. > My old 1991 regal had a button that turned the digital speedo from mph to kph

      That’s odd for a car that’s quintessentially north American and doesn’t need to accommodate metric distances. Was it sold abroad in large numbers? I know Buick is popular in China, but yours was a 1991, so I’m curious.

    4. I mean, while cheap for the sake of cheap can be bad, I feel like we’d be better off if all or most controls were picture-based, specifically to avoid language barriers.

  18. I had an elderly Mercedes S class, with many many buttons. One had a sort of star shaped label, when pressed, a little blue light came on in the middle of the star. When pressed again. the little blue light went out. Other than that it had no discernible function. I have spoken to other S class sufferers, none were any the wiser although someone had christened their’s “the little blue light button”.

    1. Depending on how elderly that Benz was, the star button is apparently a “favourite” button that you can program, in case you want a physical button to bring up something that is otherwise buried in the touchscreen.
      Which, ngl, A+ idea

  19. Not confusing, but I wish more cars had, Joker/Wildcard buttons. Especially with everything being so absurdly feature laden, having a button that’s quick to reach that toggles on/off some semi-obscure function that’s important to you is really nice.

    1. BMW got rid of it in the latest refresh, but until recently, the 8 numbered buttons that look like radio presets could be set to any page you want in the infotainment,or a radio preset. And the preset shows on the screen when you hover over the button. It’s a neat feature.

      1. They still exist in my 2023 (iDrive 8), they’re just hidden in the software/screen (like everything else). A swipe down from the top of the screen, or a push up/forward on the iDrive knob, and they appear.

  21. Among my current vehicles two come to mind. The first is just plain misleading, in that it is the knob for the driver’s side fresh air vent in my ’70 International pickup, as used also in Travelalls:

    https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53249858224_3c797ca2c3_c.jpg

    It’s on a simple push-pull cable for opening and closing the vent flap. It does not rotate. It does not lock. I had assumed for quite some time that it must have been a replacement knob repurposed from some other application by a previous owner, but no, this is the factory item as used by International for several consecutive years. Baffling.

    The second is okay but obscure, as found on the dash of my ’76 Volvo 66GL:

    https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53249858114_eaa87cc51e_o.jpg

    It makes sense in hindsight but I had to look up its function to figure it out. It’s for holding the Variomatic transmission in “low gear” for descending mountain passes and it shows an inclined road at the base of a mountain peak. The shift lever itself only has reverse, neutral, and drive, so actuating this switch keeps the transmission from running away with itself. It’s fine, I suppose, but not, to me, intuitive.

  22. The Porsche “loud mode” button seems pretty self-explanatory, in that those are exhaust pipes and what else could the button be for? The one to the right of it is more confusing… I was kinda hoping you were going to explain that one.

    4. That was my reaction, too. The exhaust tips are pretty recognizable, but I was left wondering why something that looks like a Smart car (as seen in the left button) would have an exhaust switch (Brabus version?), and I remain baffled by the control on the right. My best guess is “activate maglev mode” or “summon monolith from trench”.

  23. Seems simple now, but in the early 2000s Ford Australia released the Falcon RTV ute… kinda like a normal ute but slightly lifted and with a factory diff lock…. my uncle had one near new and he found himself trying to get out of a paddock with diff lock in (light on the dash), and traction control ‘on’ (light on the dash)…. little did he know… in fairness it was a luxe option back then…

    Only other thing was the Hyundai Imax interior light controls… it took two weeks to work those out

  24. Wanted to show a picture of a divided highway with an overpass. I guess pressing that button turns on the rear fog lights in my disco (though I can’t be positive. Pressing that button actually does nothing, much like many buttons in my disco).

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