Enjoy it! Best wishes.

We wait a long time between cars too and there’s always a bit of a learning curve, appreciating new features (heated seats and using the phone and listening to text messages ((can’t reply, just listen)) ) and bemoaning the things we miss (for me with this new car, all the cupholders and the cd player).

Enjoy the ride!

The new / updated safety features might be the thing that takes the most getting used to. That cruise control of today is very different than the older CC. Lots of safety features built into it too. Have fun with it. Love that new car smell!

You'll probably also find it's a lot more fuel efficient.......A friend (who just got a new car after 14 years) was telling me how impressed they are with the better mileage.

Things I don't have is the push button start and it doesn't come with a rear window wiper. Not sure if I have heated seats. I'm trying to read the manual but I wish they would make it as if I was a 5 year old lol. Told guy at dealership that I didn't need to know about using the phone as I don't use it when I'm driving.

What is it about the phones? First thing the person showing us our new car features wanted to do is pair up our phones with it! 😁Hopefully there’s a quick reference manual with your car. It’s much thinner than the full manual & pretty handy. Depending on where you live, heated seats might not be important. For me, they are because we also have leather & boy the seats can be cold even though our cars are garaged. And, I am always cold. The seats are also cooled which it turns out is nice to have even with AC. I do love the heated steering wheel which my last Toyota didn’t have.

Long time back I worked for a company producing publishing software, which allowed one to product a manual or policy with selected boilerplate text and individualized elements within. Our main clients were the insurance industry, but a great application would have been car manuals. I do not like having to go through my owner’s manuals, and where it says ”on selected models”,:determine if I have a ”selected model” and either cross it off or highlight it. With that software, the dealer could hand me the manual for my car, right down to the color of the paint.

As to safety features, we took some time to set the desired settings, and turn off features se don’t want. One feature I’m glad we couldn’t turn off was a collision avoidance. I was on the highway, in the evening, cruising along about 80. My exit was coming up so I prepared to change lanes, checking mirrors and shoulder-checking, blinker on, heading across the dashed lane marker, when my car was yanked back into the lane. just as a car, which had apparently been behind the car behind me, zoomed around it and zoomed up the lane I was headed into. I was certainly glad to have that detector! Honestly, it was like a guardian angel pulled it back to safety.

otoh, that ”auto idle” thing that is supposed to save emissions or fuel drives us both crazy, when the car starts back up it shudders, and we disable it. so sue me. btw, it doesn’t kick in when it’s really cold out, we found.

Check out YouTube for your car. There will probably be videos for your model car that may be easier to watch than reading through the manual.

Ooo, a new car! Fun!

I’ve had two new cars, otherwise every one has been well used. I tend to buy and drive old cars, and have a lot of them around between the four of us. Let’s see, the years of the “fleet” are currently: 1958, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2008. They’re not all insured or on the road at the same time.

Congratulations on the new car! It’s fun to have one, but yes, sometimes a pain to get used to all the new things. I do appreciate all the new safety things, but sometimes you do have to go deeper within the settings to refine what you really want.

Congratulations! Always fun getting a new car. Take your time learning the functions. As one car salesman told us, we're now buying computers on wheels!

Yeah, the phone connection thing is the least of my worries. I’m not interested in a ‘Play List’ for music or answering my phone handsfree. My phone rings maybe once a week. When it rings, it’s an unusual occasion and I need to pull off the road anyway to deal with whatever it is.

Nice, I hope you enjoy it. I agree with sephia, youtube is your friend.

Thanks for the nice posts. I've actually used YouTube a few times to learn things. Showed me how to turn off the Start Stop switch. I found it annoying with message telling me to press brake harder to activate it.

Congratulations!! I’m so ready for a new car. My 23 year old car still runs trouble free and maintains 31 mpg. We also have a 5 year old non electric Subaru SUV with all bells and whistles. I think I’ll go for an electric vehicle on my next purchase.

Congratulations on the new car. It's always so uplifting to get a new one with all the bells and whistles, that new car smell and just looking at something that feels like an accomplishment.

I got a new car recently and gave my old one to my grandson who is just 16, but I couldn't get as much for a trade in as they would have had to spend for a decent used car for him, so I gave it to him. It wasn't nearly as high tech as my new one, but as I discoved after he took possession, I probably didn't know half the features. The funniest one was he discovered secret compartments undre the front seats! A little slide out drawer that I never noticed in all the vacuuming I did of that car. Drawers the perfect size to hide valuables, a small gun (lol, not me or him). I was stunned when he showed me.

My new car has Apple car play which I detest, along with all the touch screen features. I cannot adjust the heat or the radio without taking my eyes off the road because there are no buttons, you have to press exactly the right spot, so you have to look. It takes going to 2 screens (pressing different places twice) to adjust the heat. It greets me when I enter, which I also hate. When I'm exiting it tells me to Don't forget your keys! OMG SHUT UP!!! Luckily, my grandson can figure out stuff when he rides with me and nearly every time I have some new "feature" for him to disable for me.

I was sure to buy one with a heated steering wheel, but of course I can't see anywhere to turn it on. I looked in the owners manual and it appears I can only have the steering wheel heated when I activate the heated seat option. I have arthritis in my hands and like having a warm steering wheel even when I don't want a hot seat. I have to explore this further because I can't believe it would be that stupid.

So, I hope you figure out the fun features and don't discover stupid ones!!

My Honda Accord is 16 years old and incredibly reliable. It does have heared seats and a couple gadgets I never use like buttons on the steering wheel to control the radio. It only has about 78,000 miles on it. There’s a part of me that wznts a new car but I am very attached to this one. I always feel bad for my car when I trade it in. Feels like turning a beloved pet in to the SPCA just because it got old.

And enjoy that new car, Karen!

Good choice, and turning off the start/stop is a great start to drive the new car for decades without major failures. Without a Turbo you've also removed a troublesome component from the mix which can nearly double the HP but extremely stress engine internal components.

You have a good engine, and the CVT transmission is dependable....but do not ignore oil changes in both components and if your CVT transmission has a claim of "lifetime" fluid claims (and your vehicle does), don't believe it and have it changed every 50K miles (but not a flush, it can damage the transmission) and can be expensive at $300 to $500 dollars. If you don't the warranty will still cover a transmission issue, but do you expect to keep the car past that time?

Other than that you made a good choice. I just happen to have a habit of learning which cars and trucks are junk and what is good. Right now there aren't much I would consider good, and even the Toyota Tundra, I-max and two Lexus models with the V35A-FTS 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 engine are junk but even under warranty some wait lists at dealerships are 6 months long to replace the engine.

Thanks for the info. I will be going to dealership for the oil change and anything else under warranty. I get that every 6 months. Took me 8 years to put 50,000 miles on my car. Lol I don't drive much.

I always feel sad too when turning in an old car. We have a new VW electric, which is my husband's car. Our Subaru Outback isn't new; I think it's from 2019 or 2020. But it has heated seats, not a heated steering wheel. It announces texts through the screen, but the feature I love is that it beeps the second you're a few inches off your lane. Also beeps at traffic lights if the car ahead starts and you don't. I think it's a safe car, and I like Subaru's support for animal rescue.

Thanks for the info. I will be going to dealership for the oil change and anything else under warranty. I get that every 6 months. Took me 8 years to put 50,000 miles on my car. Lol I don't drive much.

Yay! Enjoy!

FWIW -- I'll never go back to a keyed start. I had a pushbutton start way back in the early 2000s when they weren't common at all. I got a new vehicle a handful of years ago that had a keyed start, didn't think it would bother me but I didn't even make it through a day before I thought this for the birds. The car ended up having to go back to the dealer soon afterwards (long story...) and I made sure the replacement had a pushbutton start.

Oly, our newish to us car doesn’t have Apple Car Play but Android, and oy, the screens! Some things are buttons and knobs, some things aren’t. Do not make me take my eyes off the road to turn the AC on, or even to see if it Is on! I have started using the radio control on the steering wheel. It controls other things and displays but, again again, I have to take my eyes off the road.

The old-fashioned buttons and knobs are like touch-typing, you don’t have to look to know what you are doing!

The two operating systems for mobile phones do essentially the same tasks but the names and appearances are a bit different.

Car Play is the software in iPhones to link with cars to provide the functionality of navigation (from the phone), audio entertainment options (also from the phone), and the like.

Android Auto is the equivalent for Android phones. Same capabilities, different name.

Almost all cars can interface with either. There's little difference between them.

Doesn’t matter. I don’t like it.

Oh, and there are some things the system will not let the driver do while driving. That’s fine, but the passenger can’t do it, either!

I don't keep cars for too long and I enjoy new ones. I'm not sure what new features may be on the horizon but many innovations I've experienced along the way (including first getting a car 10 years ago with automatic parallel parking, at the driver's option) have been useful and fun.

Physical buttons versus touch screen icons? They usually do the same thing, a distinction with no difference. But often the soft buttons are the UI for interesting and useful added features. Physical buttons have limited capabilities, having icon buttons on screens allows having many more features because each screen can be different.

Congrats and enjoy your new wheels. best of luck! westy

Each screen can be different and call your eyes away from the road for too long, to look at the screen and to tap the virtual button just so, and heaven forbid it is cold and you have driving gloves on. In my car, I have to press a virtual button to change the screen just to see IF the AC is on, That is bad UI. (reminds me of the oven in our last house. No ”Off” switch or button, but a button that read ”Cancel”. Definitely designed by an engineer with no GUI training. Also the panel was completely symmetrical, which in that particular case meant that the button placement was illogical. But it looked nice, I guess.)

Congratulations on the new car!

A new car is always fun! Enjoy. I don’t even use half of the features in my car. I have to ask-are you still a nonsmoker?