So my wife's 2012 Touring and my 2013 Touring both have a "dead button" on the steering wheel. I think this is stupid. Have any of you done anything with it? I am not technical enough to make it do something useful but I feel like there's some opportunity to do something funny/creative with it. Just curious if any of you have any ideas.
"Dead button" on the steering wheel
- Thread starter LawHawk
- Start date
It drives me crazy because they could (and should) have put a MUTE button there! My previous vehicle, a 2007 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer managed to have the Cruise Control buttons, Audio volume and Seek AND Temp and Fan Speed for the Climate Control buttons on the two steering wheel spokes- plus one damn blank button! It drove me crazy!!!
My 2006 Mazda3 has cruise buttons on one side and on the other side audio controls for Preset or CD Track up/down, Volume Up/Down, Mode and (surprise!) MUTE!
It's very useful when you pull up to a drive-thru speaker or a non-Bluetooth phone call comes in. My 2012 CX-9 GT has a Mute button located on the actual audio head unit, but it's a pain to find and use when you need it quickly- it's easier to just hit the on/off knob....
I never thought of a mute button. I want the "INFO" button toggling the display readouts there. I shouldn't have to reach to the other side of the nav screen to cycle through the display.
FTW! I want one now....if only that had been on the option sheet! But you know the whiny haters would try to turn it into a flaw in safety.....but if the body ejects without losing any limbs and doesn't land on or in another car, seems pretty safe to me....and if killing them is the intention, then it couldn't be a safety issue.....it would simply be a new feature that works just as intended....
What about a seat that tilts back and tosses them into the 3rd row, then an unbreakable glass partition (soundproof) pops up....that I would so use all the time....I get so tired of having to render them unconscious with one hand and drive with the other....unless I have a chance to crack them over the head without them seeing it coming....then it's really a b**** trying to hurl a body.....corpse, I mean person, over the 2nd row and into the third....and not partition to contain them...if they wake up before you want them to, you gotta crack the skull agian....I wonder if I could modify the power liftgate to help with that part???
And please don't think I do this to family members, just hitchhikers I pick up on the highway....if they don't take the hint that I'm tired of their company (or they smell, or even worse, I realize that they aren't going to put out..or the worse, they are willing to put out, but they aren't nearly as hot as they looked on the initial pass and they stink...)
Those overheating seat heaters that Mazda recalled a while back would be kinda useful also, if they would definitely catch fire, then you just reach over, pull the door handle, push them out and yell 'stop drop and roll' if you feel the need to be even more helpful than you've already been....
I'm a little worried that I was totally joking in all of the above (except I did pick up a hot hitchhiker when I was 24 and got paid with nature's credit card, repeatedly)...but sounding like a serial killer comes a little too easily for me...but I'm still going to be dreaming about that eject seat-----would they go thru the sunroof or would door fly open?
This is what it is on the 2013 steering wheel. My wife's 2012 has the audio "MODE" button and my 2013 has the INFO button. Why not both? If Mazda wanted to move the INFO button to the steering wheel, why not keep MODE where it was and add INFO to the dead button spot?
Yes.
