2007 L.A. Auto Show: Checking Out the Wheels

Hop into any new car these days, and you’ll likely have more switches and thumbwheels right in front of your face than some cars had across the entire dashboard a few decades ago. At last week’s auto show, we stole a few moments between press conferences to check out some new-car interiors. Our questions: How many buttons can you cram onto one steering wheel? Is there a point of critical mass? And just what the hell do all those buttons do?

Without cruise control, inexpensive cars like the Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris still come with basic steering wheels, but plainer styles are becoming harder to find. Even the wheel on Chevy’s lowly Aveo5 can be dressed with audio and cruise controls, though they’re pretty rudimentary. More common is the Scion xD’s setup, which includes buttons for volume, track selection and stereo mode. Cruise control sits on its own stalk at 4 o’clock, something several other brands — including Toyota’s own Lexus — also employ.

Bluetooth wireless technology adds a new twist — you need buttons to answer calls, hang up or mute the radio. On the latest Toyota Matrix, Bluetooth and stereo controls up the total button count to eight.

Other cars add climate controls to the wheel: The Toyota Prius lets you change the temperature and turn on the A/C, while the Ford Expedition and Fusion allow you to adjust the fan speed, too. On the Expedition, that makes for quite the button barrage – there are 15 in all.

The front of the wheel isn’t the only place to find controls. Cars like the Dodge Caliber integrate stereo controls onto the backside of the spokes. The Mercedes-Benz GL-Class still has buttons up front, preferring to use the space behind for paddle shifters.

Trip computers and navigation systems add another layer of complexity. On Volkswagen’s tech-heavy Touareg 2, a thumbwheel controls the trip computer on an already jam-packed wheel. There are even buttons on the backside that control whether the buttons in front illuminate at night.

Just because a car is expensive doesn’t mean its steering wheel looks like a computer keyboard. The $31,000 Ford Mustang Bullitt has only cruise controls on the wheel, while the $120,000 Audi A8 W12 uses thumbwheels to keep things simple. Other luxury cars keep the wheel uncluttered by shoehorning extra functions onto the steering column itself. Whether that actually simplifies anything is open to debate.

If anything, the proliferation of buttons seems most prominent in non-luxury cars. With controls for the phone and navigation system, a fully loaded Honda Accord has 13 steering-wheel buttons. Fortunately they’re grouped into separate clusters for easy reference. The same is true for the Mitsubishi Outlander, which lacks trip computer controls but has paddle shifters. The Outlander’s total: 15 buttons.

So what’s the granddaddy of them all? Including the paddle shifters, we counted 18 buttons in the Acura RL, making it the day’s winner — or loser, depending on your perspective. Among other functions, the RL allows you to answer calls, adjust the trip computer and return to the previous screen on the navigation system. We like technology as much as the next guy, but is that too much? Let us know below.