I'm tired of annoying car tech, these hidden shortcuts saved my sanity

Let’s be honest, whenever we unbox a new piece of tech, none of us bothers to even glance at the instructions, because we think we know better. But then six months down the road you’ve either been accidentally amazed by discovering a feature you didn’t know about, or realised you didn’t have to put up with the thing that annoyed you. The same can happen with cars.

Vehicles are cleverer than ever before now, and packed with cutting-edge tech and features, to the point where some feel more like smartphones on wheels. And just like your phone, they have ‘cheat codes’ or clever hidden shortcuts that you really should know, but so often don’t. 

For instance, did you know that if you hold down the vehicle button in a new Citroen, Vauxhall, Peugeot or almost any Stellantis model, it activates a customisable mode for the driver-assistance systems? I didn’t until someone from Jeep mentioned this trick – and it blew my mind. I’m someone who tests cars for a living and I like to think I know all about them. Evidently I don’t. 

The Leapmotor B10 I’ve been driving has a customisable ‘combined settings’ feature that lets you programme your preferred drive mode, regenerative braking and ADAS function parameters, and activate them via a button on the steering wheel. 

This saves a lot of time at the start of each trip, because I don’t have to go through various sub-menus to tell the infuriating lane-keep assist to take a hike. But I only learned about this after a good amount of Googling and time on owners’ forums. 

Being able to pre-condition the cabin of any EV and some hybrids is one of the greatest joys of motoring today, especially right now because it means you don’t have to get into an unbearable sweatbox. But I guarantee plenty of people who drive cars capable of this either don’t know they can do it, or don’t know how to. 

It can be even smaller things; in Volkswagens you can use phrases like ‘my butt is hot’ to turn off the heated seats, plus lots of other things. Not to mention all the tricks that Apple CarPlay has up its sleeve. 

My advice is don’t wait until six months after owning a new car to delve deeper into the settings menus. Take the time to watch that start-up tutorial, and if there’s something that really bugs you about a car, just ask Google whether there’s a simple solution, because often there is. Like I said, cars are cleverer than ever – and in some cases, more than we give them credit for. 

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