I recently found out that my car has a secret menu and I hate it. If you drive a car with an infotainment system, you may also have a hidden menu or two waiting for you that can hide some of your car’s most useful features.
Don’t get me wrong, I usually like hidden menus. I found In-N-Out’s secret menu at the best school and felt like I had access to a personal club, a hidden echelon of society where words like The Flying Dutchman had a secret meaning.
But when I suddenly found myself looking for a car this year, I didn’t need to have any secrets. I took my time, read reviews, reviewed vehicle history reports, and did months of road checks before purchasing. Patient and understanding husband at used car lots in the Bay Area and I’ve driven about a dozen cars before, even though it all came down to my Civic Si. And once it was mine, I wanted to know how it all worked and what all the buttons do.
I expected it to take me a maximum of a weekend, but weeks later I’m still there because this Civic is more of a computer than anything I’ve driven before. This is the first car I’ve owned that has a touchscreen instead of dials and buttons. And the operating formula on board is complicated.
If you own a vehicle with so many computers inside, you may sense my frustration when, weeks after buying the car, I still didn’t know how to do something as fundamental as displaying the clock or moving icons around the vehicle. Home screen. I was frustrated with the car and a little disappointed in myself. I turned to Google for answers.
I was going to have to jailbreak the Civic’s infotainment formula and install a better one. Imagine my astonishment when I discovered several videos and guides that showed, in detail, how to access a secret menu on the Civic by pressing a mysterious series of buttons or swiping. Swipe over a quick component of the screen. It’s almost like casting a spell, unless when you’re done inscribing the ultimate rune, you summon an Android menu instead of a demon.
And that’s why I was so disappointed, and why you deserve to know those menus if you haven’t already, because at least in some cases, they hide some very fundamental and valuable commands that deserve to be seamlessly available to all drivers.
For example, my car’s secret menu gives me access to many live wallpapers for the infotainment system, as well as the ability to download my own USB. Crucially, it also allows me to replace the length of the screen source and turn on the car’s Wi-Fi. Fi and Bluetooth on or off.
So why are all those fundamental features hidden?Why does each and every Civic owner want to know what the Konami code equivalent is for using live wallpapers or replacing font size?You might think it’s about maintaining controls that can be potentially harmful. A motive force (such as, say, turning off the rearview camera) hides from the general public, but there’s none of that in this menu.
No, to locate settings that seem to be intended only for the eyes of a technician, you have to dig into a second, even more secretive menu in my Civic. This second menu, even more hidden, calls me to a series of buttons. pressed together, opening a menu of additional settings to toggle and diagnostic modes to activate.
I’m much happier with my acquisition now that I’ve unleashed the hidden potential of my car, but I’m frustrated and don’t know why it was hidden in the first place. “
This menu is tricky at the moment because it includes diagnostic systems to check the capability of things like the car’s F-CAN and B-CAN communication systems, as well as their speakers and display.
But then if I press and hold ANOTHER button on that super-secret diagnostic menu, I’ll move on to the even more secret Array menu, where I can do things like load Android apps by loading a USB drive with Arrayapk files, an interesting and useful feature that I never would have heard of if I hadn’t been giving in to the hidden settings menus.
Once I discovered all the useful features hidden in hidden menus, I found my car to be much more useful. I think some diagnostic features may be difficult for unqualified hands to access, but the fundamental cosmetic and customization features feel safe, easy to use, and charge a hefty price for the car.
I’m much happier with my acquisition now that I’ve unleashed the hidden potential of my Civic, but I’m frustrated and don’t know why it was hidden in the first place. If you drive a car with a complex infotainment system, chances are it’s also that it includes a lot of useful features.
Alex Wawro has been a generation and a lifelong gaming enthusiast, with over a decade of experience in media outlets such as Game Developer, Black Hat, and PC World magazine. A lifelong PC builder, he’s most recently the editor of Tom’s Guide, which covers everything from laptops and desktops to keyboards and mice.
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