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New owner "stupid discovery" thread

B

Bowser

Ready to race!
Location
Chicago (Western burbs)
Seems like there are a lot of relatively new owners around here. But anyone could chime in about things they "discovered" about their GTIs at any time that increased their enjoyment of their vehicles.

This is my first VW, after decades of Toytas/Subarus. A lot of folk have stressed that you should just drive the thing, enjoy it, and get used to it. Today, about 2 weeks and 200 miles in, I noticed some numbers in the right top of the center display. Seemed to show my current gear, and suggest shifting. Yep, that's what it is.

Neat feedback as I work on getting better w/ the 6MT. That I noticed it made me realize I was getting more comfortable/familiar with this marvelous car. Before now, I was too new to the car to even notice this display. Hell, took me a week to get the door handles down! :eek:

So, anything you just kinda stumbled upon, that made you appreciate your car even more?
 
Jedimk7

Jedimk7

Drag Race Newbie
Location
Cali Red Triangle
Extension of sun visor, never knew it could do that ?

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Jose_Gti

Jose_Gti

Autocross Newbie
Location
Philadelphia
Drawer under driver seat.
 
S

SRGTD

Autocross Newbie
Location
UK
Bowser said:
Today, about 2 weeks and 200 miles in, I noticed some numbers in the right top of the center display. Seemed to show my current gear, and suggest shifting. Yep, that's what it is.
Click to expand...

In th UK market, the gear change indicator is very economy focused, so will always suggest you change gear early, which could mean you labour the engine if you drive by it. I personally don't use it.

Many of the little surprises that people discover are covered in the owners manual. I know it's a fairly dull read and quite big, but I always make a point of scan reading the manual when I get a new car to ensure I know what features it's got so I can make full use of them, otherwise I may have paid for features I didn't know existed.
 
KevinC

KevinC

Autocross Champion
Location
The land of Wyatt Earp & Doc Holliday
Car(s)
'19 Golf R, '21 M2c
Do any of you guys RTFM? If not, spend some time with it - it's actually really well-written and you will learn things about your car if you have never taken the time to go through it. Far better than the owner's manual for the new Mazda3 my girl just got - it's awful in comparison.

Here's my favorite discovery, and it's undocumented as far as I can tell. If you are using SD card or a USB stick for your music (will NOT work with an iPod or iPhone), you can access your albums directly using a "coverflow" type of scrolling. Tap the album art for the song currently playing, and you will get a cascade of cover art, which you can scroll either direction through to go directly to another album. Unfortunately it only displays by album title alphabetically, I would love if it could be sorted by artist - but still very cool and useful.

 
B

Bowser

Ready to race!
Location
Chicago (Western burbs)
As much as I appreciate some nice snark, yes, I did RTFM. The info about the gear recommendation is - maybe 4 column inches on page 247 out of 441. Can't imagine how I failed to retain that! :p

From the caption of this thread, I was welcoming folk to admit to "stupid" discoveries. So many things - like keyless entry/start, and the touchscreen display, not to mention a modern 6-speed - were completely unlike any car I'd owned before, I realized it was going to take me a while - and some re-readings of the manual - to catch everything this car offers.

SRGTD - the manual does say that the shifting is economy based, and the shifts were quite a bit earlier than I was doing. But they seemed smooth nevertheless. What exactly do you mean by "labour (labor - this side of the pond ;)) the engine"? I figure eventually I won't use either that or the tach as directives, but it is a nice tool as I figure out how I prefer to shift for my driving.
 
S

Stevo_CT

Ready to race!
Location
Cape Town
Hold the "unlock" button on key fob to open all windows.
Hold the "lock" button on key fob to close all windows, including the sunroof.

For DSG owners, hold the "gear up" paddle to change from Sports mode to normal Drive mode. (manual shift to auto)

Not sure if this happens to others, but when stopping on a decline with Stop/Start technology active, I always deactivate this feature as every now and then it "confuses" the car and I have to turn the ignition off/on again. (not often, but enough to force me to deactivate)
 
W

wiredbean

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
NYC
Button that turns asr off, hold it longer and it goes to sport mode for esc. No need to go to infotainment screen


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T

tknj99

Ready to race!
Location
Central VA
Stevo_CT said:
Hold the "unlock" button on key fob to open all windows.
Hold the "lock" button on key fob to close all windows, including the sunroof.

For DSG owners, hold the "gear up" paddle to change from Sports mode to normal Drive mode. (manual shift to auto)

Not sure if this happens to others, but when stopping on a decline with Stop/Start technology active, I always deactivate this feature as every now and then it "confuses" the car and I have to turn the ignition off/on again. (not often, but enough to force me to deactivate)
Click to expand...

Hmm.. just tried the hold unlock on key fob to lower all windows on my 17 SE but didn't work :(
 
Jose_Gti

Jose_Gti

Autocross Newbie
Location
Philadelphia
Stevo_CT said:
Ask the dealer to program this function for you. (unless you can do this yourself of course)
Click to expand...

I enabled that function in my car via OBD11
 
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