I know that this is probably in the manual but I just found out the other day while driving when using the cruise control you can raise and lower your speed in 5 mph increments by holding down the accl/decel button on the steering wheel. I was so excited. It really comes in handy when driving on some roads where the speed limits increase and decrease on my commute. My wifes VW has this feature and was sad because I thought the EX did not. This is probably a feature that a lot of cars have and no one knows about. What are some features you guys just found out after months of ownership?

I don't know if the EX same as the G. Here is some what we found on the G side.

The windows will roll up even if you turn off your engine.The audio will stay on if you push the bottom twice fast when you turn your engine off. If your car equiped then it does the same with the cellphone staying on.There is 2 different color backgroun for non navi screen. That's all I can think of right now.

zozo

How do you change the background colour? I haven't seen that option.

Thanks Adam

zozoka1212 wrote:The windows will roll up even if you turn off your engine.

Yep - as long as you don't open the door. It's the "retained accessory power" feature.

zozoka1212 wrote:The audio will stay on if you push the bottom twice fast when you turn your engine off. If your car equiped then it does the same with the cellphone staying on.

Coool - I'll have to check this out, thanks!

zozoka1212 wrote:There is 2 different color backgroun for non navi screen.

I have the Nav, so can't try this myself.

Cheers,David

Welcome, Adam!! Another Canuck and hey, I spent one school year at T.L.Kennedy in Mississauga!!

Cheers,David

You have to hit settings and go display and it should give you an option(last one on the bottom). Backgroud color. You hit enter and it changes the color. There is not a big different between the 2 color. One of them is more blueish with the bright blue stripe on the top. Other is more grayish.

Hope you giys have the same options we have.

zozo

The Intelligent Key antennae will make a cheap, wireless bike computer think it's travelling at 14 MPH. I found this out when I backed the EX into the garage with my bike stored at the back of the garage. Couldn't figure out why the odometer on the bike jumped 100 miles or more a day. About a foot from any door or hatch handle is all it takes. It's a great way to fake mileage, should the need arise.

-Rodders

Wow, that really is a "secret" feature Rodders!

You work for the government? j/k

I read this in the manual but I thought it was bull until it happened today. Did you know that when the wipers are on the intelligent cruise will shut off after a couple minutes. I am guessing that the rain would probably mess with the radar sensor.

On most newer Infinitis, if you hold the UNLOCK button on the remote the driver and front passenger windows go down. (If you have an actual key, you can hold the key in the lock on the door to make the windows go up and down. Hold the key in the lock position and the windows all go up, and hold the key in the unlock position and they go down. Unfortunately, the windows will not go up from the remote, as this would be safety no-no.

Nice thread topic, btw. I may start this in the I35 forum to see if there's anything I don't know about my own car

Zach

Actually, this only works on the front windows (i.e. not the rears, nor the sunroof as I've previously enjoyed on VW/Audi vehicles).

Check out this thread.

sluday wrote:when the wipers are on the intelligent cruise will shut off

Yes, odd, but true ... I found this in 2 places in the manual a) p.5-26, middle column, 3rd item, 2nd paragraph, and b) p.5-37, middle column, 3rd bullet. Wipers can be on "intermittent" mode, but not on Lo or Hi.

My guess, this is done to prevent automatic braking on wet roads from causing a problem like skidding ... more Big Brother, wouldn't want owners to sue Infiniti, stuff.

BTW, when you turn on cruise control, the default is ICC (Intelligent Cruise Control). To activate Conventional Cruise Control you must press and hold the "CRUISE ON/OFF" button for more than 1.5 secs (see p.5-41).

Ok this is barely a secret feature, it's a big fat button just below the gear lever.

Snow Mode. Yes, it's summer and some days I look at that button and long for a bit of cool weather, but for me at least, it's become a year round button.

I did a long road trip for work from here in Philly up to Michigan, across to Chicago and back last weekend. At 11.30pm on Sunday night, getting closer to Chicago we hit stopped traffic on the hwy, and moved about 8 miles over an hour and a half. I love manual cars, except in traffic, but overly powerful sporty automatic cars can sometimes be a bit annoying in stop and go traffic too I find - the slightest tap of the accelerator to move forward another 10 feet and the car shoots off.

I hit the snow button, and engine power seems to be reduced, it changes into 2nd and 3rd sooner and is just easier to drive in awful traffic....or so I find anyway.

Funny in the manual it dedicates 3 sentences to snow mode, for what is one of the few buttons in the car that actually changes driving characteristics....yet we get about 40 pages on how to sit in the seat and wear a seatbelt. Amazing.

I got pretty good mileage on the trip btw. Manually calculated - one tank 22.8mpg (heading out there averaging 75-85mph). A 24.3mpg tank. A 25.2mpg tank, and the current one (I got back weds night) I have 320 miles on it so far and the trip computer says I have another 195 miles left in the tank.

Maybe this has been mentioned elsewhere, but if you approach the locked lift gate door with the key fob in your pocket, you don't need to push the door release switch (or the "unlock" button on the fob)...you can just open it.

The owner's manual says you have to do one of the above things.

The dealer confirmed other people had mentioned it so I guess it's not a *bug*

JUST REMEMBER, if you've locked everything, and check to see if the hatchback is locked (with the key in your pocket), it will open. But go stash the key and then try it and it will be locked.
Modified by Georgie at 8:28 AM 8/26/2008

Here's another unadvertised feature I tripped across the other day ...

In some modes (but not all) during Voice Recognition commands, the car automatically lowers the fan speed.

This is a nice feature: when backing up, one of the rearview mirrors tilt down so you can see better, however to do this you must have the button selector switched to the mirror you want to tilt (L or R), try it, I discovered it by mistake.

I am new to this forum and have had an Ex for a month or so now and love it, i have found that when you are in any status mode on the Nav/Info screen you can hold down the enter button and you will automatically enter the navigation portion of the radio... if only i could get in to the ipod or music box without using the main buttons on the radio.

Interesting find, punjab, and welcome to the group!

I was driving back from work when I noticed that my nav screen went from the daytime view to nighttime and back again.

At first I thought there was something wrong but then I realized that I was going through an underpass in traffic and went slow enough for my auto lights to kick in. The nav view apparently is connected to the lights in auto mode.

To confirm this, it happened again when I got home and went down to my parking garage.

Another feature I discovered is that you can delete text input such as names and numbers in the phonebook by keeping the Delete button pressed. Maybe this is in the manual but I haven't come across it.

Good one Martigen. That explains why we thought our mirrors were broken. The feature worked initially and then stopped!

The car is so smart, when I think that something is not working properly I have to ask myself... is it my lack of knowledge or is it a real problem with the car?

SalsAsianMike wrote:I was driving back from work when I noticed that my nav screen went from the daytime view to nighttime and back again.

At first I thought there was something wrong but then I realized that I was going through an underpass in traffic and went slow enough for my auto lights to kick in. The nav view apparently is connected to the lights in auto mode.

I've found that the NAV view will switch from day to night mode (showing night-time sky with stars), whenever the headlights are turned on, whether manually or as a result of Auto ON.

SalsAsianMike wrote:Another feature I discovered is that you can delete text input such as names and numbers in the phonebook by keeping the Delete button pressed. Maybe this is in the manual but I haven't come across it.

I haven't seen it in the manual, and it works really well - thanks for mentioning it!!! (Edit: Just tripped across it in the manual, p.4-6 ... still, great find!)

In my experimentation, it seems that whenever the touchscreen keyboard is presented for user input, if you press and hold "Delete" for about 2 seconds, the entire input line will be erased. This is MUCH preferable to hitting "Delete" repeatedly to erase each character, especially when you're trying to replace the default track names recorded to the hard drive with the actual song name.

Cheers,David

If you want to add a voice tag to a phonebook entry after it's been added, just edit the entry by highlighting it then use"enter data by keypad". Just edit only one character(delete one letter in the name then add it back, for example) click the "OK"'s then the option to add a voice tag will appear. There was no reference to adding a voice tag, after the fact, in the manual. I had a helluva time transfering my phonebook via Bluetooth and the option to add voice tag at that time never appeared, as the manual stated.

Not really a hidden feature but I haven't had a car with this much technology before so I'm constantly amazed!

I walked towards my car while talking on the phone. I got in and started the car. As soon as my phone paired up with the Bluetooth, it seamlessly turned the music down and switched my conversation to speakerphone.

That was flat out awesome!

You can view any of the 4 cameras full screen, even while moving at any speed, using the diagnostics mode mentioned in the article "M35 / M45 Secret Diagnostic Mode" at zerothread/162860. Here's the steps:

- Turn OFF the Audio system- While holding down the SETTING button, rotate the radio's Volume knob either clockwise or counter-clockwise for at least 40 clicks. You should then be in the System Diagnostic menu.- select Confirmation / Adjustment- select Camera Cont.- select Calibrating Camera Image- you can then pick a camera to view

sg77 wrote:You can view any of the 4 cameras full screen, even while moving at any speed, using the diagnostics mode mentioned in the article "M35 / M45 Secret Diagnostic Mode" at zerothread/162860. Here's the steps:

- Turn OFF the Audio system- While holding down the SETTING button, rotate the radio's Volume knob either clockwise or counter-clockwise for at least 40 clicks. You should then be in the System Diagnostic menu.- select Confirmation / Adjustment- select Camera Cont.- select Calibrating Camera Image- you can then pick a camera to view

Is this just a one time thing or can you actual set the cameras be used while driving? It seems to easy to do since it would be a huge safety concern. Do you have to go thru all these steps every time to use the camera while driving?

Good to know, sg77, thanks!

I still would like to have a way to see the left-hand camera in an inset while viewing the rear camera, similar to what's available for the right side of the vehicle. This would be useful while parallel parking on the left side of a one-way street, for instance. (For these situations so far, I've been using the driver's side mirror tilt-down feature.)

There's got to be a way to do this, since right-hand drive vehicles are being sold in markets like Japan and England. The trick is, how to get it to show up?!?

sluday wrote:Is this just a one time thing or can you actual set the cameras be used while driving? It seems to easy to do since it would be a huge safety concern. Do you have to go thru all these steps every time to use the camera while driving?

As far as I know, you have to do all those steps each time (I assume they don't make it easy to view the camera while driving for safety/liability reasons). The camera views aren't that useful while going fast anyway, so this is more just a fun trick to try once.

dividedhighw wrote:I still would like to have a way to see the left-hand camera in an inset while viewing the rear camera, similar to what's available for the right side of the vehicle.

I also wondered why they didn't have a way see the left camera in the inset; I guess they figure that you can get a pretty good view yourself of the left side by looking out the window or in the mirror, and they probably wanted to make the interface as simple as possible.