VW Golf Mk 7 Secrets

15th April 2017

The Golf Mk 7 includes many hidden or lesser known features not mentioned in the manual:

Lights

• When you indicate whilst the Daylight Running Lights are on, the light on the same side as you are indicating will temporarily extinguish to allow other road users to see your indication more clearly.
• 
  Lights on tailgate fade out/in
  when hatch opened/closed.
  When the taillights are on, if you open the hatch, the lights on the tailgate fade out. When you close the tailgate, they fade back in. Nice touch.

Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) system

• With the Climatronic HVAC system, when in Auto mode, the fan will not come on until the engine is started.

Infotainment (Radio/Media) System

• 
  Car moves towards pump
  as fuel level becomes low.
  On the CAR - > Driving data view of the Infotainment System, the image of the car begins to move from the left hand side of the screen towards the fuel pump image at the right hand side of the screen as you start to get low on fuel.
• With Eco Driving Mode selected, after turning on the ignition, the default view of the CAR screen on the Infotainment System will always be the "Convenience consumers" view. If you want to prevent this from happening (for example so that the Infotainment System retains its last view, e.g. Driving Data) you can select and setup the Individual Driving Mode to have the same options as the Eco Driving Mode.
• 
  Message displayed during
  active DPF regeneration.
  On the Car -> Vehicle Status page, clicking on the Auto Start-stop button displays the Start-stop system status page. This will usually show "Start-stop system is available" whilst driving if the Start-stop system is activated. However, if active regeneration of the diesel particulate filter is in progress (so long as at least one stop-start cycle of the engine has occured) this will display "Engine must be running" instead. This is useful for monitoring when DPF active regeneration is taking place.
• The Infotainment Systems on Golf Mk 7s support slide shows when in DAB mode. Unfortunately, no UK radio station currently uses this facility. See http://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=325
• 
  400x240 pixel screenshot saved to SD card.
  Album art saved within MP3s will appear when being played so long as images are no larger than 400x400pixels in size. I recommend the two excellent blog posts at http://www.haydnwilliams.com/blog/vw-golf-mk7-sd-cards-and-album-art for more information.
• 
  Hidden Service mode page.
  With the Infotainment System turned on, hold down the MENU button for approximately 3 seconds to access a hidden Service mode page. From there you can view version information, enabling logging and potentially upgrade the unit's firmware. See also this YouTube video.
• Pressing and holding the power knob on the Infotainment System for about 10 seconds causes it to reset. I wonder if this also resets other modules within the car because sometimes after I have changed some parameters of the car using VCDS, these changes do not take effect until I either cycle the ignition or reset the Infotainment System. I prefer the latter method.

General

• The front doors feature "stepless door angling". This means that when opening a door, after the initial hard stop when the door is open just a jar, you can then open the door further to whatever angle you want and the door will stay exactly in place.
• 
  Extension to door storage length.
  The storage bins in the front doors extend a further 5"/13cm underneath the arm rests (towards the rear of the car), ideal for things like compact umberellas. (There's a slight raising of the floor height which may have caused you to miss this.)
• 
  Adaptive lane guidance can be disabled.
  The Lane Assist system can perform two functions. The first is just to steer to prevent you leaving a lane but there is also a second, optional function which tries to keep your position within a lane. The continuous slight steering adjustments by this latter function can sometimes be undesirable. Fortunately it can be disabled by unchecking the "Adaptive lane guidance" checkbox on the Car->Setup->Driver assistance page of the Infotainment System.
• You may be able to receive Voice Over Internet (VOIP) calls over the car's bluetooth hands-free connection. I've found I am able to receive Skype calls using my iPhone 5S running iOS 10.
• You can view the State of Charge of your car's battery by, with the ignition off, holding down the 0.0/trip button for approximately 3 seconds and releasing when the MFD shows "Battery Status".
• From the Golf Mk 6, in cars with manual transmission, if you stall the engine, the engine will restart automatically when you engage the clutch.
• The Golf Mk 7 also includes many of the secrets I discovered on my Mk 5 Golf. Stuart's Golf Mk 5 Secrets page

That's it for now. Please let me know if you know of any other hidden features which are NOT mentioned in the manual.