How to Brick Your Car by Looking for Hidden Options

[Guest]

Many cars have hidden entertainment and communication features that only need to be turned on. One hacker decided to find out how.

How to Brick Your Car by Looking for Hidden Options : Read more

 

[frank the tank]

I understand how tech has improved cars but i think now it has gone too far. this is my personal opinion but once targeted advertising hits (Mercedes Benz already has plans for this). im going back to cars with carburetors and few electronics

 

[chicofehr]

I would rather just install a laptop in my vehicle. I refuse to have a computer control it to the extent the new ones do. I love my 97 Jeep LOL

 

[paradigital]

This isn't "news", I've been "hacking" VAG group MMI units for years, enabling features that were disabled by default, or adding in features that needed additional hardware then coding in. I thought it was particularly common knowledge how to access the "green menu" from an MMI console, so I can only assume the same was true of RNS (so why this guy took months to work out what he could have googled in minutes is just odd). Add in a decent diagnostics cable (VCDS, you are a god-send) and you can do/retrofit almost anything that was offered as an option. I for example didn't pay for the google maps integration with my nav, but I have it

 

[darkbreeze]

Seems like it would have been cheaper, albeit less fun, to just pay for it. Nah.

 

[vaughn2k]

"I bricked the car... and it does not cover in the warraty"

 

[ickibar1234]

I understand how tech has improved cars but i think now it has gone too far. this is my personal opinion but once targeted advertising hits (Mercedes Benz already has plans for this). im going back to cars with carburetors and few electronics

Nah, carburetors suck. Go with multi-port fuel injection and OBD2 at least, before key encryption and drive by wire. That's a good car ('99 Civic).

Though a used red Chevy Volt is in my future, my heart is driven to it for some reason.

 

[jonnyhuk2]

Nothing new, just using current technology to do what they've always done. Back in the mid '90s, our first low spec cars we bought on a budget as youngsters were the same... mine I found I could upgrade to variable intermittent wipers by adding a cheap potentiometer to the connectors that were already there. My girlfriend's car's interior light would only come on (by design) with the driver's door, not the passenger door. Again, all the cabling and connectors were there, we just had to buy a cheap push switch (one designed for car doors) and it worked. Few pounds it cost, that's all.