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Kia Niro trick to kill the startup/goodbye jingle..?

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83K views 98 replies 33 participants last post by  natesc0tt  
#1 ·
Greetings, all.

I've been poking around here, as the proud new owner of the Niro PHEV (as of two days ago). I was planning to wait for the all-EV, but got cold feet in terms of the long trips I must take for work, blah blah.

In any event, I traded in my Ford C-Max Energi for this car, and am horrified to be listening to a loud jingle every time I start and turn off this car. I have plowed through the steering wheel's menu and tried to find what I would think would be a setting to switch off this annoyance, but I can't find it. The Ford had no such nightmarish "feature". Does anyone know how to get rid of this? I have looked around the internet and seen other Kia models listed as having a "welcome sound" setting... which I cannot find.

I would welcome any feedback on this; if no one knows where the setting is, is there a forum people go to explore less, um, savory hacks of the electronics of their Kias..? Thanks so much!
 
#7 ·
Just returned from a few driver's seat tests, thoroughly re-irritated. Yes – NO effect. Irrelevant whether you have seat belt in before hitting start/stop button.

I also verified that the Annoying Jingle emanates from speakers inside the instrument cluster, not the front door stereo speakers (at least, on my EX model).

And I found this press release, from Kia HQ: Kia cars to get start-up jingle | Charles Hurst
... because they have put "tremendous effort into creating 'sonic branding'". ARRGH.

I'm not giving up on this, and I really hope I or others can figure out a hack/workaround. As Donald posted above, it is actually even more lame when it comes on over music you are still listening to when you stop the car!! Just heard that happen today for the first time. I can't believe more folks wouldn't be demanding this be switchable, as on their other car models.
 
#4 ·
I think it must be a South Korean thing. Our Samsung washing machine plays a, some might say, jaunty little tune whenever it's turned on or finishes. The tune goes on for longer than you expect but then stops part way through the next phrase. You can turn it off, but it would nice to have more of a choice like a simple beep or two.
 
#5 ·
The Ampera makes some whooshing noises on start-up and shutdown too. You don't even notice after a week or two, honestly...
 
#6 ·
The most annoying bit is when you've just listened to some sweet soothing music, turn the car off, and it blares this cheap and nasty crap at you. I guess it is what Asian car makers think counts for 'sophisticated'. In the Soul it is from a loud speaker actually set behind the dashboard itself, as far as I can tell. Yes, please someone figure out how to kill it.
 
#9 ·
My C-Max Energi had no such need for "safety reasons". There was an indicator light on the dashboard that meant "on". Sorry, I don't buy that as a decent reason for this as to be a "requirement" at all. I see it as "branding identification", plain and simple, which that press release came right out and said, even. Not giving up on this one.
 
#10 ·
There are some very simple bings and bongs that are rarely misplaced. I am trying to think of which car it was that 'borrowed' the bing you get on planes for the seat belt sign, quite benign.

@Dave Emory , and others, I'd be happy to pen a letter to Kia from multiple owners expressing our distaste for a lack of control on this 'sonic intrusion'.
 
#11 ·
If it makes a sound from a separate speaker, it can be disabled without affecting the car’s operation. It’s called a screwdriver through the cone.

The only problem will be if other necessary warning sounds or messages use the same facility
 
#17 ·
Nothing in the Soul's primitive dash display either.

However, if it is switchable in other models, maybe it can be neutered in dealer software?
 
#18 ·
Nope. Must be model-dependent. Unless I missed it – and I don't think I did, since I landed on what I bet is that same Reddit thread, myself – that "Welcome Sound" option is simply missing on the Kia Niro (at least, it is on the PHEV).

Because I am dogged, I went over what must have been every menu option, one by one, probably 4,555,432 times. It's not there. I also saw a post on another forum where someone claimed to be a Kia dealer, says s/he checked multiple cars on the lot, couldn't find the setting.

I had to laugh at the idea of the screwdriver through the speaker cones. Yeah, sure, sure... turning the "jingle" into death metal distortion and affecting every other alert tone (of which there are plenty). I'm afraid that can't work. Ha!
 
#21 ·
In a lot of EVs and PHEVs, the purpose of the startup jingle is two-fold:

- To provide indication of the start procedure which takes a second or two, primarily due to precharge
- And it hides the sound of the pre-charge and pack contactors engaging, which produces a potentially alarming "clunk" sound

Therefore you probably won't find an option to remove this because then people would be taking their cars into the dealer complaining that their new car "clunks when they start"... not a defect, it's by design.
 
#22 ·
I'm still gritting my teeth. Again, since my C-Max had no such "feature, not a bug", and needed no "clunks hidden", I fail to see how critical this is to the consumer. Five days in, it's no less annoying. Girlfriend's first response was, "oh no" after our first ride the other day. (This was without any prompting from me.) Ah well.

On the plus side, sort of, the "lane assist" provides pseudo-autonymous freeway driving and is pleasantly creepy. More time to be totally distracted by text messages.
 
#26 ·
Of course Fully Charged itself also has a bong..:rolleyes:
Not any more - they seem to have decided to rebrand with some boring animation with no cool bong :(
 
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#29 · (Edited)
Hello,

to say this right ahead:

I did not try any of this myself, I just found this way/idea in a german electric car forum and wanted to point you to this information. But you surely have to take a closer look into this yourself, and after all, this might be a bit risky to the software,warranty etc. I dont own a Niro yet, but I am planning on getting one. The jingle topic might bother me too, so I made some research.

So there might be a solution for the jingle on startup/shutdown annoyance. As I found in a german electric car forum, there is a "hack" of the multimedia/infotainment system. I did not try any of this myself, i just read about it and thought it might be usefull for others. So i created this account and want to share it with you.

The hack seems to work on KIAs and Hyundai vehicles since their system is apparently the same. Basically it goes like this: The mediasystem is based on Android and as you might know, android offers developer options. As on the phone, this menue is hidden and needs to be activated. Once activated you can also install third party android apps. But this doesnt seem to be necessary to get rid of the jingle. To deactivate the jingle, one user reported this: note: this was tried on a Hyundai Ioniq, so i dont know if or how it works on a KIA Niro.

I will try to translate his post. The original post can be found here:
"Begrüßungsmelodie" abschalten? - Seite 3 - IONIQ - Infotainment • Hyundai IONIQ Elektro - Elektroauto Forum

The post has pretty much the following information:

You first have to go to the android level of the system.
1. Select [Setup] in the menu
2. Select setting for the screensaver
3. On the lower side of the screen quickly touch
-left,middle,right,middle,left,middle,right
4. A pin pad appears. the pin is the current time displayed above. Enter and press send.
5. select [Android settings]

A Youtube video makes the process of entering the engineering mode more clear: From Minute: 02:00

Please note: From my resaerch so far, the way how to get into the developer menu can differ from model, build year etc.

When you are in the Android Settings, scroll down to the Build Number and tab on it several times (about 7-10 times). This activates the developer settings menue, just like on your phone.

Then go back and enter the developer settings. There, disable the "Animations". As on your android phone, fancy animations now disappear AND apparently also the starting jingle.
//End of post. So for this you should not need to install any third party application at all. The guy in the video above is doing much more and I would be careful with that.

However I tought, there might be animations you dont want to have deactivated. By deactivating the animations, the system also becomes a little quicker to operate. I tried this on my android phone and deactivated the animations to see what happens.

Other users reported that this works, others report that it does not work. Some also disabled the "animation scale" (?) option.

Also: As you can install third party apps, it is thinkable that you install a file explorer, search and browse to the jingle file and just replace the jingle with a sound you like. But thats just theorie.

I hope some of you find this usefull.
Please report back if you tried this, and if it really works.

Thank you!



Edit: Antoher way of accessing the menu: edit2: this seems to be a whole other hidden menu, not the one that is described above.
 
#34 ·
You first have to go to the android level of the system.
1. Select [Setup] in the menu
2. Select setting for the screensaver
3. On the lower side of the screen quickly touch
-left,middle,right,middle,left,middle,right
4. A pin pad appears. the pin is the current time displayed above. Enter and press send.
5. select [Android settings]

A Youtube video makes this process more clear:
I can confirm that this method works to get into the engineering mode. (Note to Donald's - I didn't change anything!)
 

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#31 ·
...just to to the freakin' thing off would be great!
 
#37 ·
I'm always relieved when someone else takes the plunge to explore the engineering menus... because I myself have an innate tendency to succumb to temptation and try it myself and be the first to have to learn what can go wrong!!