VCDS mods voiding warranty!

[crhendo]

I took delivery of a brand new MY16 110TSI recently and made 3 small mods for Traffic (TMC), Fan Display and alarm on opening door.

I have been having a few problems with the car so I took it into the dealership to have it checked. I have just had a call from the dealer asking if I had made any changes so I told him I had and referred him to the links on this website. They are now claiming that the faults are probably occurring because of my "fiddling" with the VW computer AND this may effect my warranty. Amazing!

I applied plenty of mods to my old MK5 R32 and have never had a problem with this before. Should I just agree to turn off the mods I made and not to be a bad boy again or should I take this further and risk the vailed threat of voiding warranty?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[donweather]

Firstly what are the problems you've been having with the car?

Secondly, just because you reset the mods back to factory I can't see how this then magically re-instates your warranty. If the dealer is claiming you've modded the car and that's voided your warranty I can't see how re-instating it automatically means you're warranty is now back on.

Thirdly, independent certified mechanics regularly change things via the VCDS, so I can't see how changing things in the VCDS would void the warranty, but again until we know what you're problems are then it's hard to say exactly. What would have happened if you got the VW dealer to make those same VCDS changes. For example, if you got VW dealer to make your fog lights turning lights (and paid the VW dealer for this) would they know be claiming the warranty is void on the whole car?

[DV52]

I took delivery of a brand new MY16 110TSI recently and made 3 small mods for Traffic (TMC), Fan Display and alarm on opening door.

I have been having a few problems with the car so I took it into the dealership to have it checked. I have just had a call from the dealer asking if I had made any changes so I told him I had and referred him to the links on this website. They are now claiming that the faults are probably occurring because of my "fiddling" with the VW computer AND this may effect my warranty. Amazing!

I applied plenty of mods to my old MK5 R32 and have never had a problem with this before. Should I just agree to turn off the mods I made and not to be a bad boy again or should I take this further and risk the vailed threat of voiding warranty?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Chris: Sorry to hear about your problems, but I have to agree with donweather - and not just because he has such a magnificent and awe-inspiring first name!

It was evident from the autoscan report that you sent to me (thanks again) that there were problems in a number of control modules from the get-go, and the car had only travelled 21kms when you made it. Presumably, that was well before you did the tweaks.

My suggestion would be to take a firm, but fair approach; that is, show them the first autoscan report and tell them that you made this report to see how well they did their pre-delivery inspection (also express your surprise and disgust at the DTCs in the report). Then ask your dealer why it was that a car which you just picked-up 10 minutes earlier developed so many faults on its first trip out of the show room (all of the errors happened within 10 kms of that first drive).

As for their claim that the warranty is voided by the tweaks that you made (and again, I agree with the fabulously well named donweather) print a copy of the CodingLog,txt file in the Ross Tech/debug subdirectory on your laptop. It contains a history of all the changes that you have made to the car. Then ask your friendly dealer to identify how each (or any) of these changes have impacted on the matters that are faulty with the car. I'm assuming that there isn't a link to be found

And it's not acceptable for the dealer to generalise, or to say something like...."well you changed the TMC channel setting to 1024 and therefore the rear outer tail light developed a fault because both facilities are controlled by the BCM". The admap that you produced on your car clearly shows that this control module manages a total of 2,260 different adaptation channels. And this does not include the myriad of other components that are managed by the BCM via the device's coding string. To void the warranty, the dealer has to demonstrate that there was a plausible link between the tweak and the fault in the car (IMO). Anything else is just obfuscation - which alas is a card that VW dealers play way too often and the buying public allows them to win

Cheers
Don

[Tonyvh]

That's worry me now. Any chances you can help me to change back to the factory setting Don?

[crhendo]

Dear Dons,

Thank you both for your responses. Naturally, because they both made common sense, I agree with all you have both said. Without even having the benefit of your replies, I have weathered an extraordinary meeting with a dealer principal, a service manager and a sales manager where (thanks to my trusty Ross Tech channel database creation) I maintained my dignity and slowly but surely weathered through there canned excuses to arrive at the facts which had them completely lost for words.

I took delivery of my 110TSI on the 24/8 and drove 300 meters down the road to my home, plugged in my trusty Ross-Tech cable, did a complete Autoscan and created a control channel database (thanks to Don DV52 for his guidance) as a starting point for my precious new purchase. Having been through the 12 month DSG nightmare with my old MK5 R32, I was determined not to suffer the same way again and prepared myself.

As Don (DV52) said above, my car was allowed to leave the dealership with 3 faults being reported that clearly nobody ever bothered to check . So all the "pre-delivery" check entailed was the washing of the car. The Service manager was clever enough to stay silent through the process as I went to great lengths to explain (and show) the printed VCDS autoscan of the car 300 meters after it left the dealership.

After this, the rest was easy. It was explained to me that no dealer has the right to revoke warranty so any veiled threat to the contrary was no longer valid. It was agreed that the correct use of a VCDS device did not constitute "wilful stupidity" by the owner. It was agreed that finding a VCDS cable in my glovebox did not constitute wilful damage to the car by the owner. Most importantly it was agreed that a new car should never be allowed to leave the dealership with faults in control modules.

My car has been with the in-house VCDS geek all day and they have asked to keep it for a little longer while they communicate with VW. They have found a solid fault that, contrary to initial claims, could never have been caused by the mods that I made. I am currently driving a very pleasant Passat (only 2300km's) that will do me nicely until my car is returned.

My advice is simple. Buy a Ross-Tech cable. Follow DV52's well authored document on creating a Control Channel database and save the details in the same place that you keep all your valuables. Even if you don't go to the next fun step of applying some well documented mods, your money has been well spent and you have documentary proof to defend yourself if required.

Finally, thank you to all the contributors in this community. I have certainly learned a lot in the last few weeks AND I have held my own against the dreaded dealership conflict that always exists in the back of my mind whenever I take my car into be serviced.

Happy motoring!

[donweather]

Glad to hear a great outcome has eventuated.

[DV52]

Chris: Touché -and thanks for the kind words
Don (the other Don)

PS: Once again the forces of goodness and niceness (the unsuspecting buyer) have prevailed over the forces of badness and evil (the rapacious dealer)

[mattaus]

My advice is simple. Buy a Ross-Tech cable. Follow DV52's well authored document on creating a Control Channel database and save the details in the same place that you keep all your valuables. Even if you don't go to the next fun step of applying some well documented mods, your money has been well spent and you have documentary proof to defend yourself if required.

This thread was an eye opener. I will hopefully be picking up my car later this month. I'm going to take your advice and get myself a cable and educated!

Thanks.

EDIT: Can I confirm this will be what I need for a MY16 GTI Performance? I checked the compatibility. 7th and 8th digits are 'AU', and the model year is 'G'. According to the compatibility list the Micro-CAN interface supports '5G-AU'. The 5 is the only part I'm not sure about. I could just get the HEX-USB+CAN, but the Micro-CAN is $100 cheaper so if it will do the same thing for my car I'd rather same the AUD$130!

[The_Hawk]

For the amazingly lazy... can you link to DV52's guide? (I'm on the run and searching right now isn't so easy )

[crhendo]

By way of an update..... The dealer has had my car for a second day now while VW Head Office try to determine what is wrong. The Service Manager rang me around lunchtime to advise that VW want the dealership to restore the whole system to "factory defaults" before they will continue their diagnosis. I decided not to argue and I have to say that I was impressed that at least they contacted me first to obtain permission rather than simply make the changes without me knowing. Personally I believe that this is a total overreaction by VW Australia however it does make me consider that perhaps we should be asking the Ross-Tech gurus to include an "undo" "redo" option in their software so we could simply remove all the mods with one keystroke prior to the car going in for a service. Any thoughts on this?

[crhendo]

For the amazingly lazy... can you link to DV52's guide? (I'm on the run and searching right now isn't so easy )

Dons guide is referred to in #6 of this link.

[DV52]

For the amazingly lazy... can you link to DV52's guide? (I'm on the run and searching right now isn't so easy )

.
The Hawk: I think that chendo was referring to the first document in my thread HERE Enjoy!
Don

Chris: clear case of great minds thinking alike (let's not contemplate the final part of this saying)!!

[DV52]

By way of an update..... The dealer has had my car for a second day now while VW Head Office try to determine what is wrong. The Service Manager rang me around lunchtime to advise that VW want the dealership to restore the whole system to "factory defaults" before they will continue their diagnosis. I decided not to argue and I have to say that I was impressed that at least they contacted me first to obtain permission rather than simply make the changes without me knowing. Personally I believe that this is a total overreaction by VW Australia however it does make me consider that perhaps we should be asking the Ross-Tech gurus to include an "undo" "redo" option in their software so we could simply remove all the mods with one keystroke prior to the car going in for a service. Any thoughts on this?

Chris: I'm very intrigued to understand what your dealer means by restore the whole system to "factory defaults". My understanding is that the ODIS platform that dealers use is very different to the Ross Tech product but I've not heard of a dealer doing a full 100% rebuild of every adaptation channel and every coding value in every control module in the car. Then there is the further matter of a full rebuild of the car's innate programs that have nothing to do with adaptation channels/coding value - but it's possible I guess.

It's not entirely clear (to me) why such an exercise is necessary at all - unless there is a systemic problem with the car's fundamental DNA (this certainly wasn't suggested from the DTCs in your first auto scan report). Sounds to me like the dealer is either fishing for a solution, or he is not being entirely truthful (again). Either way, you are in the enviable position where you have successful made your problem, the dealer's problem (which is how it should have been from the beginning- that's what warranties are about).

As for your suggested product enhancement for the RT cable, I suspect that if it were possible at all, then it would take a very long time to implement. A constant reply by RT employees in the RT forum to much simpler suggestions is that there is a very long to-do list of enhancements even now.

Plus and whilst I'm not discounting the value of your suggestion, the fact is that cable users already have a facility to identify and to roll-back their tweak changes via the CodingLog.txt file. Sure it's a bit clunky and DOS like (I know that you are an Apple man), but with a bit of parsing and with some structuring of the data file which isn't that difficult, it's certainly doable -I think. Especially in your case where there ain't that many changes)

Cheers and Keep up the good fight against the forces of badness and evil!
Don

PS: please let us know what a "full software rebuild" looks like when and if the dealer provides the information

[crhendo]

Don: sorry I haven't come back to you sooner, I have been travelling.

VW Australia have made such a fuss about a Customer tampering with "their" system that they insisted the dealer do a complete reset of 5 control modules. Apparently it takes the ODIS system approx. one hour to do each control module so that is all they actually did yesterday before taking my car out for a drive to see if it generated any faults. When I asked the service manager what corrective action they were taking regarding the single "hard fault" that existed in the log he replied that the system reset was the corrective action. When I insisted that this action clearly could not be described as proper diagnosis he simply said he was obeying VW Australia's wishes.

They have now had my car for three days and so far have made no attempt to contact me today. I am hoping that the process they are taking me through isn't simply to discourage me from "tampering" with my car ever again but I guess only time will tell.

[nsavage]

This thread was an eye opener. I will hopefully be picking up my car later this month. I'm going to take your advice and get myself a cable and educated!

Thanks.

EDIT: Can I confirm this will be what I need for a MY16 GTI Performance? I checked the compatibility. 7th and 8th digits are 'AU', and the model year is 'G'. According to the compatibility list the Micro-CAN interface supports '5G-AU'. The 5 is the only part I'm not sure about. I could just get the HEX-USB+CAN, but the Micro-CAN is $100 cheaper so if it will do the same thing for my car I'd rather same the AUD$130!

There is an an authorized distributor for these cables in Sydney (Mount Autoequip) (they are listed on the Ross Tech website as an authorized dealer. I have recently dealt with them and I must say that their customer service is very good. Additionally they are slightly cheaper than buying one direct from Ross Tech in the states.

Personally I just got the Micro Can as I am getting an MY16 Mk7 and don't really have a requirement to work on older cars or different models.