[omranga98]

577 days into owning the ca... No, let's make it sound cooler.

Okay!

So about forty million eight hundred fifty two thousand and eight hundred seconds into owning the Taigun, i finally got my car coded!


What is coding?

In simple terms

it gets some locked hidden features unlocked so you can get the best out of your car.

In complex terms?

I won't even try but you can reach out to the lovely folks at Dr.CodeMyVag who not only did a perfect job coding my car but was patient in explaining the number of feautures we could unlock, what they would do, how it would work and 100s of other questions that popped into my mind

Let us start with:

How does it work

Simply drop in a message on Dr.CodeMyVag's Instagram with what car you have and they will get back to you rather quickly with the coding options.
Generally almost all VW, Skoda, Audi, BMW, Mini, Ford, Jeep & Mercedes cars are coded by them.

Once you confirm, they will ship a cable that connects to the OBD port in your car. While the cable ships to you, they will send a couple of softwares for you to install on your windows laptop. This is to make the cable compatible to the USB port i guess and also to run a particular software.

After downloading the apps and connecting the cable, you simple open Teamviewer (a screen sharing and remote access free app) on your laptop and let them connect to your laptop remotely.

From there on, simply follow their instructions as to when you should switch the car on, when to put it in the ignition mode and when to not get extra excited that you start asking them to code your Taigun into Tiguan.

In about 15 mins, the entire process is done and you can simply take the cable out, disconnect the laptop and go WOW! at the new features.

that brings me to:
What new features?

Quite a few actually:

• Removed 80 kmph & 120 kmph speed chime
• Sports display (this shows turbo PSI: VERY COOL)
• Off-road display. (this shows tyre angle, altitude above sea level!)
• Steering angle on virtual cockpit
• Refuel quantity display in virutal cockpit (how much fuel you can put in the tank before maxing out)
• RPM display as a bar on digital speedo screen in virtual cockpit
• A/c fan speed display in auto mode
• Enabling Dynamic mode (more on this later)
• XDS- Torque Vectoring set to stronger setting (more on this later)
• Car Honks on lock & unlock
• SCANDINAVIAN DRLS (the rear light bar lights up during the day along with front DRLS
• A/c control via screen (not very useful but good to remind you how terrible it would be to control A/c via the touch screen
• Start/Stop button pulsates. Looks very cool!
• Audio quality improvement via sound signature. You have the option of selecting more bass heavy Beats Audio sound signature or a more balanced Harman Kardon.
• Changing the colour of Virutal cockpit to any colour.
• The rear tail light section blinking with turn indicator
• Lane change blinks increased to 5 clicks from standard 3 clicks.

I am sure i am probably missing something here but yeah, what more do you want? Hehe.

Let us dig a bit further into the new unlocked features

Start/Stop button pulsates


Sports Display


Screen shot from a video of sports screen in action. Notice the Turbo meter showing PSI of boost!


Off-road display


Tyre Angle on virtual cockput


RPM Bar on top of digital Speedo


Refuel quantity in virutal cockpit


A/c controls on screen
Taigun has single zone a/c so only the left side controls work. Both temp in the display are always in sync.


Audio quality improvement
To be very honest. It is a difference you can only make out if you listen to two cars, one with it enabled and one stock to really make out a difference. Being a music producer and a DJ, i really do not think it made thaat much of a difference.

Enabling dynamic mode
This is so NICE!
Honestly, they should have had this option in the screen of the car. Dynamic mode as the name suggests, makes the car more dynamic based on your speed. At lower speeds, the steering is lighter and as you speed up, it weighs up a lot better than stock. This has also improved the brake and accelerator pedal feel. This alone is worth the coding effort!

XDS-Torque vectoring
I guess the only way i can describe this is: The car feels like it has 2x more grip at corners. Right after the coding was done, i went for a short (150 kms drive) and a few turns into the drive, i could feel this.

In moments of fast cornering XDS gives out exactly the right amount of power providing pressure on the inside wheel to prevent wheel spinning. The result is better traction and a reduction of any tendency to understeer. A really good feature again!

But what about my warranty?

This is one of the reasons why i was on the sideline for a while. I had opted for extended warranty and i have about 4.5 years remaining of it. I was a little scared of this messing up with it. But:

Apparently this does not matter in terms of warranty because you are not adding something extra, you are simply unlocking features that were already in the car. and incase any issue arises, everything mentioned above can be reversed back to original state without leaving a trace behind.

I had asked about 20 people from various car groups, car workshops and more regarding the warranty and almost all gave the same reply as above, so i went with it!

Should you get it?
Ask yourself, why not?

Would love to answer any questions regarding this.

Signing off with a nice sunset picture of my Taigun

[Aditya]

Volkswagen Taigun coding by Dr.CodeMyVag | Unlocked hidden features - Posts moved to a new thread.

[Josteam]

Originally Posted by omranga98

Apparently this does not matter in terms of warranty because you are not adding something extra, you are simply unlocking features that were already in the car. and incase any issue arises, everything mentioned above can be reversed back to original state without leaving a trace behind.

Don't think this is true, from what I know It does leave a trace as for enabling these features the person needs to logon to the centralized Volkswagen servers and these changes are recorded on their servers.

[kkunal.shah]

Great post, how much did they charge?

Signing off with a nice sunset picture of my Taigun
Attachment 2539706[/quote]

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by Josteam

Don't think this is true, from what I know It does leave a trace as for enabling these features the person needs to logon to the centralized Volkswagen servers and these changes are recorded on their servers.

How will some random person sitting with a computer get access to the VW centralised server? And what does the VW server have to do with a car that is not even connected to the Internet? Only the official OBD scanner with the asc can ping and login to the VW server.

[dhanushs]

It's great to see VW offering this level of customization through aftermarket tools.

Originally Posted by omranga98

..
XDS-Torque vectoring
I guess the only way i can describe this is: The car feels like it has 2x more grip at corners. Right after the coding was done, i went for a short (150 kms drive) and a few turns into the drive, i could feel this.

In moments of fast cornering XDS gives out exactly the right amount of power providing pressure on the inside wheel to prevent wheel spinning. The result is better traction and a reduction of any tendency to understeer. A really good feature again!...

Does the Taigun have a torque vectoring differential? (I dont think it has) If not, there would not be any change to notice.

Or even if it's the brake torque vectoring, it would be hard to notice.

[Josteam]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

How will some random person sitting with a computer get access to the VW centralised server? And what does the VW server have to do with a car that is not even connected to the Internet? Only the official OBD scanner with the asc can ping and login to the VW server.

Everytime the.person needs to access the ECM/BCM modules to make these changes he/she needs to get a unique token/key, think of it like a key to open your cupboard. And this key is generated only by accessing the VW centralized servers. The changes you have made for your VIN number will be reflecting on VWs server's as well. If in doubt you can get this ascertained by checking with Drcodemyvw.

[dvl666]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

How will some random person sitting with a computer get access to the VW centralised server? And what does the VW server have to do with a car that is not even connected to the Internet? Only the official OBD scanner with the asc can ping and login to the VW server.

I was told by the ASC that anything extra done like improved throttle, lane assist, etc on TRoc may void warranty. Even tweaking the current hardware is an issue for vW.

Harmless things like display modification, fan speed, etc may go under the radar.

Better be safe then sorry.

[Josteam]

Originally Posted by dvl666

I was told by the ASC that anything extra done like improved throttle, lane assist, etc on TRoc may void warranty. Even tweaking the current hardware is an issue for vW.

Harmless things like display modification, fan speed, etc may go under the radar.

Better be safe then sorry.

Absolutely can't agree more

[speedracer05]

Even without connecting to VW servers, I would be surprised if ECU does not keep a immutable log of all such changes.
Apart from getting rid of 80-120kmpl chimes, rest is not appealing enough to take a chance on warranty for me.

Originally Posted by omranga98

XDS-Torque vectoring
I guess the only way i can describe this is: The car feels like it has 2x more grip at corners. Right after the coding was done, i went for a short (150 kms drive) and a few turns into the drive, i could feel this.

I am very suspicious of this, I don't think this is possible without a differential.
I would love it if someone could shed more light.

[Zippy_wheels]

My interesting experience with VW service center with regards to coding changes - So, I was at the VW service Center this past Sunday for my 1st yearly servicing. I have most of these features already enabled.

After the servicing was almost done, they told me final inspection is pending and then the car will go for a wash. After a few minutes I looked out from the customer lounge and saw 5-6 employees hovering around the car and discussing something seriously. For a moment, looking at them, I thought maybe someone damaged something during servicing. I saw them open and closing the boot lid about 8-10 times. Nervously I went out to check what had happened.

My assigned service manager came to me and inquired, trying to remember something I had mentioned earlier "what is it that you have installed.. some cam?". I was like, its a dashcam (I had asked them if they would tuck in the wires properly for me). So he is like "yeah dashcam.. so your dashcam is causing some issues. Because of that your tail light gets activated when we open the boot lid"

I then told him that I have enabled some features using a vcds cable and that it is a feature that enables the tail light when boot lid is opened (I think this basically helps warn other cars). Both the service advisor and the final inspection guy were still confused and then they said "ah.. so you know about that tail light getting activated? As long as you know about it we are good". I think they were thinking and scratching their heads wondering how something went wrong during servicing and then they concluded that it was due to the dashcam (Its not even hardwired so there is nothing that could go wrong because of a dashcam plugged in to the 12v socket).

So even after they finding the change and me telling them that it was a code change, they did not care or ask anything further. They were just relieved that it was not something they did. So I dont think they care much, unless, a setting affects the part that you are claiming under warranty. They are just employees working on cars and its their job and they work on 100's of cars, they are not enthusiasts who are curious or interested in such mods that we do. This is one of the bigger VW service center and they dont know much about the coding features. Unless someone pointed it out to them and they somehow tied it to your warranty claim (linking the change to the part that is damaged/being claimed under warranty, they will probably not care).

[fhdowntheline]

Why does it not make business sense for VW to introduce a "Sport" or whatever name variant and enable all the features for a 1-1.5 lac ? That would be much better than the sticker job editions that they are currently dishing out.

[Red Liner]

Many earlier Jettas and Polos were coded by owners sitting at home using cables from China and windows laptops. And 80% of the features enabled here has been done on the older cars where the hardware allowed it.

If you are still trying to tell us that something that costs a couple of dollars from aliexpress is able to login to a VW global server without any kind of security protocol or authentication, you should immediately send in an application to VW Global HQ and claim a reward for exposing this serious security flaw which has been around since 2000.

[Zippy_wheels]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Why does it not make business sense for VW to introduce a "Sport" or whatever name variant and enable all the features for a 1-1.5 lac ? That would be much better than the sticker job editions that they are currently dishing out.

Because most of the features are actually useless. Quite a few of them are more to do with display. Then out of these the sports display (rpm, turbo spooling) and the altitude displays will only work if you remember to start those before your start driving. You cant change the view while driving. In any case, they just show you some figures that IMO are not very useful. For example what would you do with values for turbo presure, or for that matter the current altitude? A few of the settings are are related to some display changes in the cockpit. You dont really use the view that shows how much fuel can be filled, all the time, for example. The start/stop button pulsating light - the light itself is so dim, it does not make any difference if its lit constantly or pulsating.

Some of the useful features like opening driver side window remotely and enabling tail light when trunk is open, will probably put additional strain on the battery - especially on top-end versions which have follow me home lights, sunroof etc. I guess we wont know until a couple of years when the battery starts ageing.

These are mostly, at best, party tricks and the excitement of enabling these features, dies out pretty quickly. Of course after spending money on it, no one is going to accept that most of these are useless and will rarely be used regularly. I am probably going to disable them back but on the flip side there is no harm in keeping them enabled so I have left it (except maybe battery, but that is unknown). If you want to enable these, I'd suggest you try to check out these features in action (maybe a friend's car), before you spend money on it. Think about it, if it was useful, why on earth would VW not enable them? Enabling too many such features only clutters the screens and VW must have tried to balance it by enabling the useful one's and leaving the others disabled.

There is no special feature(s) that VW could enable and use as a selling point. If there were options like enabling two zone climate control, or enabling one touch on all windows, or maybe even enabling the couple of dummy buttons on the steering wheel and setting them to, say for example, make and diconnect calls - If some of those could be enabled, then those would have been totally useful and worth spending money on.

[shancz]

Cool features, it shouldn't cause any issues and should be available with a lot of manufacturers, just that no-one has bothered with it yet IMHO.

VW's software has been around for quite some time and had sufficient opportunities for enthusiasts to play around assuming when manufacturers were more open and not living under the threat of another warranty claim or lawsuit.

The options mentioned here indicates that VW has a very detailed and well structured backbone software which is being used across models so some features might make sense on some cars but are disabled in others. Just that there are many options which can be enabled/disabled shouldn't make any effective difference but these days if the manufacturers can they would any excuse to deny a warranty claim.

No idea on the hardware options like torque-vectoring being anything but placebo and definitely not on the India 2.0 cars as they're made to a cost.