News

Mid-life upgrades to my Volkswagen Vento 1.2L TSI Highline

19th July 2021, 17:17 by Chirag Moro

This is probably the first if not only Vento in India with a MK8 GTI wheel.

BHPian sarfraz1997 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

MK8 GTI wheel with touch controls

Having owned a 2011 Jetta, I’ve always felt the stock wheel on the Vento isn’t thick enough. Thicker and meatier wheels feel very good and filling to hold, specially for people with big hands. I had the paddle shifter wheel but I wasn’t completely satisfied with how the wheel felt to hold. My first choice was the Indian Polo GTI style wheel, but they were either out of stock everywhere, or just didn’t justify the price tag considering it is only a design change to a common man. Just about when I was pondering over what to do, my good friend fluidicjoy managed to install the first ever MK8 R Line wheel on his Polo retaining the stock functionality of the buttons. After interacting with him about his experience with the wheel, I decided to pull the trigger and get one for myself, albeit, a GTI wheel.

This is probably the first if not only Vento in India with a MK8 GTI wheel. The buttons are white backlit, and so is the instrument cluster, however, the colour temperature is different, the buttons are cool white and the cluster is towards warm white. I was skeptical about how it might look in a red backlit cabin, but having used the wheel for a few weeks now, I never felt it’s out of place, maybe it’s got to do with the red ambient LED’s from the Passat style cabin light and the red inserts in the bottom trim. Whatever functionality was provided by the stock MFSW buttons, is provided by this wheel as well.

Here is a beautiful video by fluidicjoy on the MK8 wheel.

Pros

The wheel is very meaty
Perforated leather on sides make the wheel feel premium
Haptic feedback on the touch controls is very good, almost as good as pressing an actual button
Looks much better than the stock wheel in my opinion

Cons

Some buttons don’t work, like cruise control from steering, heated wheel button, etc.
Paddle shifters are not illuminated

Passat Style Cabin Light upgrade

I had the 3 bulbs/buttons cabin light earlier, but it felt pretty normal. I thought, since I have done quite a few upgrades, so why not do this once again and get the best in business? Red backlit buttons on the cabin light and those two faint red LED’s feel very premium from the passenger’s seat and rear seat.

From the driver’s seat, the red ambient LEDs are barely noticeable since we almost never look at the centre console or the gearbox while driving in the night. I prepared a plug and play harness to install this, and have made 0 splices and taps. It is an entirely reversible retrofit which would leave absolutely zero traces.

Dynamic Guidelines Reverse camera

I have always been an OPS person. It just felt easier to use since I didn’t need to concentrate explicitly on the details shown in the video feed. However, I wanted to make it as easy as I possibly can for my parents to drive our Vento. So I decided to install the Dynamic Guidelines Reverse Camera by myself.

Having MIB2 Composition Media HU gives me the added advantage of getting to view both the OPS and reverse camera video feed. The OPS feed overlays on the video feed towards the left side of the screen. So basically whenever I slot the gearbox into reverse, the camera feed comes up first, followed by the OPS overlay only when the parking sensors pickup something. I really loved this implementation by VW. The dynamic guidelines work by taking data off the steering angle sensor via the CANBUS. Since this camera gets data via the CANBUS, there is no need of tapping into the reverse light as well. This retrofit, like all others on my car does not need any taps and splices. I have purchased this camera from NSquareAutoTech. Nikhil as always has been very helpful and approachable for the installation.