MFD Mysteries

[Highlander]

My daughter got into her 103 TDI Comfortline and the MFD had a lot of warnings about checking lights, turn indicators, brake lights, front corning lights etc.

Turned indicators on and indicators lit but did not flash.

Turned everything off. Locked the car.

Unlocked, restarted . Same messages and symptoms.

She left it in the garage and took my CC as she was heading to the coast via Macquarie Pass and thought brake lights and indicators may be useful to have.

Ten minutes later I unlocked the car. Turned on the ignition, All functioning normally. Had a short drive. Locked it.

Went through unlock, start, drive routine again and all still functioning normally.

Anyone had a similar experience?

Daughter is pretty car illiterate. Cars are in two categories - NICE and Not Nice - and at least I have schooled her not to drive if there are red warning lights so she was happy it happened in our garage and not out on the open road.

Might check with the dealer but don't seem to be able to reproduce the situation so I am pretty sure what response to expect there.

Daughter assures me as it was not a case of NICE and NICER as she prefers the Golf on the twistier stuff.

[Corey_R]

Yeah - since you can't reproduce it, you could give them a call or something. I'd probably just note down as much of the symptoms as you can rememeber and the time and date (which I guess that post does for you!) and that way if it comes up again you can give more information to the service dept etc.

[Glennb]

Would this sort of thing show up in the main ECU logs as a fault code somewhere? Might be worth taking it into them to see if VAG-COM shows anything perhaps.

[Highlander]

Been to the dealer. Response was that they had not seen this before. Were some intermittent error codes pertaining to lights. Service manager said that they had not seen this before. Cleared the codes and everything working ok.

Can't complain about the prompt service and the workshop looked pretty full too.

Interesting that the girl on the service desk (not being sexist here) offered the explanation (before I spoke to the service manager) that sometimes the computer comes on faster than the globes and this can cause a computer glitch.

Looks like we learn something everyday. Sure hope then that they don't upgrade that "blindingly fast 400MHz processor in the RNS510" or the whole car will go into melt down.

Every cloud has a silver lining. A quick chat with the service manager and my CC goes in Thursday for the RNS510 firmware upgrade.

[Maverick]

Interesting that the girl on the service desk (not being sexist here) offered the explanation (before I spoke to the service manager) that sometimes the computer comes on faster than the globes and this can cause a computer glitch.

The module (or computer for the girl on the service desk) initiates the bulb checking when it starts up so it's online at that time. The cars are so complex with so many modules I'd put it down to something similar with another module not starting up properly. The modules stay powered up for ~15 minutes after you stop the car (depending on the module) so after that time when you start the car it's like rebooting your computer.

[ccpl]

Have had this happen before on my 118TSI;

Drove up to the shops one night, MFD went crazy basically telling me that every single light on the car wasnt working (even though everything was working fine). Turned the car on and off a few times, but nothing changed.

Left it overnight and the next day it was fine - hasnt happened since.

Would just chalk it up to a fault code that cleared itself unless it happens again.

[MurphyTheElf]

Every cloud has a silver lining. A quick chat with the service manager and my CC goes in Thursday for the RNS510 firmware upgrade.

After reading this comment earlier in the day, I emailed my service manager questioning his previous assertion that there is no official VW firmware update for the RNS510. He emailed VWA and checked again. There is still no official firmware update and suggests not installing any unofficial update.

I know people here have installed an update - but how did it come about? Who wrote this update? And why isn't it "officially" available in Australia?

[logger]

Have had this happen before on my 118TSI..

I have had my 118TSI's MFD start talking to me in German telling me to depress the clutch pedal. Wouldnt be so bad except I have a DSG and no clutch pedal

[Maverick]

After reading this comment earlier in the day, I emailed my service manager questioning his previous assertion that there is no official VW firmware update for the RNS510. He emailed VWA and checked again. There is still no official firmware update and suggests not installing any unofficial update.

I know people here have installed an update - but how did it come about?

Volkswagen.

Who wrote this update?

Volkswagen.

And why isn't it "officially" available in Australia?

The same reason it's isn't officially available at service centres in other countries which is the users of the car are too stupid to adapt to change. Imagine the whining if there were new features, changes and the music on the head unit had been changed? Manuals would have to be changed in the folder in the glovebox and users would complain about not being able to do something they did before plus it takes an hour.

Plus you have incompatibilities with the later versions with some cars systems (like the gateway) and older versions of maps may not work requiring the customer to upgrade.

[MurphyTheElf]

Users will like what ze Germans say we will like. They should just do it already and release an addendum to the manual. Do you think they will ever officially release the update in this market? Or will they leave the factory firmware on each unit? What have they done with past models?

Sorry for the barrage of questions - I find it irritating that some dealers do the upgrade happily and others don't want to know about it.