Mk7 Golf GTI Discussion Thread

[Brendan_A]

Yes donweather, in every test so far conducted. The binary & checksum bit is actually the easier task.

Because of the worldwide turbo charger "Service Campaign" / "
Recall" on the faulty turbo chargers, it has already been tested a few times in the field.

Hey Guy,

Will this campaign happen in Aus?

My GTIs turbo part number ends in "Q" which falls in the turbos that are failing.
If I ring my dealer I bet they know nothing about it, so I might just wait and see what happens.

Have you heard of any failing in Aus yet?

[Mikey1]

Actually when the stock binary is flashed back in by your APR dealer, then it also has the stock checksum. And the read / rewrite flash counter function also restores the original settings.

Summary, when flashed back to stock by your APR dealer, then it is 100% as it was before tuning.

World wide this has been tested in a few countries without issues when making warranty claims.

Wouldn't this all be academic if your car broke down, and when you called Volkswagen Assist, the attending mechanic calls for a flatbed tow truck, and your car goes straight to the dealership, without any opportunity to restore the ECU programming to stock? Given Volkswagen Australia could avoid any exposure to warranty costs, they probably instruct their dealers to check the ECU as part of the diagnosis of the breakdown.

[AdamD]

Wow, that's impressive Guy. And so the resetting of checksum and flash counter is undetectable by VW?

You do realise this simply constitutes an uninstallation of the product (tune), right? The checksum is restored because the original ECU software is restored, and the checksum goes hand in hand with the original software (the two are not separable). Think of it as analogous to erasing your hard drive and installing a new operating system. So prior to service you would take your car to the tuner (eg APR dealer) and have the tune removed and the original ECU programming restored. Then, once the service has been conducted, you'd need to go back to your tuner to have the tune reinstalled (replacing the factory tune).

Wouldn't this all be academic if your car broke down, and when you called Volkswagen Assist, the attending mechanic calls for a flatbed tow truck, and your car goes straight to the dealership, without any opportunity to restore the ECU programming to stock?

Yes, although it's not like this is a common or likely occurrence. Getting a tune whilst in warranty requires an assessment of the risk versus reward. If you're not prepared to take that risk, then don't tune.

[Guy_H]

From my friends in the dealerships, there certainly has been several cases of dead Audi S3 turbochargers.

I have heard a rumour from my VW contacts that there have been at least 2 x GTI's with failed turbo's.

In the US, they have taken the Audi A3 2.0T off the market & recalled all owners for turbo replacement. Even though the GTI has the exact same engine & turbo part number, Volkswagen have not recalled the cars.

This may be because they can only supply so many turbochargers in one go.

Will VW / Audi / Skoda Australia issue a "recall" or "campaign" - Hopefully they will, but knowing previous history, I certainly wouldn't hold my breath.

If your car is dead on the side of the road, it's dead. If you are modified, I would suggest towing it to your modifier for initial assessment, not use VW assist.

We have had our GTI since October last year, it has been tuned for a long time & has done over 70 dyno pulls in testing, and some long road trips. It also has the first version of turbo & its been fine, so I'm not overly concerned.

[Guy_H]

Some links to the turbo recall:

http://www.goapr.com/support/tsb/21e7.pdf

2014 Audi S3, Golf R and Leon Cupra Developing Turbo Problems

[Brendan_A]

Cheers for the info Guy!

I seen those links last night and checked the part number on the turbo and mine has the second version of turbo.

8k km so far and going strong.

[donweather]

You do realise this simply constitutes an uninstallation of the product (tune), right? The checksum is restored because the original ECU software is restored, and the checksum goes hand in hand with the original software (the two are not separable). Think of it as analogous to erasing your hard drive and installing a new operating system. So prior to service you would take your car to the tuner (eg APR dealer) and have the tune removed and the original ECU programming restored. Then, once the service has been conducted, you'd need to go back to your tuner to have the tune reinstalled (replacing the factory tune).

Adam, my understanding previously (for non APR tunes anyway) was that by removing the tune you may be able to reset the checksum but the flash counter continues counting.

[AdamD]

From my friends in the dealerships, there certainly has been several cases of dead Audi S3 turbochargers.

I have heard a rumour from my VW contacts that there have been at least 2 x GTI's with failed turbo's.

In the US, they have taken the Audi A3 2.0T off the market & recalled all owners for turbo replacement. Even though the GTI has the exact same engine & turbo part number, Volkswagen have not recalled the cars.

Well, that's worrying. Hopefully this issue is fully resolved by revisions to the turbo in later build cars, and that a voluntary recall is done by VWA on the older units!

MY15 cars (GTI and R/S3) should be on the road now, so we should find out soon enough if the modifications stem the flow of failed turbochargers.

Adam, my understanding previously (for non APR tunes anyway) was that by removing the tune you may be able to reset the checksum but the flash counter continues counting.

Don, several tuners can (and have been able to for some time) overwrite the flash counter, although some can not. As discussed above any tuned car can now be detected as such (due to the checksum of the ECU software), but if you plan on concealing your tune from VW (not something I would recommend personally), then you will need to have your factory ECU tune restored prior to each service, and you will want to go with a tuner that can set the flash counter as well (such as APR).

Note that the above is for port-flashable ECUs only. Any ECUs that require bench flashing (ie removal from the car) will leave physical traces of the ECU having been removed from the car, so concealing that may simply not be possible. I'm not sure if any Mk7s require bench flashing (some, but not all, Mk6s did) - Guy, do you know about this?

[GTInewgirl]

Suggestions please on a good deal for a GTI, drive away (NSW) mk7 dsg, with metallic paint and bi-xenons? Been to 2 dealers and so far having a lot of trouble getting them off their beloved list price. It's my first time buying without a guy accompanying me and it is very different: they seem to love treating me as a fool (case in point: booked a test drive: when I arrived, learnt I had to stay at a max 60kph on a set route "for insurance reasons", despite having the dealer in the car and a clean driving record). Same rep acted as if I was interrupting his busy schedule when I tried to talk price. A different dealer this weekend was more helpful, but now I'm less trusting! Any and all help appreciated!!!

[Transporter]

Consider also the car broker to get you a better price.