Traffic Jam Assist

[zzc2010]

Confirmed. Passat B8 is working. Testing drives in progress.

[kamold]

Refer to this post in the classified section for more info:
Traffic Jam Assist activation service - Sydney

[DerTig]

Thanks for the heads-up kamold. Not sure when I can take a trip to Sydney by car next, but will consider. Now, if going through having TJA enabled this way, what happens when I service the car next and the dealer flush updates the software to latest? Might not be feasible to redo every time… right?

[kamold]

Thanks for the heads-up kamold. Not sure when I can take a trip to Sydney by car next, but will consider. Now, if going through having TJA enabled this way, what happens when I service the car next and the dealer flush updates the software to latest? Might not be feasible to redo every time… right?

Dealer will only flash update a module if there is a TPI out for a known fault.
If they do end up updating the camera module and the parameters are lost then I will reapply them (provided a suitable parameter set is available) for free.

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[IsDon]

I've been active on these forums for years.

Mainly the OzAudi forum, and more recently this VW forum.

I was involved with the initial group of people from OzAudi which nutted out the activation of SUNA traffic (TMC) which many of you now enjoy on your Audi/VW/Skoda. The first time this was done anywhere.

Over the years I've helped countless people with VCDS programming. I've always thought the time taken to help out fellow enthusiasts was time well spent meeting new people and discussing our common interests. Many have offered to pay for my time, through cash, lunch, or the universal currency of beer. I have always declined, although appreciated the gesture.

Never have I considered charging for a service.

I always thought, what goes around, comes around. Sadly those days seem over.

[DV52]

IsDon: I've been having the very same discussion about this very same tweak (TJA) over on the VCDS Golf mk7 thread -and I concur entirely with your sentiments!

Forums like these are open community facilities in which we try to help each-other. Sure there is space on these forums for commercial gain, but these are categorized as "advertisers" and they are/should-be clearly labelled that way when the business entity enters discussion via posts.

I have absolutely no personal interest in the TJA tweak because my Golf doesn't have the modules. Nor do I intend to make money from this tweak - like you (my name sake), I provide my services free to forum colleagues. But I do have an intellectual curiosity about how the tweak works given the countless posts that I have read here and elsewhere.

The rationale that has been used for why this tweak lends itself to commercial gain is that the IP belongs to Rainesh (a forum colleague from Netherlands) who (I assume) has passed-on the knowledge to Kamold (under some form of "licensing" arrangement- I assume). If that's true (and I have no reason to believe that it's not true), the fact that Rainesh's sole intellectual effort has been the vehicle for the discovery allows him/her the privilege of making money from the use of his discovery.

But I agree, since we have ALL freely contributed to discussions here, the kind-of hidden fee-for-service requirement for implementing this tweak is "disappointing". As I said, nothing wrong with commercial gain from IP, but please be up-front when marketing your product on this forum - even if (especially if) you are a forum colleague!!

It's also unclear to me whether the person who ultimately makes money from using this forum to market his/her product is a registered advertiser on this forum. I just don't know the answer to this and I'm also unclear about VWW's policy on this matter!

But - fear not! If history is any guide, and notwithstanding the claim that has been made that "special equipment" is needed for this tweak, I suspect that someone on this, or another forum will soon also make the same discovery. Hopefully, that second person will think differently about the community value of these forums!

Don

[IsDon]

Agree completely Don, hence my disappointment at some trying to gouge for this service.

I'm also not sure, once this tweak goes from being a free help for your mates, to gouging for a fee, if it now falls into the realm of a commercial agreement. As such one cannot absolve ones self from the legal requirements should something go wrong. If you charge a fee for a service, then you have to be prepared to stand behind that service if something goes wrong.


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[DV52]

Don,
Just found this - it was posted in "Parts-for Sale" yesterday. Bit of a tenuous link between the VCDS Tiggy and the Golf mk7 threads and "Parts for Sale - and I wasn't aware that "parts-for-sale" was intended for fee-for-service products. But, $150 and as you are in Sydney, conveniently located

Traffic Jam Assist activation service - Sydney

Estimated time is 1-1.5 hrs, not sure that $100/hr is "gouging" - it is better described in Economics theory as the available "monopoly rent " that prevails in Australia until a competitor enters the market. I'm unclear what's required for this tweak, but I suspect that anyone in any part of the world that downloads TEAMVIEWER can readily provide the same service (if they know the tweak-of course)

Don

PS: Also note the very neat liability clause at the end - not sure how it sits with consumer law, but very nice thinking!!

PPS: and to Kamold's credit, he has offered to help others via the VCP forum - at the benefit of the IP holder

[IsDon]

Out of principle, I will decline a $150 fee for this. But thanks anyway Don.


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[kamold]

Hi Dons,
Firstly, thank you for your contributions. Many have benefited from them over the years.
As I would hope they have from mine.

Apologies for not responding earlier- I have been busy helping someone with their car all day on my day off work.
Full disclosure - he gave me a 4 pack of Australian craft beer. He drank one of them though.

I am not hiding anything from anyone here. The fact is the procedure requires the upload of the appropriate parameter set to the A5 camera MCU.
VCP protect their IP (as they are entitled to) by encrypting these files and locking them to the license of the cable.
So it is not possible to share these files. You need to have an active account (paid yearly) as well as the base VCP software and cable.
Anyone with VCP is free to read the information in the user only forum (again I am not going to infringe on their IP here).
They can then do with it what they will.

You are of course entitled to your opinion on how you interact with other people when you share your knowledge and expertise. I personally really appreciate being offered a token in respect of my time, tools and expertise.

I decided to in turn show appreciation to Rainesh for the work that he has put into making these VCP datasets possible by offering to forward a payment to him for each activation. I am not compelled in any way to do this. I could have just done it without him. But he seemed to me a nice guy who like me is interested in these things, but not in a position to be able to keep buying the expensive tools required to do this work without subsidizing it.

With respect to being accused of 'gouging' people I really think personally that's out of line. But everyone puts their own value on something so each to their own I guess...
What I was hoping to get out of this (apart from helping people to activate a cool feature on their car) was enough money to be able to pay for some of the purchase of VCP, and then to buy a new version of VCDS V2 to replace my ageing HEX+CAN cable.
Why? So that I can do an autoscan in 2 minutes instead of 5?
No. Because I think Ross-Tech do some great work and I would like to contribute again to their ongoing development work.

I would love to be in a position to just buy all these tools from my own discretionary funds and then offer services expecting nothing in return but alas with a young family and mortgage this is an unrealistic expectation.

Sorry if you feel that I am in some way taking advantage of a 'captive' market because I just happen to be one of the few people in Australia at this point who have VCP.
It's a freely available product and if anyone has it I am more then happy to help them out with how to use it.
I would ask (not demand) that they in turn consider showing some acknowledgement to Rainesh for making this possible, but at the end of the day that's their decision.

If this were simply a matter of coding and adaption modifications we wouldn't be having this discussion.
But VW have chosen to mask these features with parameters in the module MCU. I didn't make that choice.

Regards