Flat battery problem after installing 9000-1 - any suggestions ?

[Tig2009]

Hi Phil, do you have the avc 9001 mk5 ? or is it the previous mk4 version ? It still sounds like the CANBUS thing is not sorted yet.

Tig2009

[ploz58]

hi tig,
Well i thought i had the latest unit, its not the one with the "gold body" that appears in other forums.
Im not sure which one vincent has been sent.

looking forward to seeing to see what he has to say

Its not the cars fault, hope we can get it sorted as its not a bad thing.

I dont like jump starting my car, and i do have to leave it for a while, and im not real keen on just pulling out the fuse.

but i do like the unit,
regards

Phil.

[clip]

Its not the cars fault, hope we can get it sorted as its not a bad thing.

sorry to bring up this subject again, but in fairness to everyone, the battery drain problem does actually appear to be the car's problem. Batteries running flat have been reported with the RCD510 and also now with RNS510 units.

[Maverick]

sorry to bring up this subject again, but in fairness to everyone, the battery drain problem does actually appear to be the car's problem. Batteries running flat have been reported with the RCD510 and also now with RNS510 units.

Actually this is not the cars problem. Show me one car that has this problem from the factory.

Is some ways you could blame VW because they have created a range of headunits that fit all their cars both from 6+ years ago and even current models. They have used standard connections, standard antenna connections and have made it easy to swap old headunits into new cars and new headunits into old cars.

But do people thank Volkswagen for this sort of innovate design that also keeps down costs or that allows them to keep developing one family of firmware or that allows new features to be added? No they don't. Instead they complain when they fit a new headunit into an old car and don't follow Volkswagens instructions by upgrading the CAN bus controller.

Because the rest of the car is modular you can also upgrade other parts including introducing new features that were not available for your car simply and easily because of the benefits of CAN bus.

So to make it perfectly clear people flash their headunits with firmware offering new features on a new headunit installed in an old car for which that head unit was never an option for 4 (four) years after that car was made and complain because of a power drain issue brought about by that firmware. Or they fit a headunit from a new model of car and complain about the power drain issue when the replacement of a $200 part resolves the problem.

Perhaps it would be easier to follow the Ford and GMH principles and have a different headunit for every single model of car and make changes to the harness at each mid cycle upgrade so you can't move head units around? Or that didn't use technology like CAN bus and instead have hundreds of wires running around the car and that use relays etc to switch off headunits. Sure you'd lose all the benefits of CAN bus and fuel usage would go up and all the nice little features we get in VW cars we'd lose like automatic lights off, different components talking to one another, lower fuel consumption, being able to alter just about every setting possible and diagnose faults from a handheld device.

Or maybe it would be best if people would accept that they don't know how the car works and that it's not like your run of the mill Ford or GMH before buying cheap headunits that are slapped out for a few dollars from China and seek professional advice when retrofitting headunits like the RNS 510 and RCD 510 into old models.

To sum it up, it's not the cars fault, it's not the headunits fault, it's not Volkswagen's fault but it's the fault of the owner and/or installer for failing to educate themselves and/or taking on a job they clearly are not capable of performing.

[Transporter]

These are very tough words Maveric. I could agree with almost everything what you said and I agree with everything about the aftermarket unit power drain.

These power drains after head unit swapping is discussed quite a lot on net, I saw some people complaining about the power drain issue even with RNS510 units how ever they didn't say if it was in the car that was not tempered with and everything was indicating that they installed the unit after purchase or onto different model.

I'm looking at buying AVC9000 for my T5 and also maybe for the Golf5 we have and I try to follow the discussion about the issue.

So, please everybody do not start to argue about the facts without the hard

evidence. Hard evidence would be someone having a problem with the factory

RNS510 unit that was factory installed at the time when he/she ordered the

car and nobody tempered with the electronics in the car including wiring after

the purchase.

[NZTiguan]

Well said Maverick

[G-rig]

sorry to bring up this subject again, but in fairness to everyone, the battery drain problem does actually appear to be the car's problem. Batteries running flat have been reported with the RCD510 and also now with RNS510 units.

What was the problem and how did you fix it anyway? I doubt it would be the car's problem or the service team would have fixed it? Did you upgrade the can gateway?

[CatonaPC©]

Well said Maverick

I concur, also.

[Maverick]

And to add one last little bit. With the RNS 510 all versions up until firmware revision 1100 worked in all Mark V's with no power drain issues. Firmware release 2660 came out and upgraded the unit to be functionally the same (CAN bus interface wise) as the other third generation head units (RNS 310, RCD 210, RCD 310 and RCD 510) and upgrading this would show a power drain issue with cars with older CAN bus gateways.

But this is not an official Volkswagen release as such and was not performed by the dealers and was not intended for older cars. Any car that had a RNS 510 installed from the factory did not have any problems with this firmware.

Volkswagen are releasing (internally but they will be available on the interweb very soon after) two new firmware revisions in the next week or two.

2700 which is an update to 2660 and hopefully will fix a few bugs like with the location showing up in Germany at startup. It is possible that the location showing up in Germany is because the firmware has been loaded on older hardware that can't support this version fully.

900 which doesn't have voice control but is designed for older headunits A and B revision and doesn't have the power drain issue when fitted in older cars.

I have info here on the problem along with the fix. Volkswagen have a TSB? (I think it's a TSB will have to dig it out) which mirrors what I have listed.

Upgrading 2nd generation radios (RCD 300, RCD 500) to 3rd generation (RCD 210, RCD 310, RNS 310, RCD 510) power drain issue

[clip]

What was the problem and how did you fix it anyway? I doubt it would be the car's problem or the service team would have fixed it? Did you upgrade the can gateway?

I don't have the problem so never had to fix anything.