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A friend of mine just told me what he went through to fit rear speakers in his VW van. Same sort of thing as this BMW bullshit. His head unit had the hardware
by Lio 4y ago
A friend of mine just told me what he went through to fit rear speakers in his VW van.
Same sort of thing as this BMW bullshit.
His head unit had the hardware to run rear speakers but it hadn't been enabled by the dealer. To turn it on he had to buy a "special" VW coms cable as the dealer's own cable had "worn out". That cable is only good for a certain number vehicle upgrades.
There's nothing in the cable that degrades but VW have worked out they can use it to charge extra rent for anyone that wants to add speakers to a van they've already purchased.
What I take from that little story is that when my current Golf finally gives out I won't be buying another VW. Once you know that a manufacturer is doing this, you can be pretty sure they'll be no ends to the steps they'll go to rip you off.
Parts that just stop working for no good reason, that sort of thing.
It's inkjet printers all over again.
- cr3ative 4y agoI think you might be confusing manufacturers for the cable here - a lot of VCDS-type cable companies (or OBDII bluetooth etc) will charge per-operation for feature unlocks. That's not VW though - that's the companies selling this coding operation.
- NavinF 4y agoWhy would VW lock the feature if they’re not making any money from unlocking it? Aren’t the companies that make these devices undercutting VW by unlocking features for less than what VW charges?
- pakitan 4y agoHe said "dealer". The dealer must be working with the official VW hardware/software, not some knock-off Chinese cable.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kelchm 4y agoThe feature isn’t “locked” — it’s just a configuration option on one of the control modules in the car based on the original build configuration. Keep in mind that a specific module might be used on many different models of car. Why not just have the rear speaker outputs enabled at all times even on vehicles that do t have rear speakers? I suspect it’s as simple as VW not wanting to show the front/rear fader control for a vehicle where it isn’t applicable. FWIW, this absolutely can be done yourself using VCDS or OBD 11 to update the module settings. I suspect in this case the dealer wasn’t telling you the entire truth — it may be as simple as them not having an established procedure for this in house and wanting to just get you to go away.