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MK7 Climatronic upgrade with instructions and pictures.

Canecreekfreak

Go Kart Newbie
Location
Boston area
Car(s)
MK7 GTI sport
Took the car out for a drive, and still couldn't get the "AC Run-in" cycle w/the AC & Max Demist buttons to do their thing. The windows all fogged up until I turned on the AC, and even then all the condensation didn't fully go away. It appears the system isn't allowing any fresh air into the cabin, even without the recirculation circuit being on.

The control panel I got is from a 2015, and my GTI is a 2017- might that be the reason for no fresh air & no AC Run-In programming? For sh!ts and giggles I threw the old panel back in, and I could definitely hear the recirculation button changing the way the system was working. Might a newer panel fix my issues? (I think I remember someone else in this thread doing that.)

And oh yeah- the Menu button doesn't do anything, either.
 
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Belthasar

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
PA (USA)
Car(s)
Mk7 GSW 4Mo 6MT
Thank you to all who have contributed to this informative thread. This has inspired me to try the retrofit myself, but after reading all 24 pages I have two questions:

1) It seems like there has been no solution to the "window defrost + floor" blend setting no longer working, as adding floor to the mix makes the blend doors default to floor-only. Does this apply to the "vent + floor" combination as well? That is, if you do this retrofit, is it impossible to have the air come out of two locations simultaneously? Losing the combination of window defrost + floor is probably something I could live with (although is truly a bummer), but if I can't have heat coming out of both the dash vents and the floor vents at once, then I might lose the wife-acceptance-factor entirely. Thank you, @Acadia18, for bringing this to the collective attention here. This limitation is certainly something that most should know before getting into this.

2) The addition of the sun sensor mentioned by @carbon_gecko and @Goodbar seems to be a worthy effort, based on my experiences with factory climate control on other cars. Where exactly does the sensor plug in to? I'm savvy enough with electronics to duplicate the wiring harness made by @Goodbar with dupont-style connectors, but it's not clear to me exactly where they connect to the climatronic panel.
 

2018gti

Drag Racing Champion
Location
Massachusetts, USA
Car(s)
Golf GTI Autobahn MT
In case this helps anyone - when I changed out my climate panel (Webasto retrofit), I was never able to do the AC run-in by pressing buttons on the panel. The flaps basic settings worked, but I had to do the AC with basic settings in OBDeleven.

The other thing is the run-in can fail if the evaporator gets too cold, which you can check in live data/measuring values to see if that happened.
 

Acadia18

Autocross Champion
Location
The Greater Boston Metropolitan Area
Car(s)
2019 Golf R
Thank you to all who have contributed to this informative thread. This has inspired me to try the retrofit myself, but after reading all 24 pages I have two questions:

1) It seems like there has been no solution to the "window defrost + floor" blend setting no longer working, as adding floor to the mix makes the blend doors default to floor-only. Does this apply to the "vent + floor" combination as well? That is, if you do this retrofit, is it impossible to have the air come out of two locations simultaneously? Losing the combination of window defrost + floor is probably something I could live with (although is truly a bummer), but if I can't have heat coming out of both the dash vents and the floor vents at once, then I might lose the wife-acceptance-factor entirely. Thank you, @Acadia18, for bringing this to the collective attention here. This limitation is certainly something that most should know before getting into this.

2) The addition of the sun sensor mentioned by @carbon_gecko and @Goodbar seems to be a worthy effort, based on my experiences with factory climate control on other cars. Where exactly does the sensor plug in to? I'm savvy enough with electronics to duplicate the wiring harness made by @Goodbar with dupont-style connectors, but it's not clear to me exactly where they connect to the climatronic panel.

Yes, floor and front dash vents works fine. Just floor and defrost vents.
 

Belthasar

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
PA (USA)
Car(s)
Mk7 GSW 4Mo 6MT
Yes, floor and front dash vents works fine. Just floor and defrost vents.

Thanks! This is good news.

As for my second question (regarding how to wire up the sun sensor), I ended up finding a seller on aliexpress that offers a non-OEM sun sensor and a wiring harness, and just ordered it:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804653024861.html

I would love to hear some advice on not only how to access the sensor slot itself (it's so far up the dashboard that it looks like I'd have to pop it out from inside, no?), but also what wires from the harness attach to which pins on the climate control panel.
 

Cuzoe

Autocross Champion
Location
Los Angeles
Thanks! This is good news.

As for my second question (regarding how to wire up the sun sensor), I ended up finding a seller on aliexpress that offers a non-OEM sun sensor and a wiring harness, and just ordered it:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804653024861.html

I would love to hear some advice on not only how to access the sensor slot itself (it's so far up the dashboard that it looks like I'd have to pop it out from inside, no?), but also what wires from the harness attach to which pins on the climate control panel.

I see 4 wires for the sunlight sensor in this drawing... pin 2 being a common ground that is shared with the left (G150) & right (G151) vent temp sensors , and should already be wired to pin 17 of that 20 pin connector. My understanding is with this retrofit you only have one vent temp sensor but it'll still be wired to pin 17 so you'll have to tie into it. Then you've got your 3 direct wires between J255 and G107.
View attachment 203675View attachment 203676

I haven't done this half retrofit yet in my car, but I suspect you get to the sun sensor from inside the dash, with the center screen/vents removed.
 

Canecreekfreak

Go Kart Newbie
Location
Boston area
Car(s)
MK7 GTI sport
In case this helps anyone - when I changed out my climate panel (Webasto retrofit), I was never able to do the AC run-in by pressing buttons on the panel. The flaps basic settings worked, but I had to do the AC with basic settings in OBDeleven.
Do you remember how you ran this in OBD 11? TIA!
 

Brousseau

New member
Location
Canada, Québec
Car(s)
Golf Sportwagen 2018
Hi,

I am planing on retrofiting the climatronic with two temp sensors on my 2018 sportwagen.

I would like to make it as OEM as possible. I have ordered the sun light sensor, i have find the OEM place to fit the driver vent sensor, but i can't find any info on where is the OEM place to fit the footweel temp sensor.

Any one would have a photo or any lead as to where to place the G192 sensor? I'd prefer not to drill any holes...
 

Cuzoe

Autocross Champion
Location
Los Angeles
You're going to have to drill or carefully cut/dremel the plastic duct(s) if you're trying to install the all (as many) sensors as possible. In some of these cases the duct is the same for manual/climatronic but the holes are not drilled/cut for the sensors.
 

davegsm82

Go Kart Newbie
Location
Blyth, Northumberland - England
Car(s)
MK7 Golf and T3 Tdi
When I fitted the footwell sensor(s?) I actually used a small soldering iron to melt a hole in the duct roughly the right shape, and while the plastic was soft I shoved the sensor in and it pretty much moulded itself a hole the correct shape and locked into place with a slight twist.

From memory, I removed part of the trim on the kickpanel in front of your knees, and was able to get an arm in and access the duct that way.
 

Brousseau

New member
Location
Canada, Québec
Car(s)
Golf Sportwagen 2018
When I fitted the footwell sensor(s?) I actually used a small soldering iron to melt a hole in the duct roughly the right shape, and while the plastic was soft I shoved the sensor in and it pretty much moulded itself a hole the correct shape and locked into place with a slight twist.

From memory, I removed part of the trim on the kickpanel in front of your knees, and was able to get an arm in and access the duct that way.
In the driver side?
 

davegsm82

Go Kart Newbie
Location
Blyth, Northumberland - England
Car(s)
MK7 Golf and T3 Tdi
In the driver side?
Yes, I took the panel off below the steering wheel from memory. This should be close to the original install position, which is #10 on this picture - G192 Footwell tempterature sensor.

1673536835309.png
 

Belthasar

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
PA (USA)
Car(s)
Mk7 GSW 4Mo 6MT
What excellent information in this thread. Thank you all who have contributed over the years. I'd like to add some of my observations to hopefully help those perusing this thread in the future, and add some questions of my own as I try to complete this retrofit.

Footwell sensor

I decided to follow the lead of @RollBack50 and @George Ab and mount the G192 Footwell sensor in its stock location to the right of the driver's knees. I agree with the advice of @FrankieThissen that it's much easier to remove the last part of the footwell venting with a long T20 and just mount G192, 2" from the factory location, but I decided to dig deeper and place it in the factory spot. This makes things much more involved, as you need to remove the trim piece above the driver's knees. In order to do this, there's a string of dominoes that have to fall and you essentially have to partially remove the center console in order to get the trim pieces to the right of the driver's right thigh out. For all this work, you're rewarded with much more room to get things done.

I, too, busted out the drill and a dremel to cut an opening that mimics the stock "press and twist" notch. It turned out quite good:

IMG_6435.jpg


I found it easier to lightly lubricate the o-ring with silicone grease, allowing the sensor to twist in and snug up firmly but smoothly. I also angled it so that the sensor runs perpendicular to the air flow, as I believe this is the stock mounting angle:

IMG_6445.jpg


As you might notice in the above pic, one of the boons of digging this deeply is having access to the wire standoffs above G192's stock location. With easy access here, I was able to snake G150 (Left vent sensor, or driver's side for my LHD model) over the footwell ducting and behind the accelerator pedal, with the standoffs holding the wires neatly and out of the way. As this might suggest, I chose to stick with driver-side mounting of the vent sensor, as I'm a stickler for duplicating OEM configurations as much as possible.


Sunlight photo sensor

Here's the part of the retrofit that is still sparsely-documented and only attempted by a few. I'll add my observations here, and follow up with some questions.

I bought the sensor as part of a reasonably-priced kit on aliexpress. Looks to be OEM used, and the harness is of nice quality. Sweet.

IMG_6458.jpg

IMG_6459.jpg


I went into this thinking that I would have easy access to the sunlight photo sensor's mounting location in the center of the defroster vent upon removing the infotainment screen. As I should have expected, there's ductwork that makes it impossible to reach it from there, so I had to get creative. I popped off the dummy cover (using two plastic pry sticks on either end, pressing straight up) and shined some light directly down into the hole.

IMG_6457.jpg


Though faint, I was able to see some light behind the dashboard looking up from underneath in the passenger footwell. This confirmed that I could snake the wires through, so I got out my inspection camera (a cheap unit from harbor freight and guided it through until I could grab the camera end in the passenger footwell. I then affixed the female connector of the harness to the inspection camera and pulled it through without any drama.

IMG_6463.jpg


Then I used a set of mechanical fingers to grab the footwell end of the harness and snake it right through to the infotainment slot, running the wires through one of the holes down to the climatronic unit.

IMG_6468.jpg


Nice.

I haven't hooked up the sunlight photo sensor wires yet because I wanted to figure everything out first and pick the collective brain of the mind hive here. Thank you, @Cuzoe , for posting the wiring information for this sensor. It seems as though pins 3 and 4 on the sunlight photo sensor connector (G107) connect to pins 3 (sunlight photo sensor signal, left) and 1 (sunlight photo sensor signal, right) respectively on J255. What is the meaning of left and right in this context? It seems to me that there is only one sunlight photo sensor, and this is clearly mounted in the center. Is "left/right" in this context implying that this single sunlight photo sensor talks with the left (G150) and right (G151) vent temperature sensors in an OEM setup? If so, is it possible that if I also mount a vent temperature sensor in the right side and wire it up to pin 14 on J255, then the sunlight photo sensor will work as intended from the factory? I am wondering if this is a way to have climatronic account for sunlight that comes in from only one side of the car and raises one side's vent temperatures so that in a true dual zone setup, one passenger gets more adjustments than the other.

@Goodbar , can you comment on why you jumped the wires from pins 3 and 4?. Was it to simply eliminate one of the sunlight photo sensor error codes (e.g. "missing right sensor signal" or something along those lines?) Wouldn't it "trick" climatronic into thinking that equal sunlight is entering the car on both sides? I ordered another vent temp sensor and plan to wire it up in the passenger side and connect it to pin 14, so am I right in assuming that I can just connect pins 3 and 4 to the intended locations (pins 3 and 1) on J255 if both sensors are present and wired up?

Perhaps more significantly, can you explain how you connected G107's signal ground to J255's pin 17? Did you just use a wire tap? Or did you solder them together. It seems like in the OEM setup, all of these sensors (left vent, right vent, sunlight photo, etc.) share signal ground but do not all "meet up" at J255.


Calibration

I'm having a bit of difficulty with this part of the retrofit. The climatronic panel powered on with no problem and I was able to easily perform the flap stop adaptation by holding buttons 3 and 8 simultaneously, as detailed earlier in this thread. The AC run-in, however, I've been having much more difficulty with. I tried every combination listed in this thread (do things in sequence, make sure module 8 takes an adaptation beforehand, try pressing 16 + 8 for 2 minutes instead of 17+8, etc.). I tried doing this through VCDS, but noticed that basic settings in module 8 does not have "Compressor run in: automatic start" like so many others have cited in the calibration process. Rather, these are the two closest procedures I see:

IDE01938-Compressor run in: manual start
IDE02259-Compressor break-in: automatic start

Regardless of the discrepancy in nomenclature, I tried both procedures. They consistently failed with the following error message:

ERROR: Conditions not correct or request sequence error

I went through the long coding for module 8 using VCDS, following @davegsm82 's cue that having options from another country enabled might prevent the adaptation from running on a model with your region's typical equipment. Indeed, I changed quite a few things here - looks like my OEM panel came from an LHD diesel model that had the air quality sensor installed. I adjusted all of the bits to best reflect my car's actual equipment. I'm not sure if this made a difference, but I *think* it did. I was eventually able to get SOMETHING to happen doing the A/C run-in procedure in which you hold buttons 17 (max defrost) and 8 (A/C). Can someone confirm this for me? I ran the flapper end stop procedure first, turned on the car, disabled auto climate, maxed out the blower, opened all three vent positions (defrost, floor, panel), and pressed and held 17 and 8. Upon doing this, the vent positions singled down to defrost only (as expected since button 17 is max defrost). About 10 seconds later, the A/C light came on. I never experienced max defrost and A/C buttons flashing as detailed in the original post, but does this change in behavior confirmed that I properly ran the A/C run-in procedure? As far as I can tell, the compressor does kick on when I press A/C. I don't know enough about this procedure to know whether a functioning compressor is sufficient evidence that the thing is properly calibrated. Also, I noticed the "compressor magnetic clutch" option in byte 15, bit 2 of the long coding - Is this supposed to be enabled for NAR models?

One last question for the group here: I followed instructions to enable climate profiles with the appropriate bit change in module 8's long coding, but I was having trouble getting the physical menu button on the climatronic unit to work in the first place. I stumbled upon the instructions in this thread here , activating the following in module 5F (infotainment) adaptations:

climatic_master_0x01
climatic_slave_0x02
auxilary_heating_0x03

This made the climatronic's menu button bring me to the climate screen on infotainment, and I was able to confirm that climate profiles were enabled and function correctly. However, the screen seems a bit wonky, don't you think?

IMG_6494.jpg


Notice how the fan speed button is misaligned and tucked under the top banner. Also note that I'm missing the defrost button on the screen (not that it matters, it's redundant, but I like to duplicate OEM stuff when possible). Also, I'm missing the settings button in the lower right. I had that enabled and lost it through some adaptation and can't figure out which one it was. When I pressed that settings button, it gave me two options, one for auxiliary heating (which was enabled, but we don't have that in NAR, right?) and the other for something like automatic recirculation (unchecked, and not sure what this does).

Can anyone advise how to restore full functionality to the climate screen in infotainment? What adaptations are supposed to be done?

Thank you all again for the fabulous information in this thread.
 
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