MK7 Climatronic upgrade with instructions and pictures.

[Kushdaiin]

to be honest I’m always saying I’ll do the heated wheel but it’s pretty low on the priority list. and the other thing is it’s been tough to find a Mk8 wheel, with red GTI trim, and an intact airbag. I’m not planning on ordering this stuff new, I don’t want the wheel that bad haha.

do you all know if a Taos/Atlas/Tiguan airbag will work with a Golf wheel? I got confused bc it seemed like the cavity that the airbag fits into looks a bit different on the Golfs vs the others? or is that a difference between years instead of models? there were some relatively cheap, intact Taos airbags on ebay the last time I looked.

There is someone on FB selling a 2023 Atlas HSW saying they were going to install it into their Alltrack before they sold the car. I'm not sure how you would rectify the travel assist buttons on the MK7 platform.

 

[Belthasar]

I'll be brief so as not to detract from the focus of this (already lengthy) thread.

If you do a Mk8 heated steering wheel, the heat button (or Haptic Touch area that needs to be enabled via VCDS/OBDEleven/etc.) works independently whether you have climatic or climatronic. If you do a mk7 wheel, you can get it to function via infotainment (as illustrated in my last pic). This touch "button" shows up in the climate menu if you have climatronic. You can't access this menu with climatic, but it doesn't matter because the it actually shows up in the information menu when you hit "car" or "menu" (I forget which) in this case. Long story short: heated SW functionality is independent of whether the car is equipped with climatronic.

As for parts, a proper clock spring and steering wheel are really all you need, but I added an aliexpress harness (as an alternative to the pricey kufatec one) for simplicity. If the Kufatec were the only pre-wired option on the market, I would have probably just built one myself; it's fairly simple, and all of the required pin information is located in the forum threads. This is entirely optional, because you could just re-pin the existing harness.

Oh and yes, I suppose a fuse tap was a fourth part I needed, but I had one on hand. I agree with the point that it must be a bear to properly wire up a new slot in the fuse tray. On the other hand, I also understand that it gets a bit crowded and "busy"-looking, though neat freaks like @Cuzoe will forgive my messy wiring by noting my labeling of USB hub and heated steering wheel so that I may earn back a few OCD points

I used SC19 (Access/Start System), which was empty in my car. This is a few slots over from SC16 (USB ports, phone), which I used for the USB hub.

As for the airbag question, speaking from the mk7 wheel perspective: interchangeability is mostly a question of trim (as the airbag modules themselves I believe are the same) - "superman" shaped versus cylindrical shaped trim. The GTI uses the latter, my sportwagen (and many other models) uses the former. The multifunction buttons are also different based on the shape of the airbag trim. I forget what this means for the Mk8 wheel. Lots of info in the thread about this.

To the question about travel assist: I had to swap out the buttons because my new SW had ACC and my wagon is not equipped with it so regular cruise control would malfunction. IMO, swapping out the buttons is the hardest part of this job because getting the trim off without breaking anything is next to impossible.

I suppose I should pop over to the heated SW thread and add my experiences, though I don't have much more to contribute; all of the info is basically there.

 

[salvatore_calzone]

That is one mod for the wagon that was high on my list, especially with no garage. The only issue I can think of doing that is that I've read on these forums that it is quite loud when running and consumes quite a bit of fuel.

I do apologize for going even more off topic but loud and inefficient is like the opposite of how I’d describe the webasto lol. to me it’s very quiet, and zero visible fumes. maybe a slight whiff of exhaust fumes if you get up close to the passenger front. and if given enough time to run, the oil temp will come up faster than in the summer. the coolant needle will already be part way up on the gauge when I get to the car sometimes.

I haven’t kept close track but the gas usage I think is minimal, at least to me. it’s my favorite mod if you couldn’t tell.

 

[bobloblawGTI]

to be honest I’m always saying I’ll do the heated wheel but it’s pretty low on the priority list. and the other thing is it’s been tough to find a Mk8 wheel, with red GTI trim, and an intact airbag. I’m not planning on ordering this stuff new, I don’t want the wheel that bad haha.

do you all know if a Taos/Atlas/Tiguan airbag will work with a Golf wheel? I got confused bc it seemed like the cavity that the airbag fits into looks a bit different on the Golfs vs the others? or is that a difference between years instead of models? there were some relatively cheap, intact Taos airbags on ebay the last time I looked.

At some point I wrote down airbag p/n 2GM880201G as fitting the Mk8 wheel but with the old (Mk7-style) VW logo... which would be essential for my OCD if I ever fit the Mk8.5 wheel and buttons

 

[Belthasar]

I took a brief road trip this weekend and it's the first time it's been reasonably warm and sunny (45 F) since I swapped in the black gear, did the calibration procedure, and cleared the front air dist fault code. I'm happy to report that, without even paying extra attention to the behavior of the climatronic system, I noticed a subtle stream of air on my face as the two vents above the infotainment increased in velocity, which coincided with direct 11am sunlight on the dashboard. This is pretty much exactly what was reported earlier. I never notice this happening (I've had the sunlight photo sensor installed since the beginning of the project) until now.

I think this is pretty good evidence that the system is functioning better with the black gear installed. Nice.