Mk8 GTI to be revealed in March

[jimlloyd40]

hmm......... I've read this thread with interest and lots of favorable observations - which is good. But has anyone who is perhaps interested in buying a mk8 looked at what VW is calling "Vehicle Diagnostic Protection" (it's abbreviated as SFD meaning SchutzFahrzeugDiagnose in German).

There appears to be much confusion about SFD outside VW- but apparently it will be introduced for the first time into MQB37W cars which is the build platform for the mk8 Golf.

Based on the scant information available to us mere mortals outside VW - it seems that SFD places quite severe restrictions on who can service these cars: the sophisticated diagnostic facilities inside the Golf mk8 will be only available to dealers and independent workshops that are registered specifically with VW (and presumably have paid VW an appropriate fee and have purchased VW's brand equipment for diagnosis- I suspect). Currently there are lots of workshops that don't pay homage to VW when servicing their cars - and that use much more "cost-effective" third-party devices in diagnosing faults on VW cars.

Again, with the caveat of the scant information available, it appears at face value that once a Golf mk8 is sold, the end purchaser will remain the captured client of VW - for the life of the vehicle!! I hope that my understanding is wrong, but I fear that it is not!! I'm not sure who Vehicle Diagnostic Protection is meant to protect -perhaps it's consumers but maybe its someone else?

Can anyone here shed further light on SFD - and more particularly, can anyone here explain what it means for a consumer's normal ability to seek servicing facilities from competitive independent third parties after purchase?

Don
PS: perhaps THIS will help explain the technical aspects of SFD

I would think that it's illegal to force you to go to a dealer or authorized third party shop unless it's warranty work.

 

[DV52]

Jim: hmm........ I agree completely with the principle in your response: unfettered customer choice when servicing a vehicle (once purchased) should be the mantra adopted by ALL car manufacturers!!

But guess what - given past performance with Deiselgate (which is NOT isolated to just VW), I'm not sure that VW has entirely embraced this as a corporate mantra. And even if they have - I still think that it's worth taking a conservative approach to the introduction of SFD BEFORE purchasing a mk8.

Also, there are lots of ways for car manufacturers to ....well, let's just say "extract additional value" from those who purchase their products. It appears to me (again I repeat- based on my understanding of the limited information available at the time of writing) that VW are saying that owners of a mk8 can go wherever they want to have the car serviced - it's just that if they choose a non SFD registered service provider, the workshop won't have access to the car's diagnostic facilities.

Of course, what this will mean will be dependent on what's wrong with the car - but if you read the marketing material about the mk8 - it's really a complex, sophisticated computer network on wheels! I'm not sure how much servicing can be done on a mk8 without access to the inbuilt diagnostic bus!!

I don't want to be overly dramatic about the impact of SFD and I certainly don't know the additional cost that will result when servicing - I just want information!!

Don

 

[jimlloyd40]

Jim: hmm........ I agree completely with the principle in your response: unfettered customer choice when servicing a vehicle (once purchased) should be the mantra adopted by ALL car manufacturers!!

But guess what - given past performance with Deiselgate (which is NOT isolated to just VW), I'm not sure that VW has entirely embraced this as a corporate mantra. And even if they have - I still think that it's worth taking a conservative approach to the introduction of SFD BEFORE purchasing a mk8.

Also, there are lots of ways for car manufacturers to ....well, let's just say "extract additional value" from those who purchase their products. It appears to me (again I repeat- based on my understanding of the limited information available at the time of writing) that VW are saying that owners of a mk8 can go wherever they want to have the car serviced - it's just that if they choose a non SFD registered service provider, the workshop won't have access to the car's diagnostic facilities.

Of course, what this will mean will be dependent on what's wrong with the car - but if you read the marketing material about the mk8 - it's really a complex, sophisticated computer network on wheels! I'm not sure how much servicing can be done on a mk8 without access to the inbuilt diagnostic bus!!

I don't want to be overly dramatic about the impact of SFD and I certainly don't know the additional cost that will result when servicing - I just want information!!

Don

Does this suggest that OBD2 readers won't work to diagnose problems?

 

[DV52]

Does this suggest that OBD2 readers won't work to diagnose problems?

jim: YES - it certainly suggests that SFD might indeed render "OBD2 readers" useless for MY20 and post MY20 vehicles in the VAG fleet - of course, other than for VW's proprietary version of ODIS, and as long as the user has an active registration with the mothership !!

I repeat again (this time with a tautology ) that much is unknown about SFD but I've asked similar questions for VCDS and for OBD11. As of now, both manufacturers are unclear about how (or if) SFD can be integrated into their products. The manufacturer of the VCP cable appears to have a detector for SFD vehicles - but I suspect that it simply reads the car VIN and that it "spits-the-dummy" if SFD is detected (i.e it can't go further)!

As I have said - I have come to this thread seeking the wisdom of others that appear from responses to know more about the mk8 than me (which in my case is not much)

Don

 

[jimlloyd40]

jim: YES - it certainly suggests that SFD might indeed render "OBD2 readers" useless for MY20 and post MY20 vehicles in the VAG fleet - of course, other than for VW's proprietary version of ODIS, and as long as the user has an active registration with the mothership !!

I repeat again (this time with a tautology ) that much is unknown about SFD but I've asked similar questions for VCDS and for OBD11. As of now, both manufacturers are unclear about how (or if) SFD can be integrated into their products. The manufacturer of the VCP cable appears to have a detector for SFD vehicles - but I suspect that it simply reads the car VIN and that it "spits-the-dummy" if SFD is detected (i.e it can't go further)!

As I have said - I have come to this thread seeking the wisdom of others that appear from responses to know more about the mk8 than me (which in my case is not much)

Don

If that ends up being true it will really suck.

 

[Carlosfandang0]

I would think that it's illegal to force you to go to a dealer or authorized third party shop unless it's warranty work.

Yes, it is illegal in the UK, you must be able to have the car worked on anywhere.

 

[jimlloyd40]

Yes, it is illegal in the UK, you must be able to have the car worked on anywhere.

I'm sure it will stay that way in the US also.

 

[Carlosfandang0]

The likelyhood is that coding and more invasive diagnostic procedures will be far more difficult, if not impossible!, fault reading and general workshop actions such as winding back an electronic handbrake or resetting service intervals etc would still actionable I’d have thought, even if VW did put something in place there’s always someone who will find a way around it.

 

[dosjockey]

Yup. Given how complex and restrictive the computers are on the MK7 and 7.5, the obvious move is to go even farther with the new model.

That's reason two that I bought a GTI while I still could get a decent one.

It's already terrible for that, and I can't imagine how restrictive and annoying this next unit will be; because they've had all these years to see who's adjusting what, how they're doing it, and so on.

Couldn't trust them with the 7/7.5... Now they expect more trust? Nope. Fool me once, and all that...

They're paying off journalists for GTI reviews, too. That's only going to get worse as they pay them to accept the new models, and I KNOW they're being paid off, because they've been lying for years, now. One more of these fools goes on to tell me about how great the feel and throttle response are, and I'm calling him out as a shill; because that's what he is.

 

[Desslok]

The Mk.V GTI is saying "Miss me yet?"

 

[GroceryGTIer]

The Mk.V GTI is saying "Miss me yet?"

Not with that water pump

 

[bentin]

Every car company does this. The BMW N54 was supposed to be completely locked, but it only took months. The N55 was supposed to be even more locked down, same with the B58 and S55. There are tons of tuning options. I heard the Tiguan EA888 was already using this protocol and demand for Tiguan tuning is low, so no one has really cracked it. But the Mk8 GTI will obviously increase demand. I suspect there will be a short window before tuners fully unlock it, but I don't want a first year car anyway, so by the time I buy, the aftermarket should have caught up. Assuming we live through Covid...

 

[GOLF NUTT]

In a year or 3 I will decide if I buy a MK8 GTI.
How about a GTI-E yes full electric and 0 to 100KPH in <3.0 seconds.
That seems like the future can be RWD or AWD. And handle like no GTI
before it.

 

[volks6]

This already happened with John Deere tractors. And the farmers are in the courts trying to fight this right now.
https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/

The fight for our right to repair the stuff we own has suffered a huge setback.
As anyone who repairs electronics knows, keeping a device in working order often means fixing both its hardware and software. But a big California farmers’ lobbying group just blithely signed away farmers’ right to access or modify the source code of any farm equipment software. As an organization representing 2.5 million California agriculture jobs, the California Farm Bureau gave up the right to purchase repair parts without going through a dealer. Farmers can’t change engine settings, can’t retrofit old equipment with new features, and can’t modify their tractors to meet new environmental standards on their own. Worse, the lobbyists are calling it a victory.

The ability to maintain their own equipment is a big deal to farmers. When it’s harvest time and the combine goes kaput, they can’t wait several days for John Deere to send out a repair technician. Plus, farmers are a pretty handy bunch. They’ve been fixing their own equipment forever. Why spend thousands of dollars on an easy fix? But as agricultural equipment gets more and more sophisticated and electronic, the tools needed to repair equipment are increasingly out of reach of the people who rely on it most. That’s amplified by the fact that John Deere (and the other equipment companies represented by the Far West Equipment Dealers Association) have been exploiting copyright laws to lock farmers out of their own stuff.

It's only a matter of time before this carries over to automobiles with the previous dieselgate and other environmental issues.

 

[XM_Rocks]

Not with that water pump

Or the cam followers... Or the a/c compressor