GOLFMK8
GOLFMK7
GOLFMK6
GOLFMKV

obdeleven and dealerships

LastDragon

Ready to race!
Location
Chicagoland
Questionnnn.... for example, if you've done tweaks to your car with obdeleven, and you bring your car into the dealership for its 10k, do they set your tweaks back to stock when they plug it in to their scan tools and you have to do the coding all over again? Do they flag you for something like that also (electrical wise)? Any real experiences would be much appreciated by somebody who went for a VW service with their car still coded with the obdeleven...thank you!

P.s..... couldn't find a thread on it so sorry... :\
 

cldlhd

Go Kart Champion
Questionnnn.... for example, if you've done tweaks to your car with obdeleven, and you bring your car into the dealership for its 10k, do they set your tweaks back to stock when they plug it in to their scan tools and you have to do the coding all over again? Do they flag you for something like that also (electrical wise)? Any real experiences would be much appreciated by somebody who went for a VW service with their car still coded with the obdeleven...thank you!

P.s..... couldn't find a thread on it so sorry... :\

Thanks for asking because I was just thinking about this today. I would think they'll notice it for sure and I would think they'll comment on it but I don't think they'll set it back to stock. I do wonder if they'll fail it on inspection because of my taillight coding ( 5 brake lights ).
 

Troub2300

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
CT
I have brought my 2016 wagen in for the recall after changing the tail lights, brake lights, sweeping gauges, changing ac etc. Nothing was ever said to me about it. They gave me crap about the brake pads, brake lines etc but nothing computer related
 

DV52

Drag Racing Champion
Location
Australia
Questionnnn.... for example, if you've done tweaks to your car with obdeleven, and you bring your car into the dealership for its 10k, do they set your tweaks back to stock when they plug it in to their scan tools and you have to do the coding all over again? Do they flag you for something like that also (electrical wise)? Any real experiences would be much appreciated by somebody who went for a VW service with their car still coded with the obdeleven...thank you!

P.s..... couldn't find a thread on it so sorry... :\

Last Dragon : Hi - I answered a very similar question of the OBDeleven forum!

First off - There is only one person that is responsible for the changes that you make with your OBD11 dongle! If all goes well, then you get the benefits of the tweak. But if the tweak goes pear-shape, then it's your responsibility (and accountability) to fix it. If you need to take the car to the Dealer because of an error that you have made, then it's morally and financially wrong to think that the fix is a warranty matter

However, a much better question is - if the tweaks aren't causing and errors - why would the dealer look for these changes and why would he/she even care?

The response in the OBD11 forum was concerned that the dealer might use the fact that there have been changes made to the car to argue that the tweak has affected another area causing a fault - and this is possible. But if the reason fro a warranty claim is unrelated, then such an approach just means that the dealer is dishonest.

Don
 

LastDragon

Ready to race!
Location
Chicagoland
Thanks man, and I get what your saying as far as a warranty standpoint goes, but as far as hooking your car up to their scan tool during the services and reversing the tweaks you made back to stock... I really, really, really could have sworn I heard that once somewhere in one of the million of threads on here or vortex. So ANYBODY with obd11 tweaks that went for services and their tweaks were still there... or not there... chime in! I'm sure there's plenty of you folks out there!!
 

DV52

Drag Racing Champion
Location
Australia
LastDragon: I know that you want to hear from others, but I'll make one final point (well.... two points actually)!

First, it don't matter whether you are using a VCDS cable (from Ross Tech), or a VCP cable from VAG-Tech, or ODIS, or an OBD11 dongle, or an ELM dongle - they ALL make changes to the control modules in much the same manner! So, even if the dealer was interested enough to look for changes, there is no way that the dealer could determine which device was used (let alone if it was an OBD dongle that made the changes)!

I've been making changes to my car for over three years now (with VCDS, VCP and OBD11) and I've made many trips to the dealer (for warranty matters and for regular services), and never once have any of my changes been reverted back to factory settings by these visits. And during that time, I had quite a few firmware updates to various control modules. I'm not saying that it's not possible for the dealer to revert settings, or that it's never happened -I just believe that it's a low probability.

Let's hear from others!!!

Don

PS: the only odd event that I'm aware of is the story told by a colleague on a local forum that left his VCDS cable in the glove box when the car was at the dealer for a warranty claim. The dealer tried to argue that the fault was caused by changes made by the owner. Fortuitously, the owner had made a database of the car's virgin settings when new and he was able to convince the dealer that none of the changes that he had made were related to the warranty claim.
 

bennybmn

Ready to race!
Location
Long Island
FWIW, I had (yes, had) a mild tune on my TDI, and had made tweaks with my friend's VCDS like windows with the key fob, lazy flasher to 5 flashes, etc. Shortly after dieselgate hit there was a service bulletin and reflash sent out that was supposed to be a band-aid for the emissions stuff. The dealer "saved me a trip" when I brought it in for my 60K service and did the reflash. Lost my tune, still have my windows/flasher tweaks. I was still pissed they did something without asking... They're 2 miles from my house and I literally drive by on my way home every night, but I'm getting my Alltrack from another dealer.
 

Tatanko

Ready to race!
Location
Pennsylvania
I very recently had my car in to the dealer on two occasions, once for its 10k service and again for some warranty/recall work about two weeks later that I scheduled at the time of the service.

When I dropped it off the first time, I actually got complimented on my LED tail lights, and had just done some tweaks the day before. Nothing was different when I picked it up from service, and the same was true two weeks later when I picked it up from its recall work.
 

Jersey UG MKV

Plastidipping Fool
I had a fault that they called a "brain fart" in the Trans. They had to remove my flash on my ecu and trans and in the process of doing all that I lost most of my coding. My folding mirrors stayed, but everything else, comfort windows, turn signal 3-5, mirror dip all were reverted back to stock. I really don't get why it went down that way but I had to redo them.
 

avenali312

Autocross Champion
Location
Mableton, GA
Car(s)
2015 GTI
Back in the day with my MKV, I only received one comment from a tech about my minor coding changes. It was basically removing the annoyances like seat belt chime and light, door open chime, etc. Pretty sure it went something like this:

Tech: I noticed that most of the warnings are turned off, did you do that?
Me: Yes.
Tech: I really like it. Can you explain to me how?
 

BxGTI

Go Kart Champion
Location
Bronx,NY
I have a gazillion tweaks on my car, I even left my JB1 on one of the 3 times that I've been to the dealer 2 oil changes 1 trim replacement I even ask not to plug the car to their computer and they had nothing to say


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

sbarrett4

Ready to race!
Location
Philly Burbs, PA
Never had an issue with the dealer removing tweaks made with VCDS on my old B6 Passat, and they didn't do anything at my 10K service for the GTI with tweaks I made with OBD11. The only thing I did was check the box in the MIB to turn on the DRL's so they wouldn't poke around to find out why they were shut off.
 
Top