Front Assist Unavailable after Tow Bar Fit

[GreyGoddess]

Hi all, has anyone had this problem. We had a tow bar fitted and this has been coded. However now the Front Assist is not available. The VW garage have tried to recode the Front Assist but it won’t accept the code. The garage are trying to contact VW in Germany to see if they can help. Just wondered if anyone had had this same issue and what worked?

 

[mmi]

T6 or T6.1 - as they are electronically totally different?
Would be helpful to know what are the fault codes?
Can you get a "full scan" of van's controllers - e.g. using VCDS, OBDeleven or Carista?

 

[GreyGoddess]

Hi it’s T6.1. I don’t have the full scan from the garage but it’s being scanned again next week so will do so then. Anything else you need that would help?

 

[Robert]

Who installed your tow bar and what coding modifications have been done?

 

[mmi]

Yes, T6.1 electronics are way more sophisticated/fussy. Did the garage manage to recode the other controllers which need to be "trailer-aware" - engine, park/steer assist?

 

[GreyGoddess]

Hi, apologies for radio silence. Got family things going on. All I know so far is that the converter coded the tow bar but not sure exactly what else was coded. We are seeing them next week so will get a copy of the diagnostics for you and find out exactly what was coded and what might have been missed.

 

[GreyGoddess]

Update so far! Took the van back to the converters who removed the tow bar coding and the front assist issue remained. They put the coding back in and still the front assist was unavailable. They felt the issue was not the tow bar but the van and they spoke to our local VW specialist garage who advised we bring it in to look at. We took it to the garage who removed the electrics from the tow bar and initially the front assist issue went away. However, after taking it for a test drive they found the front assist issue returned and now there are two extra messages that the parking assist isn’t available and neither is the manouvering braking (?).
The garage said it was definitely the tow bar connection as the van was still “seeing” the tow bar on the reversing camera even though the electrics had been disconnected. They said it was either a duff module or the wiring was faulty. They were going to speak directly to the converters about their findings and the actions theyve taken. We have also spoken to the converters and they are going to speak with Westfalia ( tow bar make). So it will be going back to the converters to get sorted but any suggestions welcome.

 

[Shiggi10]

How did you get on with this? I have a similar issue

 

[GreyGoddess]

Took it back to the converters. Tried a new tow bar module but that didn’t fix it so they disconnected the electrics so the tow bar “ wasn’t there”. This fixed the front assist issue but we had a problem with the parking assist. Got the van booked in with a vw service centre to basically do a factory reset but then the converters think they can try a full re-code. Trying the recode this week and if it doesn’t work we are having the tow bar removed and the factory reset done. Not sure why it’s happening to our van as the converters have done countless tow bar add-ons before and none has had the problems ours has. They did the same tow bar add-on to a T6.1 this month and that’s worked fine but nothing so far has fixed ours. Apparently there will be a new module coming out which may fix the issue but there’s no date as to when.

 

[gbates]

Did you have any luck? Have just fitted a tow bar and seem to be having the same issues?
Thanks George

 

[GreyGoddess]

Hi George, ended up taking it back to a VW garage again and they discovered that the coding from previous attempts had not been cleared. They cleared everything down, recoded it and it now works fine. It was a long road of trial and error though!

 

[gbates]

Thankyou, the correct coding should sort mine then