Nightmare Coding, Warning To All!

Farnorthsurfer

Farnorthsurfer

Senior Member
VCDS User
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T6 Guru
Bought new H7 headlights and needed to get the main beam coded, simple right?
Not when you live in the north of Scotland and there is no one local who will do a simple change for a favour or even a small charge.
So when a young lad at work said he had a VCDS cable and could do it no problem I was well happy. But not for long. It turns out he had bought this cable off eBay for a 'bargain' and it wasn't quite the real thing.
Now I have a van that does all sorts of weird things, windows don't work, indicators are funny, cruise control is off, all sorts of fault codes.........WTF:mad:
And no my main beam is still not working.
Good job I made sure I had a note of the pre-change codes from both Carista and the dodgy VCDS cable.

Now waiting for a new VCDS cable to arrive from a Ross Tech approved vendor and hoping that the coding has not completely screwed the central electronics.:sick:

If anyone wants a laugh here is the before and after disaster Central Electronics HEX codes;
Before - B8 F4 79 3A 0A 61 34 93 93 28 4F 74 6D EB 9E F4 8F A0 71 0F 60 CC 6D 60 32 04 00 23 08 00
After - F4 79 3A 0A 61 34 93 93 28 4F 74 6D EB 9E F4 8F A0 71 0F 60 C0 79 60 32 04 00 23 08 00 00

It looks like its stepped all the numbers to the left, not sure why.
Any suggestions gratefully received, or reassurances that it will code back OK:unsure:
 
  • Wow
Reactions: mmi
LOL . . . nice

looks like you can re-write your BCM long coding back in as you have it written down.

edit and enter your original code (Before - B8 F4 79 3A 0A 61 34 93 93 28 4F 74 6D EB 9E F4 8F A0 71 0F 60 CC 6D 60 32 04 00 23 08 00)

have a look here too > BCM Central Electrics Module 09 Byte Screen Shots

@Loz also has a BCM printout, but i cant see it atm,

.
 
Dellmassive said:
LOL . . . nice

looks like you can re-write your BCM long coding back in as you have it written down.

edit and enter your original code (Before - B8 F4 79 3A 0A 61 34 93 93 28 4F 74 6D EB 9E F4 8F A0 71 0F 60 CC 6D 60 32 04 00 23 08 00)

have a look here too > BCM Central Electrics Module 09 Byte Screen Shots

.
Click to expand...

Thanks @Dellmassive Just need to pucker up until the new VCDS arrives sometime later this week I hope. Two morale's to this story; Watch out for young lads with too much go and not enough experience. And, Dont buy Shonky stuff off eBay when you know if its too good to be true it clearly isn't true. At least it wasn't me that bought the shonky cable and if it all goes well I might even get my mirrors to fold. Sure it will come in handy for a van I plan to keep for a long time.
 
Sorry to hear that should of gave me a call was up your way the other week could of done it for you how you getting on with the lights any better than the H4s
 
Lights are great thank you @michael thorpe not that I have tried them out properly. I put them in a few days after you were kind enough to drop them off. But the bright nights and not having a VCDS has stopped me getting them sorted.
Sure having my own VCDS will be handy in the future so it might be for the best.
So long as nothing has been toasted in the process.

As well as low beam switching off when high beam came on the H7 on H4 coding also had sidelights on all the time with ignition and no dimming with turn signal. Hopefully I can take my time and get it all sorted out.
 
Much appreciated purchase from @michael thorpe and included uprated bulbs and spares. The units were pretty much as new.
There was a set on eBay the other day which went for slightly less but had standard bulbs and shipping costs, I remain very happy with mine.
Just need to get them coded when my new VCDS kit arrives and cure all of the problems that the shonky cable caused. Getting a 3 VIN kit so wont be able do adaptions for others but happy to help if anyone needs a fault code check.
 
Update; Received my new VCDS from Marshall's Industrial (recommended, excellent service) today.
In less than 30 minutes I had recoded the Central Electrics Unit back to where it was before the nightmare began. All working smoothly.
In short order also had the H7's working. The mirrors folding (excellent guide @Loz thank you Sir) and the pesky sidelights turned off when the ignition was on.
Perfect, Many thanks to everyone, could not have sorted this without advice I found on the forum.
H7's look great @michael thorpe thanks mate:thumbsup:

Don't buy shonky VCDS cables on fleabay.. you know it makes sense;)
 
Just because you had a bad experience does not mean they are all bad. I bought an ebay VCP and an aliexpress VCDS. Both work but can not be updated and have no support. The VCDS cannot long code the ECU but the VCP can, so between them I have been able to do what I need. I cannot justify buying pucker cables which will only be used on a works van. We all (should) know the risks involved and to expect less functionality with these cables. I was sweating the first time I used them.
Then there is the thing about the original developers not getting any money for their hard work. Also many who paid full price think they are subsidising the users of fakes and we should buy an OBD Eleven or a Carista instead. Although I sympathise with these views, there are other things to think about. First of all, I very much doubt that the makers of Carista and OBD Eleven would not have a VCP and a VCDS to give them inspiration. Second, the more popular a product is the more sales it will get. Microsoft would never have stopped people using its operating systems illegally (which it could have easily done at any time) as it would have been a massive own goal. All that would have happened is those people would all have installed Linux and that would have become the dominant operating system. The best advertising comes from happy users spreading the word. If I post on here I got things done with VCDS it will encourage people to go out and buy one as they will have more confidence in it and perceive it as the go to tool. It is better to have your product copied than force people to use a competitor's product. I doubt I will ever buy a genuine VCDS but I will be telling people about it and what it can do instead of "advertising" Carista.
 
Last edited:
It kinda sounded like the young lad at work didn't know what he was doing, not sure that can be blamed 100% on the cable!..handy you noted the long codes and you have your own cable to do it yourself in the future if required :thumbsup:
 
I don't know there is a setting he could have used to do that by mistake. Seems more likely a faulty cable or bad software.
Just shows why a full Auto scan should always be the first step.
 
I'm thinking he manually changed the long code and missed a digit.

Typically with serial data a bad cable would prevent the complete packet from being uploaded/downloaded but without a valid checksum packet to corroborate the change it wouldn't write. If the software was bad I guess it could deliberately upload bad info..however perhaps a very old version of VCDS with a bug...but suspect it would be widely known.
 
I think you are right. It does look like he deleted the first byte "B8" which shifted all the other bytes.
So maybe the cable was not to blame at all.
When I got my cables I spent a long time researching how to use them before altering anything and wrote down all alterations I made as I did them. I have made mistakes but they have all easily been sorted. A quick comparison with the saved long code should have enabled that problem to be sorted - rookie error.
 
Thanks Guys this was a while ago, the cable in question also did weird things to the lads own Golf and has since gone in the bin.
Easy to say Rookie error but we were both involved and the software wasn't behaving as expected resulting in the code shift I posted.
When I got the new kit I was able to do everything I wanted to without any problem at all, everything worked as expected.
Your experience with cheap gear may be positive and have saved you a packet and thats all to the good. Just passing on my experience of what went wrong for me.
I shall not get too hung up on your inference that I don't know what I am doing:whistle:
 
chang1 said:
Just because you had a bad experience does not mean they are all bad. I bought an ebay VCP and an aliexpress VCDS. Both work but can not be updated and have no support. The VCDS cannot long code the ECU but the VCP can, so between them I have been able to do what I need. I cannot justify buying pucker cables which will only be used on a works van. We all (should) know the risks involved and to expect less functionality with these cables. I was sweating the first time I used them.
Then there is the thing about the original developers not getting any money for their hard work. Also many who paid full price think they are subsidising the users of fakes and we should buy an OBD Eleven or a Carista instead. Although I sympathise with these views, there are other things to think about. First of all, I very much doubt that the makers of Carista and OBD Eleven would not have a VCP and a VCDS to give them inspiration. Second, the more popular a product is the more sales it will get. Microsoft would never have stopped people using its operating systems illegally (which it could have easily done at any time) as it would have been a massive own goal. All that would have happened is those people would all have installed Linux and that would have become the dominant operating system. The best advertising comes from happy users spreading the word. If I post on here I got things done with VCDS it will encourage people to go out and buy one as they will have more confidence in it and perceive it as the go to tool. It is better to have your product copied than force people to use a competitor's product. I doubt I will ever buy a genuine VCDS but I will be telling people about it and what it can do instead of "advertising" Carista.
Click to expand...
Interesting self justification for using fake/counterfeit products.
Don’t get me wrong, I have used “dodgy” gear in the past, but I knew it was wrong & didn’t try & justify it to either myself or others. Using fake goods carries inherent risks as the OP found out to his cost. It also stifles innovation from the creator of the original work as it robs them of funds for development. Then there’re the links to organised crime/money laundering/slave labour....
I don’t think we should be encouraging the use of dodgy kit here. The use of the original, kosher gear is dangerous enough in the wrong hands.
I’ll get me coat........
 
Farnorthsurfer said:
I shall not get too hung up on your inference that I don't know what I am doing:whistle:
Click to expand...
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
It was your workmate that I thought could have made the mistake. If he knew what he was doing, he should have tried to put the B8 back into the long code. On the other hand if the software seemed flaky I can understand why he would not want to risk making things worse.
 
Farnorthsurfer said:
I shall not get too hung up on your inference that I don't know what I am doing:whistle:
Click to expand...

No offence intended on my part but you sorta implied the young lad wasn't that experienced yourself.

Anyway..important thing is all is working now, I only chipped in to share my own knowledge of what happens when serial data get corrupted during transfer.
 
Not a problem chaps.
I work with the lad in question and his mistake was to tell me that he could do the changes without knowing that he had bought a shonky cable.
Not his fault that the cable didn't work and we both tried and failed to correct the code. It would always drop digits on save and exit, probably the software as much as the cable.
At the time it was a bit of a nightmare which is why I shared it.
I am with @Salty Spuds on using dodgy gear to be honest, the right tools for the right job. But I have been hard up and know what its like to try and do things without wasting money. Running a Lotus Sunbeam with an appetite for Cosworth pistons and rear tyres taught me a lot about saving money 'when I wer lad' ;)
 
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