Wiring diagrams

[Newbie123]

So as you can tell from my name I'm a newbie owner of a 2011 T5.1 Transporter. I recently had some niggles when getting an eSafety certificate for renewing my registration (the Australian (NSW) equivalent of a UK MOT I guess) because the rear number plate lights on the tail gate were not working. A couple of people had a quick look (checked fuses, checked globes) but could not see an obvious explanation and then basically just squibbed out as it was all to hard (a reaction I have seen several times already with this vehicle). So I rolled up my sleeves and decided to give it a go myself. My background is in computers and microprocessors rather than vehicle electrics/electronics but whatever.

It turned out there were a litany of problems, mostly associated with a pretty amateurish installation of a reversing camera. Pins in connectors broken off, connector clips broken, wires held in contact with their pins by physical pressure from the connector housing. Also a bit of poor contact of the number plate light cassettes due to corrosion. Someone was pretty heavy handed it seems, resulting in a cascading set of errors and bodges - if it ever worked it would only have been intermittently!

Anyway I have pretty much sorted it all out as best I can and number plate lights and reversing camera all work as they should. I still need to do some final wire and connector changes and soldering/heatshrinking which I'll do as soon as I can get the appropriate parts.

In the process of working it out I had to do a fair bit of reverse engineering - unwrapping electrical tape, working out what the individual wires did and which were +12V and which earth etc. This is the sort of information you would normally hope to find in schematics and engineering drawings but my searches were not very helpful.

So can I ask - where do I get access to T5.1 schematics? Ideally showing wire colour codes, conductor sizes etc. Is this some thing I should get VIP membership for or are there public web sites that carry this information.

I suppose this is also a good time to ask about diagnostic scanners. I am not so into automotive stuff as a hobby that I'm really keen to spend a huge amount on this and it seems like the specialist VW stuff is pretty expensive for an occasional user. Is it worthwhile to get a generic OBD2 dongle to use with a laptop or am I going to be frustrated with anything other than a top of the line VW specific scanner/software?

Thanks for any guidance you can spare.

 

[mmi]

where do I get access to T5.1 schematics?

Normally I would have recommended the official documentation but VW has somehow managed to have messed up the T5.1 wiring diagram - and frustratingly they are not responsive at all to correct that.

Volkswagen AG erWin Online

erwin.volkswagen.de

so to get started probably better to use a free alternative, e.g.

Volkswagen Transporter 2010-2015 Workshop Manuals + Wiring Diagrams | Free Download

Free View and Download Pdf Files for Volkswagen Transporter 2010-2015 Workshop Manuals + Wiring Diagrams | No registration, No payments.

cardiagn.com

I am not so into automotive stuff as a hobby

Is it worthwhile to get a generic OBD2 dongle to use with a laptop or am I going to be frustrated with anything other than a top of the line VW specific scanner/software?

It depends what your ambitions are - do you plan to repair yourself in case something fails or just hand over to someone for repairs?

a generic OBD2 dongle to use with a laptop

Any example of this? You surely also need some software?

Generic OBD2 dongles will probably struggle on T5.1 to delve deeper into electrics because the T5.1 BCM - central electrics controller uses a VW specific protocol on CANbus thus you can just get fault codes but can't read sensor data or run actuators. E.g. read remote controller's button, door lock statuses, alarm sources, switch positions, etc., etc.

My background is in computers and microprocessors rather than vehicle electrics/electronics but whatever.

am I going to be frustrated with anything other than a top of the line VW specific scanner/software?

Yes, definitely

 

[Newbie123]

I really appreciate the time you took to answer my questions in so much detail.

I found the schematics at cardiagn.com very useful indeed and after spending a bit of time puzzling them out was able to answer my immediate questions. For a while the DIN 72552 numbers accompanying the pin designations had me foxed but eventually the penny dropped. The schematics certainly allowed me to satisfy myself that the corrections I made were reasonable and would not add to the confusion of anyone owning the van after me. Definitely worth the investment in time to become familiar with the way these schematics work.

Also thank you for the scanner comments - I'm not sure how long I will keep this van (I only bought it to help me sort out an interstate deceased estate and it has 520k on the clock which is quite something) but based on your comments I'll hold off on a scanner for now if I can and if I decide to keep the van longer term I'll go the whole hog and get a VCDS dongle and license.

Thank you for your help.