[fluidicjoy]

Originally Posted by Oggy

Thank you for the prompt reply!

Would I have to get a cruise control compatible button set on the steering wheel or would it be enough if I just re-programmed the existing CNL button along with the necessary online coding and licenses? I believe that would be much easier and more cost effective to implement and also prompt more people to do the install.

Once again, thank you for the detailed thread and your helpfulness. Looking forward to your response!

I was under the impression the stock steering buttons would work, but it turns out they're built differently. the CNL button only transmits a CANCEL LIN command. It was not able to communicate with the ACC Module to adapt the distance. Since it did not communicate well and would have hampered functionality, I swapped them out. Moreover, I have been researching a lot about this on Russian, Australian and European forums, and nowhere did anyone report any success with enabling ACC on the older buttons we had. Had we had a firmware file from the newer buttons, we could have considered flashing the newer firmware onto the older one.

I did not wish to spend on a new wheel, as sourcing components from Europe had already increased my initial budget for this project, and so I simply went ahead with a Cruise Control button set for the stock steering wheel.

Originally Posted by hamhaj16

Even factory fitted devices are failing, how reliable this after market devices?!?! I believe there's no proper R&D or whatsoever on after market products. Cars and driving licences are privileges, we must be responsible. "I STRONGLY OPPOSE THIS" please don't play with lives.

I appreciate your concern about lives, but would like to correct you in couple of places. This is not an aftermarket product. The Adaptive Cruise Control Radar I've installed is a Genuine Company spare which is presently offered and sold in plenty of reiterations of the Tiguan and other vehicles of the Volkswagen Group. I trust Volkswagen to have performed extensive Research and Development on Adaptive Cruise and this is their 2nd or 3rd generation of Adaptive Cruise hardware. I take pride in saying that this hardware has been installed exactly how Volkswagen offers it from the factory and it works very thoroughly with the car's electronics. Any error in it or any other module will subsequently show up on ODIS and VCDS, which I regularly keep checking on my cars.

And at the end of the day, it is still an electronic device, just like the million mechanical and electronic elements the car comes with, like a Hydraulic ABS ESP PUMP for example, and sadly, while it hopefully does not fail, it is always possible for either of those components to fail in service, like you say. ACC and the radar makes it harder for a driver to crash their cars. I doubt I can say the same about non-ACC cars.

Originally Posted by haldar_siliguri

Great writeup and video Sujoy! Lets hope this inspires others to do it as well. This works for all MQB platforms am I right?

Thank you sir. Yes, I'll keep adding details as I compile more. Yes, almost all MQB Platform vehicles will support Adaptive Cruise Control and some iteration of their Long Range Radar. The process, style and location of the radar will see some variation, but the wiring schematic and activation drill will be quite similar.

[hamhaj16]

ACC is like another driver, you're giving the complete control of vehicle to an electronics device. Even small glitches may leads to regrets. I have seen many such cases in Toyota and Nissan vehicles.

One thing I realised the hard way.If it doesn’t come as OEM, never modify it as an after market job. Always a disaster.
The difference is just huge - let it be anything, any modification. Happy motoring mate.

[jithin23]

Originally Posted by batladanny

Amazing! The DIYs here keep surprising me no end. Love the zest and courage of BHPians who modify their new, expensive cars.

On a personal note, I've got quite a few of these helpful cruise control DIYs bookmarked and plan to do one for my Freestyle 2 years down the line once it is out of warranty (good thing is that the European and Latin models had CC so hopefully should be easily doable)

Firstly, this mod is mind-blowing! Amazing work fluidicjoy and you seriously have courage to play around left, right and center with your VW's( I've been following your polo thread too). VW owners and VW India might soon contact you for help

Batladanny, on the Ford freestyle and Figo it's easy to add cruise control. All you need to do is enable it on BCM and IPC with the CC switch installed. While researching for my EcoSport , I did find for Ka/Ka+(the figo triplets). However you need to get the switch and wiring from the UK or Brazil or through aliexpresss. You can PM me if needed.

[bvk]

Super DIY. Many Congratulations!!! Yours may not be the first in Maharashtra but first in India to have ACC.

For a moment I thought I should drive down to Pune from Hyderabad and get it done on my AllSpace with your help.

[fluidicjoy]

Originally Posted by bvk

Super DIY. Many Congratulations!!! Yours may not be the first in Maharashtra but first in India to have ACC.

For a moment I thought I should drive down to Pune from Hyderabad and get it done on my AllSpace with your help.

Sadly, the first Tiguan in India with ACC award was bagged by VAGTUNE Cochi a few months back. In fact, their Diesel Tiguan is super feature loaded now with Dynamic Chassis Control, Lane Assist, Side Assist etc, Discover Pro etc.

Feel free to drive to Pune, I'll help you get it activated and running. Just ping me once, so I'm available that weekend

[audioholic]

Amazing work man, that's some serious research and experimenting to get this complete. And I am thrilled about this since this domain is my bread and butter since a few years though I work for a different company and not VW. What is more interesting is your feedback about its performance in Indian conditions. I do extensive vehicle tests but in European countries and someday would like to do the same in India, if my company gives me a chance. However the system I work on its a much complex one compared to the setup in the Tiguan.

Speaking about the radar calibration, what you have shown is a Continental ARS radar which is also used by us but an advanced version. Calibration is very important and two things to note here is 1. The radar does have a self calibration feature which usually happens if there is a shift due to a slight dislocation, flex etc and this is done after every soft reset of the radar unit, or if there is a sudden impact on the area where the radar sits. This happens over a 2km drive and on its own. 2. The radar can detect any major calibration issues or non calibration from when you fit a new one out of the box and if this happens, it won't allow the safety or ACC features to work along with a DTC triggered. The radar has its internal IMU and self diagnosis. Even then you will have to drive for a bit after resetting the radar. Apart from this unlike the camera, calibrating the radar isn't necessary through special means.


Image source http://continental.automotive-approv...DNdiQCIaRDQv_a

Hence I think what you got is a pre calibrated radar from the car it was picked up from and the same thing would work here without the need of re calibration and the minor calibration would have been automatically done. So be careful if you ever have to reset the whole radar unit in the future. But enjoy the feature

One question I had was regarding the radar settings in the coding tool. If you haven't already done this before, then do check the coding of the radar especially for LHD/RHD driving and some other regional settings. They would be used to determine some decision making algorithms and you don't want them to be swapped. How is the performance in two lane roads with oncoming traffic?

[fluidicjoy]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Amazing work man, that's some serious research and experimenting to get this complete. And I am thrilled about this since this domain is my bread and butter since a few years though I work for a different company and not VW. What is more interesting is your feedback about its performance in Indian conditions. I do extensive vehicle tests but in European countries and someday would like to do the same in India, if my company gives me a chance. However the system I work on its a much complex one compared to the setup in the Tiguan.
.
.
.

One question I had was regarding the radar settings in the coding tool. If you haven't already done this before, then do check the coding of the radar especially for LHD/RHD driving and some other regional settings. They would be used to determine some decision making algorithms and you don't want them to be swapped. How is the performance in two lane roads with oncoming traffic?

Thanks for the appreciation and an even bigger thanks for sharing extensive details about how this Radar works. As you right said, during the installation, the radar was indeed coded for RHD.

I think I'll drive for a while longer to comment on the performance on two lane roads, but I believe this could be slightly risky since it does start detecting vehicles while sometimes come in the line of sight especially during overtaking manouevers. The immediate consequence of that could be someone banging into the car from the rear as the Tiguan definite slows down when it detects an obstacle or when it senses a in the preselected safe distance.

Glad to read about the partial self calibration characteristic, and yes, a reason for buying a radar from a car, was the hope that it would be calibrated. I did speak to Volkswagen about the calibration aspect and they said they'd need to send the car to the Regional Training Centre, Plant or possibly arrange a Flying Doctor for calibration issues if any. This scenario should most likely improve if they introduce more vehicles with Radar enabled features. I will keep sharing updates about the performance of this radar

[ArunRam]

Amazing upgrade and write up.
Its nice to see that you want to realize the potential of the vehicles you have. Keep upgrading and posting

[cloudno19]

I checked with Zac Hollis if they have any plans to offer safety features like Adaptive Cruise control and Lane keep assist in India at least as an option, to which this was his response and then my response-



The good thing is that Zac answered my question that they are not offering ACC and Lane keep assist in India, but what I am not convinced is the reasoning Zac (and for that matter other automobile leaders offer) for not offering it.

On the contrary, ACC and lane keep assist would actually make the cruise control functionality much more usable and safer to use.
And our conditions I believe are optimal as use case for such proactive/preventive safety features. And without testing these features, how do we really know if they are actually useful or useless in our conditions? I believe, it's just a good way to say that we don't deserve it

By Zac's logic, why do we have Cruise Control and Sunroof, they would be the least used features on most cars, but are offered mainly to quote one more premium feature offering, shouldn't they be deleted by all auto manufacturers too?

On a side note- I appreciate the man's responsiveness on Twitter, he is pretty active and is up for responding to any query (at times, even dumb ones) that is posted to him; he definitely deserves my . Such leaders instill confidence in their brands and offering.

[Thilak29]

Originally Posted by cloudno19

I checked with Zac.

While I appreciate that he is very responsive in Twitter, this logic is not very convincing.

If congested cities are the reason, what Indian cities need is less cars ! He also believes EVs in India is two decades away!

Adaptive cruise control can save the driver a good deal of fatigue which can keep response and reflex intact over long hours of drive, even better could make driving less demanding on regular basis.

I get that lane assist may be less effective but then why not bring other safety features like blind spot warning while overtaking!

I am glad it’s a tbhpian who asked and you posted here, I was planning to pen down something after I saw his response to this quoted tweet.

[fluidicjoy]

It's funny I saw this tweet in the morning myself and was framing quite a few replies in my head. One of them was to comment about Traffic Jam Assist that the VAG group themselves offer on VW Skoda's abroad. And the second being that I am now in a position to retrofit and enable these features for all potential users. But to avoid any polarizing opinion and avoiding unnecessary attention, I decided to let Zac's comment pass

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by cloudno19

The good thing is that Zac answered my question that they are not offering ACC and Lane keep assist in India, but what I am not convinced is the reasoning Zac (and for that matter other automobile leaders offer) for not offering it.

On the contrary, ACC and lane keep assist would actually make the cruise control functionality much more usable and safer to use.
And our conditions I believe are optimal as use case for such proactive/preventive safety features.

Perhaps Mr. Zac hasnt ventured out of Aurangabad/Pune to our much recently developed National Highways leave alone expressways. These are the roads where you can pretty much use Adaptive Cruise Control and Steering assistance systems with their clear lane markings and one can munch miles without too much of an effort. Once he does that, then he will realise what is the biggest miss in these cars. But anyway, it will eventually come just like how the Tiguan is now getting some of the features, as well as the other premium brands like Volvo or Mercedes.

But I can bet that when he speaks about practicality, he is speaking of their production limitations rather than feature limitations. It is quite a task to validate these features and to make India specific changes to the software thats even a bigger task. These components would be supplied by external suppliers and that means the validation team in India must contact headquarters, who then contacts the supplier to change things. Hence, they just avoid all these headache and call it impractical to use in India. In some cars which are brought as CBU, they try to code out functionality or limit it and when thats also not possible they just provide the feature unchanged for the owner to experiment and discover.

[kalyan_hyd]

Originally Posted by audioholic

In some cars which are brought as CBU, they try to code out functionality or limit it and when thats also not possible they just provide the feature unchanged for the owner to experiment and discover.

True, in Tiguan Allspace that was sold the last year (I got one), they left the Lane Assist, Front Assist, Auto Emergency braking (AEB) as-is.

- Obviously, it hasn't been tested much in India or validated as you mentioned so there are a few cases when I got shocked in the past with my car esp with the AEB. AEB thus stays disabled on my car all the time.

- Front assist comes back on every time the car is restarted and while I have my doubts about the action, it does not disturb one as much as the AEB so I manage. There are times when I see a warning or car braking itself and I am thinking perhaps the 'Front Assist' feature acted too early.

- Lane Assist works fine most of the time esp on well-marked highways and the Outer Ring road in Hyderabad. But, a few friends with the same cars have had issues with the lane assist camera alignment. While my car keeps itself in the middle of the lane with a 10-20% shift towards the right-side lane, some of my friends mentioned in their cases it's dangerously close to one of the left or the right sidelines and hence un-usable. Apparently, they are unable to align the lane assist cameras in a few workshops they've tried due to a lack of equipment.

So, it's takes effort for the company to first validate, have spare parts and support ready. Otherwise, features will only be on paper and not practical.

--Kalyan

[cloudno19]

Originally Posted by kalyan_hyd

True, in Tiguan Allspace that was sold the last year (I got one), they left the Lane Assist, Front Assist, Auto Emergency braking (AEB) as-is.

Thanks for sharing your and friends first hand experience using such preinstalled tech; this is definitely helpful especially when considering a CBU that was not built for or calibrated for our conditions/usage.

All the points you mentioned are not the short coming of features themselves but non calibration to our conditions as they work well in other geographies. If I understood you correctly, none of the issues were due to traffic or road conditions or because of idiot drivers, but simply misfunctioning due to calibration.

So, VW/Skoda would offer you cars with hardware but do not wish to invest in making it work for us, that's criminal.


Note from Support: Quote trimmed. Please DO NOT quote large posts entirely. Quote only relevant portions. Thank you!

[nirav.gajerawal]

Thanks for sharing fluidicjoy your elaborate experience of mods added to your Tiguan.

I had a very bitter experience in getting my Tiguan 2022 (Jan 2022 CKD) mods updated with (Front Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control, Blind Spot Assist, and Rear Traffic Alert) from GermanDNA. I would request all Bhpians to think 10 times before getting any mods done from GermanDNA. It took 10 months to get all my mods done on my Car.

I paid advance Money to them 90% as asked by them and i also paid all expenses paid trip to Gujarat Baroda that includes Return Air-fare, Food, and 3-star Hotel Stay for 2 nights so that they can come to my place and get all mods done. I also arranged to get all the mods done in Volkswagen Workshop and VW Services folks were understandably nice and they accepted my request and allowed them to work in one of their service bay at no extra cost. I also asked for Wireless Charging, Apple Car Play and Navigation. But the pieces of equipment that GermanDNA brought could not fit into my car. They did not show me all the pieces of equipment before installing. I considered that putting trust on them. I gave full hospitality to ensure that they do not become uncomfortable at any point during their stay.


So, talking about mods I got it installed from GermanDNA:

Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC): For this, I will be honest here and confirm that this is one thing that they have installed very nicely so far I have not faced any issues and it is working absolutely fine. However, I do not know if the product origin is China or EU country. But I trusted them. Now in doing this, they found that my stock Paddle shifters were stopped working due to the different pin/adapter. So they sent me the Paddle shifters after a month and I had to get them replaced from Local VW Workshop. They assured me they will not charge me for the same.

Front Assist (FA): Since it's installed and operative, It has been triggered 2 times. So, I believe this should be working fine. For some of you who are not aware, the RADAR Sensor installed in the back of the front logo of your vehicle takes care of Adaptive Cruise Control and Front Assist. So for ACC and FA, the same sensor is used. And since ACC is working accurately, I believe FA will also be working fine.

Blind Spot Assist/Detection (BSD): This was a disaster. Now, it was my mistake as well that I wasn't aware that there are 2 types of Blind Spot Detection. One is In mirror Blind Spot Lights and another one is a light on the mirror housing facing the window glass. Now, I was just aware that there is just In-mirror mechanism. But they brought mirror housing lights. That triggered my disappointment. But since I paid hefty on mods plus their stay, I compromised and told them that it's fine now I did not have a choice. So, I confirmed them to move forward with what they have brought (see, they did not show me until they were about to fit that). Then while they were installing, they found that the mirror housing that they have brought is not a match for my car. So, they gave 2 options to me. One is they can make cuts to my stock mirror housing and fit the lights. OR second was that they can send me the mirror housing with perfect fit and I can get it re-colored and have it installed locally at the workshop. I agreed to the first one. But the cut they made was in such a place that I could not see the left side light and it was being blocked by the A-pillar small glass section. So, I sent them photos and they realized they made a mistake and then told me they will send me the new mirror housing. So, they sent me the same. I got it recolored matching my car color (Nightshade Blue) and when the Local VW Workshop fitted the lights, we discovered that the light shape and the shape of the hole on the mirror housing were a mismatch. So, then I had to again request GermanDNA and they said they will send me matching shape pair of lights. They sent me the same but then found that the light connectors that were installed in my car and the connectors on the newly sent lights were mismatched. So, initially, they were not ready to believe or understand. So, I and the Service engineer at VW did a video call, sent him photos, and then they realized its a mistake. So, I asked what next to do, and then after several days of waiting, and catching up with them, they asked me to send back the lights to them and they will fix it. so, they did cut the original connectors and then sent me the lights back with the different connectors that were expected to be a match (Male-female connector). But to my surprise, when I went back to the VW workshop to get the new lights installed, we discovered that the connectors on the light and the connector that was on my car mirror, both were Male connectors. So, again I had to reach out to them and they were again telling me that they sent me 2 connectors which was not right. So, I had to send him back the lights to Trissur and then they send me back with the correct connector. Now yet another time, I approached the VW workshop and when they started installing the lights, it was found that the Left Side light had a polarity issue. So, then he asked me to get it fixed by VW itself. VW Workshop people were really kind enough and were really patient to get that fixed finally after several iterations of this back and forth. finally, after 10 months, the blind spot started working. It was the worst experience. This displayed their lack of experience in dealing with SUVs and advanced mods.


Rear Traffic Alert (RTA): This worked really well, just like ACC. Thanks to them.

Things to note:

1. GermanDNA did not provide me with any invoice for the work performed. When asked, I was told they do not provide any invoices.

2. They did not show me any equipment and the origin of the equipment they were planning to install.

3. Seeking time from them virtually (since I am from Gujarat and they are from Kerala), was a huge challenge. Every time I was given time, it was changed right at the time of the call.

4. For them I bought VCDS Hex-V2 Dongle from Ross-Tech so that it becomes easier for them to help me troubleshoot any issues via AnyDesk. Now, this was a need and for them to help me, there was no other alternative for me but to purchase one dongle.

5. Their handling of the vehicle was Okay. Not good not bad. Not good because my engine opening hood handle was loosened, however, VW Workshop fixed it for me at no extra cost. Not bad because there was no other damage done.

Now, recently what happened was that My car was called up at VW Workshop for a MIB3 System Upgrade. So, after my car Infotainment System (MIB3) was successfully completed, the menus for the above 4 mods disappeared because the system got reset.

So, I requested if GermanDNA can help me fix that. I offered them to visit Gujarat one more time but for which I did not get any response, and after several back and forth of couple of months, finally yesterday, early morning, I got their time and then they with the help of somebody (i dont know who because the person with whom I was in contact with tried and since it did not work for him, he had to get help from someone else) and that other person rapidly fixed and brought all my menus back on MIB3 radio. After all the work was completed, he then told me that there are some pending dues from my end for which I asked which ones, and then he started reminding me about paddles and I replied that Paddle Shifters, Blind Spot lights, and Mirror housing all were on you as assured by you. So, then he said okay, but you need to pay me Rs. 4000 for the coding charges to get the menus back into the system. With disappointment, I did pay him Rs. 4000 for two major reasons, I do not get any help from free from anyone and one must get the worth for what service anyone is providing and secondly, I know how difficult coding is. However, he should have informed me upfront that the service is chargeable and these are the charges. And 4000 was a bit high that he charged me.

So, to sum up, GermanDNA needs to hire professionals who know how to treat their customers and need to behave nicely to their customers and with honesty and respect.

And to everyone reading this, if at all you fancy getting mods added, go to VAGTUNE instead of GermanDNA. VAGTUNE is a very professional organization, they install all genuine original VW EU-made components and they provide all the invoices and show the equipment prior to installations their support is very nice.

Good Luck and Happy Motoring !!