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-   -   Mechatronics failure, Volkswagen Vento DSG (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/249631-mechatronics-failure-volkswagen-vento-dsg.html)

Last week, our vento refused to start.
The car thought it was in reverse while the lever said park.
With the parking sensors beeping and the engine refusing to come alive,
I called RSA to save us from the dark!

You always think it will happen to someone else, you think you’ll be the lucky one, but after 6 years of joy, I got that dreaded call from VW service saying it is a mechatronics failure.

On pushing further, they say the reason for the failure is the amaron battery we installed 6 months ago. Interestingly, this is the second amaron battery we’ve installed. The first ran from 2019 till 2021 without a hitch. Maybe we got lucky the first time around?

So team, wondering how to proceed from here. I’ve raised a complaint with amaron and I should be getting a quote from VW tomorrow. Over the phone he estimated it should cost a lakh plus a new battery. :eek:

I’ve spent most of today reading the other DSG failure threads both Škoda and Volkswagen. It’s uncanny how this happened on the dot at 6 years as predicted.

Would love some suggestions here guys and girls. Can the battery really cause this? Are volkswagen trying to pass the buck? Or was I pushing my luck thinking The DSG would last as long as the rest of the car :p

Will keep you all posted through this bittersweet journey.

A Guy here!

The battery`s job is to start the engine - afterwards the alternator takes care of the power requirements. Amaron is known to last, DSG - the opposite.

Talking about the battery, when it comes to these VAG vehicles its better to buy a new one before the battery wears out, that way you are less likely to deal with injectors, gearbox, engine and what not.

That must be a brand new reason from VW dealers unless I am living in a cave. When the battery dies, worst case, the output voltage can drop but how will this affect the mechatronics and that too when the starter motor is working :confused:

You have not mentioned if you have an Extended warranty, but this thread can serve as a reminder for others who have got the batteries outside the VW to ensure that they either get the batteries changed from the dealership or keep the old battery stored and put it back before asking RSA :coldsweat

Battery issue leading to DSG failure eventually is not the weirdest of reasons, but it is quite unlikely coming from a 6-month old battery for sure.
Do check out the forum for similar RCA done, and also get the technical incident report from the dealer stating the battery issue in writing.

Folks at VW are coming up with novel excuses for the DSG failures. High time they offer 10 year warranty on this before we can even touch it. But, we are like the fire chaser beetles, can't resist.

Here, following was said some time back:

Since I’m associated with Amaron, I’m not going to further comment regarding the quality of the battery as it’s against our forum rules. However, what I’d like to share is VAG or any other European car company would spend more time and effort to figure out how to void warranty than fix their fundamentally flawed cars. I’ve experienced this first hand. I don’t want to get in to the specifics on a public forum. They simply blame it on the aftermarket product if something goes wrong. Ask the dealership or VW an explanation on how an aftermarket battery is the reason for mechatronics to fail.

A battery is a very common product that people change in the aftermarket. The OP had an Amaron battery for a couple of years and he probably visited the dealership for regular service twice during this period. Isn’t checking the batteries voltage part of regular service? Did the dealership point out that ‘Hey, that’s an aftermarket battery. That voids factory warranty. You have to change it right away to the one we sell here at a ridiculous price’. No, I’m sure they never said that to the OP. If they did, he wouldn’t of gotten another Amaron battery. VAG has got the OP on a technicality, it’s hard to claim warranty (assuming you have extended warranty). It depends on the relation you have with the service centre.

I just feel it’s ridiculous and not fair that VAG doesn’t accept after market batteries and forces you to pay a lot more money to change the battery in their service centre. When a 200BHP Toyota Fortuner can accept an Amaron battery or any other brand battery, why can’t a Volkswagen Vento with 115 odd horsepower accept it?

Cheers!

The clutch actuator solenoids of a dual clutch transmission depend on a steady electrical signal. Should the battery be weak, signal from the sensor could be wrong and the mechatronics will take decisions based on the faulty signals. Inherently this is not the best design and over the years I would have assumed there were some fail safe mechanisms to be put in place which are still not for the most part.

Coming to your specific issue: Did they try changing the battery and try to check it again? You did not mention the mileage of your car in these 6 years. There are certain vehicles where you need to get the ECU to recognize that there is a new battery been put into it. In my experience with the Vento DSG, I do not believe that to be the case.

I would also get an independent opinion of a good garage that has experience working on dual clutch transmissions. To me their diagnosis is far better that what the folks at VW do.

When a customer is officially given such a ridiculous excuse for a design defect, it's understood that the joke is on the Indian consumer.

In India alone they've sold lakhs of cars with this defectively designed DQ200 DSG gearbox, and only here were they able to get away with it - all thanks to our horribly outdated automotive laws.

Before you cave in to the service centre. Reconsider searching for a sensible & good indipendent mechanic and take it to them to mend the DSG at a fraction of the cost that VW ASC charges.

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. This should go to our home page. If that reason from VW's service center do not prompt forum members to ditch Skoda/VW from their consideration set, I don't know what will.

May I ask if you had any warnings before the gearbox suddenly failed on you? Anything like an abnormal sound or jerking?

Gearbox not recognizing the change of mode is a typical symptom of mechatronics failure. From what I have heard from friends, this symptom does not give you any warning before the actual failure one fine day. The other common symptom of odd or even gears not engaging usually gives out warnings like sound or jerk well before the problem happens.

In an ideal world, that would be best, a new car every 3-5 years :coldsweat

I know we bought the extended warranty, but i'm not sure if it was for 5 years or 6. Looking into this as we speak.

On it, i've just asked for this!

I completely agree, I had no idea a battery, that too from a reputed company like amaron could cause a mechatronics failure.
So their reasoning behind blaming the battery is that although the wattage is the same, Amaron runs at a higher voltage than VW batteries ... or the other way around? But this was over the phone.

Need to see how a VW battery would react. So, the cars done nearly 75,000km.

Any suggestions on good independent garages would be much appreciated.

Might i ask, in an ideal situation how should this have panned out?

lol i like how you said before you cave, because most of us would think twice about getting a major repair done independently.

I did notice a slight judder a few times over the last couple of weeks, but you wouldn't notice it unless you were looking out for it.

As soon as you feel judder, this is the tell tale signs, it is time for oil change of both mechatronics and the gear oil.

There are many scenarios in which the there could be voltage spikes. For instance, a weak or
an undersized battery might be able to start the engine but only after a steep drop in voltage (Engines can start even with 6V) and right after that engine startup is completed, the voltage spikes back to a much higher value. This type of spike in voltage is really bad the electronic components in the vehicle. Depending on the quality of the surge protection built into such componets, the current condition of such protection mechanism and the severity of the surge, it's possible to permanently damage electronics. All is not well just because the battery is able to start the engine. In fact, it is very dangerous to start the engine with a low battery on modern cars. Of course, the cars are supposed to be designed to be smart enough and I think cars like BMW do a much better job of being smart about such things. Unfortunately I suspect VW doesn't do a good job to protect itself if the root cause is indeed the battery.

Jump starting is also a bit risky due to potential voltage spikes - both for the donor car and sick car.

Modern cars are too fragile and complicated. Don't shoot the messenger :-)

That's generic VW beating around the bush for you - blame the aftermarket battery (which, btw, provides the same voltage as any other battery and Volkswagen Group themselves procure batteries from Exide batteries (IIRC) ! Not like they're making this custom battery either - not that I'd be surprised given how poorly the OEM battery performs and how expensive it is), and if that doesn't work, blame it on low running (what I was told for my ABS sensor failures), age, whatever.

Why don't you ask VW to explain exactly HOW the battery caused a failure, consider that the battery can be tested for open-circuit voltage and voltage under full load (i.e. to check whether the battery really does have a fault), and to top it off, ask them how many catastrophic vehicle failures have been reported because someone used an aftermarket Amaron or Exide battery and ask them how many catastrophic DSG failures have been documented in the same time.

Ask them why China has a 10-year/160000km extended OEM warranty for the DSG, but we don't (https://www.automotiveworld.com/arti...or-dsg-models/)
Why 91000 cars were recalled in Japan for DSG issues (https://www.motorbeam.com/volkswagen...mate-specific/) [there are more such DSG recalls in every country/continent, including the EU, UK, etc.]

And ask them if they really want to push the "battery failure" angle further, without even testing the battery to see if it's at fault?

Hopefully your extended warranty covers this and none of this is necessary, though. I recently got my 6th year warranty extension despite having an aftermarket battery, and another forum member said they did too, so it's seemingly up to dealer discretion. This shouldn't be necessary, but how good is your relationship with your service advisor?

Is it risky to jump-start automatic cars of all types? AMT, DCT, CVT etc and also any specific steps to follow while helping a stranded car with a weak or dead battery?

Here is a very good read on this topic:

https://ricksfreeautorepairadvice.co...age-computers/