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Coded my Volkswagen Taigun to unlock a host of hidden features

15th December 2023, 13:10 by Dev Shah

Dynamic mode as the name suggests, makes the car more dynamic based on your speed.

BHPian omranga98 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

577 days into owning the ca... No, let's make it sound cooler.

Okay!

So about forty million eight hundred fifty two thousand and eight hundred seconds into owning the Taigun, i finally got my car coded!

What is coding?

In simple terms:

it gets some locked hidden features unlocked so you can get the best out of your car.

In complex terms:

I won't even try but you can reach out to the lovely folks at Dr.CodeMyVag who not only did a perfect job coding my car but was patient in explaining the number of feautures we could unlock, what they would do, how it would work and 100s of other questions that popped into my mind

Let us start with:

How does it work?

Simply drop in a message on Dr.CodeMyVag's Instagram with what car you have and they will get back to you rather quickly with the coding options.

Generally almost all VW, Skoda, Audi, BMW, Mini, Ford, Jeep & Mercedes cars are coded by them.

Once you confirm, they will ship a cable that connects to the OBD port in your car. While the cable ships to you, they will send a couple of softwares for you to install on your windows laptop. This is to make the cable compatible to the USB port i guess and also to run a particular software.

After downloading the apps and connecting the cable, you simple open Teamviewer (a screen sharing and remote access free app) on your laptop and let them connect to your laptop remotely.

From there on, simply follow their instructions as to when you should switch the car on, when to put it in the ignition mode and when to not get extra excited that you start asking them to code your Taigun into Tiguan.

In about 15 mins, the entire process is done and you can simply take the cable out, disconnect the laptop and go WOW! at the new features.

that brings me to:

What new features?

Quite a few actually:

Removed 80 kmph & 120 kmph speed chime
Sports display (this shows turbo PSI: VERY COOL)
Off-road display. (this shows tyre angle, altitude above sea level!)
Steering angle on virtual cockpit
Refuel quantity display in virutal cockpit (how much fuel you can put in the tank before maxing out)
RPM display as a bar on digital speedo screen in virtual cockpit
A/c fan speed display in auto mode
Enabling Dynamic mode (more on this later)
XDS- Torque Vectoring set to stronger setting (more on this later)
Car Honks on lock & unlock
SCANDINAVIAN DRLS (the rear light bar lights up during the day along with front DRLS
A/c control via screen (not very useful but good to remind you how terrible it would be to control A/c via the touch screen
Start/Stop button pulsates. Looks very cool!
Audio quality improvement via sound signature. You have the option of selecting more bass heavy Beats Audio sound signature or a more balanced Harman Kardon.
Changing the colour of Virutal cockpit to any colour.
The rear tail light section blinking with turn indicator
Lane change blinks increased to 5 clicks from standard 3 clicks.

I am sure I am probably missing something here but yeah, what more do you want? Hehe.

Let us dig a bit further into the new unlocked features

Start/Stop button pulsates:

Sports display:

Screen shot from a video of sports screen in action. Notice the Turbo meter showing PSI of boost!

Off road display:

Tyre angle on virtual cockpit:

RPM bar on top of digital speedo:

Refuel quantity in virtual cockpit:

A/c controls on screen:

Taigun has single zone a/c so only the left side controls work. Both temp in the display are always in sync.

Audio quality improvement:

To be very honest. It is a difference you can only make out if you listen to two cars, one with it enabled and one stock to really make out a difference. Being a music producer and a DJ, i really do not think it made that much of a difference.

Enabling dynamic mode:

This is so NICE!

Honestly, they should have had this option in the screen of the car. Dynamic mode as the name suggests, makes the car more dynamic based on your speed. At lower speeds, the steering is lighter and as you speed up, it weighs up a lot better than stock. This has also improved the brake and accelerator pedal feel. This alone is worth the coding effort!

XDS-Torque vectoring:

I guess the only way i can describe this is: The car feels like it has 2x more grip at corners. Right after the coding was done, i went for a short (150 kms drive) and a few turns into the drive, i could feel this.

In moments of fast cornering XDS gives out exactly the right amount of power providing pressure on the inside wheel to prevent wheel spinning. The result is better traction and a reduction of any tendency to understeer. A really good feature again!

But what about my warranty?

This is one of the reasons why i was on the sideline for a while. I had opted for extended warranty and i have about 4.5 years remaining of it. I was a little scared of this messing up with it. But:

Apparently this does not matter in terms of warranty because you are not adding something extra, you are simply unlocking features that were already in the car. and incase any issue arises, everything mentioned above can be reversed back to original state without leaving a trace behind.

I had asked about 20 people from various car groups, car workshops and more regarding the warranty and almost all gave the same reply as above, so i went with it!

Should you get it?

Ask yourself, why not?

Would love to answer any questions regarding this.

Signing off with a nice sunset picture of my Taigun