When  you have a bulb warning light and the Vehicle status on Maxidot tells you it is LH side light and VCDS gives a fault code for LH tail light which would you believe when they are all working and the warning is intermittent but has been going on for over a year?

 

My natural instinct was to distrust VCDS, most if the terms used bear no relation to what the should describe, units of measure are all over the place, it is very shonky IMO.

 

Well it turned out that the Maxidot was the liar, I had not appreciated that there are two tail light bulbs in each cluster, they are hidden behind a red cover that looks just like an LED array, one of mine was not working yet when you look at the lights together on a dark night they are both equally bright.

 

I looked at another Yeti yesterday for another French Briskoda member, he had exactly the same intermittent dash warning light problem for years, the same Vehicle Status report for the sidelight and the same fault code for the tail light, the LH one as well, he also had one blown bulb.

 

Something to look for if it happens to you, I hope it helps someone.

VCDS can only report what the VAG software tells it, so when it reports strange units of measure or wrong fault locations it's VAG that are to blame not VCDS.

 

I had a report of a faulty right rear sidelight, but actually it was the left front sidelight - checking through the raw VAG diagnostics data it was clear that someone at VAG had done a 'copy and paste' job hence the wrong location!

In my case it was VCDS that was correct!

 

My pal referred to my VCDS as cloned VAG software, I corrected him saying it was the paid for version of VCDS and not the Ebay clones with a CD, he has Russian clone software for his Fords. Your comments beg the quest is VCDS supported or approved by VAG or have they copied/cloned the VAG software?

 

Was Vagcom official VAG software?

11 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Was Vagcom official VAG software?

VCDS is the new name for Vagcom (after VW threatened Ross-Tech with copyright infringement for using the letter combination V.A.G) so no Vagcom/VCDS has never been official VAG software.

 

It's been written independently by Ross-Tech from the very beginning.

14 minutes ago, J.R. said:

In my case it was VCDS that was correct!

That doesn't surprise me, if the software developers in the instrument cluster and BCM don't talk to each other then the instrument cluster can incorrectly interpret the fault code from the BCM.

 

VAG software is a nightmare, even more so in the most recent models where development of much of it has been outsourced 🤨

The VW group main dealer diagnostics is called ODIS. Independent garages can purchase it on a subscription. 

1 minute ago, paulski said:

 Independent garages can purchase it on a subscription. 

... and it's most definitely NOT cheap!!!

@J.R.To add, don't forget that  as your  VCDS is genuine it's fully supported and is continuously developed behind the scenes by Ross-Tech.