Team Atlas

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jyoung8607

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So I go on the Interwebs tonight to see what sort of interesting tweaks might be available on the Atlas, now that it's been out for almost two months. Some intrepid soul will have plotted out all the cool nerd-knobs already, right?

atlas-06.png


Quantity two (2) threads on the entire Interweb with Atlas scans. Both from the same Atlas. My Atlas. I guess I get to do some trailblazing here.

Another fun fact: test-drove an Atlas on 5/19, bought our Atlas on 6/3, didn't try to add to insurance until 6/18 or thereabout. It was still the first Atlas that Allstate/Esurance had been asked to insure, nationwide. They had to open an internal case for us and call VW and get a bunch of info and load the VINs in their system first.

Are these things not being produced in serious volume yet or something? I thought I was getting away from snowflake vehicles. :)
 
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vreihen

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Still the second-coolest (*) mom at soccer practice????? :D

(*) The coolest mom is driving the Porsche-badged SUV.
 
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jyoung8607

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Interesting head-to-head of a Nissan Pathfinder vs. a VW Atlas. The most interesting part is where the Nissan flat refuses to go up a small hill (jump to 7:05). No wheel-spin, just plain torque limit or TQ stall or something. Pretty crazy. The reviewer blames it on the CVT. I'm not sure how Nissan CVTs work, belt or chain, whether it allows slip internally without serious trauma.


Double decker Euro Passat represent! :cool: Believe it or not, this combination mostly works.

atlas-11.jpg
 
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vreihen

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I would hope that any large SUV could tow a ~2,400 pound (empty) trailer with a couple of tents in it! :) The bigger question is if there a factory trailer brake controller and 7-pin socket on the rear bumper?????
 
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jyoung8607

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I would hope that any large SUV could tow a ~2,400 pound (empty) trailer with a couple of tents in it! :) The bigger question is if there a factory trailer brake controller and 7-pin socket on the rear bumper?????
Oh, there's more than a couple tents in it. ;) In fact, this one is loaded far too front-heavy, even our dads with Suburbans or F150s don't care for the way it pulls. We've been meaning to fix that one of these days, but it's going to take more doing than you would think. Historically I've pulled our Troop's other trailer with our old GMC Acadia, which is about the same size and capacity but internally arranged in a much more tow vehicle-friendly way.

By the book, the Atlas isn't allowed to pull either of them. If ordered with trailer prep, the manual allows up to 5,000lbs of trailer weight (both are okay) and 500lbs on the tongue (our easy trailer is okay) but the manual specifically prohibits use of more than a 2" ball, and both of them require a 2 5/16" ball. Don't know what that's about, not going to worry about it.

When ordered with trailer prep, it comes pre-wired for a 7-pin socket and an EBC. I guess VW really likes keeping these things worldwide-legit, so they make you install a little NAR 7-pin RV style adapter yourself. Touaregs are allegedly set up the same way. And, I transferred my Tekonsha Prodigy P3 over from the Acadia and it works great. EBC pre-wiring was actually a major contingency I asked our dealer salesguy to track down and verify before money changed hands. Believe me, I don't even like taking our little pop-up camper out without the EBC, there was no way in hell I was touching the Scout trailer without it.

Jason

atlas-07.jpg


atlas-08.jpg


atlas-09.jpg


atlas-10.jpg
 
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Flaps10

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Similar to the way the Touareg/Cayenne is set up. Excepting of course the 7,000 trailer weight.
 
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vreihen

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And, I transferred my Tekonsha Prodigy P3 over from the Acadia and it works great.

Personally, I'd dump that single-axis-accelerometer POS before ever hitching up another trailer! The Tekonsha P2 is a real tri-axis (read: self-leveling) brake controller, and performs much more consistently/repeatably doing silly things like stopping your trailer. What good are 8-color LCD backlights and readouts of battery voltage and the surface temperature on Mars when you run into a tree because the P3 thought that you were driving up a hill and decided to go light on the brakes?

I bought into the P3 online forums hype without doing my homework, and the most scary feeling is towing a large trailer through New York City or on the Lawn Guyland Expressway in Sunday beach traffic when you don't know if you'll be getting Jeckyl or Hyde each time that you need to make a brisk stop. If I had to buy another accelerometer-based brake controller, it would be the Hayes G2 or the Tekonsha P2. The worst thing is that I cannot even sell my P3 with a clean conscience, so I leave it in the center console of The Mighty Dodge in case my current brake controller fails or I need a wheel chock in a hurry.

FWIW, my current brake controller is a Tuson DirecLink. It plugs into both the factory trailer brake controller socket and the OBD port, and magically makes the trailer stop without fanfare or drama based on data that it receives off of the bus. They claim 2008+ VW compatibility, but I doubt that it has been tested against double-decker Passats. I'd personally rather have a hydraulic-based sensor, but the big manufacturer of those for Mighty Dodges went out of business.....
 
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jyoung8607

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Personally, I'd dump that single-axis-accelerometer POS before ever hitching up another trailer! The Tekonsha P2 is a real tri-axis (read: self-leveling) brake controller, and performs much more consistently/repeatably doing silly things like stopping your trailer. What good are 8-color LCD backlights and readouts of battery voltage and the surface temperature on Mars when you run into a tree because the P3 thought that you were driving up a hill and decided to go light on the brakes?
More knobs more menus more better. It is known.

In all seriousness, it's never let me down. I have, shall we say, some formative kinetic experiences from my early youth that give me paranoia about stopping distance, particularly in inclement weather. When driving my Phaeton I will absolutely uncork it on lightly trafficked highways but I never, ever, ever tailgate. That goes double for trailering. And when trailering, the combination gets preflighted for fluids and pressures, a walkaround for lighting and signals, a manual blip or two of the EBC at slow speed to make sure it's operating, and I've worked out the ideal boost setting for each of the trailers I regularly use. I know when it's working and I know when it's not, and it works.

Do be aware, if you're not already, that the P3 can be installed at any reasonable pitch tilt but cannot be angled in yaw or roll, and like any inertial controller, should have a fixed mount and not move around after it's calibrated itself at startup. To give you an example: a couple months ago I swapped vehicles with our Scoutmaster; I borrowed his F150 to pull the above-pictured trailer to summer camp. That picture above was from my test pull around the block to see if I could do it, and the Atlas had a bad case of ass-on-the-ground-itis before we'd even loaded Scouts and personal gear. He had a Tekonsha Primus (another inertial controller) un-mounted, laying sideways in his ashtray. It was super useful. And by useful, I mean it did exactly bupkis without me manually actuating it when slowing down.

Jason
 
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vreihen

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Do be aware, if you're not already, that the P3 can be installed at any reasonable pitch tilt but cannot be angled in yaw or roll, and like any inertial controller, should have a fixed mount and not move around after it's calibrated itself at startup.

Believe me Jason, I had it mounted properly and well within specs per the manual.

Back in the olden days (get off my lawn!), I had a racing data acquisition system based on a bi-axis accelerometer. Because the designer cheaped out on the third axis, it was biased whenever operated away from true level (or what it was told was true level at the beginning of the run). The software had fudge factors to make the maps look straight to compensate for the bad/missing data, but even so it took 5 minutes to tweak a map from a 1-minute lap.

The logic in the single-axis P3 seems to be similar. I suspect that it picks g=0 the moment that the brake lights turn on, regardless of the tow vehicle's orientation or engine braking status. If you are doing 0.2g of engine braking on a downhill grade and press the stop pedal for another 0.2g, the tow vehicle is braking at 0.4g but the P3 is telling the trailer to brake at 0.2g because that's what it sees. On the other end of the spectrum, if you press the stop pedal at the crest of a downhill grade, it picks g=0 when the tow vehicle is level but over-brakes as the nose goes down the hill because it sees the orientation change as additional braking force so it brakes the trailer too hard.

What really pisses me off about the P3 is that they have the gall to charge $149 for the turd, and using a tri-axis accelerometer would only have raised the per-unit cost by a few bucks. Heck, many of the TOY quadcopter drones have better sensors than the P3, and this bad boy is $6.99 street price...on a breakout board:

https://www.amazon.com/MPU6050-Six-Axis-Gyro-Accelerometer-Breakout/dp/B01F9QKPSQ/

Anyway, I have given you a warning about this dangerous device so my conscience is clear. If you choose to run into a tree or rear-end a dump truck because the P3 was playing Hyde and not Jeckyl on your next emergency stop, that's your decision.....
 
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jyoung8607

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The logic in the single-axis P3 seems to be similar. I suspect that it picks g=0 the moment that the brake lights turn on, regardless of the tow vehicle's orientation or engine braking status. If you are doing 0.2g of engine braking on a downhill grade and press the stop pedal for another 0.2g, the tow vehicle is braking at 0.4g but the P3 is telling the trailer to brake at 0.2g because that's what it sees.
Uh... this seems like correct behavior. If I'm on a long downhill grade and I step down a gear or two to avoid smoking my brakes, that applies to all my brakes. And, I expect a light touch of the brakes to result in a light touch of the brakes all around. I do not expect a yank from the tail or other large sudden change in handling.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you press the stop pedal at the crest of a downhill grade, it picks g=0 when the tow vehicle is level but over-brakes as the nose goes down the hill because it sees the orientation change as additional braking force so it brakes the trailer too hard.
You may be right, I don't know, but I can't really picture in my mind how yaw and roll detection changes it either way.

Anyway, I have given you a warning about this dangerous device so my conscience is clear. If you choose to run into a tree or rear-end a dump truck because the P3 was playing Hyde and not Jeckyl on your next emergency stop, that's your decision.....
Well I do appreciate the advice, and I will keep an even closer eye on it. That said, if you genuinely find that your P3 is trying to kill you on a regular basis, then your experiences seem to be at odds with the rest of the Interwebs and perhaps your particular unit is defective.

Jason
 
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vreihen

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I know what the forum-think is about the P3. The same people probably voted for Trump :p and sent money to a Nigerian prince. As PT Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute.

With only one axis, the thing is nothing more than a solid state pendulum controller with a fancy LCD readout that contributes nada to the braking function.....
 
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Jack@European_Parts

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I can tell you what the Atlas uses the same crummy timing chain as in the early VR6 that stretches......... :popcorn:

Lets see what happens!
 
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jyoung8607

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Atlas crash testing. I've seen plenty of crash test videos but this is the first time I've really studied one in-depth for a car I actually own and drive.


It says something about the body strength that it's enough to shatter both the wheel and the brake rotor inside it before substantially yielding. In fact, I wonder if there's been some engineering done there to make sure the wheel and other components fail first in this scenario.

The thing I'm most curious about is that the battery has clearly been tampered with. The negative terminal is covered with tape. It's unclear to me that it was even hooked up to the car at time of death. I wonder what IIHS were up to there? I viewed a Mk7 GTI crash test for comparison, and it appears that all MQBs eject the battery in a severe crash for safety reasons. ;) It makes me wonder about timing of triggering airbags, if the airbag module has a capacitor to deal with loss of power.

 
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jyoung8607

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Replying to myself...

The thing I'm most curious about is that the battery has clearly been tampered with. The negative terminal is covered with tape. It's unclear to me that it was even hooked up to the car at time of death. I wonder what IIHS were up to there?
Turns out the test protocol calls for all vehicle fluids to be drained, including the battery electrolyte, and the car is powered from a separate custom onboard source for the duration of the test.
 
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PetrolDave

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It makes me wonder about timing of triggering airbags, if the airbag module has a capacitor to deal with loss of power.
All airbag modules have a capacitor so they can fire the airbags even if power is lost during the accident - this is why it is always advised to wait several minutes after disconnecting the battery before working on airbags, to allow time for the capacitors to discharge.
 
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Andy

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Hey Jason, have you tried tweaking remote windows in your Atlas? A customer emailed us a scan asking about it and I couldn't find anything definitive. I remember poking around in menus in the new Tiguan and saw Comfort Windows but I didn't even try it since I didn't want to mangle the Monroney sticker on a vehicle I wasn't buying. :)
 
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jyoung8607

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Hey Jason, have you tried tweaking remote windows in your Atlas? A customer emailed us a scan asking about it and I couldn't find anything definitive. I remember poking around in menus in the new Tiguan and saw Comfort Windows but I didn't even try it since I didn't want to mangle the Monroney sticker on a vehicle I wasn't buying. :)
Haven't thought about it to date. I just walked out with the key to test, and I have neither up nor down enabled from the factory. I should think it possible to enable somehow. I'll poke around later tonight and see what I can see.
 
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Andy

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Thanks, Jason. FYI, this is what I saw in the 2018 Tiguan:

dZ0JmXa.jpg
 
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