New ECU and immo off on Passat B7 2011 - How to use the VCDS cable to change VIN

Hello everyone,

I'm new to ross-tech forum and I salute you all . I've recently purchased the VCDS cable (3 VINs) and I want to start to fix the car myself.

My car is VW Passat 2.0 Bluemotion 2011 estate.

Recently I had an issue with the ECU and it couldn't be recovered - completely dead. I've changed it with a similar one from a damaged car. The guy who help me took the immo off and so the car is working again.

Now my question is how should I use the new cable to register the VIN? The new ECU has a different VIN number than my car. Do i need to register the donor car VIN number and then change it with my car's one in the ECU? This way I will use 2 out of my 3 available VINs. Is it possible to recover one of the VINs ?

Thank you,

Alex

You can't change the VIN in the ECU on a car this new with VCDS. Adapting the ECU on that car is done via a challenge/response mechanism. The challenge issued by the car changes every time the ignition is cycled, and the means to calculate the required response from the challenge only exists on VW's corporate server, so even a dealer can't do this without a connection to VW's server.

As for for the VIN limit in your interface: The only way to "register" a VIN in the interface is if VCDS asks you to do so. There's no manual way to do it. If you've already registered the VIN from your old ECU, then chances are that at some point, VCDS is going to insist that you register the new one too, because it thinks you're working on a different car.

-Uwe-

Thank you so much for your explanation. It sounds complicated but logic in the same time.

I didn't register the old ECU so I'm going to do it on the new one.

And because the dealer will not change the VIN (or anything else) on an old ECU it means that I will not bother with this problem. I've been asked to pay aprox. £2000 to change ECU with a new one and configure it with the rest of the car systems. It's almost half of the car's value .

One problem solved (almost).

Shitty dealer. Go to another one.

Immo-off solution on thrse cars is bad-bad solution on these cars.

I have online access to VW and done many ecu swaps.

Tell your insurance you have an immobiliser defeat, see what they say. It's a legal requirement for a UK vehicle to be fitted with an immobiliser, and removal won't be looked upon very favourably by your insurers.

golfi_vend said:

Shitty dealer. Go to another one.

Immo-off solution on thrse cars is bad-bad solution on these cars.

I have online access to VW and done many ecu swaps.

Click to expand...

Is it possible to swap the ECU without access to the old one? If yes how?

I'm happy to pay for another second hand ECU and have it properly configured with the real VIN etc. but not at the price of a new one or dealer.

AlexLupu said:

Is it possible to swap the ECU without access to the old one? If yes how?

I'm happy to pay for another second hand ECU and have it properly configured with the real VIN etc. but not at the price of a new one or dealer.

Click to expand...

Dealer or 3rd-party(like me) needs to use proper test plan insert to have ECU swapped. This transfers the coding and injector IMA-values. If old ECU is not available program requests coding from VW-server where it is calculated based on PR-codes car was ordered(or later retrofitted by SVM means), then You need to insert IMA values directly from injectors. Thirdly, immobiliser is then matched(or was it the first thing).

Please be noted that these B7 ECU-s don't have the P/N written on the ECU anymore. All ECU-s have the same p/n, main difference comes when you look at VAG nr row in VCDS. From there You can read the needed P/N and check if it matches the original.
Or You can check the VIN of the car where ECU came and see if it matches Yours.

How much would cost such a procedure? I'm very interested to do it just to have all the car parts working properly without dashboard lights on all the time.

Hello, do you have any idea what type of ecu is in the car ? Probably edc17, but edc17 is available in many different types. Adapting second hand ecu should be possible online with odis tool, but needs to be 100% same partnumber, if index is different, it's rejected (is my experience)

As writen by golfi_vend , on newer cars, parnumber needs to be checked by vcds, number on ecu case is not reliable.

Best regards

John

AlexLupu said:

How much would cost such a procedure? I'm very interested to do it just to have all the car parts working properly without dashboard lights on all the time.

Click to expand...

Depends on Dealer. I don't know how much they charge in UK. Here it is from 50 to 100 Euros depending on location of ECU.