I have, in my possession, OEM LED taillights

VeeDubTDI said:

Norm, does "55" enable your single-side standing lights? (flip your turn signal switch to the left or right position with the car off and check to see if the parking lights on that side are on)

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No. Didn't light up. I can try code 53 as is had similar voltages to the circuits as 55 and see if the behavior changes. This coding is VW465, so I think that would depend if the original car (EOS) variant had it as well. Are there any sequencing things to try other than turn car off and flip turn signal stalk?

EDIT 7/4/13: - Byte 18=53 results in same behavior, no parking lights on one side.

No sequencing things. Just have the key off with one of the turn signal positions activated. It should also give you a lights on chime when the door is open with this function activated.

Norm, did you try the coding 96-99 (decimal)?

-J

compu_85 said:

Norm, did you try the coding 96-99 (decimal)?

-J

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For 96-99 dec or the hex equivalent of 60-63, I only tried 61, which gave me a drl BO error. Voltages were also 12V on each circuit (new one and the one to pin 1 on each LED), so I didn't try any others in that group. 96-99 hex was promising, but kept getting DRL and side light errors, while the LED DRL's were on. Once I got into this, I concentrated on looking for combinations that gave zero VDC on the new brake circuit with light on to prevent lighting the center bullets, while providing 3 VDC or less to the drive lights. That ended up being a very few hex codes that ended up working OK, since it started altering the front light wiring circuits as well, and I wasn't about to get into that (not yet at least). I think I may go back and try some of the VW465 variants that I didn't directly try to see if there are better combos there. Doesn't help that the EOS schematics I got reference a different BCM with entirely different pinning.

We really need to get our hands on the Chinese NMS wiring diagrams!!!

I was tired of only having the fog lights as DRLs and really missed having my LED DRLs on since coding Byte 18 to 53 or 55. It appears that there are very few Byte 18 codings that provides the proper voltages to the rear LED's - LED center bullets with 0 VDC except when braking. So I started to experiment with some old codes that I tried before and went up as far as I could.

Found a new site, sent by a fellow TDIer. Check it out: http://www.partsbase.org

It is self explanatory, and cross references any part with all other variants in the world. It is not only VW, but many others. I looked up my BCM, and then found that it is also installed in Tiguans and CC's. My CC schematic had a different BCM, so that was a non-starter. I had a Tiggy schematic, and got interested that it had DRL's on pins 52a-7 & 8. Looked at mine and there was no pins in these locations. So that got me to start coding again.

97 - was promising, had the rear LED bullets lighting only on brake, the rest was dim, but the LED DRLs were not working. When I first tried this combo, I noted that the DRLs were working. Bummed.

I tried everything sequentially up from 97 to 9F, A0 (stock) to AF, B0 to BF, CO - C7, D0, E0, F0 and quit.

From C0 up, all lights are on. I mean all - brake, amber turn, reverse, front lights, etc, on at once, no control with switch or brake lights. Looks as if anything above C0 is not programmed.

Promising was B0, but requires swapping some wires at BCM, similar to the Golfs. This gave the LF DRL and LR reverse light on as DRL's. Driving lights was all rear LEDs (incl bullets) on dim, brakes was full 12 V and bright. Reverse only gave the RR reverse lamp, so this could be cross wired to the LR reverse (for 2 reverse lights) after making the existing LR reverse wire the rear fog lamp. The current configuration (with rear fog relay) resulted in a bulb out warning (for no rear fog connected to BCM), when triggering the rear fog input to the BCM. The current LR reverse BCM wire (at 52a/28) needs to be removed and taped off. The RF DRL (at 52c/47) needs to be moved to this location. The rear fog is then connected to 52c/47. One could use the LR reverse wire for the rear fog, but since I already have a new wire run, it would be easier for me to relocate it from the relay I installed and activate the rear fog through the BCM.

So I wasn't into swapping wires today, and looking over my previous notes on byte 18 changes, I coded Byte 18 to 7E. This gave me back the LED DRLs. The amber turns all work. Both reverse work. The only thing is that the eyebrows, ring and bullets are lit as the driving lights (dim at 3.3 VDC). Brake is bright (12 VDC) on all three circuits - eyebrow, ring and bullet. I will ponder this a bit more, as a fix for the bullet off except for braking will also apply to B0 coding for Byte 18. Sorry no new pics today on this.

You are doing an amazing job! I take my hat off and salute you. I am following your progress very closely and I thank you for doing so. If you are ever to come in my neck of the woods, drinks and foods on me

Any updates?

vitaliy said:

Any updates?

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Updates? the last post of 7/21 was the last done. I am planning on doing the BCM wire swapping so I can run B0 coding and have the rear fog controlled directly from the BCM vs. a relay. Just haven't gotten to it yet.

Parking Side Lights - sort of...

Not one to be merely satisifed with status quo, I continue to read other threads and experiment with my bcm. Was reading in a GTI/Golf thread about Byte 11, and if you manually code bit 0, you can get your DRLs on whether the parking brake is on or off. That works. Another little nicety that I discovered was with Byte 11, bit 1. Long coding this bit on, activated park lights, except it was a little weird. If I put the turn signal stalk to a right turn, the right front led drl and angel eye came on at half power, and the left rear tail lights came on, dimmer than normal driving lights. The opposite was true for the turn stalk on left turn, front was OK, and the right rear came on. Got a warning chime when opening the door too. Even more impressive, is that no matter how I coded Byte 11, bit 1, I always have the park light function enabled, even if recoding Byte 11 to 00. So I apparently toggled something in the BCM, and I can't put the genie back in the bottle. No matter, I looked at the wiring, and only need to relocate 4 wires, 2 I added as part of the rear LED tail light install and 2 next to each other to swap the left and right rear lights to coincide with the front lights (which respond correctly). I pulled the right rear body lamp connector to see what bulb out warnings I got. Nothing for the LED's, only the blinker and reverse gave warnings. I am running 7E coding on Byte 18 now, and plan to move to B0 next weekend in order to keep LED DRLs, and run the rear fog from the BCM. Need to move a few wires for that one too, so wll move all at the same time and that should sort out the park lights once and for all.

Very interesting findings, Norm! You're definitely deep into it.

So do you have your interior half disassembled while you're doing all of this testing?

VeeDubTDI said:

Very interesting findings, Norm! You're definitely deep into it.

So do you have your interior half disassembled while you're doing all of this testing?

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It was a couple of weeks ago for the rear LEDs and rear AC vents, along with a couple other mods. All back together now. For now.
Planning another wire swap feat at the BCM and lock in the B0 coding as well as get the rear park lights sorted.

Next little project is to add the oil sensor in the oil pan when I do my 20K oil change. Not that I intend to use the flexible service interval, but another sensor to measure oil temp is good.

I think the oil sensor is on our list, as well. Looking forward to reading about your install.

vw_norm said:

It was a couple of weeks ago for the rear LEDs and rear AC vents, along with a couple other mods. All back together now. For now.
Planning another wire swap feat at the BCM and lock in the B0 coding as well as get the rear park lights sorted.
Next little project is to add the oil sensor in the oil pan when I do my 20K oil change. Not that I intend to use the flexible service interval, but another sensor to measure oil temp is good.

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Hey norm,

Just wanted to let you know we are still waiting for the oil sensor. It appears to be on back order.

I will try calling Vw tomorrow to see if they have an update.

Thanks for the update Robert. I'm timing this for the oil change in 1,500 miles give or take...or about a month on the calendar.

That shouldn't be an issue. I will keep you abreast of any changes.

Do any of these mods give a bulb out warning on the dash?
I'm considering this LED tail lights, but don't want to deal with bulb out issues.

viperman3 said:

Do any of these mods give a bulb out warning on the dash?
I'm considering this LED tail lights, but don't want to deal with bulb out issues.

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All said and done - no, I have no BOWs. But that is not to say that I didn't get any while working through the wiring changes and other alterations performed. As stated in your other post on this topic, these are not plug and play, but it is possible to use all the capabilities inherent to these LED tail lights, not employ resistors and don't worry about BOW's nagging you. But it will take coding, wiring, harness building and your time. I have amber rear turns, rear fog (soon to be controlled from BCM rather than the current relay) and the satisfaction of doing it myself, while learning a whole lot of how my car BCM functions.

Norm I would love to check them out! I am visiting your lovely state in the near future. I may want to pursue this extreme task.

OK. Here is the schematic I created to document the wiring changes to install the Chinese LED tails.

You can download a readable, clear and printable PDF here: http://ppl.ug/ljP3YXqs0G8/. The original is in visio, and that is located here: http://ppl.ug/i7BAkyAnDWU/

I rewired the BCM like the Golf, moving the right LED DRL wire, disconnecting the left rear reverse lamp and connecting the Rear Fog directly to the BCM. Also had to run new wires for the brake light circuit, as the OEM brake light circuit became the Amber Turns, surprisingly. But no matter the coding, the amber turns are fairly ubiquitous throughout the differnet ROW Byte 18 configurations, except for NAR. Jumpered the right rear reverse lamp circuit to the left side in the trunk lid. It seems that Byte 18 ROW coding works best as they provide for rear fog functionality. 53 and 55 worked the best, but no LED DRL's. I am currently set up on Byte 18=B0. Found it through sheer brute force, trying one byte code after another, well over 120 different codings. I have no clue as to how long it took, but considering it was over a month and a half of weekends of nothing but working on the car, it was a hefty time investment, plus money too. There are other threads by fixmy59bug and compu_85 that discuss the harness creation and parts necessary to do this retrofit, I'm not going to repeat it here. Note that this makes use of NO resistors to alter lamp behavior, just a couple diodes. Don't like to use them as they get too hot for my likes. I have started to go back through early attempts to see the behavior change now that the wiring changes at the BCM have been done. There may be something even better. I do seem to get a BOW for the rear fog when starting the car during daylight and the DRLs come on first. If it is darker, with the lighting is on, sometimes I get it, other times not. Either way, the BOW clears and stays clear if I turn on the rear fog for 15 seconds or so, and it sees that there really is something there.

Great work Norm!

This still makes me scratch my head a bit though... I don't think the Chinese cars are set up that way; I wonder how they are hooked up on those cars.

-J

compu_85 said:

Great work Norm!

This still makes me scratch my head a bit though... I don't think the Chinese cars are set up that way; I wonder how they are hooked up on those cars.

-J

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I agree with you 100%. I am tempted to plunk down another $35 and see what I can find on Erwin. But I wonder if I can since access seems to be geographically restricted. But this is the result of the brute force method - keep trying and eventually something will pop out that works. I'm not throwing in the towel, I still want to try some of the other ROW codings that I initially passed by, as the rewiring at the BCM opens up other potential candidates. With a 53 or 55 coding, this setup, without the BCM changes for the RF DRL and LR reverse, will give you the bullets off except when braking, albeit without LED DRL's and need to use a fog relay. But I wanted those LED DRL's shining.

Jason is of the opinion that the LEDs aren't actually DRLs in the Chinese market, and that they're just running lights. Haven't been able to confirm this with an actual Chinese car though. I'm sure he can elaborate on this theory a bit more, but that could explain why the coding that makes the tail lights work correctly won't do DRLs.

VeeDubTDI said:

Jason is of the opinion that the LEDs aren't actually DRLs in the Chinese market, and that they're just running lights. Haven't been able to confirm this with an actual Chinese car though.

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I watched several videos of Chinese cars driving around. The LEDs are not lit with the headlights off. Additionally, when I connected my set up to 12V they lit at parklight light brightness.

Check out this video:

http://youtu.be/3ghrGf8wtwE

Part of the time he's driving with no lights on, part of the time he's driving with just the parking lights.

-J

I just tried turning on Byte 11 Bit 1 on our car and it didn't seem to change anything. I am using Byte 18 coding A0 which I believe is the factory USA lighting code.

-J

compu_85 said:

I watched several videos of Chinese cars driving around. The LEDs are not lit with the headlights off. Additionally, when I connected my set up to 12V they lit at parklight light brightness.

Check out this video:

http://youtu.be/3ghrGf8wtwE

Part of the time he's driving with no lights on, part of the time he's driving with just the parking lights.

Looks like his light switch is straight up too - Auto lights? I need to go and replay some of the other Bte 18 codes.


-J

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97 does this for me, as well as rear fog OK (rewired BCM) and the DRL/angel eye as driving lights. No DRL's and bullets coming on as brake lights.
Did you see those seats? - all leather, rear AC controls and a 220V outlet!

compu_85 said:

I just tried turning on Byte 11 Bit 1 on our car and it didn't seem to change anything. I am using Byte 18 coding A0 which I believe is the factory USA lighting code.
-J

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This gave me park lights, but opposite corners, nor could I turn off the function once activated. Doesn't matter the state of bit 1. The front followed the turn signal, but the rears were opposite. Also with B0, and in reverse, the reverse lights turn off if the trunk lid opens. I confirm A0 as OEM. I put this back in, the lights mimic OEM behavior (before BCM rewire).

So with coding at A0 do you get the directional parking lights?

When I tried the Chinese coding (97?) it enabled the directional parking lights, and IIRC they worked properly. Of course that feature went away when I coded back to A0.

-J

compu_85 said:

So with coding at A0 do you get the directional parking lights?

When I tried the Chinese coding (97?) it enabled the directional parking lights, and IIRC they worked properly. Of course that feature went away when I coded back to A0.

-J

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directional parking lights? not sure what you mean.
If you're referring to when the car is off, with the directional stalk to the right (up), I have the RF DRL LED and angel eye on at half power, and the RR tails on dimmer than the driving lights. The opposite is true for the stalk in the left turn position, LF DRL LED and angel eye on dim and RR tails dim.
If you're referring to when the car is on, I have amber directionals on all 4 corners and side mirror LEDs. This is the only time the front amber turn signals are on.

Yes, I'm talking about ignition off, headlight switch off, turn signal stalk turned.

compu_85 said:

Yes, I'm talking about ignition off, headlight switch off, turn signal stalk turned.

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never tried it with A0, yet....., but before I did any change to Byte 11, I did not have any park lights at all with the car off.