eugene89us
Veteran Member
Good morning, everyone. As a few remaining members continue to enjoy their TDIs, they are, unfortunately, starting to age. And the age shows in failures of random components. As you have seen, I recently posted about replacing oil cooler due to coolant leak and we come across everyone's constant plight with degrading coolant and clogging of heater cores. However, thankfully, those parts are ample and there are plenty guides about that on the web. I often worry about turbocharger shortages, hopefully turbo will continue to work on the Passat, sad to see cars sitting on lots and waiting or parts for years.
Unfortunately, a new breakdown for me was RNS510. Not the best system, slow and laggy since new. However, so far has been virtually trouble free since I bought the car in 2014. For a few months, the Fender splash screen has been showing in two parts. Imagine cutting the splash screen horizontally in the middle and moving top part to the right a few pixels and the bottom part to the left. That means the VW logo no longer matched up. Well, no big deal, I thought, likely some type of glitch, it is a 7-year-old car after all. By this time, technology is outdated -- it frankly already was back in 2014. Anyways, didn't give it much thought, RNS510 started quickly and worked well. Who cares about the splash screen? Well....
A few days ago, I get greeted with this message:
Tried to restart/reset the unit, and it kept on going to the same screen. So I think it is part of the same pattern - likely corruption in the firmware. Started with splash screen and now will not start at all. Well, thankfully, I know this unit came with firmware 4369 from factory (i.e. SSD version) and with LokiWolf's help back in 2015, I was able to upgrade it to 5378 (recent at that time). It seems that all units that came with SSD and at least v4369 can upgrade to the newest 5382 and everything in between. I never needed that, since car was working well on 5378.
What saddened me the most is that LokiWolf's thread (sticky) was locked to new posts, and the user himself moved on from TDIs. It is sad to see power users leave this community, that were helpful to us in the past. I reached out to another user, who had 5382 available (purchased it himself back in 2019, I believe, from eBay), but unfortunately for a price for me to have a copy. I think the more rare these cars get, the more of this will happen, as people try to make money and return their expenses and make money in the process. Given our RNS510 are US-version, ample firmware repositories online are meant for EU version of RNS510. Please avoid the temptation of flashing with non-US firmware version, it may brick the unit! USA firmware is impossible to find, except on eBay or from sellers like these on the forums - all for some price betweeb $10 and $20. I am not missing the money I spent on v5382, because flashing RNS510 did the trick and the unit is working again! Yay! I was ready to sell it for parts and get a Chinese replacement, but thankfully this fixed the issue. I also talked to LokiWolf outside of this forum and he was able to share my original v5378 with me again. I wish I saved it from the beginning.
So to make long story short, if you run into this problem like I did or if your unit starts reboot loops, refreshing firmware should do the trick. All you do, is burn ISO to a DVD, have about 20 minutes of time for the update, and you should be up and running. I have saved both .iso files for versions 5378 and 5382 on my PC. Older came from a friend, newer I paid for. I am running the one I paid for, since it is newer and supposedly more stable. But, I did not design the software and I do not feel it is fair to charge people for it. And I don't feel I have to return my money, since I benefitted from it personally by fixing the unit. So in my moral view, I was helped by nice members in the past without requirement for payment, and I would like to do the same. If anyone needs either of these versions, post to this thread. We can figure out how to get you the software for free. And like LokiWolf, if you decide to send me beer money, by all means, but it is not necessary. LOL. We just need to figure out where to upload it, so you can download it on your end. It is about 600Mb.
Hope this helps someone. I am not usually on these forums as much as I am on BimmerPost. If you reach out here and do not hear from me for a few days, message me on BimmerPost instead. TDI is in the family, but it is not my car anymore, so I tend to give more attention to my BMW instead. I just repair the TDI when it breaks. Haha. Best of luck to you all, let's keep helping each other!
Unfortunately, a new breakdown for me was RNS510. Not the best system, slow and laggy since new. However, so far has been virtually trouble free since I bought the car in 2014. For a few months, the Fender splash screen has been showing in two parts. Imagine cutting the splash screen horizontally in the middle and moving top part to the right a few pixels and the bottom part to the left. That means the VW logo no longer matched up. Well, no big deal, I thought, likely some type of glitch, it is a 7-year-old car after all. By this time, technology is outdated -- it frankly already was back in 2014. Anyways, didn't give it much thought, RNS510 started quickly and worked well. Who cares about the splash screen? Well....
A few days ago, I get greeted with this message:
Tried to restart/reset the unit, and it kept on going to the same screen. So I think it is part of the same pattern - likely corruption in the firmware. Started with splash screen and now will not start at all. Well, thankfully, I know this unit came with firmware 4369 from factory (i.e. SSD version) and with LokiWolf's help back in 2015, I was able to upgrade it to 5378 (recent at that time). It seems that all units that came with SSD and at least v4369 can upgrade to the newest 5382 and everything in between. I never needed that, since car was working well on 5378.
What saddened me the most is that LokiWolf's thread (sticky) was locked to new posts, and the user himself moved on from TDIs. It is sad to see power users leave this community, that were helpful to us in the past. I reached out to another user, who had 5382 available (purchased it himself back in 2019, I believe, from eBay), but unfortunately for a price for me to have a copy. I think the more rare these cars get, the more of this will happen, as people try to make money and return their expenses and make money in the process. Given our RNS510 are US-version, ample firmware repositories online are meant for EU version of RNS510. Please avoid the temptation of flashing with non-US firmware version, it may brick the unit! USA firmware is impossible to find, except on eBay or from sellers like these on the forums - all for some price betweeb $10 and $20. I am not missing the money I spent on v5382, because flashing RNS510 did the trick and the unit is working again! Yay! I was ready to sell it for parts and get a Chinese replacement, but thankfully this fixed the issue. I also talked to LokiWolf outside of this forum and he was able to share my original v5378 with me again. I wish I saved it from the beginning.
So to make long story short, if you run into this problem like I did or if your unit starts reboot loops, refreshing firmware should do the trick. All you do, is burn ISO to a DVD, have about 20 minutes of time for the update, and you should be up and running. I have saved both .iso files for versions 5378 and 5382 on my PC. Older came from a friend, newer I paid for. I am running the one I paid for, since it is newer and supposedly more stable. But, I did not design the software and I do not feel it is fair to charge people for it. And I don't feel I have to return my money, since I benefitted from it personally by fixing the unit. So in my moral view, I was helped by nice members in the past without requirement for payment, and I would like to do the same. If anyone needs either of these versions, post to this thread. We can figure out how to get you the software for free. And like LokiWolf, if you decide to send me beer money, by all means, but it is not necessary. LOL. We just need to figure out where to upload it, so you can download it on your end. It is about 600Mb.
Hope this helps someone. I am not usually on these forums as much as I am on BimmerPost. If you reach out here and do not hear from me for a few days, message me on BimmerPost instead. TDI is in the family, but it is not my car anymore, so I tend to give more attention to my BMW instead. I just repair the TDI when it breaks. Haha. Best of luck to you all, let's keep helping each other!
