Volkswagen Passat Convenience Menu
peregoy
Member Posts: 12
I purchased my 2007 VW Passat Wagon with the Luxury Package back in June 2007. At the time, it had a Convenience Menu that enabled owners to change, among other things, whether the doors should automatically unlock when the car is turned off.
When I brought my car in for service to figure out why I was getting 100 mpg+ readings on the real-time indicator, VW secretly fed new info to my car (and anyone else's since then) to remove the Convenience Menu that I purchased with my car 6 months earlier.
I did not realize this until I tried to get my local dealer to fix the problem this week. VW is telling them that they have removed the Convenience Menu and that there is nothing the dealer can do about it.
I am currently trying to get an explanation from the US corporate office for their removing the Convenience Menu.
I encourage every owner who originally had this feature and it is now missing to contact them as well. This is outrageous that they can diminish my new car purchase -- basically take back part of the car I bought a year ago -- without my knowledge.
Also, don't count on the real-time MPG indicator to ever work. Strangely, it did for about 2 months, then went haywire. They must have changed something else in one of their secret electronic updates that messed that one up.
VW, if you want more market share in the US, you've got to be more open about your product and not change it after someone has already bought it -- especially without even the courtesy of informing the owners that you have changed their cars behind their backs.
Be wary of those VW folks. Happy in commercials. Not so nice behind the scenes.
When I brought my car in for service to figure out why I was getting 100 mpg+ readings on the real-time indicator, VW secretly fed new info to my car (and anyone else's since then) to remove the Convenience Menu that I purchased with my car 6 months earlier.
I did not realize this until I tried to get my local dealer to fix the problem this week. VW is telling them that they have removed the Convenience Menu and that there is nothing the dealer can do about it.
I am currently trying to get an explanation from the US corporate office for their removing the Convenience Menu.
I encourage every owner who originally had this feature and it is now missing to contact them as well. This is outrageous that they can diminish my new car purchase -- basically take back part of the car I bought a year ago -- without my knowledge.
Also, don't count on the real-time MPG indicator to ever work. Strangely, it did for about 2 months, then went haywire. They must have changed something else in one of their secret electronic updates that messed that one up.
VW, if you want more market share in the US, you've got to be more open about your product and not change it after someone has already bought it -- especially without even the courtesy of informing the owners that you have changed their cars behind their backs.
Be wary of those VW folks. Happy in commercials. Not so nice behind the scenes.
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Comments
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As for the elimination of the convenience menu, I've heard of no such thing, nor is there any indication of such a practice on any of the VW Passat forums (VW Vortex, Passat World). FYI, I still have it on my 2008 Passat Lux SW. Would suggest that you try a different dealer to explain what happened.
The trip MPG does seem to work.
The Convenience Menu that existed on my car when I bought it in June '07 is being partially reallocated to different menus and some features are being eliminated. I had a technician bring me into the shop and show me all of the menu items he had available to him to reinstate. The Convenience Menu, as it originally was delivered, is no longer available to reinstate. All of this is controlled by VW from tech Corporate in Mich. I was able to get back the ability to have all of the doors unlock after I turn the car off, which was a feature on the Convenience Menu, but that had to be done by the tech and I can't change it unless I go back to them.
These changes are only noticeable if you go in and they do a diagnostic on your car that updates all of the settings. So, VW is removing the Convenience Menu during those updates, but has not bothered to tell any of it's customers (a letter would be nice explaining why they've done this) that this is happening.
So far, you're the only one who has suffered this change that I can find. There's some discussion on VW Vortex as to whether the Tiguan has a Convenience Menu, but orher than that there's no information regarding others who have had VW do this.
My understang of the VAG-Com programming process is that it's local rather than tied in to VW Corporate, though they may require certain ppgramming changes by the dealer.
I also can't find anything on eBahn, which has all the Technical Bulletins dealing with the Passat.
Have you talked to anyone at VW HQ about this, and have they admitted that they are doing this?