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Eos 2012 convertible, need a 1, got a 0

226 Views 6 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  Rebbish
Hi- I drive a mk4 Jetta but am trying to help out a friend. He did a bone head thing to his daughter’s car involving a unique method of “tricking” the top into a position to work on the tint removal. And by tricking I mean putting a plastic bottle in the direct path of convertible top to stop it so it would be accessible. I already covered the bone head part, but I’m still wanting to help him. He tells me he saw on YouTube you can step the convertible open/close cycle with a scanner and I said ok, yeah no problem. But my ethos (snap on) scanner didn’t show that option, at least I didn’t see it. So I took my Ross tech (laptop) over, which I only used for pulling codes on my Jetta, before that I thought I better do some reading up on this car since it was more complicated than I expected. Now that I’m looking into it, I want to figure this out and love the complexity of its motion. So from reading some of the older threads I checked out an excellent link that was 32 pages of great information from volkspage.net. So it sounds like there are a number of reasons that the system didn’t like that plastic bottle including the actuation control probably timed out. What to do then? I’m wondering if it is at all possible with either the ethos scanner(upgrade?) or vcds to step it through the cycle? I looked into Delphi but ouchy is what my pocket saw. I did see that the 00 associated with G560 and G561 (rear window frame) should be 11 in the closed position and it is in the closed position.
Her car: 1100001001100 on the measuring block 002.
Reference: 1111011001100 in closed position.
If it is physically for sure in the right position, what would make it 0, no voltage, no reading or both? (Is it an option to change to 0 to 1? )Also, if the boot doesn’t open, how do you even get to the pump etc?
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Wrong sensor voltage can be caused by a wiring fault between the sensor and the roof controller.
if the boot doesn’t open, how do you even get to the pump etc?
With difficulty and a lot of patience, search here for answers and go fishing through the drop down ski panel.

This isn't the simple type of fault to learn on this car. Stepping through the cycle you refer to is for trained V.W engineers and if you aren't one, there is a 90% chance you will destroy an EOS roof. It's something I need to take up with Ross-Tech, although I understand they 'Replicate' what the V.W proprietary diagnostics does (badly).

Here's how you can destroy an EOS roof with vcds more than it already is:

The vcds step through option requires a service passcode to start it which Ross-Tech are helpful to provide. You also need the sequence codes and I'm not posting them here for nerds to destroy their EOS roof.

The engineer access can individually start and complete each of the sequences the roof takes to open and close IN ANY (OR WRONG!) ORDER. However, there is no sensor feedback to stop the roof action if something is wrong (which there always is) or you committed a sequence start when other roof parts were not in their correct position for that sequence stage to execute and end up with a crunched mess. This 'dangerous to life and car' engineering function starts a sequence which won't stop until its preset timer stops it (A long time!). There's no emergency sequence stop button once it starts and because the roof pump system is always on power, turning off the ignition won't stop it either.

For example: You roll back the sunroof to fully open Stage 1 but you didn't notice the rear windows were fully raised, or there's a mechanical jam fault You then tell the engineering funtion to commit stage 2 or 3 to lower the roof, THEN CRUNCH it hits the open rear window (or jam) and will continue crunching for a long time until the software times itself out.

With normal automatic system control using the roof switch, you can release the switch and the roof will stop and hold for a couple of minutes. This allows you to inch the roof cautiously in either direction and control when and where it stops. The engineering function is a one stop trigger and you can't stop it once it starts running on its own software timer. The roof pump has a hydraulic overload bypass but that's there to protect the pump and not stop it crunching into a jammed or obstructed roof.

Avoid using the vcds enginneering sequence function. If you are experienced and have no choice, fit a normally closed 80A power relay in series with the pump power feed to use as an emergency stop.
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That is good to know! I am not a VW engineer, I am in the process of getting my electrical engineering degree and would love to be someday, but I’m a long way from there. If this was my car, I might try this but since it doesn’t not go in order, yikes. The videos I saw aren’t using vcds. Anyhow I will keep sifting through the threads, but will likely just tell my friend to take it to the dealership. Thanks so much for the response.
Many videos are misleading and lack sufficient technical detail. The internet isn't the place to take risks and trust what you find. As an engineer in training you will appreciate the need for quality technical information from a trusted source. V.W spend a lot of money on training and any instructions you may be lucky to find or a shop manual is written for their trained people, missing out a lot of detail and steps DIYers want. I'm sure you will come across this - Guided Fault Finding using a pre-defined algorithm continually modified as new faults come along. Often it cannot be applied to complex fault scenarios, but is a forerunner to future AI.

Any videos you find usually show sequential operation on a good roof just to make a nice video and get views. They don't show you the does and dont's for the real world of application to fault finding. V.W and diagnostics providers offer cautionary weasel words for using the procedure. Basically, ensure the roof segment has no faults before activating it! A big cop out for a diagnostics assistance tool because you have to qualify the working roof segment before using it. That can only be done by inspection of parts (most are hidden) know what to look for, fit safety props and manually move heavy parts which is safest.

Good luck with a dealer. They should only let V.W EOS roof trained techs work on the car. IMHO The level of skill, knowledge and discipline needed for EOS roof work is about that of a trained aircraft engineer.
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That’s why I’m so intrigued with this car, it’s complexity. I usually learn things the hard way which I understand I can’t do on someone else’s car. For my Jetta I have the Bentley manual , it was priceless when I did my auto to manual swap because the video I followed wasn’t exactly the same. All sorts of diagrams, they were loose with the info back in the day! I scored a parts car for cheap, which is the way to go but not an option for this luxury car haha.
Bentley used to be sole publishers of a V.W EOS manual, but this was mostly a digital compilation of the V.W shop manual and certainly not at the Haynes DIY level. Now there are online manual sellers that sell the V.W manual as a pdf linked to your car VIN and about 6k pages. The EOS is for engineers prepared to learn and do their own work with garage space to do it in and without critical time demands on use. The EOS is an unusual eclectic mix of hydraulic, mechanical, electro-mechanical and computer control systems with some design shortcomings thrown in to challenge you. Replacing a Jetta sunroof glass is childs play compared to the EOS which needs half its roof torn down with tricky re-alignment procedures to follow.

It's way to complex, a 'fragile' roof, expensive to make, sell and repair which is probably why it was dropped in favour of simpler and cheaper rag top (Audi) models?
That is about the best way you could put that, and I must agree from what I have seen. I don’t see myself having to worry about it enough to get a manual for it, but maybe my friend will. That well might be dry by now though, especially after I tell him to have her take to the dealership. Also I would like to say working on it in my garage would be much better than their driveway. But the kid is a teenager and she can’t go that long without her car now…and I can’t be rushed!
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