The truth about the radio "reflash"

O.K. here's the deal with "reflash". I contacted VW like the previous post stated to do. I recieved a call the next day. The rep. I spoke with said they knew all the about the "soft clipping" and it would be no problem to get it fixed. I set up an appointment with my dealer, called VW back to let them the date and time. later in the day that I dropped off the car at the dealer, the dealer called me and told me that if they did this reflash that it would void the warranty for the stereo because they would be altering it from stock.
I called VW back to see if this was true. Guess what?? It's not. All the "reflash" does is rise the limits of the "Soft Clipping" feature, and lower the bass level output to save the speakers from being damaged. The "Soft Clipping" feature is not "tured off" it can't be. If the dealer is telling you it was "tured off" their using a poor choice of words, because they assume your too dumb to understand anything technical.Since only the limits are being altered, and nothing is being removed, the warranty is still valid. When I called VW and asked them about the warranty, they said they had never heard of that, and my rep. personnaly called my dealer to set the record straight. When I picked my car that day, the dealer told me I was the first "reflash" they did. No one had ever complained about it. So I guess it was another case where we know more about the car the dealer. Thanks to VW for their excellent customer care!!!

VW customer care SUCKD for me. They asked me why i was contacting them and not my dealer and they didnt know what soft cliping was.

many have posted that after reflash their radio sounded better. isn't that the point??

This is not needed for the navi units right?

It's doesn't surprise me that the soft clipping limit is on raised and not turned off completely. The radio firmware probably doesn't allow for it to be turned off.

It's the same with speed limiters. The limiter on my old Holden SS Commodore was at 210km/h, and when it was edited, they simply move the limiter up to around 450km/h or some speed you'll never reach, because it can't actually be turned off. They'll still tell you they've removed the limiter (which they've essentially done because you'll never reach the speed they've set it at).

I'm guessing the same theory applies to the stereo...

Kirium said:

It's doesn't surprise me that the soft clipping limit is on raised and not turned off completely. The radio firmware probably doesn't allow for it to be turned off.

It's the same with speed limiters. The limiter on my old Holden SS Commodore was at 210km/h, and when it was edited, they simply move the limiter up to around 450km/h or some speed you'll never reach, because it can't actually be turned off. They'll still tell you they've removed the limiter (which they've essentially done because you'll never reach the speed they've set it at).

I'm guessing the same theory applies to the stereo...

Click to expand...

ooh holden commodore...sweet car, if GM would sell their aussie cars in the US, they wouldnt be on the brink of bankruptcy :wink:

We tried... I didn't think the GTO sold very well...

They sell the SS Commodore in the middle east as the Chev Lumina.. I think it sells pretty well.. I remember driving around in one last time I was in Dubai. There's a few crazy Arabs over there that figure 5.7L Gen III isn't enough and whack 2 turbos on them. Like the bloke who stuck the McMerc SLR engine in his SLK...

Ford Australia sell a family sedan here with a turbo inline 6. I remember seeing a review of it by C&D or R&T, saying they wish they sold them in the U.S.

yea...i hoped that the GTO would be successful here, it was one of the only GM cars other than the vette that i liked. we actually had a variant of the commodore over here for a while, it was called a cadilliac catera...again, it was very slow and sucked. nothing like a commodore, just loosely based on the opel omega, which is loosely based on the old commodore.

I guess we're stuck?