Cruising
Cruising
Intro
My first car, an Audi A4 1.8t SE B6, and a year spent living in the states had got me rather used to having cruise control. When trying to maintain speed on long drives with rolling hills or variable speed limits, make it almost invaluable and at a few quid short of £100 it seemed almost rude not to get cruise control for my T5.
Comatibility
To fit cruise control you need to get the correct kit for your year of van (T5 and T5.1 are slightly different), LH/RH drive and whether you have a MFD or not.
Other limitations are that you must have electric windows which means your J519 BCM Body control ECU will be of the correct spec. A quick check for this is to either check the part number is compatable (eg. my BCM '7H0 937 049 T' is compatible) or simply check the 'F plug' socket has pins in it.Finally it is rarely mentioned but you need to have a rear wiper and washer as most of the control modules are for vehicles with a rear wiper. If not you will run into problems. I will get into this more later.
You will require
Sockets for battery and tray.
Torx bits
Allen keys
3/8" flat blade Screwdriver
Electrical screwdrivers (you might need a tiny flat blade)
Cruise control kit
Electrical tape
electrical contact cleaner
cloth
tie wraps
When it comes to terminal removal (you will need to do this to take a tap off of the windscreen wiper plug) you will need the VAGS terminal tool mentioned above. I used two framing nails to extract my pins which was far from ideal and caused more damage to the plugs than I would have liked.
Retrofitting
I won't go into too much detail as anyone trying this will have some lovely instructions from VW. Should you get stuck you can check some of the very in depth forums or chuck a message up here if you draw a blank.
What I have done however is take some stage photographs that might be of more use should you struggle with the illustrations.
Now pretty well experienced in steering wheel removal, that was popped off with ease. Then the top of the steering column fairing unclips and the bottom comes off after removing three torx bits.
You can also see the earth stud on the left that can be removed for better access. I had no need to do this.
Loosen off this clamp using an allen key.
Then pull this tab on the plug all the way out till it stops. This will push the plug out of the stalk module freeing it from the loom so you can slide it off.
You can now unclip the airbag clock spring on both sides (two clips centre of image). There is a plug retaining clip on the right of the image (little square tab) which is uber tight and requires a little careful levering using a screwdriver. Then I slapped the clock spring on the new stalk module and put it to one side.
The wiring for the plug is held in place and protected by a cover. This is levered off using a screwdriver as shown. Take note of how it comes off and the wire routing for when you reassemble.
Next up the wires from the new loom need to go in. There is a tap off from the wiper plug on the BCM then feed the loom up to the steering column. Note the wires are numbered So there should be no ambiguity with the two black and yellow wires (not that it appears to matter).
The wires slide into the numbered socket holes with the key uppermost as can be seen on the right. The cables then need to be routed carefully and the plug reassembled.
I then plugged in the F plug on the BCM, routed the cable through the bulkhead and reassembled the console area.
The long black and yellow cable can then join the coolant sensor cable conduit as you can see on the left and work round the front of the van (You wont need to do this on LHD vans) which is nice and tidy.
With the battery and tray out of the way you will need to drill a hole in the E-box (I went for the front) and fit the grommet.
The illustration for this is terrible and leads you to think they mean the forward black plug, assuming a poor translation. This is not the case.
This is the upper black plug with the wire fitted incorrectly.
The symptom for this error is the cruise light will come on for a second then go out. VCDS will kick out an error code:
Implausible Message from Elect. Load Controller - Intermittent
This is the correct plug. As you can see it is right down the bottom of the plug tree and will require you to unclip the tree, shove things about and remove other plugs in order to gain access to it.
Here is a clearer image of the plug tree showing the black socket at the bottom.
Programming
That is basically it for fitting without telling you every detail.
I completed the programming using VCDS. this can be found under Engine then Coding II.
This isn't mentioned in the instructions as they expect you to use the factory VAGS computer. It is a simple case of entering the enabling code, turning the ignition off for 30 seconds then it will be enabled with a G suffix on one of the engine codes.
For many of you, you will now be set for cruising. Have a brew, pat yourself on the back. then plan your next trip.
Wiper problems
As soon as I had fitted the cruise control my windscreen washers packed in.
The symptom was always the same: The wipers would work but if I used the washer the fuse 10 (10Amp) on the main fuse box under the dashboard would blow. The wipers would continue to work for their three sweeps then would no longer be operative till the fuse was replaced.
Assuming I had done something wrong I checked everything I had disturbed and even fitted the original stalk module to make sure that wasn't U/S on fit.
At a bit of a loss I delved into the forums for answers and found this thread on the T5 forum which had a few people with similar symptoms but unsurprisingly no answers.
Having discounted the wiring and stalk module I was drawn to the less probable comment by Transporter Sport that the pump had failed. Now I don't believe in coincidences and having this number of people who all had their perfectly serviceable wiper pumps fail at the same moment seemed off but I had to concede that the signal getting to it might be different and as such this might have toasted the original pump.
A replacement pump was quickly found on eBay for a fiver with the plumbing for front and rear windscreen wash.I surmised that if it was a difference in signal that was causing my problem then the pump that matches the washer stalk would be my best option.
The water pump is at the bottom of the washer tank and can be accessed by removing the left wheel and displacing the wheel arch.
Removal is simple as the pump is clipped in place on its body grooves to the tank and a rubber grommet into the tank.
I unplugged the wire then unclipped the black hose clip freeing the hose.
I then covered the washer outlet with my thumb (water free flows from here) and tilted the pump away from the tank so it could be pulled free.
Then I had to plug the hole in the tank with my other hand before quickly fitting the new pump.
Alternatively you could drain the washer tank.
There are some modifications needed for the new pump
A bit of trial and error showed me that water will free flow from the rear washer port when the pump is not in use so you can't just leave it open.
I chose to bung the hole with a piece of carbon rod (can be picked up from a modeling shop) I had in the garage and then silica set it in place. This made for a water tight bung without the risk of say a screw corroding in the outlet.
Whatever you do bung it with just be careful not to ram it in too far as the outlet is deeper than the old single outlet pump and it could fall in or possible damage the pump.
Alternatively you could buy the hose for the rear wiper and as it is higher than the top of the tank aught not to leak unless you parked on a serious hill in which case just bung that instead.
In closing
Most of this won't be news to allot of you but the windscreen washer fix was surprisingly not overly talked about online and where it was there were no fixes for the problem.
Hopefully this will help others who get the same problem in the future and help more people enjoy cruising in their T5's.
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