The "dreaded" Security Gateway.

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

In part of our latest communication I was telling Grant (at Gendan) about the possibility of us replacing my younger boy's Astra estate with a Tipo T-jet estate and my concerns about being able to use MES on it due to the security gateway being introduced on later vehicles.

I got a very interesting reply from him. He advised plugging MES in before buying if possible - I suppose that could be difficult - and run a scan where it should come up for Modules Present. He said he hasn't yet seen a security gate module on a prefacelift (up to 2018?) vehicle - we won't be buying a new one - but even if it does come up it's not a problem as he can supply me with a kit of SGW (Security Gateway) bypass leads which then allows "full diagnostics" to be performed! Good news indeed?

 

[AndyRKett]

Perfect time is now to do this, as with Covid, dealers are usually giving you the keys to what ever car you want to test drive then giving you an hour or two to do what you want, I’m not sure if the dealerships are open right now, but if not they soon will be so may just give you the keys and you can take the car and plug it in round the corner from the dealership

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Perfect time is now to do this, as with Covid, dealers are usually giving you the keys to what ever car you want to test drive then giving you an hour or two to do what you want, I’m not sure if the dealerships are open right now, but if not they soon will be so may just give you the keys and you can take the car and plug it in round the corner from the dealership

Just checked up on our local main dealer website and they seem to be open for service and MOT work. You can buy a car online (I'm not brave enough to do that) and choose delivery method. Don't think the showroom can be visited though. May be different with the small independent guys?

 

[s130]

Yes the SGW is a pain, a pain I have not yet personally experienced.

Yes bypass kits exist and I'm sure, unlike some, anything Gendan supplied will work. However a side effect of removing / bypassing the SGW used to be/possibly still is that the dealer WiTech 2 kit will no longer work. So if you have to have the dealer work on the car you have to remove the bypass.

The original bypass kits used to be just a small circuit board that plugged into the SGW socket after the SGW module was removed. However the SGW was buried deep behind the dash an I gather on some models is an absolute pig to get to.

I'm wondering if the Gendan kit has lots of long leads so the SGW socket can be repositioned to a more accessible location?

Another point to note about the SGW is the I suspect the RAC/AA/other large breakdown companies have kit that like the dealers will only work with SGW installed. A point to consider and why the SGW module should be repositioned to be accessible.

Lastly SGW will be going away. It is part of the industry's drive to go for a fully encrypted CANBus system. By that I mean all data streams between all vehicle nodes will be encrypted/decrypted at the nodes themselves. Game over for all of us!

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Thanks. Lots for me to look into there. All of which will only become urgent if/when we acquire the Tipo. It interests me though so I'll be asking Grant some questions about it and especially if their "gear" causes problems for "professionals". As you say it's probably going to "go away" in the quite near future and especially, I would imagine, when electric cars, with the interconnectivity that's being proposed, become peoples main choice.

A lot of my emotional attachment to motor vehicles involves doing "battle" with the internal combustion engine and, If my children haven't decided to ban me from driving by then, I don't think handing over an electric vehicle to the local garage is going to "hurt" so lack of access will be of no consequence.

 

[DaveMcT]

Is this partly why Tesla was allowed to remove OBD ports from their cars?. Their excuse was it's there for emissions testing (but we know it does much more) and they don't have any emissions. If everyone is moving to fully to encrypted systems they effectively become the same as Tesla - dealer only access.

 

[s130]

If everyone is moving to fully to encrypted systems they effectively become the same as Tesla - dealer only access.

Well I would actually say only the garages that have the relevant kit AND have paid for annual/monthly/one off access to the vehicle manufacturers technical systems/resources. NOT cheap. Could amount to £5000 per year depending on subscriptions taken. Fiat charge for Technical/Service Data, Parts Info Data, Engine/Systems code updates, etc. all as separate expensive subscriptions.

Expensive game!

 

[AndyRKett]

Just checked up on our local main dealer website and they seem to be open for service and MOT work. You can buy a car online (I'm not brave enough to do that) and choose delivery method. Don't think the showroom can be visited though. May be different with the small independent guys?

At this very moment I’m not sure what they are doing but in the next couple of months I’d expect test drives to start again as I said they are just letting people go off with the car for an hour or two so then you could try MES if you wanted

 

[chris3234]

Won't be long before other manufacturers follow Tesla lead and do away with a obd port and use there own custom port with all electric cars I bet

 

[s130]

Margins on new car sales are very slim so the after market servicing etc. is where manufacturers and dealers can make their real profit margins. Cutting the DIY, and shock/horror, the small independent operatives out of the food chain (legally of course ... cough ... cough) is how they will help keep their profit lines.

I guess us old farts who have maintained ours cars. rebuilt engines, etc. (for 48 years in my case) are going to have to bow out and open the cheque book. Doing this is not going to be my main issue. My issue will be the quality, respect, experience AND TRUST and sadly as far as main dealers go they are pretty much "nil point" operatives.

With the skill/trust stakes then it may be for some of us to just lease a set of wheels and not get emotionally involved compared to some other operative working on your pride an joy.

For many a car is a car, just a bunch of metal, extension of their macho ego, etc. but for some of us they are our pride and joys and also fond family members.

Interesting times ahead for all of us.

 

[AndyRKett]

Won't be long before other manufacturers follow Tesla lead and do away with a obd port and use there own custom port with all electric cars I bet

Doubt it, I’m sure that all other motor manufactures are sticking with what they already have.

To change that would be to re-tool entire factories

To be honest you don’t event need to plug a Tesla in, Tesla will phone you and tell you that there is a problem

My Golf sent a Notification to my phone the other night to tell me a head light bulb had blown, didn’t’t even know it could do that.

 

[DaveMcT]

My Golf sent a Notification to my phone the other night to tell me a head light bulb had blown, didn’t’t even know it could do that.

Just be glad it wasn't a blown LED headlight.

 

[AndyRKett]

Just be glad it wasn't a blown LED headlight.

The golf has trusty H7 halogens, our Mini Countryman has LED headlights, they are a matrix of many multiple ‘lights’ on a chip so I don’t think you’d really notice if they had blown till several of them had gone and you start to notice missing light patches. But yes they’re very expensive to replace if they are ever needed.

 

[DaveMcT]

I had H7 LED "bulbs" in the bike. They actually worked very well, using a pair of tiny emitters located where the halogen filament would be if a normal bulb was used. Dipped beam had to be adjusted down a little but there was no dazzle and dark roads were now great to drive on.

I tied H4 compatible LEDs in the Panda. Sadly a dead loss. The dipped cut off was overwhelmed and the tilt would no go low enough. Main beam however was stunningly good so I put some black tape on the lenses while I worked out if they could be used. Shortly after, the fan cooled LEDs overheated. So the halogens went back in and no more LED problems.

 

[AndyRKett]

VW has really rather clever carriers for the head light bulbs, they have the contacts built into the holder and you pop the bulb on the end of the holder insert the whole thing into the back of the light fitting and twist to lock it in place.

This means anything other than a normal headlight bulb basically wouldn’t fit, as many of the aftermarket LED bulbs have a large body on the back with a heat sink and cooling fan, also they have the connections to power on a fly lead, so if you used something like this in the golf then there would be no way of holding in the bulb.

It’s not your standard fold out of the way spring clip that most lights have. Not that I would put LED bulbs in the Halogen bulbs are actually very good, and technically speaking to put LED bulbs in would be illegal and I think is now an MOT fail

The Mini has Factory Fitted LED headlights So there is no conventional bulb you can replace, I think you have to take half the car apart to get them out

 

[DaveMcT]

Technically LEDs in halogen holders are an MoT fail. My tester checked the H7s cut off, looked at it down the street for potential dazzle and gave it a pass. He then asked where he could get some of the same bulbs. He said they were better than many super bright halogen bulbs. Unfortunately it seems that's an unusual situation. Most are like the H4s I tried. Useless and dazzling. Saying that, most newer cars with OEM LEDs are far too bright on dipped beam. They are almost as dazzling as main beams from 20 years ago.

 

[StevenRB45]

The Mini has Factory Fitted LED headlights So there is no conventional bulb you can replace, I think you have to take half the car apart to get them out

Wonder what they will do with the new style LED matrix lights. Rears you can have a certain percentage of leds off before it becomes a fail as long the original function of the system is not impaired. So must provide a tail light, brake light must be brighter than that but not everything has to work. DRLs need to function as part of mot but does all of it need to function for example?

Seen quite a few Audis and VWs where I assume someone has messed with VAG com or whatever it it is, turning the LED drls to orange for American style running lights which then flash. At one point used to see a few Golf's where the led indicator on the rear door would flash alternately with the one on the boot lid rather than a continuous strip. But I suspect that's an electrical fault rather than anything you'd do on purpose.

Technically LEDs in halogen holders are an MoT fail. My tester checked the H7s cut off, looked at it down the street for potential dazzle and gave it a pass. He then asked where he could get some of the same bulbs. He said they were better than many super bright halogen bulbs. Unfortunately it seems that's an unusual situation. Most are like the H4s I tried. Useless and dazzling. Saying that, most newer cars with OEM LEDs are far too bright on dipped beam. They are almost as dazzling as main beams from 20 years ago.

Their has been a communication recently where any led bulbs in halogen holders should be failed. Do rather hope it doesn't apply to sides as the standard w5w yellow bulbs in mine looked terrible and looked for ages to find a set of actually white leds.

 

[AndyRKett]

Wonder what they will do with the new style LED matrix lights. Rears you can have a certain percentage of leds off before it becomes a fail as long the original function of the system is not impaired. So must provide a tail light, brake light must be brighter than that but not everything has to work. DRLs need to function as part of mot but does all of it need to function for example?

I would Imagine there are multiple LEDS per chip or the whole matrix consists of many multiple LEDs on a single chip, and multiple lights for each individual light on the matrix so a certain amount of acceptable failure is built in. There may come a point where 10 year old BMWs are reaching a serious level of problems when the headlights are dying and it’s going to cost £500 for some after market headlight replacement. Who knows?

Obviously in some cases they are already moving on from LEDs to “Laser” lights which are as lasery as they sound, super bright with highly directed light that carries much further than most other lights

 

[DaveMcT]

The LED spots I put on the bike had a narrow pencil beam. I had them as dipped back up but actually got too much foreground light. It was like riding in a puddle of day light but looking into a black hole. I gave them a separate switch and found them very useful on dual carriageways as main beams. They gave a long range spots of light that could be aimed along my side of the road without dazzling incomers with scattered light. Perfect on right-hand curves, obviously no good on left handers (dazzle), but surprisingly ok on straights.

I'd have them on the Panda but there's nowhere useful to put them so they are now demoted to daylights in the fog light mounts.

 

[portland_bill]

The LED spots I put on the bike had a narrow pencil beam. I had them as dipped back up but actually got too much foreground light. It was like riding in a puddle of day light but looking into a black hole. I gave them a separate switch and found them very useful on dual carriageways as main beams. They gave a long range spots of light that could be aimed along my side of the road without dazzling incomers with scattered light. Perfect on right-hand curves, obviously no good on left handers (dazzle), but surprisingly ok on straights.

I'd have them on the Panda but there's nowhere useful to put them so they are now demoted to daylights in the fog light mounts.

A friend of mine used to do a lot of rallying years ago. Two large driving lamps on the front. The left was angled to the right, and the right lamp angled left. This ensured no black hole in the middle, and also gave some light around corners. Obviously main beam only.

On the subject of main beams, it amazes me that so many people I meet when driver training have no idea that headlamps have two settings. They think that 'main beam' and 'headlamps' are the same thing, main beam being an alternative to sidelights. No wonder they're all afraid to drive in the dark.