S6 guys with VAG-Com

[mithril]

Can you do me a favour and look at the softcoding value for your headlights in Basic Settings under Block 55? Is it set to 00020 for "00020 = Audi A6 V8 (4B)"

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index...ight%29#Coding

[Sparkstack]

Hmm.

Mine is coded to 00050, which i guess it should be as the s6 is a facelift.

Coding

00001 = Audi A8 (4D - Facelift)
00005 = Skoda Superb (3U) FWD
00006 = Skoda Superb (3U) AWD
00007 = VW Passat (3B) FWD
00008 = VW Passat (3B) AWD
00020 = Audi A6 V8 (4B)
00030 = Audi A6 Allroad (4B)
00040 = Audi A6 FWD (4B - Facelift)
00050 = Audi A6 Quattro (4B - Facelift)
00060 = Audi A4 (8E)
00070 = Audi A4 Cabrio/Coupé (8E)


Basic settings 04 under module 55 is where you would go if you wanted to adjust the level. I think you might be getting confused about what the ross-tech page is saying.

[mithril]

Sorry, meant module 55. I think that may have been what mine were coded to originally before I changed it last year. I think AllRoad (00030) is what I set it at them to after trying V8 (00020) and thinking they were way too high. I just couldn't remember what the default setting was. Thanks for checking!

[A6Avant]

Geoff pm DCGH... He has it and im sure wouldnt mind looking it up for you

[02 A6 2.7T]

Can you do me a favour and look at the softcoding value for your headlights in Basic Settings under Block 55? Is it set to 00020 for "00020 = Audi A6 V8 (4B)"

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index...ight%29#Coding

My 2002 S6 is coded at 00050 ...

[rollerton]

My 2002 S6 is coded at 00050 ...

Same.

[mithril]

Hmm.... just clued into a serious disadvantage of my recoding the module to 00030 (ie allroad) to raise the level set point :(. It disables, or at least appears to, the dynamic self-levelling feature in the lights. Loaded up thr S6 with 4 adults + luggage for a trip to the interior and noticed the lights are way to high and there's no weight compensation. Couldn't figure it out until I realized that the air suspension in the AllRoad takes care of levelling out the car when weight is added to the back so the ECU is probably coded to not adjust as much or at all with the headlight motors.

Based on this my assumptions are:

00020 (v8) - higher set point due to the smaller DOT step
00030 (allroad) - middle set point due to the DOT step, self-levelling disabled for use with self-levelling air suspension
00050 (facelift quattro) - lower set point due to the higher ECE step in the facelift bi-xenon's

This is all guess work, but it seems logical to me and I will certainly need to recode and reaim the headlights when I get back home. I will probably recode to the V8 setting since of the facelift since I have swapped the stock E55 RS6 projectors w/ ECE cutoff for the EvoX-R E55 replicas which use the DOT cutoff instead. For the time being I have just manually lowered the lights to save other road users eyes.

[Sparkstack]

Call me old fashioned, but I'd set it to 50, then put the lights in adjust mode and then aim them as per specs...

[mithril]

I tried that, the vertical level adjustment screws max out at their highest point well before the lights are aimed to the correct height. That's not an uncommon issue, it's been discussed many times before, and it's why I changed the coding in the first place.

[mithril]

Just an info update more than anything else. I've temporarily recoded my lights to the V8 soft code of 00020. I have to pull the lights out and reopen them again to both add more butyl to the seals and tune the projector hotspot placement. Once the lights are reinstalled I'll need to re-aim for a final time and will experiment with both 00020 and 00050 once the lights are reinstalled for the final time and see if there's a difference in dynamic levelling behaviour.

The 00020 definitely has a higher default set point than 00050, probably because it didn't use the larger ECE step in the cut-off shield. What I don't know is whether that coding disables some of the auto-levelling during vehicle operation as I don't believe the pre-facelift xenon's auto-levelled beyond the initial start up test (could be mistaken about that). I can confirm that the AllRoad coding of 00030 does disable headlight adjustment used to compensate for passenger and trunk weight, makes sense since the air suspension does that automatically. Recording to 00020 or 00030 might be something that AllRoad guys who have swapped bags for coils should consider as it's definitely fixed the levelling issue I was experiencing.

Call me old fashioned, but I'd set it to 50, then put the lights in adjust mode and then aim them as per specs...

Man this delayed email notification issue Audizine's been having all month is getting really old, I just got the notification for this post of yours 5 min ago

[rollerton]

What I don't know is whether that coding disables some of the auto-levelling during vehicle operation as I don't believe the pre-facelift xenon's auto-levelled beyond the initial start up test (could be mistaken about that).

I'm not 100% positive, but I don't think there's any "dynamic" headlight movement in the C5 while the car is moving- I think it consists of plain "auto-level" when the car is turned on. I don't think the headlights change position after the initial check. The best evidence I have for this is parking in front of garage door with car running and lights on and slowly jacking up the rear end. Seems like this would tell the range module to adjust the headlights, but it doesn't. However, if you stop and cycle the key the headlight position would change a little via autolevel, but nothing happens.
Maybe somebody else knows for sure...?

[mithril]

There was a great long discussion about this on AudiWorld a while back where several members were bound and insistent that the lights dipped and moved in response to change in incline during operation. Personally I've never been able to replicate this motion, the only beam motion I ever see is consistent with suspension motion and a fixed lighting position when going over bumps and sips in the road. A self-levelling system such as the AW thread seemed to think exists on these cars tends to mute that motion so you don't notice the beam bouncing around, it's kind of the point. Either way I don't know what the end result of the AW discussion was as, for various reasons, the attitude of a couple of the core members on that site completely turned me off any active participation on AW at about the same time.

[Sparkstack]

There was a great long discussion about this on AudiWorld a while back where several members were bound and insistent that the lights dipped and moved in response to change in incline during operation.

Not wanting to start a new flame war, but this morning I had to leave especially early and had my headlights on. I could swear that when I went through the quite severe dip on my local road the headlights adjusted themselves. The car pitched down and up again but the beam pattern on the car in front stayed in the same location...

Never needed to do it so haven't looked, but I guess there is nothing that can be logged by vag com while driving?

[Castor Troy]

can you adjust them with the free vagcom?

*edit*nope

[mithril]

Not wanting to start a new flame war, but this morning I had to leave especially early and had my headlights on. I could swear that when I went through the quite severe dip on my local road the headlights adjusted themselves. The car pitched down and up again but the beam pattern on the car in front stayed in the same location...

Never needed to do it so haven't looked, but I guess there is nothing that can be logged by vag com while driving?

Mine used to jump and bounce when coded to the AllRoad setting, however they don't do it anymore on the V8/pre-facelift coding (compared to same dips taken at roughly same speed). I also never saw any sign of auto-levelling in motion on my 2000 4.2. That's largely why I'm interested in comparing the 00020 and 00050 settings directly. Mostly this is just curiosity at this stage.

[Scotty@Advanced]

I'm not 100% positive, but I don't think there's any "dynamic" headlight movement in the C5 while the car is moving- I think it consists of plain "auto-level" when the car is turned on. I don't think the headlights change position after the initial check. The best evidence I have for this is parking in front of garage door with car running and lights on and slowly jacking up the rear end. Seems like this would tell the range module to adjust the headlights, but it doesn't. However, if you stop and cycle the key the headlight position would change a little via autolevel, but nothing happens.
Maybe somebody else knows for sure...?

Nope they move while driving, Go over a speed bump fairly slow, you will see the light point up, then move down, then move back up when you clear the speed bump.

[rollerton]

Scotty's right! I was wrong...
I was out fooling around last night and....I was totally wrong. I observed 100% that the headlights DO dynamically adjust while in motion! Pretty cool when you notice it. It's not a very smooth adjustment. With lights on I pulled up towards a wall and the parking lot wasn't very level, slight uphill and not smooth- as I approached the wall I could see the headlight beam moving UP the wall and the correction would incrementally tilt the beam down in small steps.
I was just surprised...thought it was worth mentioning.

[mithril]

Ok, finally picked up my VAG-COM cable on the weekend and had some time to play around with this coding. The only difference (insofar as I can tell) between the 00020 and 00050 soft-coding for the Xenon Range Control module is the default set point height. Unlike the 00030 Allroad coding, the auto-levelling feature works identically between 00020 and 00030. I would still hazard a guess that the difference in set point height is related to the difference in cutoff step pattern (DOT for 00020 and ECE for 00030) however that's just speculation. I do know that on the facelift coding I do have to manually raise the lights much more in aiming, to the point that the correct set point on my drivers headlight is exact the upper limit of mechanical adjustment.