# Possible to Retrofit Lane Keep Assist



## firstorbit84 (Feb 25, 2006)

Tl;Dr: Is it possible on a 2019 SEL?

Argh. Well, I just helped my father with the purchase of a 2019 Tiguan SEL. We were looking at the 2020 SEL, but this 2019 was certified and only had 3,800 miles, plus a longer warranty period and in-service date of Jan 2020. So it seemed like a much better deal. One big draw of the Tiguan was the lane keep assist. A salesman at another dealer had said the only difference between the '19 and '20 was the wireless charging in the console. So, we believed him and didn't even drive the '19 :facepalm: . Not until we got it home and were going over the features did we realize it didn't have the lane keep assist and rain sensing wipers, which was another feature now standard on the '20 SEL. Side note: the first dealer he checked out said the digital cockpit wasn't available on the '19s. So moral of the story is to not trust salespeople to know their products and do your own research. 

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## TablaRasa (May 12, 2008)

firstorbit84 said:


> So moral of the story is to not trust salespeople to know their products and do your own research.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


Yup, I never do as most of the time, I know more about the car than them. Which is kinda sad as a product you are trying to sell, you should know inside and out. Order guides are usually a good start to see the differences between trims. As far as the retrofit, it might be possible but it's not as easy as 1-2-3. Camera definitely needs to be changed for one. 

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## firstorbit84 (Feb 25, 2006)

TablaRasa said:


> Yup, I never do as most of the time, I know more about the car than them. Which is kinda sad as a product you are trying to sell, you should know inside and out. Order guides are usually a good start to see the differences between trims. As far as the retrofit, it might be possible but it's not as easy as 1-2-3. Camera definitely needs to be changed for one.


Yeah, I typically know more about the cars than the salespeople too, which is why my dad came to me for help with this purchase. I feel like such an idiot for believing them at face value, especially after the first guy was wrong about the digital gauges on the 19s. His last car was a 13 Passat TDI SEL and this Tiguan doesn't even have a lot of features of his Passat like auto wipers and a power passenger seat, or even a locking glove box, seriously Volkswagen? 

In the owner's manual it seems like the lane keep assist uses the front and rear cameras. There is no front camera now, but the manual shows that it would go in the bumper grille area. 

Another thing we totally missed was that real leather was actually available on the SEL premium. We literally didn't see any at any of the dealers. 

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## OEMplusCC (Jan 27, 2013)

Yep, always do your own research. I am sure you will not miss it next time 

Anyway, yes lane keep feature can be retrofitted but its very expensive even if you know your way around VW retrofits.

High level overview:
- You will need to replace the whole windshield for the one that can hold the lane keep camera. I dont have the prices but that's probably around $600-700 with labor?
- You can find used camera on ebay and purchase wiring. Rough estimate $250 but you can get lucky and buy cheaper. A brand new one is even more and you will need more special tools (VCP System) to load datasets to it. Its cheaper and easier to go with used. You will also need to trim that goes around the camera
- Assuming you have access to tool like VCDS. And you will need wiring diagrams $35 to know where to run the wires
- Lastly, you will need to take it to the VW dealer or some specialty shop which can calibrate the system with a ODIS or a similar tool. I don't know how much dealer charges for this calibration but my estimate is $300+. Also you need to find a dealer who wants to calibrate a "retrofitted" system.


The camera up front in the lower grill is for the 360 camera view system. This is a completely different system, not part of the lane keep system. 360 camera system gives you a birds eye view of your vehicle.


Maybe little good news is that you can retrofit auto sensing wipers for cheap and its pretty easy to do. Here is the whole thread about it 
https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?9074841-Automatic-Wipers-Retrofit-Success


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## Reihenmotor5 (Dec 1, 2006)

Lane keep assist calibration on a replaced windshield ran around $600 when I went through the experience. Again closer to $1100 when rear alignment went out, I got them down to $578. If you retrofit be prepared for a costly calibration. Again as mentioned finding a dealer that would be willing to calibrate if you attempt the retrofit yourself. 

I don’t know but maybe just trading it back in to get what you truly want, granted you won’t find power passenger seat on any trim. 


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## firstorbit84 (Feb 25, 2006)

OEMplusCC said:


> Yep, always do your own research. I am sure you will not miss it next time
> 
> Anyway, yes lane keep feature can be retrofitted but its very expensive even if you know your way around VW retrofits.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info and good/bad news. Here's an interesting thing I found while searching this issue:
https://media.vw.com/en-us/press-kits/2019-tiguan-press-kit
"Lane Keeping System (Lane Assist) is standard on SEL and SEL Premium models." No wonder their salespeople have no clue when the corporate press releases are inaccurate. :screwy:



Reihenmotor5 said:


> Lane keep assist calibration on a replaced windshield ran around $600 when I went through the experience. Again closer to $1100 when rear alignment went out, I got them down to $578. If you retrofit be prepared for a costly calibration. Again as mentioned finding a dealer that would be willing to calibrate if you attempt the retrofit yourself.
> 
> I don’t know but maybe just trading it back in to get what you truly want, granted you won’t find power passenger seat on any trim.


Ugh. That sucks to hear. I don't think he'll try to change up the car at this point because it would involve even more sunk costs like dealer fees and taxes, etc. Plus the additional cost of a 2020 or SEL Premium over the '19 SEL.


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## Remzac (Nov 25, 2007)

I have a stupid question : why would you need the lane keeping? My neighbor has a dash cam that dings when he is not 100% in his lane. Damn annoying. It's of no use to me. But a dash cam might be a cheap solution.


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## firstorbit84 (Feb 25, 2006)

Remzac said:


> I have a stupid question : why would you need the lane keeping? My neighbor has a dash cam that dings when he is not 100% in his lane. Damn annoying. It's of no use to me. But a dash cam might be a cheap solution.


My father wanted lane keeping because he's 75 years old and when the car is paid off he'll be 80. It helped with drifting out of the lane by actually nudging the steering wheel back into the lane. 

Plus it seems like if you have the lane assist system then you can recode to activate Active Lane Guidance, which will actually steer for you on the highway, i.e. self-driving.

I'm pretty encouraged by this website and this thread, but I doubt my dad will want to do that much work to a basically new car: 

http://mqb.pl/montaz-kamery-lane-assist-sign-assist-light-assist-5q0980653/

https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/inde...st-camera-without-changing-windshield.358776/

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## OEMplusCC (Jan 27, 2013)

If it wasnt for the new windshield this would not be that hard or expensive retrofit. I personally would not try to hack an existing windshield to work with the camera as suggested by those threads.


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## firstorbit84 (Feb 25, 2006)

It seems like it's possible without the windshield. It's just a more custom procedure. I'm sure I could get it to work, but just not sure if it's worth the effort. 

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## Remzac (Nov 25, 2007)

Pretty good. Thanks for the explanation.
Sales people will say anything to get the sale. Pretty sad these days.
All the Volkswagen dealerships in Canada seem to be run by multi dealership conglomerates now. Sales people have a high turnover. Definitely important for one to do research prior to the purchase.
Sorry to hear about your experience.
Almost worth going back to the dealership and have a calm conversation with the sales manager or the dealership manager. Get one with the options


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## firstorbit84 (Feb 25, 2006)

Remzac said:


> Almost worth going back to the dealership and have a calm conversation with the sales manager or the dealership manager. Get one with the options


Yeah we thought about that, but we've also already put in a lot of time going around to different dealers and completing the sale and paperwork. It's exhausting and not something we could afford to continue time-wise. Plus the '20s had the lane assist but they still didn't have leather which was another big want on his list. You'd need to get the SEL premium 4motion R line to get leather in a 2020, which was a lot more. 

Overall he still got a pretty good deal and is satisfied with the purchase: $27.7k for a Certified '19 SEL 4motion Cardinal Red on black, with only 4k miles. It still has 63 months of original warranty and 12 months of certified warranty on top, so 75 total months of warranty, which is better than a new car. 

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## Remzac (Nov 25, 2007)

Sounds like a lengthy process. Whew!
Hope everything works out.


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## pillpusher84 (Apr 30, 2015)

*Rain Sensing Wiper Retrofit*

I added this to my 2020 SE Tiguan ... it was simply replacing the rain sensor from one from Audi and no coding was required. I think it was like $30 ... very cheap mod.

There is a thread dedicated to this on vortex that you can search for that includes the part # and all the details for install.


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## lschw1 (Apr 21, 2003)

Celebrate! Those are horrible unnecessary features that will cost you a bundle when they break. I have been driving VWs since 1972 and won't consider VWs with those features. But then I always get manual transmissions so it is only natural I want to control when the wipers are going.


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## lschw1 (Apr 21, 2003)

firstorbit84 said:


> Another thing we totally missed was that real leather was actually available on the SEL premium. We literally didn't see any at any of the dealers.


I prefer cloth seats and have always had them for decades. But we got the black vinyl seats in our 2009 Jetta Sportwagen TDI and initially regretted not ordering leather - until we owned it. We lived in the very hot South and it was much cooler than leather. We moved to the cold mountains and it was much warmer than leather. Its softer and doesn't stain. When we did the buyback with 140k miles the seats were still like new. So of course we got the vinyl seats when we got our Golf Sportwagen and Alltrack.


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## TablaRasa (May 12, 2008)

lschw1 said:


> So of course we got the vinyl seats when we got our Golf Sportwagen and Alltrack.


I didn't think the Alltrack nor the Sportwagen had available leather as an option anyways. So you really had no choice but to get the leatherette at least for Alltrack. The Sportwagen did have Cloth for the lower trims but had the leatherette for SE and SEL. 

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