Hey ladies and gents,
I'm curious about if anyone has had experience with installing and using tech from FL car into PFL. There was a blue PFL RS3 for sale in UK a while ago that had FL taillights, virtual cockpit and full FL MMI system. Seen few videos of cars in eastern Europe with the same features but can't really find anyone that would do this kind of retro-fit job, so no one can actually quote a price either.
Would you do this to your PFL?
Have any of you have come across anything like this or know of a place that could do the job?
Thanks
1) facelift tail lights are plug and play with some special audimant adapters. £500-600 all in used, of which you’d get the majority of back when you come to sell up.
2) mmi MIB2 is easy to do. You just need to find an unlocked/hacked unit. VAGTEC UK installed mine. This included an mmi glovebox unit, new usb’s, new USB loom, new mmi controller, arm rest cubby hole insert where the usb’s Sit, MIB2 Bang and olufsen amp, and a new base for the amp to sit in. Cost me about £1400 to do this all in. I’d assume I’d get most of this back upon sale time. The hacked units can be used in any car so have resale value.
3) virtual cockpit can be done, but on the rs3 the engine and ecu completely changed from prefl to facelift. The virtual cockpit comes with firmware which recognises this, and doesn’t fully recognise the prefl ecu/engine and thus you get a drivetrain error on the dash. On the fl cars, there is a safety function built into the engine/ecu to stop you revving it above 4k while the engine is cold. The prefl doesn’t have this, and the virtual cluster cannot be programmed to tell it its paired with a prefl ecu/engine, thus you get a drivetrain error. This only happens when you’ve got the ignition on and no engine running. For me, this is a massive issue when it comes to resale. If I went to view a car with a drivetrain error on it, I’d walk away. I can’t imagine you would be able to tell someone “oh it’s because I’ve retrofit virtual dash”. That certainly wouldn’t fool me even if you weren’t lying and id still walk away. You may ask: why couldn’t I swap my old cluster back upon resale? Well, when you put virtual dash in, you either a) trim the dash board so it fits in the old dash. Or b) change the dashboard to a VC dash. If you cut the dash, there’s no way to fit your old cluster back in without changing the dash to a non-cut dash. If you change the dash and then change it back to fit your prefl cluster back in upon sale time to get rid of said drivetrain error, you’ve got 2 issues. Your mileage on the old cluster would be out by however many miles you had the VC installed for, and there’s no way to correct the mileage on a cluster with over 100km on it, so you’d need to buy a brand new prefl cluster and fit that. Your virtual dash would also be unable to have the mileage corrected, so you’d have a hard time selling that unit used too. The issues outlined above are not an issue on the s3 or other engines, as there is no generational change between engine/ecu hardware, so on the s3 incense you fit the dash you can just leave it installed.
Long story short, on the rs3, don’t do the virtual dash unless you can guarantee you’re selling to a friend upon sale time and they know what the drivetrain error is about!!
