Control panel replacement? Following on from roof fault message, error code 1000, dealer now says control panel needs replacing. £1500 fitted!

[amdby]

Roof was removed by VW 5000 miles ago, for front corrosion issue, and has hardly been used since. Complained and now dealer says they'll pay for the part if I pay labour costs..£850 + vat. Is this fair?

 

[calikev]

Are you telling me vw want £850+vat to do 5 minutes work? Christ

 

[amdby]

They wanted nearly 500 just to remove the roof lining to access the panel. I feel ill!

 

[Ozzy Pete]

Roof was removed by VW 5000 miles ago, for front corrosion issue, and has hardly been used since. Complained and now dealer says they'll pay for the part if I pay labour costs..£850 + vat. Is this fair?

Where abouts was the corrosion for them to need to remove the roof.? When mine was done everything was done in situ.

 

[WelshGas]

They wanted nearly 500 just to remove the roof lining to access the panel. I feel ill!

Takes 10 minutes to remove the Control Panel on a T5/6. You don't need to remove roof lining.
They don't know what they are doing.

 

[The Merle]

They wanted nearly 500 just to remove the roof lining to access the panel. I feel ill!

What van have you got, as they normally just pop out on T6 or older

 

[amdby]

It's a 2012 t5. I think they've removed the roof lining to get the roof to open, and then decided that the problem lies with the control panel. You'd have thought that they would've checked that first, if it pops out easily.

 

[amdby]

Where abouts was the corrosion for them to need to remove the roof.? When mine was done everything was done in situ.

Corrosion was on the front, above windscreen. The van was sent away to a specialist body shop in Southport for 2 weeks. I didn't see the work done but I'm sure someone said that they'd taken the roof off.

 

[Lambeth Cali]

It takes five minutes but control panels are very expensive.

It sounds like the body shop damaged the control panel. I’m not sure your dealer has a clue what they’re doing. Just usual replace everything at your expense.

 

[Ozzy Pete]

Corrosion was on the front, above windscreen. The van was sent away to a specialist body shop in Southport for 2 weeks. I didn't see the work done but I'm sure someone said that they'd taken the roof off.

I think that’s different. The front panel originally was replaced with a complete new panel that went further back into the vehicle but that was quite some time ago as it was costing VW over £4000 for repairs. After that they just did a plastic overlay. As yours is recent I would imagine it’s had an overlay panel fitted.

 

[Nick.C]

We had the 1000 error code recently whilst doing the NC500. We hit a bump in the road and then everytime we slowed down to a stop and pulled away, we were getting the beeping noise that warns you to check various things before the roof is closed. The roof open symbol also started flashing on the control panel and we could neither open or close the roof.
We tried disconnecting the engine compartment battery and reconnecting but that didn’t clear the fault. Having read various threads I feared the worst - ram sensors would need replacing. For some unknown reason the roof did go up the following day and I found the roof bungee had got caught in the roof mechanism. Since then all seems to be ok .

 

[Lambeth Cali]

They wanted nearly 500 just to remove the roof lining to access the panel. I feel ill!

My drinking water pump once broke. Croydon SMG said they would need to take off exterior body panels and remove the water tank to replace the £18 pump. They quoted £1,500 all labour. I got another dealer to do it. They didn’t remove the tank but still charged £600 labour and failed to clip the pump in place so I had to do that myself the next day.

You have to be really careful choosing a dealer to do anything except a basic engine service. Some of them really have no clue at all.

 

[Lambeth Cali]

Roof was removed by VW 5000 miles ago, for front corrosion issue, and has hardly been used since. Complained and now dealer says they'll pay for the part if I pay labour costs..£850 + vat. Is this fair?

So what currently isn’t working?
The roof went up after the corrosion repair a few times but has now stopped? Won’t go up ever?
VW say new control panel is needed? Is that the current situation?
I think most here would suggest taking out the panel as in the video I posted and check everything is connected. I have done that and replaced it as the lcd screen had died. It isn’t too difficult. The best thing then would be to borrow another one and see if that works. That’s really what VW should be doing for one hours labour max but sadly I appreciate that’s not happening.
If the control panel is controlling everything else fine and not showing any errors I would doubt it’s the definite cause.
I don’t know what others think?
I would advise looking at the dozens of roof threads and see what sounds familiar.

I imported my control panel pre Brexit from Germany and I think it cost £500. I then fitted it myself. Took 5 minutes and then another 10 minutes to change language from German to English! But I wouldn’t buy one unless sure that’s the problem. The pump is the other likely cause. There are other threads about that.

 

[ArunAlec]

They wanted nearly 500 just to remove the roof lining to access the panel. I feel ill!

So what currently isn’t working?
The roof went up after the corrosion repair a few times but has now stopped? Won’t go up ever?
VW say new control panel is needed? Is that the current situation?
I think most here would suggest taking out the panel as in the video I posted and check everything is connected. I have done that and replaced it as the lcd screen had died. It isn’t too difficult. The best thing then would be to borrow another one and see if that works. That’s really what VW should be doing for one hours labour max but sadly I appreciate that’s not happening.
If the control panel is controlling everything else fine and not showing any errors I would doubt it’s the definite cause.
I don’t know what others think?
I would advise looking at the dozens of roof threads and see what sounds familiar.

I imported my control panel pre Brexit from Germany and I think it cost £500. I then fitted it myself. Took 5 minutes and then another 10 minutes to change language from German to English! But I wouldn’t buy one unless sure that’s the problem. The pump is the other likely cause. There are other threads about that.

Might be worth a call……

UK based repair service for VW California Control Panel Display

Hi everyone, We would like to introduce the services we offer for electronic repairs. Has your VW California Control Panel display got missing lines? We offer a repair service for these displays, with a 10% discount available VIP forum members! You can see an example of our repair below and...

vwcaliforniaclub.com

 

[amdby]

Thanks, I have gone ahead and told them to do the job, - I had no choice really- though I asked if i could have the old control panel back after the work is done...i just want to see what the issue was. Thanks for all your interest and input here.

 

[flying banana]

I would be removing the panel myself and making sure all the plugs are clipped in securely. Then reset the panel. You can pry it out with some plastic trim tools. Do not listen to these so called 'master techs' as alot of them are idiots. Do not let them remove your roof lining ,it will never go back the same and doesn't need to come off. What a bunch of tossers

 

[Kjetil]

Roof was removed by VW 5000 miles ago, for front corrosion issue, and has hardly been used since. Complained and now dealer says they'll pay for the part if I pay labour costs..£850 + vat. Is this fair?

I think the control panel itself costs about 850. But the work for an experienced, maybe 15 minutes.

 

[vbk1975]

Thanks, I have gone ahead and told them to do the job, - I had no choice really- though I asked if i could have the old control panel back after the work is done...i just want to see what the issue was. Thanks for all your interest and input here.

Did they say the Control Panel had to be replaced, rather than the Control ECU?

If the Roof Control ECU had to be changed then that would require the roof lining to come out, the roof sensors are connected to the Roof Control ECU and not directly to the Control Panel. The Control Panel reports the Codes from Roof Control ECU.

Because the Roof Control ECU is added on as part of the California there is no way of read error codes from it other than via the Panel.


Pic from eBay as reference.

The reason for asking is, If it is this, then there are lots of sources for this part both new and 2nd hand at very very reasonable money. I bought one from Kernow for £25, when i was playing with the idea of using the BMW sensors.