Standard Air-Con to Climate Control

[AntneeUK]

Can't see whether this has ever been covered before or not... I have just received a new Climatronic unit for my LCR (well, I say new, one from a broken Leon) which I'll fit to my car soon because the screen is loosing LCD sections.

Firstly, I'm assuming they're a straight swap? IE I just remove the old one and put the new one in and away we go?

Secondly, the wife has a standard air-con system and I was wondering whether it's a case of fitting the old Climatronic and a new console bezel, or is there more to it? Even with the screen dying a death, it would still be better than the standard dial controls that she has now which is almost impossible to maintain a temperature and you can't get the blowers to work in the same combinations that Climatronic allows.

So, does anyone know what is involved?

Cheers all

 

[vwbassett]

im sure they are made up of different sensors etc and therefore not a straight swap. i hate the climatronic id honestly prefer the dials rather than clicking a million times to increase the fan speed and then theres a lot less to go wrong.

 

[AntneeUK]

Yeah, I thought they might have different components beyond the controls, but it was worth asking

Can't say that I've ever had to increase the fan speed personally; I just set the temperature that I want and leave it on Auto. OK, so we didn't exactly have the hottest of summers, but it's dealt with everything that has been asked of it this year; keeps me warm when it's cold and cool when it's hot. No complaints here!

I also like the Window Clear option, the extra diagnostics that it displays and the fact that I can have feet, body and window blowers all on at the same time. Can't do that with the dials

 

[Viking]

Big job to retrofit the climate control unit. You need servo motors to move all the flaps to the relevant positions, you need all the relevant temperature sensors (both internal and external), and you need the wiring harness to connect the whole lot together, then you'll need VCDS to code the unit to work.

It has been done, but the bloke who did it found a donor car in a scrap yard and stripped everything off that. To do it with dealer cost parts would be up past hundreds and into the thousand quid area.

 

[AntneeUK]

Meh, leave it then, never mind.

Talking about coding things to work; do I need to do anything with the new Climatronic unit when I put it in to my car, or is it a straight swap? If it's a lot of messing around I'd be inclined to see about just switching the screen over.

Cheers

 

[Viking]

If it's the same unit then it should be a straight swap. I'm not certain though, never got into swapping the unit myself though I toyed with going the opposite way to you as the manual controls are much easier to use.

 

[AntneeUK]

Maybe it's the nerd in me that likes the Climatronic then I would NEVER go back the other way.

Thanks for the tip anyway, I'll see how it goes. Got to get my Torx kit back from work before I can do anything. Who thought it was a good idea to use them? D'oh!