UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hello,

I have a 2016 1.0 TSI R-Line. For some reason I don’t have an ESP button on ny dash panel. I can enable/disable ESP in the head unit settings but that is not very convenient.

I live in Finland and have a steep driveway which is covered in snow half the year. It gets very tiresome to dig into the menu settings every time I need to power up the driveway or pull away from a slippery kerb.

I’m guessing the wiring is there behind the blank panel if I buy a switch? Is it possible to configure with VCDS (I have).

Thanks for any advice you could give.

Steve

I’m interested on how you get on with this as removing the ESP switch, for anyone that might need to disable it, must be one of the dumbest improvements that VW have made!

Is not the switch deletion a response to changes in the law that prohibit disabling ESP?

It maybe both daft and disadvantageous but perhaps VAG had no choice.

Oh!

Edit:- I do know that once I got to trust the ESP in my wife's old 2002 Polo, it worked quite well, as long as you remained alert to the fact that it switched off frequently to in theory let the brakes cool back down, then switched back on again which could catch you off guard if you had feathered the throttle a bit and the engine stalled when the ESP was switched back on. Other than that, attempting to get up slippery hills in winter worked out okay as long as you held the throttle position constant and let the ESP do its thing.

RUM4MO wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 8:07 pm Oh!

Edit:- I do know that once I got to trust the ESP in my wife's old 2002 Polo, it worked quite well, as long as you remained alert to the fact that it switched off frequently to in theory let the brakes cool back down, then switched back on again which could catch you off guard if you had feathered the throttle a bit and the engine stalled when the ESP was switched back on. Other than that, attempting to get up slippery hills in winter worked out okay as long as you held the throttle position constant and let the ESP do its thing.

I do think there is a slight difference in the amount of snow and slippery patches you and the OP are talking about haha

In UK we have snow and the wrong sort of snow which only falls on railway property.

PoloBlueGT wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 8:53 pm I do think there is a slight difference in the amount of snow and slippery patches you and the OP are talking about haha

Unfortunately not some times, where I stay has been called "Ice Station Zebra" a few times by the local press, we are roughly 185 meters above sea level and makes quite a bit of difference. (I have just checked that, I thought that we were only about 100 meters above sea level!)

Also, when the temperature drops really low, even in UK, grip returns so less need for ESP etc - that is where other colder countries have an advantage over UK and especially Northern UK as even up here local government and councils do not deleiberately spend lots of money "just in case it snows or gets very cold" - they just hope every one gets on with it themselves.

In Finland, ESP works really well on the road. It allows you to power through snowy corners. The car will drift out half a meter from its normal line but will then hold this line. During sharp turns it will snatch the inside rear wheel to bring the front round thus killing any understeer.

With long inclines it will ‘pulse’ the power to pull you up the hill. Unfortunately you lose speed like this and the car will end up bogged down halfway up the hill. So for hills it is best to switch ESP off and hit the hill at speed with both wheels pulling.

I will buy an ESP switch and see if I find any wires behind there.

Yes, this is where I find that ESP fails me too in winter, unfortunately, the road up to our house and a few others, is a "B" road so it does not get ploughed and gritted as much or if at all than the main roads, which is normal, just with local government cash spend restrictions, these roads can get ignored until an accident has happened!
Anyway, this is a hilly road with 3 or 4 Z bends, and the first section through the 2 bends has walls on both sides and zero ability to see if anyone is already stuck on that hill or is sliding down out of control - so having ESP doing what it wants to do to stop the front brakes potentially overheating, is very annoying and alarming as you are effectively in a "toboggan run" with no chance of escape and accidentally feathered the throttle as the ESP is limiting it and has control of it, then ESP thinks its time to let the brakes cool down - and you get handed back throttle control but with you having feathered it it is game over and the car stalls! Obviously Michelin Alpins are on the car at this point, on all 4 wheels which lessens the need for ESP, but as conditions change you are never too sure what you will find going round the first bend so ESP remains switched on.

Same issue here!

If you find a solution to retrofit a button let me know

I stripped down my center dashboard and unfortunately there was no spare connector where I could hook up an esp button.

There was exactly enough connectors for the options I have, non spare at all. Impressive and disappointing at the same time

Sorry to revive a >1 year old thread, but did you ever manage to get this done?

I am contemplating a headunit change in a 2017 Cross Polo (6C) 1.2 TSI 6spd manual with Composition Colour currently installed. Replacing the headunit means I lose 1) ESP toggle, 2) TPMS set, and 3) instrument cluster lighting control. So before going further I'd like to find out if I could move these back to the "analogue" world.

The Polo GTI of the same model year I recall had the ESP button installed. I also think that the toggle signal is to the ABS unit.

The 6C is a "Mk7 inside" so I was wondering if the procedure is similar to the following:
https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/index.ph ... lf.320066/

Nowadays retrofitting stuff usually involves a part hardware and a part coding.
For the 6c, tpms and esp buttons are available and the wiring is known. Then there is also the matter of finding the correct coding of your abs module. I'm not familiar with the brightness control for the instrument cluster

Thank you.
Just can't seem to find details of that wiring, but I'll keep looking.

If the vehicle already had the ESP and TPMS setting features in the media headunit would that still require additional ABS coding changes to work with the switch inputs? I do not wish to enable extra ESP features, simply allow switch controlled toggle.

I think you need to tell the ESP unit that the signals will come from the button instead of from the CAN network. But this is an educated guess, I'm not 100% sure.