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To: State I/M Program Administrators June 30, 2010

Subject: OBD Communication Initialization


Overview:

Volkswagen has found that some inspection equipment (or handheld OBD scan tools) have
trouble establishing communication with a:

1999 MY VW Golf 1.9L TDI (diesel) 66kW;
2000 MY VW Jetta 1.8L Turbo (gasoline) 110kW; or
2001 MY VW Jetta 2.0L (gasoline) 85kW

and may not be able to establish communication at all with these vehicles or may only be able
to establish communication with the transmission control module (TCM) (for automatic
transmission equipped vehicles). If communication is established only with the TCM, only a
portion of the OBD information will be accessed and incorrect pass/fail decisions may be made.
There may be additional older models that are affected but as of this time, VW has not been
able to identify any other affected vehicle models.

Volkswagen has found that the ISO 9141-2 communication protocol implementation by
Volkswagen, while within the specifications, may be the root cause as scan tool or equipment
manufacturers may not have anticipated such an implementation. Attached to this letter is a
document defining how Volkswagen implemented the initialization sequence on the affected
vehicles and how equipment should be configured / designed to ensure successful
communication with these vehicles.

Information for I/M Program Administrators:

If a State is seeing a high rate of communication problems with these affected vehicles, it is
likely that their inspection equipment might not tolerate the implementation of the ISO 9141-2
initialization sequence used by Volkswagen. The State should consult with their equipment
vendors and the attached reference document to determine if the equipment can easily be
changed to work correctly with these vehicles. The Issue Description below provides a short
description of the technical background underlying this communication incompatibility.

Further, as these vehicles are compliant with the ISO 9141-2 specifications, there is no fix or
change that can be made for the vehicle to make it communicate differently.

Communication with only the TCM may occur for vehicles equipped with automatic
transmissions. Indications that communication was only established with the TCM include:

The only readiness monitor supported on the vehicle is comprehensive components;
The only module address/ECU ID that was noted during the test was $1A; or
The PID count of the ECU (number of mode $01 PIDs supported) is reported as 5.

Regardless of whether no communication with any module is occurring or communication with
only the TCM is being established, the incompatibility likely is due to the issue described below
and a change to the equipment initialization procedures will be needed to get complete OBD
information from the vehicle and make accurate pass/fail decisions.

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Backup for I/M equipment supplier

Issue Description:

The ISO 9141-2 communication protocol requires a 5 baud (slow initialization) sequence to be
sent from the tool to the car and then for the car to validate the sequence and send a response
to the tool to confirm the protocol. Volkswagens implementation is such that the engine control
module (ECM) waits for the entire 5 baud sequence to be received before attempting to validate
it. As a result, the ECM is not able to receive any different initialization pattern for approximately
2.6 seconds
1
after the indication of the beginning of any initialization pattern.

The issue can arise when inspection equipment does not account for this amount of time
between initialization attempts of ISO 9141 and/or ISO 14230-4 (KWP) fast initialization (e.g., if
an unsuccessful KWP initialization attempt is followed less than 2.6 seconds later by an ISO
9141 initialization attempt). The ECM cannot separate the two and will not recognize the 5 baud
pattern as valid. Inspection equipment needs to wait for a full 2.6 seconds after attempting a
KWP fast initialization before it sends an ISO 9141-2 slow initialization request in order for the
ECM to properly receive the 5 baud sequence.

Further details are provided in the attachment K-Line Communication Description and should
be used by equipment manufacturers to understand and address this issue.


1
2.6 seconds are composed of 2 sec for Lhe 3-baud address byLe, 0.3 sec Lo allow Lhe LCu for evaluaLlon of Lhe
address byLe and 0.3 sec ldle Llme before nexL lnlLlallzaLlon aLLempL as requlred by lSC 9141-2.