VGS4-NAG2 MERCEDES TRANSMISSION CONTROL UNIT, A DEEPER LOOK AND A BIT OF HISTORY.

Exploration continues. If you are a Mercedes tuner or a workshop which needs to replace 7G- tronic of the FBS4 generation, you must read on.

I.    Introduction
Every time we start conversations about transmissions, I am always drawn towards the ZF 8HP and I tend to forget that before ZF were making the 8HP Mercedes themselves honed the craft of 7 speed transmissions. Although at first glance I may strike you as a BMW or Subaru guy (I’ve owned 6 or 7 of each) deep down I am a true Mercedes diehard. 


Here is a photo of my deeply missed E55 AMG of the W210 generation parked outside Abrites on a warm summer day way back when…

II.    History

While on the subject of pre-merger AMGs I think we can safely start our journey into the world of Mercedes automatic transmissions. We need to start with the 722.6, which has the commercial name of 5G- Tronic. The 722.6 is well documented, it has long proven itself to be the hardest of hardcore transmissions – used in a variety of Mercedes vehicles from 1996 until 2014 when it was the only transmission available to take on the monumental torque of the Mercedes M275 V12 bi-turbo beast of an engine. This is an obvious testament to the transmission’s longevity. The modes included in the later 5G Tronic were upgraded to have AMG speedshift adding to the Winter, Comfort, and “Sport” mode (notice the quotes). AMG speed shift was perhaps the best mapping option for torquier engines and was used (in two sub variants) in the DTM CLK 55 AMG (respectively the Black series on a third map) and the McLaren Mercedes SLR. Basically, anything which came with the M113 and M113K engine.
 
Once we have discussed the 722.6 it is time to take one step forward to the most well known and commonly recognized 722.9 – the 7G- Tronic. It made its debut in 2005 with the W211 and has been used all the way up to 2019. It was a major step up from the slush box that was the 5G as it was able to incorporate much more precise mapping in the different modes.  722.9 had almost the same lifespan as the outgoing 5G Tronic.  7G- Tronic now had many new variants which displayed the evolution of the transmission.  The name is definitively German, internally they are called W7A - Wandler-7-Gang-Automatik – selector 7 speed automatic. Now you know what the machine does, which is the same as Flammenwerfer – flame thrower because it throws flames. How German is that 😊?
The generations of the 7G were equally as Prussian in their naming conventions - Neu Automatik Generation 1 – NAG1, then came NAG2 and so on. The VGS, Vollintegrierte Getriebesteuerung, or fully integrated Transmission Controller also has its own generations within it – 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. and so you can now understand why Mercedes have so many revisions. Now VGS 1-3 usually refer to vehicles with FBS3/ DAS3 generation of immobilizer. This is a long explanation so I suggest you look at the DAS manager deep dive blog so that you can get a better understanding of the generations of DAS (FBS). What we need to know for the purpose of today’s article is that there are 4 generations of DAS, and the most complicated DAS of all is the DAS4. This is a generation which in all fairness is ONLY really supported by ABRITES via the MN032, new MN034 and the new MN035 licenses. Since the change between the FBS3 and FBS4 happened in about 2014 the same type of transmissions had different DAS generations in them, they were also revised heavily for the changeover, but this is not as important. In W212 facelift cars we started seeing 7G Tronic transmissions with FBS4 which threw another spanner in the works.

III.    A deeper look at the ultimate 7-G Tronic

VGS4NAG2 is covered by the MN035 license, and we have support by reading the transmission plates on bench. Now, I included that announcement in the post about the upcoming MN034 license, but I later found out that the VGS4 NAG2 will be covered with the ABPROG programmer and the MN035 license. You will also need to have an ABPROG and the way it works is by giving you the following abilities:
• Read FBS4 data from VGS4 NAG2 modules using the ABPROG programmer to connect to the transmission plate directly.
• Set VGS4 NAG2 modules to a virgin state using the ABPROG programmer. We need to have a talk in detail about the virgin state and how we need to rethink the way we use it. In one of our next exploration series about the FBS4 we most certainly will.
• Write FBS4 personalization data to the TCU using the ABPROG programmer. In case you are also an owner of the MN034 license – it will allow you to personalize the VGS via the vehicle’s internal CAN-BUS.
You may have noticed that work on the VGS4NAG2 requires ZN030 ABPROG. The reason for that is that you need to connect directly to the VGS4NAG2’s PCB. This is all described in the manual and the videos we have made for you.
All of these qualities that the MN035 license displays now are the absolute pinnacle of modern Mercedes diagnostic solutions. Do not let anyone else fool you  by telling you that it is impossible to read the VGS4NAG2 transmission because we once again proved that our customers – old and new can rely on us.

I hope you could take what I had to give from this week’s blog post and realize that we at Abrites are producing tools years ahead of their time and you can enjoy them with us.

Until next week, try to have at least some fun at work,
Alek.