Why are ECU updates required ?

[jdzine]

Own a rocco 2.0 tsi 210, totally standard no remaps etc. Lately the idle has been very erratic bouncing up and down from 800-1200 rpm and also just sticking at 1200-1600 rpm at idle. There's no loss of power once it's going. It's due a service anyway so took it in to an indie vw specialist. After a look over they told me my ECU software is out of date and needs upgrading to the latest version. My question is why do new cars require these updates.?

[Cuprabob]

When a product is released to the market it's never perfect and sometimes issues arise which attention. Sometimes that's a hardware change and in other cases it's a software change. Just like with phone updates.

A case on point is with the diesel models which require a software update due to the well publicised Nox emissions issue.

[wakey1512]

As above. The manufacturer is constantly making software modifications in order to reduce the chance of known faults occouring or to improve the running of the car.