If your hands are cold and dry the wheel doesn't always do a good job without a bit of squeeze. Or dampen your fingers a little.

 

For the past couple+ years my habit pattern upon sitting down in the vehicle has been to reach for the antibacterial pump and as there is some moisture in same I've not had a hand-wheel capacitive issue even in Winter. My white steering wheel getting dirty hasn't therefore been an issue either.

 

A few days ago I was stuck in a very slow moving interstate (accident), and I noticed perhaps below 10mph or so, with Travel Assist on, it did not complain about hands on the steering wheel for a few minutes at least. It was nice to let the car "drive" itself in annoying slow / stop and go scenario.

 

If TA continues to function even though you're steering wheel no longer senses your touch, I would definitely bring it to the attention of a VW technician. Hopefully, there will be some data available to them during a scan to let them know what the problem is. I'm only bringing up having it looked at because there may be bigger problems that could cause an accident at some point.

 

It’s touch-based?!

Here I was trying to apply small torque to it while not breaking the assist 😩

I had just assumed VW had the same methodology as Tesla which went from squeeze on the wheel to torque.

 

Too many people knew about the water bottle trick for bypassing the safety. 😏

 

It is capacitive. I plan on having it checked when the ID has its 20,000 mile check in a month or so

 

Good to know!

Well if it’s like Tesla was then the wheel needs a certain force to register the “touch”. You had to have a certain amount of squeeze on the rim or use the weight of your arm to apply force on the wheel if you rested your hand on the inside diameter.

Oops, never mind. You have the opposite problem of the system always recognizing that a hand is on the steering wheel.

 

I did in fact try to wipe down the black steering wheel before I made my OP here. A search of this forum revealed an earlier thread on the topic. One member had posted there is a line he found about using an OBD with the apparent option to turn turn the capacitive steering wheel function "off". I do not have such a device nor am I inclined to be messing with such things so the VW tech at my dealer will have to figure it out. First today I must deal with a small nail in one of the rear tires.

 

The capacitive wheel is one of my favorite features - with Travel Assist on long drives, I tend to rest my elbow on the arm rest and lay one hand over the wheel. It senses my presence without my needing to move the wheel at all... I have noticed it doesn't work all that well if you have gloves on, however. I suspect the same may be true if your hands were damp?

 

btw: It's been mentioned hereabouts that our steering wheel volume buttons are capacitive in nature. But yesterday I finally remembered to try and see if they were, vs. my typical use as detent type. Nope, mine are not capacitive neither lightly touching nor swiping the respective volume up/down. Perhaps later model years are purely capacitive but my MY2021 FE is pure ol' school mechanical detent, and I'm just fine with that.

 

Wait, you can’t swipe left/right on the volume controls on the steering wheel to raise and lower the volume on a First Edition?