RB79

It's common for the sensor in the light assist to go, mine has failed twice now. Had replaced once under warranty and again now outside warranty and I can't be asked to get it replaced as it's so expensive - whole new mirror unit which houses the sensor for light assist at the back. The fact that you get no green light on the front of the mirror makes me wonder if there is a power or fuse issue for the mirror unit. After all the light assist sensor is part of the mirror.

No specific light by the lock. Possibly in basis you can set the car interior light to come on upon opening the door but agee this may not provide sufficient illumination at the lock to help find it. Over time you'll get used to the location and manage it as second nature, so personally I don't think this is a major omission.

Mine are Hankook Ventus S1 Evo²

Mine is a 2015 Octy which was fitted at factory with Hankook tyres. My car is still below 30k miles and I had the same appear on my back original tyres 6 months back. Apparently wouldn't have happened if I was doing more miles... The rubber dries out like this and cracks when it's flexed less (not driven as much), according to the tyre fitter. Nothing to worry about really. Tracking/alignment... Be mindful of the fact you probably have radar based front assist which may need special treatment? Perhaps others can shed some light on this just for knowledge even though YMe may not need it right now?

Not tried it yet personally but certainly have read on here that people do it with varying degrees of success and that the thicker 2032 battery lasts longer.

For what it's worth, my car refuse to start of the driveway as the battery was dead. I have Roadside recovery through Skoda so the chap showed up and jump started the car. He also checked the price and availability of a replacement battery and did the replacement for £213 all in. I'm happy with that having checked the battery prices on ECP and knowing I didn't want to end up getting the wrong battery as I know it needs to support stop start, nor do I have the kit or know how for VCDS. Interestingly I also get the feeling the DSG is performing better in the new battery? I think the old battery (original that came with the June 2015 car) was well and truly gone as I noted stop start barely worked even after long drives. DSG was starting to get sluggish changing gears. Seemed to hold into 1 and 2 for a bit longer than I would expect, but is now shifting as I would expect. Dunno if that's a false perception or actually the strength of the battery affects DSG since it ultimately relies on the battery?

I assume if you indicate left you don't get exactly the image in B but instead you get the arrow going left rather than right shown in the image. Is your car manual or DSG? If DSG, I wouldn't normally perform a reverse manoeuvre using the accelerator, not sure if you are and that's what's causing the Park assist to disengage? Also I usually slowly disengage the brake after engaging reverse so that the car slowly creeps backwards.

This is a common problem and I'm not 100% sure what triggers it, nor is there a 100% solution to get the time back in sync by leaving the setting on GPS adjustment. However I can tell you it does eventually automatically resolve itself if left on the automatic GPS setting. A strange quirk 😛

I have the same issue although it seems to crop up much less nowadays after a software fix? It's a very intermittent problem that would only crop up after a lot of driving around in town.. slow speeds with lots of acceleration and deceleration. After a long period of rest it would go away. Skoda couldn't reproduce it so I produced a video for them. If you see the comments under the YouTube video, the person that posted the video says VW say it's a DSG fault and are replacing the gearbox as it's under warranty. It's always been a worry that it's a problem with the DSG, which are known to have issue which VAG don't readily admit to.

Is it just me or is the Light / High Beam Assist equipment very failure prone. I've had mine fail some years back and again in the last few weeks. At £800 to replace I really don't think it's worth sorting. I can't imagine the headache when other more key aspects of these high tech cars start to fail. I bet other aspects of the tech are also more failure prone than the mechanicals 😰

I think MY16 cars (Octavias) were all fitted with MIB2? Note MY16 cars started production summer 2015, so even a car with a 15 or 65 plate may be an MY16 and have an MIB2 system.

Adaptive cruise control has a stalk that looks like this... I think it's adaptive by default, not sure if you can make it behave like normal cruise control. SEL spec in the UK briefly got this as standard. Mine has it and for me it's now a must have feature.

Interesting topic. So there's clearly a lot of software in these modern cars which can get updated over time. Question... Is updation of the various firmware done by explicit request when car goes into service and is it done at extra cost? Or is it done automatically as part of routine service? I would hope the latter but doubt it's the case. If at extra cost, how much extra are you paying just for the updates please (if you don't mind me asking). Also do you get firmware updates for the entertainment / navigation system?

Error would come up when light assist was enabled and put hight beams on. Car would revert to regular high beam. Took it to the dealer under warranty and I believe they replaced the whole mirror unit?

So far so good! Checked a lot of the things before taking back the car. Obviously couldn't test the Front Assist Radar but they said they had it calibrated along with wheel alignment which has to be done as part of calibration. So just have to take their word for it. Took it on an A Road on the weekend and switched the maxidot to show car in front distance and seemed to be fine and didn't warn unexpectedly or slam on the brakes, so that's a good start.

All sorted and like new! Great job done by Twickenham Accident Repair Centre.

What's the symptoms you are seeing? Suspension creaks when you go over speed bumps slowly? I had this issue and was covered under warranty for me as they had a note in the system that this should be resolved by applying a special grease to a specifuc part of the suspension. It's done the trick for now and car sounded much better.

Can anyone recommend a good garage in and around Northwest London to fix this accident? Doesn't have to be Skoda franchise but should be Skoda approved. A garage that you have experience of that has the competence and tools to handle all the sensors in and around the bumper and will do a great job of the paintwork.

So that Autocar article I posted is very telling of the complexity involved and I'm not wrong to think this should go to koda or a fully Skoda approved garage. I suspect there will be quite a bit of work around the bumper to take it off and replace it. Taking the bumper off means properly handling the parking sensors and radar on the front which will need to be fitted back properly and will need re-calibration which is complex and expensive. If new sensors will be required they will need coding to the car at the very least. There seem to be three category of repairers, 1) Insurance approved but not manufacturer approved; 2) Manufacturer approved third party 3) Skoda Garage The first option I feel I shouldn't touch, second sounds decent enough - called one approved third party today and they said the approval is a non trivial and they get checked regularly by the manufacturers and are acutely aware and familiar with handling the above mentioned complexities and have the equipment to do this. The Third option is a bit harder as I don't think I'll find an Insurance approved Skoda garage. On a Side note... a word of warning based on my ongoing experience. Insurance companies do tend to use third party Accident Management Companies whereby your case becomes fully handled and the responsibility of the third party Accident Management Company (somehow you become contracted to them without signing anything or seeing the Tc&Cs. The sweetner being that other company can offer you car hire while you car is fixed even if you haven't included that in your insurance policy. Now from what I'm gathering those Accident Management companies usually take on cases where the case is likely "not your fault" i.e. third party accept liability. Also these companies primarily deal in Car hire and Accident Management is more a means to hire out cars! So they will take on the job of sorting your car out but there can be hiccups. To provide you a speedy experience they may quickly get you signed up to contracts with them which also include credit agreements (why should that be the case if you're insurance is covering the loss?!). So typically there may be some time delay in getting an agreement on who is at fault and to get things moving the credit agreement is a guarantee that the accident management company will get their money for the car rental. Hire can show up pretty quickly, however they will limit you to their authorised repairers so there's an issue right there. Also they may faff about getting your car repaired so you're left hiring their car for longer . The big issue is down the line when the liability is finally agreed and what seemed like third party liability i settled as 50/50 or YOUR fault. In that case who pays for the car hire? At this point your insurance company may decline because it's not included in your policy and they will try to recover the cost from the credit agreement set up with you. Better to either 1) decline your insurance company to be handed off to the third party Accident Management Company altogether and accept the terms of your insurance company and what they offer you 2) Go with the third party company but Not accept the car hire or 3) Only accept once there is a clear agreement it will be paid by the other driver's insurance (so technically they shouldn't need you to sign a credit agreement) . Hope people find this useful!

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/why-modern-cars-are-getting-more-expensive-fix Looks like my concerns were not ill founded. The sensors all round the car is what worried me and it's exactly the same thing that's being cited in this article. My Octy has park assist (and associated parking sensors) and my bumper has clearly been damaged, as well as Adaptive cruise control and associated radar unit which lives in the front bumper. This is all tech which I love and rely on so much and can't afford to go wrong after they do the repair. Keen to hear others experiences on whether Accident repairers tend to be on top of all of this or end up with endless problems.

Agreed, but I expect the dealer probably has a separate approved bodyshop partner. Its the non-bodywork bit i'm worried about.

Thanks for the quick replies! Is my concern about the complexity of the job vs competency of the third party repairers valid? or will I be fine just going with the insurer's approved repairer.

Hi Folks, I've sadly been in an accident involving the driver of a parked car who spontaneously opened his door just as I approached at low speed. The damage is quite spectacular as can be seen in the attached photo. What you can't see in the photo is that the windscreen is also cracked as the wing mirror glass came off and flew into the car hitting the front windscreen. Also the car wet itself going through the ordeal i.e. there was water all over the damaged headlight and on the ground which is probably a washer fluid well under the hood rupturing. So the reason for the request for recommendation is simply that this is clearly more than simple bodywork damage. The bonnet now doesn't sit properly, the headlight is in bad shape, lord knows what damage may have happened to internal components under the bonnet, plus damage to the techie parts of the car i.e. park assist sensors, electric wing mirrors, the passenger window refused to one touch close, it would reach the top and come back down again, and then windscreen has the clever rear view mirror attached. I'm just a bit worried about the competency of 3rd party accident repair garages that get offered by insurance, to identify and properly rectify all issues that arise from this accident. Do I have control over where I get this fixed? Or do I just have to take up what the insurance company offers? Am i worrying about nothing or should this go to a proper Skoda garage to get fixed? Comments and opinions much appreciated! RB

Thanks all! Clearly this is a feature of the car "by design" which is what I thought. None the less I did mention it to the service department when I went to pick the car up from service and they said they would look into it to see if there's any TPIs on it. The lovely lady did advise that if enough people have complained about it Skoda may have (or may have in future) a fix for it. Unlikely, I know, but worth raising with them none the less!

A request to check in your Octavias please. I assume all 2013+ Octavias have electric windows? When your front windows are part way down, lets say a quarter way down, and you close the door, is the sound that you get quite rattley as though the window glass is not well secured and moving quite a bit as the door closes? Or that something else inside the door is moving about? This is what I'm experiencing. In other cars the window being open doesn't make much difference to the sound you get when you close the door, usually just a thud. In this case it's a thud and a deep rattle. The harder the door is shut, the more worrying the rattling sound that something's been or going to get damaged! Is this normal or something I should get checked out?