SoupDragon

Yet another use of a car as a weapon. For years cars have had air bags fitted which detect a frontal collision and immediately stop the car and blow the air bags to protect the occupants. When ever I read of a vehicle used as a mass murder weapon by driving into a crowd I think why can not the collision detector be used to slam on the brakes immediately and stop the car dead before the damage can continue. I know that a certain deceleration must be exceeded to activate the bags but surely any frontal impact is a 'Bad Thing' and an immediate stop is good. I wrote to a European Motor Safety board with this idea but there was no reply. Where can I pass on this idea?

OccyVRS, kangaroo issue with my MQ250. For 3 miserable years I had an manual Octavia 1500 petrol, built 2018. It went for several software updates but for time of my ownership it went from revving its head off when trying to drive slowly to jumping or stalling with the last s/w improvement. I hated driving that car, it was impossible to drive it without the utmost deliberate care and caution and entirely unpredictable when entering a roundabout. I now drive an automatic 1500 Scala with I suppose the same engine and in auto mode, it's a peach, no trouble at all, but I think its fuel consumption is a bit worse.

I checked 'Coasting Mode' in the manual, my car is 2024 build SE model. The manual states that the gearbox will automatically change to Neutral if in 'D' and the accelerator and brake pedals are not pressed, and if you are not towing, and your speed is above 20 kph. This is a very common situation. I have not noticed the gear indicator changing to 'N', I will look out for that happening. I have noticed the fuel consumption read-out changes to '---' and also that overrun braking is minimal. For that reason I often change the gear selector to Manual and change down through a couple of gears as I come up to traffic lights etc. The engine does not stop under these conditions. When I learnt to drive I was taught to always be in the gear to match your speed and not to coast in neutral but that was with a manual gearbox. I suppose things have changed in the the last 55 years. Also, when LED brake lights first came into use, if you were stuck behind a tall vehicle like a Range Rover and its brake lights were held on, they were annoyingly bright and I would see green dots in my eyes for minutes after we started off again. I think brake light intensity has been softened a bit since then.

I drive a petrol 1500 Scala with a DSG gear box. I always have the Stop-Start function active I occasionally use the Neutral position when stopping in traffic for more than, say, about a minute. I use Neutral because 1) I don't want to dazzle following traffic with my brake lights, especially if its raining. 2) I was told that if the brake discs are hot, clamping the discs with the brake pads makes the disc-cooling uneven and can lead to warped discs. 3) I can set the manual hand brake and take my foot off the brake pedal. The engine restarts automatically when I press the brake pedal and select Drive. BUT I believe latest advice on stopping in traffic is to hold the car still with the foot-brake because it is always more positive than the hand brake. This is safer for the occupants if there is a rear end collision because the car will not be shunted forward so easily and the car crumple-zones will take up more of the impact thus protecting the occupants and reducing the chances of a multiple collision. I guess this is why the DSG box does not allow you to stop and apply the handbrake in Drive without also using the foot brake. I used to think the Neutral position was for towing the car but it seems that this will cause gearbox damage if done for more than a few meters because with the engine stopped the gearbox lubrication stops. I had thought of shifting to Neutral on a long down-hill but I am not going to do that now. I think I can get less fuel consumption using Manual mode carefully, but it's so much easier to leave it in Drive.

Completely different car but this reminds me of the way my Toyota Yaris behaved. There was no problem around town or parking but on a long straight motor way the steering behaved as described. A very slight correction seemed to make no difference so you added a bit more angle to the wheel and you got more change of direction than you wanted. I decided that the very small inputs I made when travelling on a long straight road were not enough to activate the power steering input and seemed to make no difference to the vehicle path but ever-so slightly more input triggered the power steering and the result was a bit more change of direction than you expected. It was a bit annoying because I could not make the very fine adjustments that I wanted but I never thought it was dangerous, the changes in direction were very small.

I have had my Scala 1.5 auto for 10 months and the front collision assist once went wrong. When I started from home the front detector reported faulty. I was driving to Aberdeen, a 5 hour journey. For about 2 1/2 hours, the detector was intermittently reporting faulty and unavailable. We stopped for a break at Kinross and I wetted a tissue to wash the detector cover. This is true: a large moth flew out of the back of the cover. When we started off again, there were no fault reports and the F.C.D. was working normally. The F.C.D. has suddenly activated for no apparent reason on one occasion with a very brief heavy breaking action. More frequently it gives a warning without breaking when a car in front slows to turn into a side street. I don't mind the warnings because I feel good about seeing the problem before the F.C.D. The sudden heavy breaking is more of a problem but it happens very rarely. I am more concerned with the reversing collision detection. This will activate if it decides you are about to back into a blade of grass and it gives such a sudden stop that twice I have sprained my shoulder due to it. However It did stop me hitting a school girl who suddenly ran behind the car.

Has anyone else had the emergency brakes activate? I have had the SEL Scala for three months and in that time the brakes have activated twice. The first time there was no obvious cause. There was a narrow trench cut across the road for some reason and I guess that had somehow caused the very brief activation. The second time, a car emerged from a side road a bit more than necessary and a full emergency activation occurred. I think the steering also pulled to the right to avoid the car but that could have been my own response. The car did not pull out enough to cause a serious hazard but the brake system thought it did. It was very alarming at the time but one day might save a collision. How often does the system activate?

I have just bought a Scala SEL 1.5 DSG. I used to have an Octavia on a personal finance plan and when it came to the end after 3 years I was shocked to find out how much the prices had gone up. I do not need a car as big as the Octavia so I downsized to the Scala. Also I wanted something a bit more sporty and nimble. I've only put 300 miles on it yet but my first thoughts are good. It's much tighter to drive than the Octy but the steering is crazy light. It's averaging about 45 mpg with mixed driving and I expect that will improve. There is plenty of room inside for my needs and it has plenty of power, not that I have floored it yet. Downsides are a lot of mechanical whirring noise, I think from the gear box, but this lessens as the engine warms up. It's nicely quiet at speed when fully warm. I have question: after driving for about 5 minutes, a message appears on the info screen that tells me a software update is available but I can not download it while driving. Well I am not going to stop the car to download an update. But when I get home I can not find what this update is and how to download it. Does anyone know what this is about? The car is only 4 days old.

I have had a false TPMS warning on the Octy 4 and I used to get it on the previous Octy Mk3. The first time it happened I took the car to the local tyre shop: 'Tyred and Exhausted' (Ha Ha). They took the wheel off and checked the tyre and said nothing was wrong and So I accept these could be false alarms but I always check and monitor the tyre pressures for a few days to make sure that there is not a genuine problem. I understand it as a warning rather than a definite puncture. BUT the warning has always been accompanied by a screen with the suspect tyre highlighted. I think the warnings may originate from specific road surfaces where a wheel may be bouncing off the surface because I often got the TPMS warning after crossing the old Forth road bridge which has lots of expansion joints. But if you do not have a display highlighting the faulty tyre it sounds like a deeper problem. I like the car too, it has its foibles but the 1500 petrol engine is sweet, the car is very spacious and comfortable, the fuel economy is excellent and it looks good in petrol blue.

Surrey John, I am sure that your explanation for the door detail is correct. You couldn't open the rear doors without the relief. Whatever, I still think it's a neat detail now I have noticed it.

I have written about the body work of the Mk 4 before but I have just noticed a little detail, after owning the car for over a year. The bottom rear corners of the front doors. From a standing position, as you approach the car from the front, the lower rear edge of the door appears perfectly straight and vertical. But it is not at all. There is a sharp horizontal crease along the body work near the bottom edge of the doors and to make the edges of the doors, front and rear, appear vertical, the rear edges of the front doors and the front edges of the rear doors are carefully shaped. I can not think of any other reason for this detail except to make the door edges appear straight. I now find myself checking the doors of all other cars with a horizontal crease and have not seen this detail on any other car.

I am the original poster. I now wrap my key in kitchen foil when at home which completely blocks the signal. Luckily I remembered that I have a spare key that I have never used and wrapped that as well. My car does not have full Kessy, just a fob to open and lock the doors with two buttons and gives keyless ignition. From what one of the posters have said, my key could not have been scanned so I probably left the car unlocked, but I am sure I didn't. Many cars were raided in the street the night it happened to me. ExSeat, I thought that's how these fobs work, with a different code each time they are used. But, when I dug out the spare key fob which I had never used since the car was new a year ago, it immediately unlocked the car: it seems to be just a signal with an unchanging ID embedded. If that's the case, when you press the start button, something must search for the matching fob and if it is in range, the matching ID would be revealed. Does anyone know how these fobs work? UTR that key box is the neatest I have seen.

Original poster, my car is not kessy, just remote open/lock control by remote fob buttons . There is no option to to turn it off.

BE WARNED, KEEP YOUR KEY FOBS SECURE AND DON'T LEAVE ANY VALUABLE ITEMS IN THE CAR AT NIGHT. Last night my car was entered and raided. Fortunately no damage was done and no valuables taken. I tidied the car up and was about to drive off when I saw 3 police people coming down the road so I ran across to tell them. They were there because I was the 6th person in the street to report their car had been entered that night. Until they said that, I had assumed that I had left the car unlocked but I don't think 6 people would have left their cars unlocked. Later I met a friend who lives near by and she told me that there is a wave of thefts from cars in the area, all the cars undamaged. She told me that it is possible to buy a device on EBay that scans your key fob if is in range and allows the bad guy to unlock the car easily with no noise or damage. All the cars had been treated in the same way i.e. the car thoroughly searched and all the items not worth taking put in a tidy pile on the passenger seat, just like happened to my car. The recommended precaution is to not leave the key fob on the windowsill inside the front door, like I always did until today. Keep the fob as far as possible from the front of the house and in a capped tin or wrapped in foil. I am worried though, my fob seems to be exceptionally powerful, it's got more range than my WiFi. I know from the other victims in the street that this vulnerability is not limited to Skoda but I am annoyed that these key fobs seem to have such easily-broken security. Has anyone got any suggestions about how to improve security?

The bonnet locks are unusual in my experience. There are two widely separated locking latches. I have found that sometimes only one of the latches locks on closing and I think the manual is trying to warn you to release and open the bonnet and try to close it again to avoid damaging the bonnet. The bonnet seems to be made of a thin and flexible steel, possibly for safety reasons, and I guess the dual struts and latches are used to compensate for the flexibility.