MCG1975

I've often had issues with the car losing the contacts on my Motorola G10, which is annoying as I can't use the last number dialed feature to call back etc. I have just found in the setting menu the option to refresh contacts which brings them back; before that I was having to un pair and re pair my phone. I seem to have less issues with my work phone, a Samsung A13, on both this and Android Auto so don't know if non-Samsung phones are just not as compatible with the car?

On my 2.0TDi (SE Technology), when I was regularly driving an hour each way on dual carriageways to commute (plus other work mileage) my average consumption was around 70mpg. I've now got a shorter commute and have noticed it's dropped down a little, seems to hover between 60-65mpg. I tend to drive to the limits, and don't over accelerate etc so keeps things a bit more economical.

I have occasionally found that when I push the gear lever into 3rd (mine's also a manual box) it sometimes doesn't want to go all the way and I get that horrible grinding noise when the gear is not fully engaged. Have to drop to neutral and give it a firmer push to get it in properly. It's not all the time, and is probably just me getting lazy at gear shifts from time to time. Car has just over 37,000 miles on it now so should be worn in!

I think on mine what the screen shows is whatever I left it on when I stopped the car previously, so if I have it with the radio/media full screen then that (along with the shortcuts) will show when I start the car next time. At least I think it does - its one of those things I don't pay specific attention to and now I'm thinking about it I'm becoming less sure...😕

The front assist on mine has errored a couple of times in the cold snap we've got in the UK at the moment, however as it often errors at other times I haven't paid it much attention!

Thanks for everyone's responses. While the car is only 2 years old, it has done 32,000 miles so by the chart above on the maintenance cycle I'm guessing that then triggers the fluid change. We've now had a flyer in the post advising to get it done too, so I think I will enquire - it's a company car so not coming out of my pocket but I still don't want to spend the money unnecessarily. That said, I think I'm getting a slight bit of judder when braking as well so probably best to get it all sorted together.

Afternoon all Apologies if this is noted somewhere already, but I've tried searching the forum and also looked in the service/user book and can't get a clear answer. Does anyone know what the service interval for getting the brake fluid changed in the Mk4 is? I had a text from the dealership saying mine was due, but given they texted a couple of months after my last service saying it was due for another service, I'm not sure how much I trust that! The car is 23 months old and had it's 20k service in April 2022 but they didn't change the fluid then. It's now on about 32k. If it matters the car is a 2 litre TDi. If it's due fair enough, I just wanted to be sure I'm not taking it in unnecessarily that's all. Thanks for any guidance.

I can't answer all the queries, but in terms of the sat nav mine goes into night mode when the headlights turn on. Can't remember at the moment if I had to enable that (had the car over 20 months now and probably fiddled with something months ago!), but if I have Google Maps up on the centre console it also goes into night mode at the same point. I think I turned my screen brightness right down ages ago - I prefer a dimmer display and even on low it's quite bright. Might be an auto dim function - my previous Superb certainly changed the dashboard illumination automatically and that was a fairly basic spec car.

I don't trust it; it's tried to send me through a private farm just because the track showed up on the map, and through a road that has been closed midway along for years . One of the reasons I didn't bother renewing the connect subscription when the free year lapsed. Now if only my Motorola phone would connect reliably with Android Auto I'd be sorted...!

When I first had the car the satnav would intermittently start with me either about 100m offset from where I was, or at times started me from a location I'd visited either that day or the previous. It tracked my direction trying to fit me to whatever roads were closest and usually after 5-10 minutes I'd look and it would have caught up. Haven't noticed it doing that of late, but I don't use it and didn't continue the subscription after a year so like the ACC it's not really used now.

Just throwing my last two (inc current) in the mix as I record consumption using Fuelly. I do mostly long drives (commute is 100 mile round trip on dual carriageways) so it helps! Usually I fill to brim each time. Mk3 (65 plate) Superb 1.6 TDi Manual - average 56.5mpg tracked over 122,421 miles Mk4 (70 plate) Octavia 2.0 TDi Manual - average 68.6mpg over 24,495 miles so far Very happy with the Octavia's efficiency, especially given current fuel costs!

I am going to have to call the dealers on this one, but in the interim I wondered if anyone else has had this and if so what was the cure (if any)? A couple of times in the last month or so the car, while sitting locked on the drive and not having been used at all that day, has turned the radio on all by itself and sits there thumping away until we happen to notice and run out to stop it. The volume level is far above any that I would have it on while driving. The only thing we can think that might be a contributing factor is that (as far as I can recall) both times it's been a hot sunny day and the drive is in full sun for most of it - perhaps the strip below the touchscreen with the on/off button and volume slider gets too hot as it's all black? Just thought I'd ask in case anyone has had similar - did try searching the forum but couldn't easily see anything similar. It's a 70 plate SE Technology if that helps or affects anything.

Glad it was of use and interesting to see the deliberations on purchasing. Mine's a company car so I basically get a budget to spend on a car, therefore for me it's more about whether it will cost me more in the differing economy and fuel costs as to whether I went for diesel or petrol, rather than making back the extra outlay. At the time I was doing around 30k a year so diesel was a clear winner but as I'm doing slightly less now and the difference in cost between diesel and petrol is (currently at least) so large it may make a difference in 18 months when the car's up for changing.

I'm very impressed with the fuel efficiency of mine (2.0TDI manual); over the 21,000 and a bit miles since I've had it I'm currently showing an average of 68mpg based on fill-to-fill using Fuelly, with the max mpg recorded at 73.5. My previous Mk3 Superb (1.6TDi manual) only got around 56mpg average, which I thought was quite good at the time, but doesn't compare to this. Given the cost of fuel at the moment it's apparently costing me 11.8p/mile which is comfortably under the HMRC rate for company car drivers (13p/mile for up to 2 litre diesel) so I'm not losing money doing work miles, which is good!

If it helps, you can turn off lane assist via steering wheel controls which you can do on the move. On the right side steering wheel buttons press the top left one which opens the assist menu. Lane assist should be selected, so just press the right silver scroll wheel to untick it, and press the first button again to exit the menu. After a while it becomes muscle memory! I used to turn mine off a lot but after some updates a few months ago it got less intrusive so haven't had to bother much. HTH.

Mine is booked for it's service on the 25th, hoping the updates are out by then! Think I've done something to my right knee by having to hover my foot above the accelerator all the time, just in case the ACC decides to stop me overtaking!

interesting - I didn't renew either of the subscription options when they ran out back in December as I couldn't see the point, and coincidentally I tried using Laura this morning and it still functions on my car. Well, when I say it functions I mean it activates but it still didn't do what I asked it (whole different can of worms)!

I've got a USB stick with a load of albums on it and depending on how I saved them (not sure which way was wrong!) I get the album art showing when it's playing - it starts as a tracklist but usually after a couple of minutes the full screen thing pops across the infotainment screen displaying the graphics (or you can manually make it appear). I can take some photos later if it helps... The thing I don't like is that to scroll through the albums you have to vertically swipe a list of text, rather than the nice carousel of albums as in your photo above (which my wife's Fabia has). Don't know if it's just me but I find trying to scroll up and down much harder than left/right especially if you have lots of albums. As I've seem somewhere else here, in some ways it is safer to select the music before you start moving, as it's not so easy once you're on the move. You can change album selection via one of the steering wheel controls but it's not massively easy (and times out/resets far to quickly, if say you have to stop scrolling for a minute to deal with traffic etc).

Mine is a manual 2.0 TDI SE Technology but I'm guessing that shouldn't make too much difference? The rear of mine looks like this (excuse the fact it's really dirty!), note I've got the retractable tow bar hence the hole:

Took me a while (and I think reading the manual) to work out how to hang up, which is similar to making a call. As above, you need to be connected by Bluetooth. Press right scroll wheel so the up/down green arrows are on right side and scroll until the phone appears, if it's not already there. Press the bottom right button on the right hand side of the wheel (the one that switches the dash display if you've got a digital one) and it opens a new menu. If you're in a call you can hang up or place on hold etc, select option and press right scroll wheel. If you aren't in a call, it shows the last dialled/received numbers which you can select and call in the same way. Sounds complicated but when you're used to it it's as quick as using the buttons to turn off lane assist! In terms of the Android Auto query, I can make/close calls even if AA is connected, only difference is the phone shows as 'Android Auto' rather than my phone name in the right hand menu. Hoping that helps in some way...

I was lucky when I had my Mk 3 Superb only a few months after release (ordered around the time it was released and received 5 months later) and had nearly 5 years of fantastic driving out of it. I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security when it came to the Octavia! As for @PetrolKev mine is on a lease/company car so I've only a couple of years left and won't be hanging on to it longer (as I did do for the Superb). Not sure what I'll do then but I guess in 2 years time a lot will have changed...

Whenever I've (infrequently) looked at the app the car data always seems to be a few days out of date. Makes me wonder how much of a delay there is on the honk and flash feature!! One of several reasons I won't be paying for the Skoda Connect (or whatever it's called) subscription once the free year expires.

I definitely have the situation where if it's going to play up on a journey it's pretty permanent in doing it, whereas on other journeys (infrequent as it is ) it works OK. While it's not the only time it occurs, I often get it happening after pulling out from behind a slower vehicle in the left lane which the ACC slows me down for. The system 'drops' the lock on that car but then picks it up again as I draw level stopping me over taking. If I'm already in the right lane it happens less often.

Mine did this very infrequently at the beginning, then after recent software updates it's got much worse, so interesting to see I'm not the only one. Garage said they couldn't replicate the fault when I took it in a couple of months ago - when it goes in for it's next service I'm reporting it again and will make sure they take it on some dual to test it. Getting quite annoying now as I have to keep checking the dash as I overtake which means my eyes are not on the road where they should be...almost makes it not worth using.

Quite agree with the article and the comments following it! What's wrong with a knob to adjust the temperature that I can feel and move without looking at it?!