Josdad

Thank you Jevpls for your reply. You’ve added some new faults that I haven’t come across before! I hope the dealer can sort out the keyless system problem. If some handles are reliable and some not then if you have the latter Skoda should in fairness fix it at no cost to you. But that’s in the ideal world I guess. I think your last sentence sums it up. You hope that known problems will have been sorted but there is always the concern that there are new faults heading our way. Just been reading about Toyota map updates frying the screen which then has to be replaced.

Thank you all for your comprehensive replies. I’m reassured that the problems earlier cars had have been corrected now.🤞 With that knowledge I think that we’ll have a trip to the dealer to see how my wife gets on with the Octavia. If she doesn’t It’ll be another Scala. Thank you again.

I’ve had two Fabia estates and now have a 2019 Scala that I’ve had from new. Apart from one electrical meltdown a few years ago the Scala has been a good car. I’m thinking about its replacement. My wife is disabled so we have to have a car with a low easily accessible seat. Not an SUV. We also need a large boot for a wheelchair and other bits and pieces. I think that I might stick with what I know and get another Scala. But I am tempted by the Octavia and its bigger boot. Also if I decide to have an auto gearbox this time the Octavia has autohold which from the reading I’ve done makes driving easier. However, I’ve been following this forum for a long time now and I’m being put off the Octavia by the horror stories that some of you have endured with infotainment and electronics problems. Having to dismantle screens and volume sliders to get them to work! So, are there any happy Octavia owners with recent cars? Have Skoda sorted out the problems on newly built cars? I would be most grateful for your opinions. I’m getting on a bit now and this may be the last car I buy so I don’t want to make a mistake. We looked at the Corolla estate but the distance between the sill and the seat edge is larger than the Scala and my wife's disabilities made it hard for her to safely access the seat. The choice of cars that suit our needs is limited. Moderators. So sorry, I’ve put this post in the wrong forum. Could you move it to the Octavia one please. Thank you.

Might I suggest that the last sentence of the OP's first post is correct. Drop links. These can be problematic at low mileages. I have had them replaced at around 15,000 miles on both a Fabia and a Scala.

Could the dealer you are referring to be Birchwood Eastbourne? (Not a sales agent now but they did my last service) I have twice found that Birchwood set my tyre pressures far too high. I reset them myself checking with 2 pencil gauges. I recently had a tyre replaced at a local tyre supplier and they checked all the pressures and they agree with my own readings. Like you, when I mentioned it Birchwood said their equipment had been calibrated. I can only think that something is going wrong with the calibration process.

I got the car back from the dealer this afternoon, much quicker than I thought. I was told that the car’s computer had crashed and a software re-installation had done the trick. Only drove about a mile home and all seems ok. Just glad I’ve got the extended warranty!

The first thing that I noticed was that the EPC light was on. Then a stop/start fault and the interior and glovebox lights not working. The instrument panel digital speedo and the infotainment screen dim to virtually nothing when the headlights are on in daylight, they work as normal in darkness. Then the car went into component protection mode. The car went into the dealer last Friday but they didn’t sort it, it is going back on Wednesday as it is a job for the master tech. Anyway as I was leaving the dealer it showed an emergency braking and an airbag fault. This morning the radio has gone silent although it is showing the stations. Lane Assist is working and I can’t turn it off because the screen is just flashing CP mode! They think the software is corrupted and I think they are going to remove it and reinstall. If that doesn’t work they will look for a faulty component. I previously had an experience when the power steering failed, luckily on my driveway. It recovered after a couple of starts and was checked by the dealer. I’ve also had, I think it’s the SOS module, replaced. When I bought the car I planned to keep it for a few years. I don’t think that I can, I really don’t trust its long term reliability anymore. Shame because it’s basically a good car. It’s a 2019 car with only 20,000 miles.

Ok, will give it a go. Got a 70 mile round trip tomorrow so that should give the battery a top up. Thank you for your advice Warrior193, it is much appreciated.

I can only see the end of the number, 105B. I think that it’s an EFB. The charger is a Halfords smart charger. It says on the box that it’s suitable for cars with stop-start.

Thank you Warrior 193 and Varooom for your replies and advice. The car will be going into the dealer for a service in November or maybe before for the SOS module replacement, I’ll ask them to check the battery condition. I do have a battery charger so I could give it a top up if I haven’t had any longer runs.

Don’t know why that previous post has reappeared. Must have clicked on something by mistake. Now deleted. I do have one day of 4 x 3 mile trips but my other journeys are 10 to 15 miles, plus the occasional 100 mile round trip. Average of about 100 miles a week.

Thank you for your reply Warrior193. The battery is 2 3/4 years old. It seems to be ok. Stop/start works fine, when I forget to switch it off, so I think it is fairly well charged. Since the fault occurred there hasn’t been another problem. If you are right and maybe the battery was low on power and caused the fault then we seem to have cars that won’t function correctly with a less than perfect battery, even to the point of causing a loss of power steering. This really is unacceptable design as it would be impossible to be sure of the safe operation of safety critical functions of our vehicles. I do wonder if, in a few years time, cars with perfectly functional mechanical parts will be scrapped because the cost of repairing flakey electronics will be so high.

After unloading the shopping I restarted the car to put it in the garage. I got messages on the instrument panel screen saying lane assist not available and then front assist not available. The power steering had also failed. I switched off and restarted with the same results. I switched off again, locked the car and left it for a few minutes and when I restarted the car it was ok again. I have had messages before to say lane assist not available but it cleared on the next start up. Booked the car into the dealer and they told me that they had found fault codes which they have sorted and have reset everything correctly. I also need to have the SOS module replaced but the part is on back order at the moment. I had noticed the suspension was getting noisy. It sounded as though it could be the drop links. I had problems with those at about the same mileage, 13,000, on my previous Fabia estate. However the garage found that it was the cuff on, I think, the strut mount, which was turning freely. The receptionist said that there was a factory TPO about this and the technician had followed the repair procedure which included greasing it and, I presume, tightening it up. I follow the Scala, Kamiq, and Octavia 4 forums and can’t recall these faults being mentioned before. Loads of electrical problems but not the power steering failure.