RodDuggan

Renault 4 e tech. Truly wonderful user friendly software, not quite the build quality of Skoda but excellent to drive and a size that suits us.

Well after 14 years of Skoda ownership (Yeti, Karoq), we have jumped maker to Renault. Nothing quite interests us from Skoda at the moment, the Epiq looks promising but not around until 2027. What will we miss from the Karoq? The solid well built quality. The sensible dashboard and instruments layout. Amazing automatic matrix headlights The effortless and quiet motorway cruising. What will we not miss from the Karoq? The annoying screen messages (data management nearly every time we drive off, Android auto which only cancels for a minute, spurious update messages when you're driving saying you can't update whilst driving(!). The duff manual.

Our memory seats work well, it's handy when my wife and I change driving. However we have found quite often that the mirrors sometimes don't update to the new setting and another press of the memory button is needed. Trying a long press when selecting the setting does not help, but a subsequent press when the fault is discovered always works.

Mines been fine for four years so far

When we bought the car, the odd thing was that they started sending email promotions for us to change our Skoda for a new one, only weeks after we took delivery.

Ours said it was for "an update for my vehicle"

I was one of the licky ones to be chosen by Skoda for a "free update for my vehicle" this week. I have a special password, and must book the appointment between February 16th and 22nd. Was this a software update for our Karoq?. Hard to tell amongst the marketing speak so I phoned them for an explanation. It turns out its just a meeting to buy another Skoda! So does this mean if I want a new Skoda outside those dates there will be none available? And why would I need a special password to make an appointment with a sales assistant? If anybody knows what is really behind the marketing email I'd love to know.

Yes I think you're right, and will stop it at the phone end. Just very silly of Skoda to put a "Cancel" button on the infotainment screen that doesn't do anything apart from distract the driver.

Amongst other annoying infotainment screen messages is a recurring Android Auto message (see picture). Whilst it's there, no other modes work (Radio/Nav etc). When "Cancel" is selected it goes away for 10-15 seconds then comes back. In that 10-15 seconds I am allowed access to the Radio etc. which is some relief. This morning it was cancelled about twenty times and just kept reappearing. So tell me why do Skoda put in the "Cancel" box in that screen if it doesn't work?

Used the FDM download manager and it successfully downloaded the whole zip file at the first attempt. The log file shows it suffered many interruptions which would have stopped the download before with Google Chrome but the download manager coped with these and produced the whole file.

Unfortunately this year's update has had to be abandoned. Six or seven attempts at downloading the 29GB zip file from the update portal all failed at between 6 and 10GB. It's a pity successive downloads cannot continue from where the previous one stopped. I may have another attempt when I have nothing else to do but for now life is too short to worry about this.

It all started with a wish to find out if the last service had included an oil change, a simple desire that soon mushroomed into a nightmare. The Skoda Crawley service chap was rather coy and a little abrupt last June when I asked him what had been done at the service. They don't give out checklists so I was told it was a simple task to go into "My Skoda" to see the details. So last week I thought I'd give it a try as the oil was getting very black and smelly. I downloaded the Skoda app. That was my first mistake - it made me enter all sorts of stuff before it would even connect me, including car activation, lots of time spent with both keys and the infotainment system. It all seemed to be overkill just to find out the servicing details. Anyway I ended up making myself the Primary User which made me feel quite important but not for any clear reason. I wanted to add my wife as the other user but it asked for her email and a password to be registered so I gave up as enough time had been spent on this nonsense. What if my wife didn't have an email account? Would she be permanently banished from the world of Skoda like a modern day sort of excommunication? Anyway there were no servicing details in My Skoda apart from "interim/minor service" and the dates, which was very little help at all. Thank you Skoda Crawley. However my disappointment turned to shock when my wife told me the Karoq now reads speed in Kilometres per hour and fuel in Litres. No problem, she went into the settings and altered it back to MpH and UK gallons and all was well. Until I drove the car the next day and it had reverted to Kilometres and Litres again! A quick reset in the menu settings got us back to Miles and Gallons, but after only two minutes of driving a message appeared on the infotainment screen telling me " Your car settings are about to be changed". And they were, back to Kilometres and Litres. Aaaaargh! Oh and another thing - unlocking the car now suddenly left three doors still locked. The technology is taking over! Another session resetting the options in the menu settings and normality was restored. Am I old-fashioned in wanting to get in my car and just drive it rather than spend time cancelling spurious menus and resetting parameters? We've had nearly three years of having to cancel the "Data use" menu every time we drive off, we've set it as it should be according to the sales chap but it's still showing up. Anyway some peace and harmony has now been restored. Delete the Skoda app, delete the primary user, deactivate the Connect facility and we have finally have our car back! Goodbye "MyConnectSkoda"

Try Skoda Crawley, they refused to give me details of my two services. Good workshops usually have a checklist with ticks to show what's been done, which is very helpful for a customer. But not Skoda.

There's a switch on the roof console that doesn't actually switch the lights off but when pressed allows the rear light swiches to work, so it's a two stage operation!

Just thought I'd post the brief summary of details for those who don't know, and those of us who haven't time to download software to analyse the data.

Latest file download is called ECE2025 with a date stamp of 48/2024. After installing it, the version comes out as v24.6 So it starts as a 2025 file, then is dated November 2025, and finally is dated June 2024 when installed. Brilliant! Why they can't correlate the pre- installation labels with the post- installation labels is bizarre.

What was the file label you loaded onto the 64GB card? Skoda ask potential updaters to check the issue release before unneccessarily downloading, but decided to give the downloaded file a completely different name (ECE2024/2025) to the installed file (23.12) thus ensuring that no comparison is possible! It has been reported that ECE2024/2025 contains 23.12 but this cannot be determined. Why not label the downloaded file with the version info?

Thanks that answers the question. Why they can't put that in the file title to help us poor sods who pay for the cars beats me.

Well good news and bad news, the first download, unzip and update worked fine, and after a few days of driving around the map version showed it had updated to 23.12. A week later the update portal announced a newer version ECE2024/2025, dated week 25 of 2024, so I did exactly the same update procedure expecting to see version 24.06 to show but after a month of driving and a re-download of the usb stick it's not budging from version 23.12. Has anyone got a version newer than 23.12 working?

Some success - I think. The update seems to work completely unannounced with the USB stick left in the socket. Checking on the Media button reveals the files are showing as in place on the USB stick and are recognised. The navigation database in the car settings now says 23.06 which I think must be the update as the car was made in early 2022 and I'm sure the reading last week was 22.06. I have now found they've just released ECE2024/2025 dated CW25/2024 so I have downloaded it, unzipped it and copied the files to the USB stick and will repeat the installation process. Does anyone know if the system tells you when it has completed the update? Complex technology linked to poor documentation seems to be rife.

"You leave the flash drive plugged in until the download completes. " That's what they missed out in the instructions! Many thanks for the important part. Well I've downloaded, unzipped and copied files to a 64GB USB stick with a C connector, plugged it in the front holes (tried both of them) and absolutely nothing happens. Cannot get to Navigation database in Nav > settings, any tricks to find this?

I've downloaded the 27GB file, extracted it on the PC to a folder, copied all the unzipped contents (28GB - 6,828 folders!) to a 2TB USB C drive and am now ready to plug it into one of the USB ports in the front of the Karoq. The instructions on the Skoda portal are fine except for the very last one which says to leave the USB update permanently plugged in each time I drive the car. Ermmm, is this now to be a permanent feature of my infotainment system? Sounds like a very clumsy update if you have to leave a USB drive permanently attached and unavailable for general use elsewhere which is why I bought it in the first place. Not so much an update more of an addition.

This message has been appearing at seemingly random intervals over the past year, always when being driven, and selecting OK results in the message "Unable to complete whilst driving" ! So why give the message only when you're driving? This is designed to annoy. When the vehicle is stopped it never appears and a search of the display fails to find it again. I will try the procedure described in earlier posts. Is this some sort of devilish game the software engineers at Skoda have devised? There's plenty more in the car, and I call it R.A.T. or "Really Annoying Technology" which seems to be on the rise.

Goodness, did you know we had never thought of that!

We have the option on our 2 month old sportline, however we have about a one in seven success rate with the feature, with bruised shins to show after some attempts go astray. We mentioned this to our salesman who told us that it was quite normal to have this low success rate. (No mention of this before we bought it!) Has anyone had a better success rate for this kick-opening or any advice on technique?