neilsupermac

30 January, 2019

20 hours ago, Whaty said:

@neilsupermac I'm not sure if this helps you in anyway, possibly as a guide maybe? I opted for a flexible service plan when I got my car expecting to do 15k per year, due to a slight change in circumstance I'm only doing 12k per year but never-the-less my service notification popped up at approx. 18k, this was for the 1st Oil Service. I noticed that the 'Service' was also due 1,500 miles later so asked my dealer if they could do both at the same time. The car went in, service mileage reset (18k) and they charged me £170 all in.

I didn't know if this info would help in your negotiations with the dealer, sorry I'm a little late in responding.

Terry

I think that's all mostly coincidence.

I've now rectified this with the dealer:

1) Dealer has had customer service issues and new managers etc are in place to "fix".

2) They've taken the car back in and moved it over to flexible servicing.

3) The car didn't need servicing when they booked it in as it was serviced at 7K 6/18 and then they serviced it again @ 9.5K in 10/18 - they are now refunding me the full cost of the service I paid for.

Overall, the (new) managers I've dealt with have done a good job of holding hands up and helping me put it all right. So much so that I will give them another go with my Kodiaq next month.

22 January, 2019

Just now, Danny 57 said:

People/dealers make mistakes, it is how they respond in the end which is the important part.

Hope it goes well.

I agree, hence not naming and shaming at this point. I've been totally reasonable and patient about it so we'll see what they come up with.

22 January, 2019

and I'm right...they have dropped some key people back into this dealership from other dealerships to "fix" this one. I met in person with one of them today and to be fair, they've taken the car back in and are now looking at it, sorting it and going to compensate me accordingly once they work out what hasn't/wasn't done.

18 January, 2019

Thanks for responses...I won't name the dealer yet as things are getting interesting and they are trying to resolve. It sounds like there are problems because I'm now going in to meet the head of business, who started today who is fully accepting of what is going wrong here and wants me to come in and meet him to sort it out. So I'll let you know what happens. Looks and sounds to me like this particular dealership is addressing issues with a reshuffle.

18 January, 2019

Guys, thanks for all the replies...interesting...I need to get a few more details from my wife next.

17 January, 2019

1 hour ago, Kenny R said:

It’s your Kodiaq kindly telling you it’s dark and you haven’t got your headlights on. If you leave the light switch on auto you don’t get this problem.

From the owners manual....

Thanks...the only thing is the light switch is always left on Auto...which is what puzzled here...ingition off>on saw the lights come back on...she even made the point that the headlights were on ...although in the video its hard to be sure. I'll monitor it and see what happens...its either headlight switch not on auto or some electrical issue about to show its head I guess.

17 January, 2019

My wife reported that the lights on the speedo and rev counter just went out earlier this week and she recorded it...see attachment. An ignition off>on saw the lights restored..anyone seen this before?

17 January, 2019

Just now, Skoffski said:

Sorry, i cant read all the post on the phone,

but have you purchased the wrong 'Service Plan' for your usage / needs, (or were mis-sold) and then encountered a bunch of hopeless muppets.

http://volkswagen.co.uk/owners/service/regimes

Thanks for looking at any of it...there is quite a bit but I needed to put it all into context.

It's possible I was mis-sold on the basis no one actually questioned what the car was currently set to, in terms of service regime and nor what I wanted - which I would have thought a new customer with a 1 yr old car coming into a dealer would have been asked...

17 January, 2019

2 minutes ago, silver1011 said:

The fact the car is plated to tow i.e. homologated then I personally would have no reservations about the fitting of an aftermarket tow bar.

The issue arises when you want to fit the genuine electrically foldable tow bar at a franchised main dealer. If Skoda UK insist that to do that the car needs expensive modifications then I guess the dealers hands are tied.

Good luck, hopefully with plenty of persistence you'll get some answers.

Thanks - I don't blame the dealer at all in this case .. I wasn't (unlike original poster) sold the car and told I could fit one for £1.5k and then told it would actually be £3k. I'll ping back here as I go with progress as it might help others I'm sure. After all, its the type of car that I'm sure many a family will want to do the same...

17 January, 2019

2 minutes ago, newbie69 said:

You confuse drive modes with gearbox mode now. What you saw regarding the gearbox being in D after car was left in Sport does not prove anything: All cars with drive mode selection revert to D for the gearbox when starting up, no car ever starts in S1, however, as a drive mode, the car is still in Sport. How would you know? You can easily tell from the firm suspension (on DCC cars), Soundaktor being at its loudest and steering at its heaviest. You are sure none of these three were in place when you tried it? Because I am willing to bet they were. Showing D on the dash does not say anything about being in Sport or not as they are not related. The gearbox can always be in D or S (only for ECO, D is replaced by E) regardless which mode you're in. So 'box in D and mode on Sport is perfectly possible.

I am but I will experiment again on my way home tonight. The dash "D" or "S" or "E" display is inconsistent. The box may start in D but if the car was left in Sport, would you not expect at some point, once moving, the car to display "S"? It will do that if whilst driving you select sport with either gear stick flick back or mode select...I will go around this again...I might even video it actually...that would save our hands a lot typing...

17 January, 2019

17 minutes ago, newbie69 said:

Which method did you use to find out? Sport mode and suspension or something else? And which mode did you find out the car was really in?

By the way, you can quickly switch between profiles by repeatedly pressing the mode button, ie. no need to push Mode button, then take your hand over to the screen and hit ECO, just a couple of consecutive presses and it cycles through the profiles, 3 second thing.

Just sport mode. Set it to that, Drive > ignition off > ignition on > still in sport mode but dash says D1.

Thanks - the button I know about - It is a 1st world problem but it is annoying. My wifes kodiaq does the same....I am wondering if it is deliberate but if it was...why not have columbus reset to correct state as well....that can't be intentional.

17 January, 2019

5 minutes ago, silver1011 said:

You'll have to fight Skoda UK.

They aren't going to volunteer to pay for it themselves, so you'll have to argue your case.

I imagine you'd have more chance getting them to put something in writing stating that fitting an aftermarket tow bar won't adversely affect your warranty, as long as is it is fitted in accordance with the manufacturers guidelines.

Hopefully this ticks all three boxes; you can have a tow bar fitted, it won't cost the earth and it won't impact on your warranty.

https://tools.skoda.co.uk/contact-us

I did have dialogue with them...and then the dealer where it got left that the dealer was also left stunned about what they were requesting...I will pick it up again on both fronts - its ridiculous to want to charge £3k and uprate the car thats already plated to tow and also if you are going to do that I want the words that explain what the problem is with after market fit..thanks for the help.

17 January, 2019

3 minutes ago, Ivan8192 said:

No, you are not expecting too much to have sensible service intervals according to your usage.

What made you have the October service at 9k? Service warning light?

I think I'm also stunned at the poor level of service and competency of the dealer. Had two Seats until mid this year when I bought a new Kodiaq and this skoda approved used Superb.

I bought the car in September. Car was one year old when I bought it and in the deal the dealer gave me cash of price instead of service. The reason for that was purely that I bought the car on delivery from a dealer in the north (I'm in south east) and I thought getting the car and whacking it through service would check it out once I had it, during its 30 day exchange period.

So ultimately, I assumed, because I knew no different, the car needed 12 month service.

17 January, 2019

I won't name the dealer at this point but here goes...

Sept 18:

Purchase car @ 12 momnths old - 7K miles

Oct 18:

Service car 3 wks later in October @ 9k miles - presumed first service - car is collected and returned to/from dealer.

Take out service plan through dealer for 1 x interim and 1 x major service at same time - pays for this service.

End Dec'18 :

Car reaches 15K miles and dash reports it needs an oil change in appx 1500 miles

I call the dealer to report this as it can't be right. The dealer says they will ask someone to get back to me.

One business day passes, no call.

I call back in. No real explanation, apology or other for not returning my call - doubt it was ever going to be returned.

I explain at length that it looks like the car was serviced in Oct 18 by dealer and the technician has failed to complete that by setting/resetting the service status.

Jan 18:

With a 3 week wait to get it into the dealer, car goes into Dealer on 16th Jan.

Dealer collects car.

Dealer phones @ 3pm on 16/1/19 to simply ask what would I like the service reset to flexible or fixed and then the can of worms is opened. No explanation of what it is currently set to, what went wrong and details of options..nothing.

I asked what the options are and they said either. I do 140 miles a day, motorway all the way apart from 10 of them. However if I opted for flexible at this point there are a few problems :

1) There are 7000 miles where the car won't have been monitoring under a flexible scheme (possibly as I still don't know what it was set to)

2) I have a fixed servicing service plan that dealer set up for me.

The proposal at this point sounded like a hack to simply set the car to fixed for another 10k miles and then when it comes back in at around 26k miles that will be roughly equivalent to a flexible service interval.

That means the car won't have been on true flexible servicing - what happens to manufacturers warranty when you in effect have just missed the next fixed service when you bring it in at 26k miles and it should have had a service at ~20k miles?

The the dealer starts to google fixed vs flexible to explain the differences - he doesn't know. I did question all of it and whether my experience is a main dealer experience. I'm read a list of all the things they check but I point out that returning a car from a basic 10k service without setting up the service interval correctly isn't what you would expect from a main dealer.

The dealer then proceeds to read through the details again...this time it becomes apparent that there is a service logged against the car, with a main dealer in Jun 198 @ 7K miles.

When I booked the car in, in Sept 18 to have a service at ~9k miles, nobody thought it was worth looking and telling me it had had one in Jun @ 7K miles.

Things now get worse as in effect I have now serviced the car at 9K when there was no need.

At this point the service adviser says he is going to speak to a manager and we agree that he will do that and call me back.

At 5pm I still have had no returned call, so I call in. They tell me the manager just wanted to check something and was waiting for some information and would call me back.

at 6.15pm, my car is delivered back to me by a very nice chap who is the best of this bad lot.

I am handed a note that simply says they have "reset the oil light". There was no oil light showing.

I now don't know what they've done and as you might appreciate am happy with none of it.

I call in to speak to manager at 6.30pm and do get to speak to him. He seems to appear to have a) no interest b) not familiar with what I am asking about.

So I explain to him all of it and that I am beyond unhappy. He still seems uninterested but says he is going to look into it and call me back on 17/1/19 once he has looked into it?

A few Q's :

1) I feel I am absolutely right to be unhappy that I wasn't told about the service @7k Jun 18 when I booked it in,in Sept 18 - there are no log books now and we are all reliant on information held by the dealer?

2) At point of service in October 18 : not being asked about what sort of servicing I was on/wanted/checking any of it and ultimately not setting the service interval and mode up correctly

3) The general lack of customer service, no apology, no attention to detail, no reliable communication and ultimately not resolving before delivering the car back.,

Am I expecting too much?

17 January, 2019

On 14/01/2019 at 16:22, silver1011 said:

At the end of the day, your car is homologated to tow.

Aftermarket towbars do not invalidate warranties if fitted correctly and in accordance with the manufacturers guidelines.

Paying £500 vs. £3,000 would have me taking my chances with future warranty claims via a franchised main dealer. Personally I don't think Skoda would have much of a leg to stand on if push came to shove. They do not publicly promote the additional changes needed to the car in the event of fitting a towbar.

I imagine the extra cooling is a 'cover all scenario's approach', i.e. pulling the maximum weight in the most arduous conditions, which for most of us is unlikely to be experienced.

The car has several systems built-in to prevent it from overheating, including the DSG gearbox where fitted.

I agree with all of it but it's just ridiculous that its vin plate stamped to tow as it is and they want to uprate everything...to tow (pressumably at the same towing limits).....so I was just interested in whether there was an angle I can push back on to try and get the skoda tow bar fitted but without it costing £3k....

17 January, 2019

On 15/01/2019 at 21:00, newbie69 said:

I currently run a MY17 DSG6 Golf that keeps the mode and 'box in their last settings, drive off and you're immediately in E1 if you'd left in ECO previously, so this is new to me. As you say, I suspect that it is only the coasting which is disabled, the mode remains true to what the Columbus indicates, so you are still in ECO mode but you don't get the coasting unless particularly selecting it. I assume there was a point that this change was implemented no matter which 'box (DSG6 or 7). Maybe someone borrowed someone else's car that was left in ECO. The guy lifted his foot expecting to engine brake, but found himself accelerating harder towards whatever was in front of him. Still is not excuse but we know how courts can be like. So VAG probably decide to remove the coasting if not explicitly selected during the same driving session.

In all honesty I find it rather immaterial, pressing 2 more buttons on a modern car is hardly a hard task ( I press many more during my typical drive), although I understand the thing about choice or preference and that if someone decided he wanted to have it always on he should be able to do it. Maybe there is some work-around but maybe not. I'll post back if I discover something.

I've spent a few days experimenting and I'm convinced that the car starts up with columbus and the mode button in the mode it was in when ignition switched off yet the car is not in that mode. Doesn't matter if I select sport, eco or individual.

It is 1st world problems I agree but none the less, disappointing and something else to remember each day. I do 70 (motorway) miles each way to work. ECO makes a significant difference to my mpg.

15 January, 2019

29 minutes ago, newbie69 said:

: you said it is (likely) in "Normal", instead of ECO. One question I have is why you can't be sure of which mode the car is in when restarted and say likely, what does the Columbus screen say?

Columbus screen shows its in ECO mode and the button is orange implying the car things its set to something other than "normal". Of course it could be the dash display that is wrong....and the columbus and button are correct?

15 January, 2019

19 hours ago, newbie69 said:

That's what I'm saying. I remember reading this not only in Briskoda but on VW and Seat forums, that this is how it's working on some cars (can't remember which MY at the moment). Drive mode remains always where you left it (you can confirm this by checking the top left corner of the infotainment screen I assume? ) but the 'box in particular defaults to "D" after a restart.

But since the main drive mode remains ECO, the 'box can only be in E or S (despite that it's starting in D - that's like a start-up condition). So, by switching to S and back, it should switch to the selected mode's "standard" gearbox mode which, for ECO, is E.

Otherwise, you'd end up being in some additional "hybrid" mode that is ECO with D 'box mode I imagine. Try and let us know.

It stays in D1 regardless if you select S using stick pull back and then again back to driving mode. It just looks like a bug to me...car starts in (likely) "Normal". Colombus and button remember last mode but car is not set in that mode....its a bit rubbish.

14 January, 2019

5 minutes ago, newbie69 said:

From what you describe, after the restart the selected mode as a whole (suspension, throttle, lights, A/C etc.) is still the last one you selected (ECO), but the gearbox defaults back to D, instead of E, is that right?

If that is so, can you try pulling the stick once to go to sport (talking about 'box only, drive mode remains ECO unless you manually select something else) and immediately once more to go back? Does it go to D or E in that case?

I'm not sure what everything else is set to as I'm, not sure how you could confirm. The gearbox is seemingly defaulting to D instead if E. FWIW I see the same on my Kodida.

I'll try the stick over to sport and back...

14 January, 2019

14 minutes ago, newbie69 said:

Oh I see, you'll help him realize how bad a car he bought and join you in your crusade against Skoda, despite he is not interested in any of that probably... Good for you the mods are quite relaxed with off-topic here. Elsewhere you'd have been kicked out after the first warning already.

I've got two Skodas...frankly I think they are both brilliant....I doubt there many cars out there that are perfect...its a relatively small problem...

14 January, 2019

6 minutes ago, silver1011 said:

Is your 1.4 TSI the 125PS or 150PS?

150PS..

14 January, 2019

Just now, MartiniB said:

MY16 does remember last mode, all newer don't

That has got to be a software bug? Can't see why it makes sense for it work that way, especially as the mode button will illuminate yellow on start if you previously selected an alternative mode, yet stay white if the last mode was "Normal"...

14 January, 2019

On 01/05/2018 at 19:57, willcrick said:

OK all, sorry about the radio silence, i will explain....

Skoda Winchester agreed to pay for the cooling system upgrade after i did a wide social media campaign. I did lots of Tweets mentioning both SkodaUK and Skoda Winchester (which i believe meant that Skoda UK called Skoda winchester and told them to sort it out). I also posted on Google + and Facebook. I also made sure that all the posting i did was cross referenced with this and other popular forum topics. What the cross referencing does is increase your google rank (most search engines put a higher ranking on content that they find on lots of other pages as they assume that means its popular). If you now search for Skoda Kodiaq Tow Bar, you get this forum post on the first google page!

However, what really got Skoda Winchester attention was the 1 star review on Facebook (again, with the links to the full story and other things). They really didnt like that. They responded by saying they would pay for the cooling upgrade (if we paid for the normal tow bar fee of around £1000) on the condition that we take down the facebook review. Reluctantly i did this (only the facebook review though, i left everything else up). I also have not posted on social media until the tow bar has been fitted, which i am pleased to say is now done, do the flood gates are back open from me!!!

To try and answer a few questions i have been reading in this and other posts.

i am only aware of the cooling system upgrade being required on the 1.4 125ps petrol engine , and it might only be my model (SE), but i would check, the dealer should know (or can find out).

In terms of the work that the garage did. It took 3.5 days!!! They have added the fold away tow bar with the electrics and switch in the boot, which looks like standard fit now. pretty cool. They also changed the grill on the front of the car (wider gaps) and did other things inside with the cooling system. On the invoice i have there are no details (just says cooling system upgraded covered by WMC) so goodness knows, but it took ages (they kindly gave us a decent car to use while we waited)

The only issue now is that our DAB radio seems to constantly drop its signal now, not sure if that is due to the tow bar, cooling system change, or the software upgrade (that they put in at the same time). Anyone else seen this?

any more questions let me know, i am now free to answer

Hi - I made an enquiry to have a tow bar fitted to my 1.4 4x4 Petrol Kodiaq and was also quoted £1.2k ... then over £3.k to have the cooling system upgraded - which is ridiculous. Unlike you I didn't ask about towing at point of purchase as I bought new but pre-built. I am struggling to understand how it is vin plate stamped with a towing weight, yet it needs a massive upgrade to the cooling system to tow? Anyhow I'm going t have another attempt at getting the tow bar added without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money as I'm trying to avoid aftermarker (as I have a 5 yr warranty and fear what problems after market my cause with that).

14 January, 2019

Hi guys,

I read the first post here and thought it sounded like my question but then thread seems to be more about the pro's and con's of driving modes. My question aligns with the first post (I think). From a clean start, the driving mode on columbus setup shows that last mode selected, in my case ECO. The dash shows D1, the light on the mode select button is orange, implying something other than normal is selected. What I'd like to happen is the car start up in the mode is was left in, such that you can leave the car in a certain drive mode and it stays there through ignition on>off>on but it looks to me like the car always starts in "Normal" remembers the last drive mode on the columbus and button but mode doesn't change until you reselect something using either columbus or button?

Is this behaviour wrong/a bug? It seems to me it is and there is nothing consistent about it? Its certainly a PITA having to manually select the mode I want every time I start up?

1 June, 2018

It's a halfway house, got shortish commute with 1 person, weekend family bus and some longer trips. Convinced myself diesel wasn't financially sensible and also that the 150PS 1.4 has enough power for what I need. Its a done deal now.

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