Stevieweevie

I have a 2019 SEL with auto park assist, the reversing camera has the washer built in and it has static reversing lines. As shown above, the infotainment screen shows dynamic lines when manoeuvring but since there is no 360 degree camera option, this is somewhat redundant because there is no reference point for scale and positional context.

The WLTP driving mode thing you’ve explained actually makes perfect sense now you mention it. I.e. it will stop the owner from set & forget sport mode and tanking the economy and upping the emissions. It makes sense. It’s anti consumer but it makes sense. Voice control on my Leon was kind of quirky but it was reliable for the few things I used it for. The Karoq is hopeless TBH. By eco mode I actually meant the drive mode is set to ECO. I feel, subjectively, that when the heated seats are on full they are noticeably warmer if the car is set to ECO than if it’s set on normal mode. To me, if that’s real and not placebo, it’s a bit counterintuitive as you’d think hotter takes more energy but I don’t know. I wonder if that having a heated steering wheel which only works in tandem takes a portion of the circuits loading capacity so less is available for the heated seats? I’ll have to try it by turning off the steering wheel heater and just having the bum warmer on and seeing if there’s any difference.

Wow - are you this fun at parties? I was asking about the mirror controls, the other stuff was observational. I’m so happy for you that your perfect car works perfectly and is the epitome of perfection. By all means, don’t let me stop you enjoying it with any obligation to point out how my observations - not opinions, observations - differ from your own. They aren’t faults most of them, they’re inadequacies. If Skoda don’t know how to code an infotainment system so it doesn’t crash (my Leon’s never crashed once) I hold out little hope for mentioning it to them and them having even the first clue about how to fix it. I contacted Skoda UK when my BLS started turning off when the parking assist automatically kicked in. Their advice was to take it in to the dealers. And you know what? I didn’t. It fixed itself and besides I’ve been to the dealers with it too many times already for the kangaroo fix and some plastic cladding peeling off to be bothered to take it back again for a gripe. When it goes in for service I shall be certain to raise the litany of small issues with it.

I believe the Karoqs LED headlights are Hella units as well. Having experience of both I feel the Karoqs LEDs are miles better than the pre facelift Leon’s. Different league entirely.

Has anyone else experienced this? Had an issue the other day whereby I started the car and then wanted to adjust the near side mirror so it faced as far down as possible to help me get out of a tight space. I turned the dial to the corresponding mirror but it barely moved. Stranger still when I pushed the stick vertically, the mirror moved horizontally inwards. Pressing down also moved it horizontally inwards. When it was all the way in, pressing either up or down only moved the mirror horizontally outwards. Thought the mirror had had it or was damaged but the same thing was happening with the right mirror. I tried fiddling with settings for mirrors and deactivated “synchronous adjustment” which I don’t even know what that is supposed to do as they don’t seem to sync with each other anyway. Still didn’t work. Turned off ignition, then back on, still didn’t work. To fix it I had to get out the car, lock it so that the wing mirrors folded in and then get in so they opened and the controls were back to normal. This car’s software is a bit of a mess in my opinion especially considering it’s a 2019 car I would expect software glitches to be mostly ironed out after 2 years in production. Add to this; Infotainment system occasionally crashes and restarts itself randomly. There is road on my morning commute where the sat nav will go crazy and lose position always in the EXACT same place and this precedes an infotainment system crash, but it’s always always at the same point in the road so it’s like the GPS coordinates sometimes freak the thing out. Randomly resetting and deactivation of lane assist and BLS (I posted a video of this and they’ve both come back to stay now but no idea why they did that). A temporary loss of the radar / active cruise control unit for no apparent reason only for it to return without any action required on a subsequent journey. A voice command system that’s about as reliable as the UK railway network. “Call Mom” - pardon? “Caaaalll MOM” Pardon? Oh sod it, don’t call mom. Do you wish to call the contact JOHN? Oh ***s off car. Seemingly no way to choose a default preferred driving mode I.e. having to set ECO or Sport every single time you start the car. Bluetooth phone sync that loves to default to muting the music volume every time it’s connected. Heated seats that unless paradoxically set to ECO mode are only as warm as they would be if you let out a long fart. Rain sensing wipers that occasionally need you to remind them that rain is that wet stuff that’s collecting on the windscreen and making it impossible to see out of. Or they do totally bat poo raving mad when there rain is akin to a dehydrated llama trying to spit at the front of the car.

VW Group use Valeo as an OEM for a number of components. I was surprised when I learned that the pre facelift Seat Leon’s LED headlights were Valeo units. Makes you wonder if they make crap wipers how they get business making important and fundamental parts.

I'd say it's a standard line but it made me think the same as you. If they're not liable for their own updates then who is? You have to imagine that if it ruined your car or significantly affected it in an adverse manner, they almost certainly would still be liable. As a statement I don't expect it would hold up in a court. It seems analogous to saying "this product update is provided without guarantee or warranty" which is not something a manufacturer of goods can trundle out in the UK as it impinges on various rights. As an aside, she never said it or read it out to me either. I would also argue that the conditions under which I signed the work order were not in line with me having a full understanding of terms as nothing was read out or explained to me and I didn't get to see that part of the recall notice until after the work had been done. Hopefully all moot now. Fingers crossed.

Had my second update applied on Weds to my MY19 1.5 manual. Skoda customer services had asked the dealer to contact me to have the fix applied. When I booked it in the guy said there was also a recall on the vehicle relating to the ECU. When I signed for the updates to be carried out there were 2 jobsheets. A few hours later on pickup I was informed that only the recall action was carried out because they were both for an ECU update and the recall one was a newer version than the “judder” update and that they would not apply an old one then a newer one. I read the paperwork that I signed and it states an issue with the 1.5 EVO unit and the alternator creating a situation of “poor pickup” and “unsatisfactory power delivery event” owing to incorrect application within the engine management control software. It also had the bylines for the dealer! “Inform the customer that Skoda strongly recommends application of the update but that we cannot be held responsible for any damage or losses incurred either directly or indirectly as a result of application of an ECU, software or firmware update. I raised some concern at this and that this recall had been prioritised but the lady was adamant that the updates were one and the same thing. Sure enough there is an immediate and very noticeable improvement. Someone else mentioned that you can still feel something there, something that can make pulling away less than optimally smooth. But it’s improved to the point that I am having to unlearn the driving tactics that I’ve taken on over the past 5 month to not look a complete pillock driving away because the car seems to drive more like you’d expect it to and how it should have done all along.

Had Neha from Skoda UK call me advising of software update for juddering, which is separate to the update applied a couple months ago for loss of power when pulling away and in decelerations in 2nd. She got my local garage, Trust Skoda, to call me and the chap there said that the juddering “issue” does indeed now have a visible TPI associated with it. This is something that both Skoda UK and Trust vehemently denied back in April when I first contacted them after taking delivery of my Karoq. He told me that the incidence of customers taking their issue to Skoda UK compared to the number of those he suspected were affected was minimal and chimed in with his own thoughts on why that might be the cause of it having taken so long to be recognised. Suffice it to say though, he said it was a verified TPI and up to this point getting them to say that has been next to impossible. So I guess that’s progress - of a sort.

There is a looming unspoken issue of impropriety at play I'd say. These journalists work for media corporations that take advertising and marketing money from the car groups. If you're too harsh or you fail to tow the line / wander too far from the company spin you jeopardise that revenue and risk being blacklisted by said company. Obviously this is a real issue if your product i.e. journalism is intended to be transparent, unbiased and to inform customers and potential buyers. To me, this is at play here with this journalism because no hard questions are being asked.

With respect your sentiment exemplifies the fallacy of relative privation. You are right. We are all going to die, but to contrast any issue, belief, philosophy against that backdrop of futilism isn't a valid response. Because if that's your view and you follow it wholly to it's conclusion then nothing matters at all and it's pointless to do anything, think anything or to even exist. I'm a bit anal and I've gone totally off topic here. But basically if you're resigned to nothing mattering then your preferences you mentioned earlier are worthless. You're arguing that what you think ultimately doesn't matter, which isn't a strong argument in any given case. If you don't care then why should I?

Correction: it's called progress. You might take such a cynical view of air pollution and global warming if someone you cared about died from a breathing condition caused or exacerbated by car air pollution. A problem that is very serious and getting worse. Individual cars polluting less but in orders of magnitude greater numbers. If you take the view that there are other countries in the world and that in the UK we are extremely blessed with a temperate climate but that global warming is as it's name suggests a global issue and might affect you with a warmer winter but causes massive problems for human populations elsewhere not to mention other species. I pay plenty of tax including BIK for my petrol car and there are lots of reasons to be cynical about taxation, especially when it has the greatest effect on the poor. But what you're saying is extremely short sighted. Without this "socialism" there would be no NHS everybody would have to fend for themselves and we'd be like America. Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, where people die of easily preventable and curable conditions because they can't afford healthcare. Without this 'socialism' the level of advancement for alternative power vehicles wouldn't be where it is today. We wouldn't have electric and hybrids because there wouldn't be any monetary incentive for capitalistic entities i.e. the entire automotive industry to have invested in the tech. Punitive taxation is one of the only ways to motivate corporations to alter practices. You aim for where it hurts - their coffers. All they give a damn about is money so you sculpt the financial landscape to make them move in that direction. And we've seen from the dieselgate scandal that even then they try to cheat and get around it. So it seems odd to me that your ire would be aimed at socialist government and institutions when the people who deserve it are mega rich and greedy CEOs who dodge the taxes that you and I have to pay and make more in a month than we will ever see in our lifetimes. Everyone is free to have their opinion but blimey if you want to back those people in your sentiment and outlook that's just something I can't get my head around.

I live chatted with Skoda yesterday and they advised me that this behaviour is unintended - no kidding. Advised me to book it in at a Skoda retailer for diagnostics. Am going to wait a while and see about this second software update for Kangarooing they’ve told me about and see if I can’t kill two marsupials with one boomerang.

My Karoq doesn't have a tow bar fitted or any other towing-related gubbins, so it would surprise me if that was related. As you say, you can immediately enable the function again, but it's extremely inconvenient. It also means that rear cross-traffic alert i.e. when reversing out of a space, is useless unless you've remembered to enable it again as you set off. I've just now being to a public car park to test it out and took video footage of the bug occuring. If you enable the BSM while the car is running and you are in a parked position (so when the parking sensors are active) you can put the car into reverse and engage the reversing camera and it works fine, the BSM stays active. When you drive away and get up to speed so that the parking assist systems (ultrasonic sensors) deactivate, its on their automatic reactivation that the BSM is turned off. So I think it's something to do with parking assistance automated activation / deactivation that is causing this to happen as I can confirm that both systems can be active simultaneously - as you would expect - and that the issue occurs when the system is automatically turning one of them on.

I was parking for work last week and when I engaged reverse (turning on all the parking sensors and rear view camera) I had audible and visual notifications saying: Blind spot and rear traffic function unavailable Park assist function unavailable Strange I thought. When I came back to the car after work and started it, no notifications but I noticed the blind spot LEDs in the wing mirrors didn’t illuminate and fade on ignition like normal. Went to the setting and the options were turned off. So I turned them on again. Fine. Get home, engage reverse to get into my space, same thing happens again. TL:DR I have to manually activate BSM and rear traffic alert every journey. I looked this up and it is a bug that occurred for some Kodiaq drivers back in 2017, exact same circs. I’m not very impressed that a 2+ year old bug has managed to not only go unfixed but to find itself transplanted into another model as well. It’s an expensive option to have to faff about with each drive. Has anyone else encountered this? I don’t understand the cause as the things been working fine sine beginning April.

But the odds are irrelevant if you happen to take delivery of an affected one because most people don’t care if other cars work, just theirs. You don’t know the percentage affected and you are advocating a 20+K gamble. The more you post the more it feels like I’m reading something from an apologist for it. The issue I have with someone making a recommendation if there is a risk - the person making it doesn’t have to live with the consequences of that risk. Disagree with it being silly to write off an entire range when there are: a) Other engines available in the same models in said range which carry apparently little or no risk of having the discussed issue and b) There are other brands available with comparable models. It’s not as if VW group make all cars I'm not set against the Karoq or any brand / model, but it’s sad that this topic is even a thing and the issue is as prevalent as it is. Surely it didn’t have to be like this? These cars are otherwise great. This issue is scandalous.

I shall. Looks like you’re of the habit of editing your posts as you’ve edited at least 2 to remove text that points to you having made a mistake, remark or misconception. You’ve also made it quite clear that instead of responding to questions or statements you just want to pass judgement on my character in that I am antagonistic and unfriendly. Still I don’t know why you’ve gone to the effort of retroactively amending your posts. Is it boredom or chip on your shoulder?

My posts are antagonistic? Your last one starts with “give me strength” when you didn’t like my replies and though that I was being ungrateful when it was actually your error and a case of mistaken identity. I asked you for nothing. You don’t need personal experience to make a recommendation, but I think most people would agree that if you do recommend something there is some expectation that it will be based on some knowledge. Else it’s a bit hollow. I have a vehicle that has been beset with this issue and I took exception to seeing you recommend another vehicle to someone looking to avoid it specifically, which there is evidence also can suffer the issue. That is a poor recommendation by any metric. Someone such as you, who as a forum user I take is very senior and well established, you might give thought that your “recommendation” would carry more substance than, say, mine. You have mistaken my disagreement with you for antagonism.

It wasn’t me who asked for the recommendation... I just happened to see you recommending it to someone else. I never asked for anything. I happen to have a 1.5 Karoq SEL manual so I’m talking from a position of experience and that was why I felt it curious that you were recommending something you have no experience of. I’d get off that horse slowly if I were you as it seems very high up.

So a Russian roulette then? And do you still stand by your recommendation to the other forum member to consider a 1.5 Ateca? Because that’s an aspect of my post that you have so far left unaddressed.

You seem to be missing the point. The Ateca has been on sale since 2016 and until last year I believe, perhaps mid way last year, it was a 1.4 engine not a 1.5. So what I’m saying is that MOST Atecas on the road at the moment won’t have the 1.5 by virtue of how car sales work. 2.5 years worth of 1.4 unit sales. Not sure what is difficult to understand about that. I’m not claiming anything about the vehicles popularity or sales figures so I don’t know what you’re on about. If you have a source for sales number for Ateca 1.5 and can prove that the market split has a majority of 1.5 engines in it then I’ll gladly eat my words, but I’m confident you won’t because it’s highly improbable.

What I meant was it's later to receive the 1.5 engine. The makeup of Atecas out on the roads is such that only a minority of them will have the 1.5 for now as the car has been on sale for 3+ years with the 1.4 and other engines. By comparison, cars like the T-Roc and Karoq have only ever been available with the 1.5 as the mid range option, so owners of these cars are likely where most noise is going to be heard coming from. As you point out though it does not mean little or no noise means there isn't a problem, just that incidents are more isolated until the engine propagates the market.

It’s mitigated by software but the issue is related to the hardware, hence the admission of a problem affecting the 1.5l TSI as a whole and not specific models e.g. Honest John report re T-ROC. The problem is at a hardware level because if it was purely software, an ECU fix that works on one engine will work on them all and we know that isn’t the case hence MY19 engines for Karoqs having a fix and not earlier. They actually make mention of noticing hesitance with their long term test Seat Arona in one publication. Given that hat we can confirm prevalence of the issue across multiple brands and models, the commonality being the engine in each and every case, the “I haven’t heard of any complaints from Ateca owners” probably isn’t the most solid foundation on which to base a recommendation. My understanding is that Atecas are later to the party to receive this engine as priorly they were using the 1.4 so there won’t be as pure an installed user base of Ateca 1.5s in the mix to form what you might consider a balanced reflection whereas for Karoqs and T-Rocs etc it is the most common power plant. Also, I didn't intend to come across negatively. I can see from looking across posts about this that you've presided over many of these topics about this problem and you seem very knowledgeable in general. I am just surprised that given that knowledge but no experience of the issue yourself since you have or had a 1.4 Kodiaq, that you would recommend another vehicle in the VW stable when you have no way of being confident that wouldn't be affected. On balance the evidence so far would be caveat emptor and err on the side of caution rather than risk it because you've not heard of people having issues. I hope that makes sense and apologise if I offended you.

You mean that Ateca that comes with the option of the same 1.5 TSI powerplant that has the issue? Doesn't seem like great advice to me since people who don't know might not realise that these are all the same vehicles sharing a platform and powerplants. They will therefore share many of the characteristics and flaws across the engine range. Unless you're recommending the 2L petrol but that is not explicit in your signposting.

It sure feels like it’s idling with higher RPM than before. I will check tomorrow and see.