smipx

I knew e-roottoot would know for sure :-)

I might be wrong but isn't Fixed = Y1.Oil Change - Y2.Oil Change with Inspection - Y3.Oil Change - Y4.Oil Change with Inspection Variable = Oil change with Inspection each time (around every 2 years if you are not v high milage user but around 12000-16000 if you do a ton of miles annually). Variable is meant to be for folk who do over 10000-12000 miles per year mainly motorway cruising and not a bunch of shorter journeys I think. If the garage used the same oil for each then, if you don't care about oil every 12 months then its cheaper for sure but most of use here (I think) might prefer fresh oil annually. I had variable on an old Tiguan I had and I only every did about 5000 per year and I feel it was not serviced enough. I re-evaluated when I got the Karoq - I moved over to fixed when I purchased it as a 6 month old / 1500 Miles on the clock. It was set to Variable by Skoda UK (as it was one of their fleet cars so I am led to believe). I also purched at that point (within 2 weeks of car purchase) a fixed service plan for 2 years. Once you have the first service done I think its too late to swap over to a plan but you are entitled to swap over regime any time you like if you are paying at the time of service. I don't believe you can have a service plan on Variable and you have to purchase any plan like that before the 1st service and swap to fixed at the same time (I think but I may be wrong). Cheers, Paul

Try using MP3Tag to add the metadata to the tracks (you can do it in bulk and add an album cover too if you like). I think the Amudsen uses the metadata to display the track info as explained in my rambling post above :-)

None taken (after I properly read your reply) I was too quick on the trigger.

True true :-) Everyone has their pet hobbies and interests. For some it is modding their cars and pimping them up but for me it was getting my sounds nice and working the way I want in the depths of Winter in the middle of a national "lockdown" for Covid-19. It kept me sane at least and as a bonus I have a cracking SD card of music that is a pleasure to use - Different strokes for different folks right?

For my MIB2 I re-ripped all my CD's (or obtained MP3's from elsewhere) to 320Kbps as they were all orginally ripped to 96Kbps 10 years ago and sounded terrible. I simply have a folder structure of Root of SD Card ------------ Albums ABC Band ABC Album1 ABC Album2 DEF Band ... ... XYZ Compilation Album ZZZ Compilation Album ... 800+ Songs ----------- Classical & Christmas Albums AAA Classical Album BBB Classical Album ----------- Mega Mix 320kbps 800+ songs of 80's and 90's hits that are not in the albums above I then created an m3u playlist for everyting (bar the classical & christmas music) so I could put the whole lot (apart from classical & christmas) on one massive shuffle if I wanted to (bit OTT but I was on a roll at that point) It took me weeks to do and I used MP3tag to make all of the tags correct including Album Art and another free program (I forget the name) to create my mega m3u file (just to be able to shuffle all the songs). The most difficult bit was to get the m3u file right as you have to adapt the file (search and replace folder names to get the slashes right etc.) to make each track get picked up my MIB2 the second worst bit was using anything to get the right names into the tags for the classical albums as they have some seriously weird names and (for Windows) illegal characters/symbols. For the mega mix folder I used my own album art file: example of m3u file: #EXTINF:185,Queen - I'm in Love With My Car \Albums\Queen\Queen - Night At The Opera\3 - Queen - I'm in Love With My Car.mp3 #EXTINF:172,Queen - You're My Best Friend \Albums\Queen\Queen - Night At The Opera\4 - Queen - You're My Best Friend.mp3 ... #EXTINF:187,Blondie - Dreaming \Mega Mix 320kbps\Blondie - Dreaming.mp3 #EXTINF:153,Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone \Mega Mix 320kbps\Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone.mp3 ... ... etc. etc.... It all works wonderfully, all the art is there too but was a serious ball ache to do :-) A bit OCD I know but in lockdown we all had to find someting to while away the boring days. Cheers, Paul

For me 21.5 is personally desired. To get even close in the summer (when its over 26C) I seem to have to have it at Lo for 1st 20 minutes then 20C (and still the car is not really 21.5C). Many joirneys are only 1/2 hour or so so it Lo all the way. They always used to tout Climate Control as "set it and forget it" due to the constant monitoring and automatic adjusting to keep the set temperature for the occupants (and it used to be the case mostly but its not with this car). Its no better really than the £900 or so cheaper AC on/off system. That's whats a bit annoying for me. We all pay extra for these so called super features when we get an SEL or other premium variant but in the case of the Climate Control it seems that it might not be living up to the sales patter. When you go and complain to the dealer they always fob you off with "they are all like it sir" or similar. Luckily in the UK its not often above 25C for any extended period but if I was a poor customer in, say, Spain I would be kicking up a massive fuss with my local Skoda Head office if the Climate Control was the same as mine. I bet its only the UK and a few other "cold countries" who have the "Normal Climates" setting set in the computer and the rest of the world probably have it set to "Warmer Climates" by default (if that even makes a difference which by some peoples posts on here and other threads - it might not) and I would not raise an eyebrow if someone told me that they do the emmissions tests and certifications in one of those colder set countries to make the figures look better :-) It could also be that the "Warmer Climates" setting is only set in cars/countries where the number of grams of the new 1234yf gas is initially a higher amount. I wonder if a Spanish Karoq or an italian Karoq has the same number of grams of 1234yf gas out of the factory as a car destined for the UK. If you have a lower gas weight then maybe the lower setting makes little difference in the computer??? I have no idea but it could be...... That might also be the reason some other models have a better system (with all other things being equal)??? For Info my UK Karoq from 2019 has 0.460Kg of 1234yf. Its on a sticker under the bonnet.

Nightmare - even more of a pain then. I would hope that it should be somewhere in the advanced settings of the cooling menus unless its fundamentally changed from the 2019 model. That's what I have so apologies that I don't know :-(

Yes I have been trying all the settings just now. Its in the menu of the climate. Press the Climate menu button on the middle wheel and select intensive in the fan speed profile. It will then just blow the same air around and make a ton of noise. I am not at all convinced it turns the profile of the compresser up in any way. I think it might also help to turn OFF the "Air Care" feature but I am not sure as the purpose of this seems a little vague to say the least in the manual. I myself have fiddled with all the settings (without any carista tweaking) and can say that it is very slow to cool the car. The intensive setting makes the fans go hell for leather but the air is still not that cold so the AC is still pretty pathetic compared to my old Tiguan :-( Even with recirculate ON and the rear vents shut it takes 20 minutes to cool the car which, when considering many journeys might only be less than 20 minutes - it not really fit for purpose - even in our pathetically mild climate. If its 28C outside and you get into a car that has been slowly poaching all day then you really want to open the windows for a moment to purge the hot air and then an instant blast of very cool air in the 1st 15 minutes to quickly get the temperature of the hot plastics and fabrics down (as well as the air). It just doesn't deliver like "in the olden days". "It is not climate control like we knew it Jim". Such a shame.

Recirculate means that next to no fresh (oxygen rich) air enters the cabin. After some time the levels of Oxygen will reduce and the levels of Carbon Dioxide will increase. This can lead to fatigue (amongst other things) so the recommendation is to only recirculate as the exception rather than the rule and for as short a time as possible generally. i.e. some minutes to get a quick cooling affect, a minute or so if you are in a smelly environment or stuck in polluting traffic etc. The AC is generally always meant to be on with Recirculate too as the moisture levels can build up and cause interior fogging. I think the absolute Maximum is meant to be 30 minutes which is why the recirculate automatically turns off after a certain period. Hope that helps. Paul

Well today it was 30C here in sunny Devon and I've changed my mind - the Climate control is Cr*p! Quite prepared to admit I was very wrong! Hopefully this might help someone ...... What I did discover is that if you close the rear centre vent and pop the recurculate on it makes the world of difference (only applicable if you only have front seat passengers so not useful in many cases). It was a real revalation. All those who have only front seat occupants might want to try that as it was night and day. Having full climate control the system could have been designed to mean that you should not need to do that (in theory) but the car does not take account of the fact that no-one is on the back seats and close/divert that vent exit. The manual intervention might be a real help to all those suffering and who want a good blast of nice cold air from the get-go. Good luck everyone. We might need all the help possible this week :-) Paul

I had an annoying rattle from the drivers door hadle (inside) area and the "disable rear electric windows" switch was the culprit. Few other rattles in that area were resolved with some very thin plastic wedges like these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274487816271 . You can trim them and shape them and such like so they are pretty much invisible. Obviously get the right colour for the area but black sited me. Also, if you have a guitar you can play a nice tune to reward yourself at a job well done :-) I suspect someone had the door trim off at some point (I am the 2nd owner as it was an ex demonstrator/Skoda UK pool car from new).....

Well I had a 2020 Octavia as a courtesy car the other day (manual) and it does not have a stop/start override button on the dashboard (not in any obvious place at any rate). I think (and I am totally prepared to be corrected as I only had the car a short while) each time you start the engine have to navigate the infotainment system and disable it in their. Turns a 1/4 second task that you can do while keeping both eyes on the road into a good few seconds (especially if the infotainment is turned off at the time) and having to glance away to complete all the necessary steps. Not exactly simple or safe. In my 2019 Karoq (so glad to have back) I can do it safely and quickly and without fuss. I can also do this in the Wife's 2019 Fabia - safely and quickly. In the Octavia I nearly crashed - and while on the subject of moving every useful feature into the infotainment system, don't get me started on the faff to disable the lane assist feature when driving on country roads. That wonderful feature nearly nudged me into the path of a cyclist that I wanted to give a wide berth as I was overtaking. Yes, I fully accept that it may not have done so had in indicated but, there was no other traffic on the road and I did not indicate. To try to start to pull you back from the centre line into the path of a cyclist is just frikkin dangerous in my view. I will from now on always think of it as the "Let's run over a cyclist Assist". That needs a big RED disable button all of its own. If that is modern road safety and environmental technology at VAG's very best then, in the future, God help us all when the cars are allowed to drive themselves. I hope that day is a loooooong time coming :-)

Thanks Agedbriar. MXS 5.0 it is :-) Also means the charger can be used for other "non Stop/Start" cars too. I don't use Stop/Start anyway. I find it too intrusive and always disable it with the button on every drive. I am so glad I have the 19 model that has that button !

Sorry to go slightly off-topic (but it is relevant I hope) I was Just about to order the Ctek MXS 5 but some kind fellow on my preferred ordering site suggested that the MXS 5 is not suitable for Stop/Start cars. Is this really the case? I think a lot of folk use this on here. Pretty sure my battery is not an AGM (just like the majority of the Karoq owners I think it is an EFB battery from memory Some other wise spark said it was but you must select AGM mode. Not sure I trust either of those answers . for the OP this is a great thread to read. It explains a lot to us novices to the world of Stop/Start and batteries:

Thats how it was (pretty much) for me too. I made sure in the depths of winter to check it then take a 15-20 minute drive with Auto Stop turned off just to make sure it kept topped up. Had to do the same with the Wife's 2019 Fabia as well. Hers was left for 2 weeks in February and the battery almost failed to turn over the engine. After that I got a meter and monitored it and made sure to take both cars out weekly as a minimum during the cold snaps. It shouldn't really have to be that way but that's clever modern technology for you. For me personally - Im about to order a CTEK MXS 5.0 while the prices are low.

I had a similar (but unrelated issue) with my 10YO Mercedes C Class back in the day where oil had leaked form the old style Auto box and by the magic of surface tension had travelled uphill into the ECU of the gearbox. I had a local garage (indy) clean it out with alcohol and promply traded it in while it was still running as the repair would have been £3000+ and the car was worth about the same :-( It was 10 years old mind. But..... It ws mainained meticulously and all to MB specs for the whole 10 years. I guess if you want a car that will last years and years you'd better buy a pre 1970's car where everyting can be fixed. These modern cars seem to be so complex that they are essentially disposable if anything major happens. It's not like they are even cheap right! for some of us £25K for a car is a lot of money. To have a £4K bill after 4 years for a gearbox and mechatronic failure is a bit of a bitter pill (if you are one of the unlucky ones). I guess the only saving grace is that 95% of owners are the lucky ones (or what ever the percentage is). I feel for the unlucky 5%. Just like the unlucky 200 people per day who will soon be leaving this mortal coil due to Boris' excellent plans I suppose ..... JOKE - Don't rise to it :-)

A new DSG mechatronic will be in the £1000's. If it packs in and takes the gears with it then even more £1000's I expect. The DQ200 does have a little bit of a reputation of doing just that (maybe I'm being too cynical though).. I will, for one, be getting an extra warranty when my time comes (or selling the car at 3 years before all the problems start)... If there is a policy that coverys assocated damage (consequential loss) then I would be happy to pay double for it. cheers, Paul

For me (with DSG DQ200) I would be wanting a warranty that covers the gearbox most comprehensively. To me that is the biggest ticket item as risk. Not sure if any do. Also. If the mechatronic packs in and destroys the Gears then most warraties don't cover the damage to the gears, only the mechatronic that failed in teh first place (according to my new mate "Honest John"). That's how I am reading it at any rate. What a minefield !

possibly worth a read for those interested: https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/cheap-car-warranties/#

After reading I would like to withdraw my experiences with WD as they are no longer WD but someone just purchased the rights to the name and the products and services bear no relationship to the WD of old. Sorry for wasting your time on that :-)

A bit more digging: https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/owning-1/2021-04/heres-everything-we-know-about-warranty-directs-new-policies-prices-and-ownership/

I am guessing that it is not like-for-like. One probably has 200 exclusions and "get-out's" and the other probably has 160. Its whether those 40 are worth the extra. It will probably take an expert in rocket science many many hours to properly compare them in minute detail. ps. I wasn't endorsing WD :-) When I had my old WD warranty there were Bronze, Silver, Gold & Platinum options with another 4 options because you could choose indy or main dealer cover (from memory). Looks like they have reworked their packages into just one now :-(

Hi FabFabFabia, So was that Carista tweak worth doing do you think? Based on your long term observations). I expect your answer is "no" if you are going to get them to check the aircon. In my 2019 Karoq I have the intensity of the fan set to "low" in the Amudsen menus (as I prefer a quiet fan wherever possible) and I found that when it was 23C outside a week or two back. I started my journey (after opening all the windows for a few seconds prior to getting into the car and then starting the engine and closing the windows) that I was very unimpressed (Climatronic set to 20C) as the air was not that cold coming out of the vents. But ....... in truth, within 10 or so minutes of driving (from a cold engine start) the AC had obviously cranked itself up as the cabin temperature seemed to be fairly comfortable (and I would guesstimate around the set point of 20C). Maybe the AC is given a lower priority and allowed to consume less energy when the car first starts and then once a little warmed up maybe it cranks itself up. I also had the feeling that as soon as the sun shone directly into the windscreen I could feel the heat quite intensely but within a few minutes the AC had definately cranked up because my poor bare legs (shorts) were bloomin freezing. I had to crank it back up to 21.5C :-) For me all I want is to set 21C or similar and the car to be "about 21C inside "most of the time". If it is I'm happy and Climatronic is doing its thing. Not sure it works as well at doing that as my 10yo Tiguan did (with the old gas and a differnt logic in the software / sensors for climatronic no doubt) so I agree that the 10yo cars are more effective at cooling (and contributing more than the newer cars at helping to further destroy the environment in the process). Problem is that all of my observations on this are very subjective and just "feelings" rather than hard fast data :-) Cheers, Paul

True enough and I agree. Me and the wife have been driving VAG group cars at one point or another for probably a combined 30 years and, yes, VAG CS (not just Skoda) is not the best but the cars are generally solid and good value. ALL cars have niggles but the deiselgate scandal (and associated fix that caused loss of MPG and performance) + the DQ200 Gearbox + the 1.5TSI manual jerking and a few others dominate the forums a bit and are a bit scary. I have to remember that the posters on this forum only represent a very small percentage of owners and if you see a few complaints here it doesn't translate to a bad car. What is annoying is VAG apparent lack of ability and/or urgency to address the issues and leave some folk who have spent a lot of money on their pride and joy (in some cases) a feeling of abandonment or being stranded or a cludge of a fix that has left them with a car that is either a bit unsellable or no longer a pleasure to drive.