JayLibove

Hey langers2k, Oh, quite the opposite - thus my wondering whether people had to threaten their dealers to get updates 🙂 Internet of things, of 1700kg things with self-driving characteristics ... what could possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong? (Apologies to Yul Brynner and https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070909 - Thanks! I'll check the version in my car ..

Indeed, with that clue, I looked around, and, yes, it's QNX based. (Which is owned by Blackberry; hadn't known that. Must've saved the company's life!) I searched for QNX security bulletins, and there aren't many (compared with Linux, Android, etc) though they do happen. My 2019 Scout does not have connected services, so the only time there's any chance at all of onboard software/firmware getting updated is when the car is in for maintenance - and I never got the feeling from the Skoda dealers here around Barcelona, Spain that that's something they'd even look at unless it was a formal recall. Does anybody here get software/firmware updates to any part of the car, especially the infotainment system? Do your dealers/ maintenance shops do it automatically? Do they do it if you ask? Do they only do it after you bribe/threaten them? Being an information security wonk, I'm a big fan of applying available security updates; much less of a fan of applying a constant stream of updates which usually break or change things unnecessarily, adding "features" that I probably don't want, introducing new bugs .. and having no choice but to do that because it's the only way to get security patches, because the art of actually writing quality software and leaving users well-enough alone is long dead, may it rest in peace 🙄 cheers,

I searched but failed to find if this has been discussed before (there are so many discussions about Android Auto that it's possible this is out there, but hard to find). I'm curious, are the Skoda infotainment systems (my 2019 model year/ early 2020 manufacture Octavia MkIII Scout I think has the base Bolero system, no nav, 8" screen) based on Android? That is, the actual software that runs the infotainment itself, is it a version of Android? Or is it some custom thing for car head units? The curiosity comes from the concern that, if these things are Android based, then for security/ hack-proofing reasons keeping it up-to-date (something that Skoda does not make easy) would become more important. thanks,

Hi Graham. My Octavia 2019 describes this, and has a (non-color) picture of the red warning symbol, in the section "Warning and automatic braking". Three years ago, it continues to occasionally give this warning when the human eye knows that there's absolutely nothing there. It's just a flawed detection algorithm and/or inadequate sensor hardware. At speed (over 60km/hr I believe) my car has never automatically braked for this; it will brake in Adaptive Cruise Control mode, including if someone abruptly switches lanes in front of me at lower speed, or slows down significantly e.g. to move into an exit lane - but while my car will slow down (sometimes a bit hard) in those cases, it has never triggered the red screechy "¡you're about to hit something!" warning; those have overwhelmingly been false positives (with no auto-braking), with a very few times when I really was approaching something (but already slowing without having to press the brake any harder than I already was - the car is a nervous Nelly at times); only once I actually wasn't paying adequate attention and came up too quickly on a slowed/stopped car in front of me and my car applied the brakes for me (but, I don't think that I got the red "you're gonna crash!" warning). So, it makes little sense, and it should be a lot better than it is.

Sadly, I believe that both of these are accurate, even if stated a bit simply in the article. The CAN bus is a standard, over which known protocol messages travel. Any such communication environment, if not protected by message authentication or by overall encryption preventing intelligible injection, is trivially defeated by technology. The hard work is figuring out how. Once done (which clearly it has been) then it's a cheap job of copying it. Think about the old remote garage door universal openers that thieves were able to buy, until newer, much harder to copy/predict code remote garage door openers became standard. Same problem. Heck, our OBD11 and similar devices more-or-less prove that our cars are vulnerable to these things. Plug in a device that has no secret knowledge from the manufacturer, and it can perform all kinds of things; it may not be able to tell the car "disable alarm, start engine" but that's only because it's not programmed to. Once someone figures it out, the cat is permanently out of the bag, until a new lock is put on the bag... Or, the replacement of the once-venerable "DES" encryption algorithm - strong enough for military and government use ... until computer technology advanced enough that it could be broken in a few hours on a $1000 retail PC. (So now we use AES-256 which is several orders of magnitude more computationally expensive to break, and should be good enough for another decade or so .. or until quantum cryptography becomes practical at that scale...). So, the original question: is VW group/ Skoda CAN bus protected against this, either by the car's computer systems performing message authentication or by having all communication on the bus signed? Or are our cars vulnerable? Actually, almost surely our cars are vulnerable, as my OBD11 example above suggests; if the cars' computers required authenticated messages or encryption, OBD11 couldn't work.

Per this article, https://www.actualidadmotor.com/en/most-stolen-cars-spain/ in 2019 6 of the top twenty stolen cars in Spain (where I live) were VW group cars (VW, Seat, and Audi); I imagine that a lot of these parts are interchangeable. I've worked in information security for decades. The reality is that once a type of crime gets easier, more of that crime occurs unless something makes it unlikely to pay or makes it more likely that the criminals will get caught. Stealing a bunch of types of cars just got easier. Alarm and key defeat, no noise, little fuss; five minutes (or less) in a dark garage or shadow, and the car starts up and the thief drives it away. We probably have to worry about this more now than we did up until a few months ago.

Easier ways to steal a car than to buy an inexpensive product, break off a headlight (or in any other way at any other point on the vehicle get access to the CANbus wires), plug in wires, and thirty seconds later the doors are unlocked and the engine started?

Recent news talks of CANbus attacks by which the attacked pries off a headlight, plugs two wires into the CANbus, and with €10 of electronics, disables the engine immobilizer and starts the engine. This would be possible as long as the CANbus isn't encrypted/ messages on the CANbus don't require cryptographic validation. Anyone know whether the Octavia MkIII (2017-2020) model years -- or any/other model year ranges and other Skoda/VW cars -- have adequate cryptographic protections against this type of attack? Now that criminals are selling these devices (they're asking a few €thousand for the devices today, but it will be only months before they're available for €100, being that the technology needed is cheap off-the-shelf, and it's only the software, which is copyable, that does the clever part). https://www.autoblog.com/2023/04/18/vehicle-headlight-can-bus-injection-theft-method-update/

So, how are dynamic cornering lights different between Eco, Drive, Sport modes? Thanks for the videos and explanations!

Hm. Nobody? Beuller? Beuller? So, a different angle on this - if I can't stop the car's built-in player from reducing audio, can I at least get it to pause playback at that moment and STAY paused? I noticed (I just completed another of my cross-continent Spain-to-Germany drives) that if a phone call comes in, the car's built-in audio play either doesn't pause at all, or it automatically resumes (at ducked volume), resulting in unknowable amounts of missed audio playback...

Standard functionality apparently, as I see a lot of discussions on many different forums about this; Bolero (I think - the basic, non-high-end audio, non-satnav) infotainment in my 2020 (last of the MkIII) Octavia combi Scout, the media player "ducks" the audio if Android Auto/ Google Maps navigation issues an instruction or an alert. (I often have it set to alerts only, so it doesn't happen as often, but at least here in Spain where Google Maps _does_ know where the fixed speed cameras are, alerts happen with some frequency). All of the threads I've seen on various forums say that it's actually the audio player app which is choosing to "duck" its own audio underneath the higher-priority navigation direction/alert sound, and that if it would be possible at all to disable that (so that the infotainment player's audio volume does NOT go down) then it would have to be a setting in the player, not in Android Auto/ Google Maps navigation. So, is there a way to configure the (I think) Bolero built-in media player (e.g. playing an audiobook off of the inserts SD card) to NOT lower/duck its audio volume when Android Auto/Google Maps navigation has something to say? thanks,

The door bars thing comes from a Skoda document "Guidebook for Rescuers" subtitled "RESCUING AND SALVAGING ŠKODA BRAND VEHICLES AFTER AN ACCIDENT" (order number S00 5186 60 20). Aha, I may have misunderstood: perhaps this document wasn't speaking of an active protection system, but rather the unavoidable eventuality of reinforcing bars (static, to strengthen the car against side impacts) being forced into the doors, making the doors impossible to open after an accident: "In ŠKODA vehicles, the side impact protection consists of steel profiles. The profiles are arranged horizontally and diagonally behind the door outer panels and in the sills if necessary. In the event of a serious accident, the high-strength pipes/profiles can punch through the door panel and hook into the B-pillar (or C-pillar). Then, the door can no longer be opened." As to the good or bad of an active frame strengthening system, given that car crashes do end up in doors being unopenable naturally, I'd consider such an active system depending on the whole universe of pros and cons (weight, probabilities of different types of crashes, stronger and weaker spots on the frame, etc). But in any case it does seem that I had mis-read the document. This same document describes I think five different variants of belt tensioners (one of which is described as "reversible" and must be the one that uses the two in-my-car-empty fuse slots). It would be nice to know everything that is, and isn't, in my car. Certainly the information that the dealer provided is inaccurate (it's a generic description of mostly standard stuff plus a bunch of optional stuff not all of which my specific vehicle has). I do have a "Vehicle-specific information" report generated from my car's VIN (I forget from what website I got this), containing about 200 rows of Pr-numbers, but searching through that for "belt" or "tension" just comes up with the fact that the car has seatbelts...

Hi ApertureS, two more things come to my mind about all of this, if you don't mind. One is just a note, I had read in the Rescue manual for the car about a feature where, when the car detects a collision, it will rapidly roll up the windows, fire strenghthening bars across the doors, tighten the seatbelts, etc. I think that's seat belt safety system #4 in your list? Or, is #4 only tension-the-seatbelts *as part of the Airbag* fuse? Otherwise, even #4 ought to have a fuse (or two), shouldn't it? The only fuses in the manual for my car which are labeled anything remotely like that are these two unused "belt tensioner" fuses. Am I wrong about the "slam bolts through the doors to keep them from popping open in a crash" feature being on this (or much of any) Octavias 2020? thanks again,

Fabulous explanation, thank you so much! And, don't I feel a bit silly now (or, old, with less good vision than I once had...) - you're right, the missing second contact is quite obvious in retrospect 😅. again, thanks!

Background: Recently, the "12V socket" fuse (fuse 40 in the fuse box at the driver's knee) blew in my 2020 Octavia (MkIII) combi Scout (2.0TDI DSG-7). I'm not sure exactly when that happened. I'd had a 12V car cooler plugged in to the auxiliary 12V socket in the cargo area, and maybe also a typical USB car cigarette lighter charger plugged in in the centre console. The car cooler's plug has a 6A fuse in it, so the max it could draw should be 72W; not sure about the USB charger, but I think the two USB sockets on it are labeled 1A and 2.1A (and at most only one of the two ports was in use), so it's draw shouldn't exceed 11W. Total 83W. Even plus margin or minor surges, way beneath the 20A fuse that had been in fuse slot 40. Whatever, stuff happens. I didn't have any spare fuses at the time, so I pulled the 15A fuse from the tow hitch (fuse slot 44) which we weren't going to be using on that trip, plugged it into fuse slot 40, and it blew instantly. (The centre console port was NOT occupied at that time; the car cooler's plug WAS still plugged in in the back though the cooler itself wasn't attached). I drove back from France to Spain with both fuses out. I took the car to a local dealer here in Barcelona to ask them to look into the electrical system; they say they tested, didn't find anything wrong, and just put in a new 20A fuse. I later went looking to see if maybe the 12V socket in the cargo area could short when something is plugged into it, (literally, in the act of pushing the plug into the socket), because I've noticed that the "wall" of the cargo area into which this socket is embedded is rather flexible. I pulled the fuse, set my multimeter on impedance, held the probes on the tip and the ring of the socket, and flexed the wall - nothing. I put the fuse back in, plugged in the USB adapter and also the plug from the car cooler, all good. And then I noticed, the shop had not replaced the fuse from fuse slot 44. And I also noticed that both fuse slots 13 and 41 (belt tensioner - driver's side, and belt tensioner - front passenger side) are empty. I searched for "belt tensioner" and "octavia", "vw", "vag", and came up with a bunch of engine component stuff, and some references to a seatbelt pre-tensioner as part of the airbag system, but nothing to help me understand whether my car actually ever used those fuses. (A manual pull test on the two front seatbelts finds that, purely mechanically, they'll grab if pulled abruptly). I have the technical maintenance/repair manuals for the car; I only find the brief descriptions of how to repair components - nothing about whether those fuses are in-use. Anyone know? Does a 2020 (last of the MkIII) Octavia combi use fuses 13 and 41, "belt tensioner"s ? If so, what amperage should they be? (I found numbers ranging from 10A to 40A depending on car models, but none of those pages were specific to the Octavia MkIII). thanks,

Hey @roottoot Heh, you and I should sit down and have a beer/wine together. We obviously are of a mind 😅 *SIGH* I dunno, maybe there's a European, or per-State national automotive safety administration that wants to hear these things from us? (I live in Spain, for what it's worth). regards, -Jay

I recently drove across the famous Viaduc de Millau (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct) in my 2020 Octavia (MkIII). It has the lane keeping assistant (LKA) which I keep enabled. It was badly confused by the shadows from this beautiful bridge's many and varying support cables, see pictures attached. The LKA sometimes tried to drag me to the right out of my current lane, and sometimes to the left. Do Skoda/ VAG care to know about these things? How could we advise them of these failures of safety systems? (I have told my dealership about the reliable false positives of the "collision imminent" warning system on the mountain road near my home; I'm uncertain whether they care/ whether they have a way to tell the brand/ whether the brand cares). I'm all in favor of enhanced safety systems in cars (since, as all of us know, everyone else on the road is a worse driver than we are 😁) .. but, the systems really do have to work "well enough". A LKA that actively tries to drag the car out of lane, pretty much ever, probably doesn't qualify as working "well enough". thanks,

Thanks both @EnterName (😆) and @threadbear. I agree with these in principle. Insurance is always a risk/reward gamble. We buy health and home insurance because the costs would not be bearable for most people. Car repairs - even fairly major (like an engine or a transmission) would be bearable for us .. but, still, if we have the feeling (and, especially, if statistics suggest to us) that we're likely to "win" that insurance "gamble", we also don't mind putting the (hopefully, in the end, net-less) money down up front. The problem, of course, is that it's quite hard to know the answer to "Will a 2020 car likely need a really major repair before 2029" until lots of 2020 cars start approaching 2029 🙂 @threadbear which year and model do you have (now at 6 years and 62000 miles)? thanks again

Extended warranties have of course been discussed to no end. I almost never buy extended warranties on anything. Having bought my Skoda Octavia combi Scout (last of the MkIII, 2020 model year, delivered in September 2020, 2.0TDI DSG-7, Haldex 4x4) and seeing the enormous complexity in modern cars, I wonder. (There's just so much more than can fail, and everything is more complex - and therefore more expensive). I did not take out "Longdrive" nor any extended warranty when I originally bought the car new. I follow scheduled maintenance scrupulously and take good care of my cars. The only real reason that I'm considering an extended warranty now is that, at 32000km and a bit less than two years (the statutory warranty here in Spain is two years and something like 50000km) the transmission has developed an intermittent "clack" when gradually descending the gears. Of course, I'm taking it to the shop (under warranty), and we'll see what they say, and I shouldn't end up out of pocket for this. But if anything at all is happening to the transmission at this young age which it totally shouldn't, (I drive my cars gently, mostly on highway, but I do also use my Scout as a Scout - on unpaved sometimes steep, somewhat rough roads), then I begin to worry that something expensive might happen in the few years following the end of the statutory warranty. The offer the VW Financial Services here in Spain make for an extended warranty on this car (starting from the end of the statutory warranty at the end of the initial two years) is either: * Everything (other than wear & tear or abuse) for years 3-5, then "functional" things for years 6-8, then only major mechanical in years 9-10; for €28,53/month same price for up to the whole eight years during which this is buyable; or * Major mechanical only, for €23,43/month. * (There's also an intermediate step which is the "functional" level from year 3 rather than the "total" level for years 3-5) The ultimate limitation on this extended warranty is that they'll never pay more to repair something than the write-off value of the vehicle; they declare the write-off value to be €2000 at 200000Km (I drive less than 20000Km/year, and I found a used car value for a representatively similar vehicle at 7 years and 130000km of around €9000, so if the engine went in the last year I'd still expect it the value of the car to be more than the cost of e.g. an engine replacement). So, concretely, for the Octavia Scout, 2020 model year, 2.0TDI engine, DSG-7, 4x4 Haldex, so far no major mechanical failures seem to have cropped up (like the 2013 water pump thing, and I forget what year but some kind of dry lube in the gearbox 2-3 years earlier?) ... do you think that the approximately €2500 (over eight years) extended warranty cost is worth the gamble against a single Really Big Repair during the first decade of the car's life? (I tend to keep cars for 10+ years and closing in on 200000Km). many thanks,

Thanks to this other thread ( https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/299252-enabling-boot-closing-from-keyfob-and-interior-button-using-vcds/) which got me in-cabin and remote-fob button-closing of the rear lid. Looking through the Adaptations of the Deck Lid section (I have OBDEleven), I see a few other settings which raise my curiosity; I wonder if anyone can explain what these do? "Close rear lid" "Comfort closing" (and "Comfort opening") (several ..) "when changing terminal" "Characteristics in production mode" "Close using remote control, end when leaving the immediate area" thanks, -Jay

There have been a few threads here that talk around this topic, and one or two comments that hit my desire straight on. (2020 model year, manufactured April 2020, Octavia Scout 2.0TDI DSG7 all wheel drive) Here are past threads related: https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/398017-octavia-3-driving-modes/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-5010289 (this specific comment in the thread asks exactly my question) https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/391746-fuel-consumption-in-normal-eco/?tab=comments#comment-4555644 (this one makes an important point about the limits of "Eco") https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/455164-driving-mode-effects/ https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/441173-sport-mode-never-worked/ My quip/question: In Eco mode, the throttle response is BOTH set to "push through more range to accelerate the same amount" AND "push MUCH farther BEFORE the throttle responds AT ALL". That's annoying. If I'm in Eco mode and I decide to accelerate ~5kph to gently pass someone, I have to push the pedal so far before the car begins to respond at all that it feels unnatural, and even after 18 months and 25000km I still have the tendency to not push/ not hold the accelerator far enough down for it to respond/ stay at the slightly higher speed that I want than where I have the ACC set to. So, I'd like to program the throttle to have the same initial response (that is, to have to push through rather little distance before it begins to feed more fuel to the engine) in all driving modes, while retaining the tighter or more relaxed (shorter or longer) range through which to push the accelerator pedal to achieve a particular total acceleration. That's definitely not a feature of the Individual mode configurability in my car, which has only "Drive: Eco/Normal/Sport" which links together the two different aspects of the accelerator pedal as discussed above. Is there e.g. an OBDEleven/OCDS programmable setting to tweak how far you have to press down on the pedal before it begins to respond, separate from [mode-based how much farther to push the pedal to achieve a given amount of acceleration, and also what RPMs it favors/ when it is programmed to shift down/up]? Not part of my question, just summarising some things I've seen in other threads and comparing to my experience, the Eco mode, if you're driving on gently rolling or flat roads, with no traffic to speak of, and you're staying below about 100kph (sorry UK folks, continental Europe "liters/100km" car here... 😅), then Eco's preference to rev lower and nearly lug the engine, and downshift only when it's really losing speed up a hill, might save a little bit of fuel. But the way it actually works, and my impatience to lose up to 5kph slowly decelerating up hills (one of my big pet peeves is drivers who don't maintain a consistent speed across rolling terrain, as it causes my ACC to get angry. Okay, it causes me to be annoyed; I'm not sure that my ACC gives a ****). At full highway speeds e.g. French autoroutes and German autobahn at 130kph (and more) my 2.0TDI DSG7 is always in 7th gear and near or above 2000rpm, so Eco mode can't do anything to save fuel unless I end up in dense traffic at lower speeds with plenty of opportunity for Eco's more relaxed ACC acceleration setting to have any effect. Aside, I've noticed that above about 110kph my fuel burn goes significantly up; the sweet spot is 90kph-100kph, which would add 20%+ to my cross-continent drives on 139kph roads, so, not going to do that... thanks, -Jay

The manual for my car mentions, for those cars which have a 230V socket (mine does not), that it will be shut off if the battery gets low. It doesn't say that about the cigarette lighter/ 12V sockets. It doesn't differentiate between the 12V socket on the console and the auxiliary 12V socket in the cargo area. It would be nice to be able to find an actual statement from the manufacturer.

Hey @PetrolDave, you note that the Battery Management System will turn off the cigarette lighter is the car battery voltage gets too low. I'm pretty sure that I read (for my April 2020 Octavia MkIII, anyway) that the cigarette lighter plug (particularly, the auxiliary plug in the cargo area of the wagon) actually can drain the car's battery to dead. Maybe VW/Audi branded vehicles have more protection, but we Skoda-ites get a little less?

Nope, nothing. And I completely forgot to ask the dealer about it when I took my car in for a pre-long-drive quick once-over.

(I'm the OP) My 2020 Scout has Off-road as a selectable mode (Eco, Normal/Drive, Eco, Off-road) on the infotainment panel screen which appears when I press the physical Mode button: I observe (see details below) that Off-road mode actually makes the car in some senses LESS "sensitive", as it explicitly allows a bit more wheel slip, in order to avoid the anti-whatever systems making the car completely unable to move in the case where lots of stuff is sliding all over the place under the wheels. I've driven my 2020 Scout up a moderately rutted snow, slush, and some ice covered mountain road, in normal drive mode, several times. I routinely drive on dirt roads (nothing too spectacular, though at times the 4x4 has given me the ability to pass where a front-wheel drive car might have had difficulty, and I appreciate those extra 3cm of ground clearance). I've not even bothered to turn on Off-road mode since the very first months after I got the car new and was playing with it. The manual says: The following functions are integrated into Offroad mode. ▶ Hill descent assistant ▶ ESC Offroad ▶ ASR Offroad ▶ EDS Offroad ▶ ABS Offroad Hill Descent Assist The hill descent assistant (hereinafter referred to as assist system), with its automatic braking action on all wheels, ensures a constant speed is maintained on a steep slope when driving forwards and reversing. During an intervention, the white warning light  in the instrument cluster lights up. The assist system is automatically engaged under the following conditions: * The engine is running. * For vehicles with Manual transmission the shift lever is in the neutral position and or the 1st, 2nd, 3rd gear, or reverse gear is engaged. * On vehicles with an automatic transmission, the selector lever is in the R, N, D/S position or in the Tiptronic position. * The downhill gradient is at least 10 % (when driving over sleepers, the limit can briefly drop to 8 %). * Neither the accelerator nor the brake pedal is pressed. Driving speed Initiate the downhill descent at a reasonable speed of approx. 2 - 30 km/h, the assist system constantly maintains this speed as you travel downhill. If a forwards or reverse gear is engaged on vehicles with a manual transmission, the speed must be high enough to avoid “stalling the engine”. The driving speed can be changed by pressing the brake or accelerator pedal. This is true even if the shift lever is in the neutral position and the selector lever in the N position. Engagement of the assist system is resumed after the pedal is released. ESC Offroad ESC Offroad makes driving on dirt roads easier, as no ESC interventions occur when the vehicle is slightly over or under steered. ASR Offroad TCS Offroad makes starting and driving on an unpaved surface easier as it partially allows wheel-spin. Note When disabled, TCS » page 211 Offroad mode works without the support of TCS Offroad. (The manual doesn't explain why the section is called "ASR" but the text of the section use "TCS". I suppose that TCS is Traction Control System. I guess that ASR is Anti-Skid somethingoranother. I guess they're equivalent?) EDS Offroad EDS Offroad supports the driver when driving on a surface with different grip under the drive wheels or when driving over bumps. A spinning wheel or wheels are braked earlier and with more force than with the intervention of the standard EDS system. ABS Offroad ABS Offroad supports the driver when braking on an unpaved surface (e.g. gravel, snow etc.). The system generated by a controlled locking of the wheels braked wheel before a “wedge” of piled material, which shortens the braking distance. Maximum system efficiency is achieved when the front wheels are in the straight ahead position.