JayLibove

I have a 2020 (last of the MkIII) Octavia Scout, with (I think it's) the Bolero (basic) head unit. (No Nav, no Skoda Connect services; just Android Auto). For Maps, Android Auto works fine. But for WhatsApp, especially if I try to voice-dictate responses/new WhatsApp messages, it rapidly gets slower/ falls behind, such that it is practically unusable. My phone is a new OnePlus Nord (rather high spec, completely up to date Android, firmware, apps, everything; though I think I saw exactly the same problem on my older OnePlus 5T). For example, after just a few WhatsApp messages have been read to me through Android Auto, the follow-up "Do you want to send a reply?" (or whatever the exact prompt is) may be a little bit delayed, and in any case voice dictation of a reply/new message flat out doesn't work after the second or third message. Disconnecting the phone-to-head-unit USB cable and reconnecting (a process that takes over a minute, just like when Android Auto <-> SmartLink first starts up when I boot up, er, turn on the car) will make it "work" again, briefly... On a recent long drive, it got so far behind/ out of sync that it was hearing its own long-delayed "do you want to reply?" (or something) message in response to what it thought was me having told it that I wanted to reply. That is, the draft of the voice-dictation reply text was in fact something that the system itself had spoken out loud! I asked about this in a Spanish Octavia forum and got answers across the board; one or two people had the same problem; a few more said it works reliably for them. What experiences do Briskodans have with the reliability/performance of WhatsApp through Android Auto, please? ( @SashaGrace @skd12 @Aarond @ExSEAT @SoonToBeOctaviaOwner I've seen each of you comment about using WhatsApp; please forgive me for tagging you directly; I hope that your experiences might be most directly relevant to this question). Thanks everyone, -Jay

I know this is a very old post, but just in case someone goes looking, @brettikivi is correct; Google "Play" uses the location (address) of the Google account that is logged in to an Android phone (you can have more than one), not the physical location of the device, nor the logical location (VPN). I have Google accounts based in both the US and Spain. (I'm from the US originally; have lived in Spain for a dozen years). I switch accounts inside the Play app when I need something that is in one or the other country Google app store, but isn't global. Per https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7431675 you can choose your Google Play country .. but only if you have a payment method in that country :-(

Thanks @lway Clearly, I'm in "go home" space (no welcome lights for me) 😰 -Jay

@lil_weg If I read you correctly, either a car already has such lights (and they're easy to replace), or a car doesn't have such lights (and it would be difficult). Do I have that right? BTW my car is the last of the Octavia MkIII series; the MkIV started coming out a few months later. @FrankNicklin Thanks for the product link. I think I want to either "go big, or go home" (in the sense of fully embedded, wired). I see that this product sticks out (and sticks out), so even if the manual battery recharging would be a problem (and, ok, the car has power sources, and I have an embarrassing number of long USB cables, so re-charging really wouldn't be a problem) I don't know that I'd want to rely on the sticky tape, and being slightly clumsy at times I imagine I'd probably knock them off myself... 🐏 @varaderoguy Here are photos that I just took. I don't seem to have lights on the bottoms of doors at all - just a red reflector (so that if my door is open, a car coming up the street might be more likely to notice it), and the high mounted long narrow horizontal color-controllable LED strip (which does not project downwards at all). As far as I can tell, that red reflector is a reflector only - it never lights up. That seems to be the position at which e.g. the product in the kopacek link from varaderoguy would go; the kopacek link clearly states that the product won't work in a car with only the reflector in the door. Looking up at the bottom of the door from the ground; the only gap in the bottom of the door appears to be an access to an assembly bolt: So, I guess I'm "go home", no light, no pre-wiring, no joy? It seems such a stingy thing for Skoda to not include in a car which has so many other features, and on that Tarraco that I rented I really found the door welcome downlights to be useful... *sigh* thanks all,

I've seen "welcome" door-bottom project lights on some cars (a rented high-end Seat Tarraco last summer). Ok, yeah, there's some "cool" factor there, but it turns out that (logo or not) these "welcome" down-projector lights embedded in the bottom of the doors are quite useful (especially as I, and my eyes, get older...) Can these be added to my 2020 Octavia Scout, which did NOT come with any down-projection lights at the bottom of the doors, withOUT having to pull new wires through the door (or, even so, it being a quite easy job to do, no special tools, no significant risk of breaking things)? When I search for products like these, I tend to find them for the Octavia II / models up through 2017, not the last very few years. thanks,

So, I got the borescope. Not sure whether what I was able to see shows me the needed part numbers. Here's what I could see: 7 537 A U34 04S 5E1 857 407 CR LH 2/2 19357 >ASA< GERMANY DON and a couple of grids - one 6x6 and the other 13x6 with dots in some of the grid cells. The 5E1... number I find on a Russian car parts website: https://detali.bitavto.ru/catalog/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=533565#product-pictures-533565 The far end of the connector clearly has lots of wires coming into it; whether all of those wires actually connect to anything inside the mirror assembly is another question. Hm, there are actually several different of these parts on that website, here's another with better pictures: https://detali.bitavto.ru/catalog/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=430543#product-pictures-430543 I apologise for being fairly useless and asking so many questions. Does the above help identify the mirror motor? n.b. this is inside the driver's sideview mirror. (It dawned on me afterwards that maybe I should have looked at the passenger side mirror?)

Old topic, hoping @trimata is still around, or someone can answer... in the photo that trimata posted of the pre-FL and FL models, which of the two is the FaceLift? I have a 2020 Octavia Scout with around 6000km on it (bought new in October 2020). In the past few days the ACC has abruptly shut itself off with the "ACC not available" message appearing in the virtual instrument cluster, however simply turning ACC off and back on by pushing the cruise control lever back and a second later bringing it forward again has successfully re-engaged ACC each time. I looked at the nose of my car today to see if maybe the radar cover had got dirty. I see something that maybe looks like the white car to the left in trimata's picture; although when trying to peer through the grill slots of down from the top with the lid open, I couldn't see whether there was anything behind that flat plastic square, and in any case it's not dirty. I ran a fault scan with OBDeleven and there is NOT a fault in the ACC module, however there IS an "unknown" fault in "Steering assistance" with a time stamp that coincides with the most recent ACC disconnect: Interestingly, there's only this one, whereas ACC has disconnected two or three times recently. Any thoughts/suggestions on "ACC not available", NO idiot light on the dashboard, re-sets trivially by just turning ACC off and back on again with the cruise control (smaller, lower left) lever? thanks! -Jay

Aha. Bugger. thanks,

Hi @Krosta, I apologise if I'm being dense. You mention that you wrote a new "parametrization". I'm familiar only with the way that the OBDeleven works, which gives access to flipping some bits (which ODBeleven calls "long coding"; which does not mean writing/ changing/ or uploading program code, just flipping bits), as well as to adaptations (and some basic settings resets). So, what do you mean when you say parametrization? thanks, Jay

Yes, I know. Call me excessively conservative (or call me an engineer with a few too many years of experience with products that need to last for a very long time), I'm just not a fan of physically removing things that work on pressure clips any more often than necessary (when if they do break/wear out the cost is high to repair/ replace them). Call me old fashioned; I like screws and things like that which, at extremely low cost, are more-or-less engineered to last about 1000 times longer than the larger, more expensive product of which they form a part. And, yes, new toys... :-)

I've ordered a USB borescope in hopes of being able to identify the existing motor without having to remove the rearview mirror glass. Will report back in a few weeks when it arrives from China!

Hi @Krosta, by coincidence I was thinking about this same thing at about the same time. I suppose it's not "officially" "Traffic Jam Assist" if it can't really bring the car to a stop, but in practical terms for low speed (but not stop-and-go) traffic it's still quite useful. I think I've noticed that the ACC in my car actually does work below 60km/hr (which I understand is the speed below which ACC supposedly stops working). What I need to do is to get a friend out in their car in front of me to test this in a no-traffic situation, as I obviously don't want to do so in uncontrolled conditions.... heheh. Did you have to change any adaptations or long coding, or does your vehicle just do this as part of ACC? cheers,

Truth. I guess that (along with price) is how VAG differentiates between brands...

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to call attention to the IR part of the request; clearly, we'd be looking for modern garage door opener system compatibility. I was surprised to find €500 and up for these kits online (none of which seemed to explicitly mention the Octavia) - I guess it's because the kits seem to integrate into the roof/ control panel. I was figuring there ought to be one that would go in to / replace the driver's sun visor. Eh, I guess I'll just buy an additional one with a clip and stick it on the visor :-)

A couple of threads in this forum have asked, with no answers: So, is there a garage door opener retrofit for the MkIII Octavia? I'd like to add it to my model year 2020 Scout. thanks, -Jay

Thanks. I've tried it both ways; no change. I assume, even if it won't end up working completely (the "it goes down but doesn't come back up" that more than one person has mentioned) that I ought to at least be able to get the mirror to dip down. So far, I've gotten .. nothing. Reverse gets me reverse (which, let's admit, is not a bad thing 😅) but has no effect on the mirrors. So I figure I'm still doing something wrong in the coding. I've followed the settings as discussed here, and in this OBDeleven forum thread https://forum.obdeleven.com/thread/1017/mirror-dip One thing, is it necessary, once the coding is done, to put the car in reverse and set the dipped position? That is, that the coding just turns on that it would remember a dipped position, but not that it does dip to some (default) dipped position unless/until you tell it what that dipped position in reverse should be by adjusting the mirror yourself while in reverse gear? -Jay

Thanks for this detail. I've looked in OBDeleven's Info for the doors, and I get the feeling that it can't read the mirror motor part number (or I don't know where to look for it). Is there a software way to see what mirror motor part number is installed in my car, or do I need to take something apart to figure it out? cheers,

I stand corrected. I'd been sure that I'd seen TJA as an option in the Octavia MkIII / 2020 model year .. but looking back now, TJA was introduced in the MkIV for the 2021 model year that had been announced in 2020. Thanks everyone. (Fortunately, I almost never have to drive through traffic anyway; it was just a cool thought...)

Um. Why would the car creep forward? (You mention a clutch; I have a DSG7 automatic transmission; the car is capable of autonomously braking to a complete stop to avoid a collision. If it can "press" the brake that hard, why could it "keep the brake pressed" until traffic in front clears to allow TJA to move forward again?) Also, per https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/454210-electric-parking-brake/ I don't get the impression that the Octavia MkIII even comes with an electronic parking brake option? (I think the MkIV moved to that). -Jay

Great, thanks @Ecomatt. Could someone please comment on the slight differences in hardware? TSG BFS J387 (in both cases) 5Q4959592K (mine) vs 5Q4959592B (Ecomatt's) Does a different letter at the end signify meaningfully different characteristics/ capabilities, or just older/newer versions of "the same thing"? thanks,

Hi, thanks for the idea. I'm not sure why the parking brake would be involved in the Traffic Jam Assistant, since only the regular brake (which Adaptive Cruise Control, Pedestrian/crossing traffic/ Collision avoidance, etc all use) is how a car/driver in traffic slow and even temporarily stops a car in stop-and-go traffic?

Quick update, got back in the car, connected to the OBDeleven so I could check the Adaptations: Adaptive Cruise Control, Long Coding: Lane_change_support (deactivated) [my car has both active lane keeping and blind spot detection/ lane change assistance activated and working, despite this setting] Traffic_sign_detection (deactivated) [not relevant to lane vs lane, but, I've activated Traffic sign recognition, and it is working, despite this setting] Control_module_for_lane_assistance (not installed) [despite that all lane keeping and change assistance functions are activated and working] Lane Change Assistant Right, nothing in Adaptations, nothing in Long Coding. Steering Assistance, nothing in Adaptations, Lane assistant (active) Driver Assistance, Adaptations, Warning intensity, lane depart, warning (settable as Weak, Medium, Strong, or Selection via Menu) Switch-on condition, lane depart, warn (settable as Off, On, on setting via menu, or off settings via menu) Driver Assistance, Long Coding: SWA (Not_coded) LaneAssist_AGW_output (disabled) Lane_assist_off_text (disabled) Blind_spot_detection (Coded) -Jay

Hi @langers2k Looking at backup and history.txt files from OBDeleven, here are where I find the various "lane assistant" vs "lane change assistance" settings: Control Unit: A5 Driver Assistance System description: MQB_B_MFK Software number: 3Q0980654L Software version: 0610 Hardware number: 3Q0980654A Hardware version: H13 ODX name: EV_MFKBoschMQBB ODX version: 002041 Long coding: 0203070200000401002200558150A90084000E20000000 Adaptations: Switch-on condition, lane depart. warn.: ---: on (setting via menu) Um. Weird. That's the ONLY "lane" that I find (including search "fahr" and "bahn") in the OBDeleven backup and history files... Okay, manually searching: Central Electrics, found nothing, neither in Long Coding nor in Adaptations. Adaptive Cruise Control, Long Coding: Lane_change_support (deactivated) [my car has both active lane keeping and blind spot detection/ lane change assistance activated and working, despite this setting] Traffic_sign_detection (deactivated) [not relevant to lane vs lane, but, I've activated Traffic sign recognition, and it is working, despite this setting] Control_module_for_lane_assistance (not installed) [despite that all lane keeping and change assistance functions are activated and working] Lane Change Assistant Right, (can't check Adaptations offline), nothing in Long Coding. Steering Assistance, (can't check Adaptations offline), Lane assistant (active) Driver Assistance, (can't check Adaptations offline), Long Coding: SWA (Not_coded) LaneAssist_AGW_output (disabled) Lane_assist_off_text (disabled) Blind_spot_detection (Coded) -Jay (totally unrelated to all of the above, gotta love the field texts in OBDeleven "Urban_autonomouse_emergency*"; I guess little creatures bring big features to these ultra-modern computers-on-wheels that we call cars these days? 🐁 😸)

Has anyone enabled Traffic Jam Assistant on an Octavia MkIII that already has Adaptive Cruise Control and Adaptive Lane Guidance (active lane keeping)? Per https://forum.obdeleven.com/thread/2069/traffic-jam-assistant-coding-obdeleven#ixzz5eXHsmx4n (this thread is about the Audi Q5) and https://forum.obdeleven.com/thread/6873/activate-traffic-jam-assist-emergency (this thread is specifically about the Tiguan MkII 5N) it looks like the hardware of ACC and ALG should be enough, assuming that TJA is NOT extra software that isn't already installed. Anyone know if TJA is in fact extra software/ what to look for (I have an OBDeleven) to see if all the bits are present and it's just a matter of enabling it via long coding and/or adaptations? thanks!

I have a Scout (so it has Offroad mode), and I hadn't even been aware of the existence of the "Offroad gauges" display. I found it accidentally when attempting to enable a compass display (which of course doesn't work, because my car has no nav, and has no compass) but I did cause that display to appear. You mention water temp; some kind of temperature gause does appear in my Offroad gauges display, but I thought it was oil temp. (Which is already on the virtual cockpit, so I didn't pay attention to it). The one gauge that appears and works on the Offroad gauges display for me is the wheel angle, and it seems to seriously lag the actual angle-away-from-straight-forward of the wheels of the car, to the point that I can't think of any situation in which it would be useful, so I plan to disable that display.