JayLibove

(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.

Ah. Yes. That would fatally suck. And, in any case, I agree, there should be a manual backup method to start the car with a correct physical key despite the total failure of the fob circuitry, similar to limp mode for AdBlue Diesels. For technology (including security) to put the car driver in a potentially dangerous situation is not acceptable. -Jay

In this case, was the key fob totally dead, or just the battery in the key fob was dead? It seems that some of our number here have been able to get past a dead key fob battery by leveraging the RFID inducer in the start button (powered by the car battery). That should work even with the car alarm sounding (or, in my case, as my car has no alarm, just the immobiliser activated).

@TheWanderer ouch, 1.15am ... I wonder how well the local auto club (I'm in Spain) would handle this. I don't have Skoda Assist or any kind of extra Skoda services, just the stock 2-year warranty (which will end in Sept 2022). Though, hopefully, now that I know that it should be possible to start the car by pressing the start button with the battery-dead keyfob, I should never need the assist.... 🤞

Just happened to me. 16 months old new-bought 2020 Octavia Scout. I don't drive regularly, and the key is kept much farther away from the car than can possibly reach, so when the car is parked, the key is completely out of contact. No low-battery warning at all. No "have to be close for the car to unlock". Just worked fine this morning, and then this afternoon on returning to the parked car from a bicycle ride, temperature 4°C and falling, getting dark, the key fob is totally dead. I was lucky; a nearby restaurant's waiter had a pocketknife (I normally carry one, but not on the bicycle ride!) which made it possible to extract the battery (the battery in my car model's key fob is stuck in there too strongly for anything but a metal flat screwdriver or similar to remove it - we tried fingernails, plastic, even a metal wire), and even more fortunately I happen to keep extra CR2032 batteries on my bicycle because my bicycle computer uses them. If it hadn't been for that, I'd have been stuck out there in the cold dark waiting for the auto club or a taxi! I'm rather disappointed that the system gave no warning, and that when the key fob dies, it is impossible to start the car. (Or, is it possible to emergency start the car somehow?)

BTW, since the UK market cars step up/down by 5MPH (about 8km/hr), it's not absolutely fixed .. but it might be not-codeable and linked to units selection (and I'm not going to switch my car into English units here in southern Europe 😅).

Interesting. The only setting for ACC in my car is the following distance (close, medium, and far). Nothing at all about Normal/ Sport/ Eco for ACC. (And far, unfortunately, at least here on the Mediterranean, should really be "encourage every *sshole on the road to jump into the nice, safe, large gap in front of you, making your car constantly brake...). Normal/ Sport/ Eco (and/ Offroad) are available in my car as the driving modes, which does affect ACC as @CptSeasick describes, although I wouldn't call the car's behavior in Normal mode aggressive (it will vary by 1-2 km/hr and sometimes lag a little bit in coming back up to speed up a hill if the engine RPM is low and requires a shift down to a lower gear, but maybe that's just because I've got the diesel which really prefers to run low RPMs unless it's in Sport mode). As you surmise @CptSeasick in Sport mode ACC can be quite aggressive in coming up to a new speed (either when you bump the ACC control stalk +10km/hr, or for example resuming after manually slowing down e.g. for a toll; for a moderately heavy diesel the 2.0TDI 184cV can definitely kick). But, still, really, what I want is that smaller step +/- 5km/hr instead of 10. It's curious, with so many other things being computer controlled and easily modified, that this doesn't seem to be one of them 😞

Hi @PetrolDave, I'm not sure I understand. You mention the "mode" of the ACC. I know that cruise control can be set to either speed limiter (must keep the accelerator pedal pressed) or cruise control (car maintains speed with your foot off of the pedal). But that "mode" selection wouldn't seem related. My ask would apply to both modes, because it's just a matter of changing the speed step size from 10km/hr to 5km/hr for each up or down press of the ACC stalk. Could you clarify please what you mean about setting the ACC mode? thanks,

Thanks Cakemonster. Yes, I know; I use those features all the time. I'd really like to have +/- 5km/hr instead of +/- 10km/hr. And/or to be able to configure the car to more gently reach the jumped speed target; going up the car tends to surge a little (even in normal Drive mode; I'd expect that in Sport, but in Drive it should be smoother); going down the car tends to hit the brakes a little harder than it needs to.

I have a 2020 (last of the MkIII) Octavia with Adaptive Cruise Control. I use it frequently. One thing that I don't like about it though is that the up/down step of the ACC stalk is in 10km/hr increments. Can this be reconfigured to be in 5km/hr increments? (I have an OBDEleven, if that helps). thanks,

Right. My hope had been that the wind deflectors would make the car sufficiently less aerodynamic to reduce the noise 🙂 I'm actually scratching my head wondering what the point of these wind deflectors is, then, since they don't seem to actually deflect the wind....

Oh, well. I bought a set of Heko wind deflectors and tested them this past weekend. They do .. nothing. I'm returning them (and giving up).

I'm not sure I understand. If I get "safe lock" right, that's the ability to open a door from the inside (by default) unless the remote key fob lock button has been pressed twice, right? I'm happy with safe lock. I have no children nor pets, and I agree that it should generally be possible to escape the vehicle from the inside without having to explicitly unlock the door first. So, yes, maybe Safe Lock is involved in the logic that results in the 'game' of "All doors are locked light on the lock-all-doors button goes out, now guess which doors are still locked"... I still wonder whether it's even possible for it to make more sense (without adding more lights/ light colors on the lock-all-doors button, or some other kind of rather obvious indication).

Hi @paulski, I have auto-lock/ auto-unlock turned off. I don't particularly like the car locking automatically, and I especially don't like it ever unlocking automatically. So, yes, per my preferences, I do need to use the lock-all/unlock-all button. thanks, Jay

I notice that, if I press the lock-all-doors button in the centre console (so all doors lock and the button light turns on) and then a door is manually opened from the inside, the "all doors are locked" light goes out (which, technically, is accurate) but no other doors are unlocked (which sort-of makes sense). The problem with this is that the other doors do remain locked. So, problematic use case (happens routinely when my wife is in the passenger seat and I'm in the driver seat): We've pressed the lock-all-doors button. All doors lock. The light on the button comes on. Either one of us (or both) gets out of the front seats. Light goes out. Rear doors stay locked. Some time later (could be thirty seconds, that's all it takes to forget 😹) one or the other of us tries to open a rear door to put something in/ take something out. Cursing ensues, followed by (if I recall correctly, at least sometimes) two presses of the lock-all-doors button, to re-lock all (because that's what the button does when any door is not locked) and then unlock all (to get the rear door unlocked). I'm honestly not sure what the "right" pattern would be. I certainly don't want all doors unlocking when just a door is manually opened from the inside. And I don't suppose it would be exactly accurate to have the lock-all-doors button's light stay on when any door has been unlocked (by being manually opened from the inside). But, equally, it's wrong for that light to go out which feels like it means "all doors are unlocked". (I know, it doesn't mean that, but the fact that this keeps happening to us says that the user experience of that button and its light is .. imperfect). First, are there any settings at all that I might consider to change this behavior? Second, just for discussion (since I imagine it can't really be changed in our existing cars - or, can it?) is there any other way this could/should work? cheers,

I got an answer from Krieger Manufacturing that clearly and explicitly says that people DO use their inverters, wired directly onto the battery terminals, with the car engine running, to provide the full power of the alternator to the inverter. They also indicated that people use one-or-more batteries, connected to solar chargers, connected to their inverters. They commented that the reason their documentation talks about using the batteries (but doesn't explicitly mention doing it with the battery still connected to the car itself) is only in order to maximize the current available to the inverter. Victron also answered me. I truly don't understand the answer that I received to the question of whether modern, complicated car electrical systems would somehow have a problem with an inverter drawing from the battery terminals while the battery remains connected to the car and the car engine running. The reply text was: That said, they also went on to say "yes, then that's an option" to my follow-up question which asked (putting aside the "could a modern, complicated car's electrical system be somehow incompatible with this) my idea is to use the car as a kind of generator (so the fuel tank, engine, and alternator would power the inverter). So I guess Victron also is saying that this should work. I'd still like to get an answer from a Skoda/VW group electrical system expert just to confirm that the load the inverter would place on the battery/ alternator being connected to the battery, in the car, car running, would NOT cause some kind of problem... -Jay

I completely understand the physics of it. I'd argue that "cars" have been doing it _as badly as this car does_ only when the designers/manufacturers haven't paid adequate attention to the issue in the design and testing phase. It's rather worse than on most cars that I've owned over the decades; much more difficult to find a combination of which windows to open how much that results in sufficiently muting the sound while still getting reasonable airflow. It's quite disappointing. Has anyone been happy with a particular wind deflector product to help with the problem on our Octavias?

This has sort of been discussed in past threads, but I didn't see any proposed solutions. My 2020 (last of the MkIII) Octavia Scout (wagon) has terrible "beat" (a thumping noise) from the wind if windows are open. I imagine that this should be fixable by mounting small deflectors at the top of each door's window. Does anyone have a suggestion of a specific product that works well to reduce this physically painful sound and pressure on the ears while driving with windows partway down at speed? thanks, -Jay

Thanks @TheWanderer. I suspect that the "300W" rating is .. aspirational. If you plugged a 300W continuous draw load into this (say, a 300W old fashioned incandescent light bulb) I'm pretty sure you'd either trip the circuit breaker (if there is one) in the inverter, or a fuse in the car. The models that can handle continuous higher loads would have to be wired in to the car's electrical system. About Modified Sine Wave or Pure Sine Wave, you can read about it here: https://gopowerfleet.com/pure-vs-modified-sine-wave-inverters-whatss-difference The short is that modified since wave inverters are good only for not-particularly-sensitive loads (such as transformers with rectifiers) that can eat "dirty" power. Motors, and anything that expects the power to provide highly consistent wave form (old fashioned AC-plugged-in electric clocks for example) either won't function well or might be damaged by being supplied with modified sine wave power.

Hi @TheWanderer, thanks. I'm curious, I thought that the cigarette lighter ports were limited to about 120W. Did you ever run that 300W inverter (from the cigarette lighter port) at over ~100W? Also, although yes I see that Bestek is common, it still comes across as a Chinese-manufactured (yes, most things are actually made there, which can be ok) relatively "white label" brand (which often signals a problem for quality-sensitive products) - in the sense that searches for the brand primarily find Amazon and other generic online marketplaces, and although I didn't find it in a Google search I simply guessed bestek.com .. and got what looks like a typical Chinese white-label manufacturer's site listing their products, grand claims, insufficient technical information to trust. In short, I am not left with a strong sense that it would be wise to plug this onto my car's battery terminals and to plug anything I cared about into it. And none of the ads nor the Bestek website explicitly says nor shows in pictures how the product should be connected to a car's battery. I worry that their reference to "car" relates _only_ to the (120W-or-so limited) cigarette lighter port mode of the products. Isn't there any proven quality (German, British, American, Canadian, whatever) brand that makes these sorts of things? Please note, I am NOT prejudiced against the Chinese nor about outsourced manufacturing (in my work life I've overseen business process outsourcing on four continents, and it can work great if the client company performs adequate oversight). What I am sensitive about is cheap crap that can't be relied upon. Hm. KRIËGER seems to be a US-headquartered company. I'll look at their products. Hm. I notice at least one of their products has the same warning about not plugging in certain types of products: "Do NOT plug in battery chargers for cordless power tools if the charger carries a warning that dangerous voltages are present at the battery terminals." I get it. It's not designed to handle a device that could actually feed power back to the inverter. And "Certain chargers for small nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal-hydride batteries can be damaged if powered by this inverter. Two types of appliances are susceptible to damage: .. Cordless razors and toothbrushes that plug directly into an AC receptacle." I'd prefer to buy more bullet-proof, more "it produces AC voltage, which should be consumable by whatever needs AC voltage" products when dealing with electricity! (Got to give Kriëger credit, though; their manual makes these myriad warnings far more clear by explaining how and why it all works that way, than does the Bestek manual). Also, I am still looking for something decidedly beyond what can be plugged into a cigarette lighter port (higher consistent wattage), and still am trying to understand whether modern cars (which have enormously more complex electrical systems that than stuff on which I did my own minor maintenance 30 years ago...) actually get along ok with a piggybacked external load like a 400W, 500W, 1000W, etc inverter would represent. Hm. The Kriëger manual has plenty of detail of how to connect the inverter to a battery, or a bank of batteries .. and nowhere is a battery-that-is-actually-installed-in-a-car mentioned. Which makes me think that these things are absolutely NOT intended to provide continuous high wattage from a car's electrical system as it is being energized by an alternator! thanks again,

Several years ago there were a few threads here talking about 220V inverters (to supply more than the cigarette-lighter-adapter-limited 120W). Plenty of them show up on Amazon. Not a single one of those appears to be manufactured by a European company, and reviews tend to be skeptical. Also, neither in the manuals that I downloaded for a couple of these products, nor their marketing materials, nor the discussions here, did I get clear whether these things (the ones that are not permanently hard-wired and installed into the car) are intended to be operated with the engine running, or whether they're intended for brief use purely on the battery's stored energy. I'd like the option to use my car (2020 Octavia MkIII Scout, 2.0TDI 135kW) as an occasional generator out in the middle of nowhere, able to power some amount (a few hundreds Watts, maybe up to 1kW) of 220V plugged in stuff. Initially, the thought is just electronics (laptop, mobile phone charger) which can take fairly dirty power because they all have rather smart solid state transformer/adapters, but it would also be nice to be able to plug in, well, whatever, without having to worry about crap quality pseudo-sine wave output from a cheap, poorly regulated inverter. (The manual of one of the inverters actually warned against plugging certain things into it, to avoid damaging the _inverter_). So, a couple of questions: * Any of these inverters, which would be clamped on to the battery terminals, are they suitable for a modern Octavia, to be used with the car engine running so that its the car (and petrol/diesel) really providing the power? Or must they NOT be used with the engine running? * Does anyone know of a truly quality brand of manufacture of these things that will produce clean, relatively pure sine wave output, and can be suitable for anything from simple AC-to-DC electric transformers to motor-driven things and reactive loads that are sensitive to the quality of their input power? many thanks, Jay

Sorry for the long delay @Marshy33. Here is the head unit version information from my car: Device part number: 565035840 Hardware: H41 Software: 0478 Media Codec: 4101.0.0.0 Bluetooth version: C300 SmartLink: 4101.438.1.5 Radio database version: 1.10.10 USB surfstick version: 4101.438.1.5 Anyone with a very late MkIII (mfr date April 2020) have newer versions than these? Does this indicate the make of the head unit? (Marshy33 commented/asked whether it is a Technisat headunit). thanks! -Jay

So, I've tried again (and again, and again). Turning on the hands-free option in the Connect Lite software didn't affect it - same experience as before. I also tried turning the phone's WiFi and Mobile Data OFF, just in case the Connect Lite app WAS reaching the dataplug but was then getting hung up on something else - no effect. I also point out that, from the moment that the Connect Lite app starts to try to detect/connect to the dataplug (that is, as soon as I tap "Establish connection"), the app is frozen. (The "connecting..." animation continues to move up and down like a Cylon lying on its side, but) the app ignores its own Cancel button at the bottom centre, and its own ... menu button at the top right. Any other thoughts? At this point I plan to reach out to the parts dealer from which I bought the dataplug to request that they replace it. thanks, -Jay

Thanks. Ok, I've turned on the Hands Free thing in Connect Lite. Yes, I've been making sure that the phone's Bluetooth pairings DON'T already include the dongle, each time I try try try again to connect. With that one further change (Hands Free in Connect Lite) I'll try again... BTW do you find that Connect Lite is infuriatingly insistent about tracking you/GPS, Analytics (including for marketing...), "Challenges", etc? Sheesh, I just want to connect my car, not have my choices to NOT share my location, NOT share analytics (if it will be for marketing purposes - I'd love to share analytics for them to improve their crummy software quality!), be ignored and be re-asked all the time...

That's great information, thanks! I just tried again. And again. And again. I must've spent two or three hours total up til now trying to get this $@#$% thing to connect. About the hanging, sadly I'm pretty sure that it is what I think it is (hanging), rather than updating the plug's firmware, because it comes along with this screen: At that point, _nothing_ on the screen works except for the Android Home button, and the app can't be made to respond without killing it from the Android task manager. About the firmware (which I assume is what is printed on the Data Plug label as "software "?) version, the label says SW 0705, and the one time that my older phone successfully connected to the device it went through the full update process (so I don't know what firmware is now installed on the device, but I hope it would be "current"). My two devices are both OnePlus models, a 5T and the newer Nord. My OnePlus 5T runs Lineage OS (version "dumpling", based on Android 11, Lineage OS v18.1) and my OnePlus Nord runs OnePlus' own Android 11-based Oxygen OS operating system (also the current version). Both behave the same (the same "FAILED" message as in the picture above) except for the one time that the 5T did successfully connect (since then, it has returned to failing every time). Power saving is not switched on. About the "Making a call with a handsfree system", I'm not sure what that refers to. It doesn't look like either a Head unit setting nor an Android Bluetooth permission. Could you explain please? (Also, why should this data plug require any form of telephony privileges...) thanks again, Jay