JayLibove

Many thanks @langers2k. Yeah, I'm aware that I might have an issue with the lack of a nav system in my car. (I've never met an in-car nav system that I liked better than Google Maps. That said, Google Maps Navigation through Android Auto kind of sucks, but we had no choice in the model and features of the car anyway). I think I had seen discussions of the issue of a warning message due to no nav database on which to fall back, and maybe some suggestions on working around it. And in the end if it's a 30 seconds harmless warning that goes away I could live with it. Thanks so much for the recommendation of the A5 channel IDE04733! -Jay

Thanks as ever @varaderoguy. I'd found this set of instructions, which are for a MkIII (unsure about whether FaceLift - looks like daveface's MkIII might be the model year before the FaceLift), which is what I plan to try - when I received my OBDeleven, which will be in a few weeks. So, no hurry, as I can't do anything until the OBDeleven arrives. warm regards, -Jay By: daveface Briskodian Location: Gloucestershire Model: Skoda Octavia MK3 vRS Posted 9 February, 2018 (edited) I have just enabled TSR on my 2016 vRS using ODBEleven, originally I attempted to use the "App" however this simply popped up a notification stating that it wasn't supported. I did look at the guide on here at the "Tried and Tested" but I found translating them to be used with ODBEleven a little tricky (or maybe I'm just dim!) However on the ODBEleven forums I found the following guide/steps which I followed and seems to have worked nicely and on my initial drive around the block I haven't received any error messages. These were the steps I followed: Traffic Sign Assist Activation:
 1. Control Unit 5F - Information
 · Adaptation
 o Car_Function_List_BAP_Gen2 § traffic_sign_recognition_0x21 = Activated, then Green tick
 o Car_Function_Adaptions_Gen2 § menu_display_road_sign_identification = Activated, then Green tick
 § menu_display_road_sign_identification_over_threshold_high = Activated, then Green tick 
8. Control unit A5 (front / advance camera)
 · Security access - 20103 · Control unit Long Coding 
 o Byte 1
Bit 0 Activate - "01 Traffic Sign Recognition (FTE) active", then Green tick
 13. Control unit 17 (Dashboard)
 · Control unit Long Coding 
 o Byte 5
 o Bit 2 Activate, then Green tick 18. Control unit A5 (front / advance camera)
 · Adaptation o Display end of speed limit symbol o Importance to activate: Display valid additional signs 
 o View Channel Valid suffix
 o Corresponding value: 00100111. (default was 100111) Remember to select the green tick at each stage of the adaption, otherwise the changes you've made won't stick. I have tried to make them a little more readable. Original Source - http://obdeleven.proboards.com/thread/2106/high-beam-assist-traffic-recognition

Again, greatly appreciated, @varaderoguy. I'm an old fogey in the sense that I've been around what we once called "computer mediated communications" since the early 1980s, and I love the ethos that I see here on Briskoda! I've already ordered an OBDeleven (1st gen) device and a Pro license and have already found the Traffic Sign Recognition enablement information which will be my first tweak. If I manage that then the OBDeleven and Pro license will already have been a completely justified purchase. Next would be to hopefully reduce the aggressiveness of the Lane Assist (I also found some stuff about that, more on VW forums, remains to be seen if those tweaks are available on the Octavia MkIII Facelift). As for our journey to getting our Scout, it's a nearly perfect car for what we wanted, and getting it here in Spain Was Not Easy. We actually thought we were going to have to go to another country to get it, but somewhat miraculously (we think it was a special order for a client elsewhere in Spain, who in the end chose to not buy it) literally just one new Scout came up .. as a 2019 model year closeout, so we got it, new, at an €11K savings. Hard to beat that... We actually didn't like the MkIV Scout's less-buttons more-screen-taps user interface (and especially didn't like the idea of buying one in its first year (and even more especially for the €12K price premium it would have commanded over the super deal that we got (even assuming that Skoda would have eventually actually released it into the Spain market))). Our alternative, believe it or not, would have been a Seat Tarraco all-wheel-drive, but we found the Scout first. (Once in a while I'll miss those extra 3cm of ground clearance hehheh). @SashaGrace (evil genius, love it!) I've seen many of your posts (some relating, I believe, to the Lane Assist issue), and I very likely will be in touch. I don't think I'll be looking at upgrading the infotainment system to Columbus or Amundsen - lots of money, and I think the only feature I'd want from it is the telematics/ over-the-air updates. I won't be able to offer much back in the way of car hacks, but I've got decades of experience in Information Security and Data Protection, so if from time to time I can help in those areas... warm regards, -Jay Spain

Thanks @varaderoguy, you've been great. The Zoom won't be needed - with your last piece of advice, I finally found it. Y'know, I studied user interface design back in the 1980s. Most user interfaces that I find today would not have passed professor Borenstein's muster... The complexity of the controls on the steering wheel (as different from those on the infotainment console, despite that much of the data overlaps), and the (aforementioned only-partly overlapping) data displays, more than take getting used to; they're counter-intuitive, which in a moving vehicle is downright dangerous. (Nothing as bad as Android Auto, of course, which is just plain unreliable, but...). BTW, you mention a "MIB2" interface. Is that the infotainment system/ Bolero (in my case; we had so little choice of features to get a Scout here in Spain, that we didn't even have the option of thinking whether we'd want Columbus or Amundsen...)? What does "MIB2" stand for? thanks again, Jay

Interesting point - you mention the UK roads. I'm actually in Spain, where, perversely and/or thankyouverymuch Northern Europe for the investment over the past couple of decades .. many of the roads are in excellent condition, including markings. And still Lane Assist fires too early, too often. I did find some discussions in a Volkswagen forum about this, although about 2016 and 2017 cars, and with some notes about the tweaks possibly not being available in later model years. Here's a note from an OBDeleven user: I also saw someone else refer to the configuration as Intervention Moment. I've ordered an OBDelevent and a Pro license. (Per their website it may take 3-4 weeks to arrive). When it does I'll dig through and see what I can find, and what the effects will be. (I ordered it primarily to try to turn on Traffic Sign Recognition, but it will be great gravy if I can change what I assume is the default "early" setting on Lane Assist point of intervention/ intervention moment to "late"!) About proving the point to Skoda, yeah, companies can be real pains in the ***. (I have no idea how the telephone and utility companies are in the UK; I've fought - and mostly won - consumer protection battles against several of the phone companies and all of the major utility companies here in Spain over the past decade. Pyrrhic in some cases - the time invested not worth the losses recovered, but I look at it from the macroeconomic perspective of hoping that I'm part of a tipping point, just enough of us making the companies spend a bunch of money because they chose to do the wrong thing in the first place, that eventually they'll start to do the right thing in the first place). So, Skoda, Lane Assist, etc, the hope is simply that enough people's answer being "paid for the feature, had to turn it off because it didn't work well enough" would prompt the company to Just Fix The Darn Thing. warm regards all, stay tuned, and any further ideas and suggestions most welcome, -Jay Ribes de Freser (Girona), Spain

Hi @Ecomatt I hope you'll be willing to agree to disagree (or even possibly to be persuaded) that, unless and until full, provably more-reliable-than-humans autopilot is available (in which case I would desire the road regulations to impose autopilots on all cars, because it would be safer, even taking into account well-designed degradation and failure modes such as would be required to say that we're at that point), WELL-DESIGNED safety features that only act when they must - unlike Skoda's current Lane Assist which definitely acts too early and too often and is a distraction - STILL are desirable and necessary features against the large number of not-good and/or distracted drivers out there. So, please, no more suggestions to just turn it off. I'm looking for how to fix it. A computer adjustment via VCDS/EBDeleven? A Skoda dealer network modification? A group complaint by us drivers who find the current design worse-than-lacking to Skoda's design department? etc thanks,

@Ecomatt haha, of course I could do that, but then that would defeat the purpose of having explicitly bought this feature to help keep me (and everyone around me) safe on those rare (but, for all of us without exception, present) occasions when we fail to be as perfect drivers as we wish we (and everyone else) would be. The question remains: How to make Lane Assist do it's job (and do only it's job, recover from actual errors, not try to be an autopilot that it isn't engineered to be) ?

Hi @Swirly182, on my new Scout the lane assist rather often tugs on the steering wheel while the car is still very much in-lane and hasn't really yet begun to drift towards being out of lane. If I'm being generous, I'd say that lane assist is acting like a perfectionist, responding to keep the car dead-centre. But that's undesirable (unless it's a full auto-pilot, which it's not, this not being a Tesla :-) ). Lane Assist should only become noticeable to the driver if the driver is patently going to leave their lane, because otherwise lane assist is acting too often and is a distraction. There's a very fine line between limited safety systems like lane assist providing safety and being a distraction. We don't want to expect a limited lane keeping function like Skoda's current (2019 model year Octavia MkIII) lane assist to keep the car perfectly centred, because 1. it is a constant distraction to the driver, and 2. it's not entirely accurate. So it needs to stay quiet until the driver more evidently fails to stay in-lane. (I'll assert that I'm extremely good at lane-keeping, and so lane assist is activating entirely unnecessarily about 98% of the time). So I go back to my original question: Can Lane Assist be configured to "fire later" rather than (As it seems to be now) "fire earlier"? thanks.

I've recently purchased a new 2019 model year (came off the assembly lane around April-May 2020) Octavia MkIII combi Scout, including Lane Assist. It's too aggressive. It pulls too often, a bit too early. Can Lane Assist be adjusted to be less aggressive - to wait longer before it starts tugging on the steering wheel? thanks, -Jay

Hi, new 2019 Octavia MkIII combi Scout owner here. Any VCDS owners in Barcelona/Girona/Catalunya who'd like to help me try to enable traffic sign recognition on my Scout? (It has lane assist, adaptive cruise control, blind spot assist, ...) possibly based on the information in: thanks :-) -Jay t

Hi everyone. Ok, so I was being a bit blind, as to the trip odometer reset. I also think that the user interface leaves something to be desired. I found the "odometer reset" (which, upon selecting, more properly is described as the TRIP odometer reset) under "Instrument cluster settings", which to me doesn't make much sense because it's not really a "setting" (despite the command name being "reset"; to me, a "setting" about the "instrument cluster" would be a configuration change. Anyway, there it is). As for Adblue remaining range, I'm still stymied. Here are some screenshots. And, thanks again. -Jay

Thanks varaderoguy - I looked, and looked; I actually don't think my April 2020 (2019 model year) Octavia III combi Scout is missing this. Which makes no sense. I also cannot find any way to reset the trip odometer. I found a couple of threads discussing it, but my car's user interface doesn't match any of them. And I don't see instructions on resetting the trip odometer in my car's user manual (which of course makes no sense). I'm beginning to wonder if my car has mismatched/ erroneous software/firmware loaded in it. How do we see the infotainment system version information, and does anyone have the release notes/dates or "current" version information for same, please? thanks.

Hi TDIum, thanks for clarifying - no problems, of course. I just wanted to make sure I understood, so that I'm best armed when talking with Skoda service about it. Am awaiting a response from the dealer's service dept (not holding my breath...). Will post back when I have anything more. Thanks, cheers!

Thanks TDlum. Not sure I understand what you meant that these cars have the radar module "fitted for safety, but not front assist features". Do you mean that the "you're about to collide" is driven (only) by radar, and the "you're parking and about to bump into a pedestrian/ the wall in front of you, etc" is driven (only) by cameras? (My car has front assist, rear assist/ camera, lane assist, adaptive cruise control, blind spot assist, everything except "This is how you park"). cheers,

I was surprised too! I sent a note to the dealer. We'll see how they respond/ I might take it in to demonstrate it to them as probably being NOT what it should be ... thanks.

Just got my new 2019 model year (came out of the factory April or May 2020, they tell me) Octavia combi Scout. Although the owner's manual says that the remaining Adblue range should appear on the driving data page, I don't see it. It'd be a bit hard to swallow that this car, this year, would not have a display for it, only the "fill up in the near future" warning. Anyone have, on a 2019 Octavia diesel, the actual remaining distance/amount of Adblue? Or can we only wait for the warning? (The warning comes way, way in advance, I know, so it's not really a problem, just I prefer to be able to see the information - get an idea of consumption, and I'm never happy about inaccurate manuals...). cheers,

In the end, somewhat miraculously (it's still a bit of a mystery why this ONE Scout existed in inventory in Spain) we were able to get the car here. (In Germany none of the available recent model used cars actually had the features that I wanted, as it happens). So, about the hill descent assist. I don't like it. It's got a rather inconsistent foot - that is, the way it brakes to maintain speed is noticeably jerky compared to how I do it myself. Very disappointing, and, I think, much less smooth than (What I had assumed would be exactly the same, since they're both recent model Volkswagen group cars) on a Seat Tarraco (think: VW Tiguan Allspace with less "fashionable" to me more acceptable aesthetics and a much more reasonable price tag) that I'd had rented a few months ago. *sigh* The road noise that we'd noticed in the rented Octavia combi (not-Scout) turned out to be the model of tires on the vehicle. Even though our new Scout came with 18" rims (we'd have preferred 17" for the softer ride and reduced road noise) in fact the Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance tires are just fine. (Unfortunately, they're summer-only, and we will sometimes drive in places where winter tires would be appropriate and/or required by local road rules) so the EfficientGrip Performance tires are to be replaced as soon as the order comes in with a set of Michelin CrossClimate+ tires...

So, I bought a 2019 Octavia combi "Scout", and it too has triggered the "collision imminent" warning three or four times now. I'm fairly sure that the thing is afraid of its own shadow (well, actually, that shadows on the road are what cause these false alerts). Someone commented that sometimes emergency braking might be applied - I'm pretty sure it won't do that above 30km/hr, and on the car that I bought, a bit different from the one I'd been renting, the sound that accompanies the red warning symbol on the dashboard is not as piercing, so it doesn't set my teeth on edge... Still, it clearly shouldn't do this. I'll ask the dealer.

*grin* very clever. (And this is coming from a guy - me - who hacked a $35 generic notebook power supply to include a weird resistor so that it would emulate Lenovo's $150 job; and who took apart and repaired a very expensive bicycle headlamp which had become a brick because a $1 backup battery inside it had run down ...) But back to the topic - does this mean that Skoda _really_ designed the sunroof such that it prevents having something so simple as a sunglasses holder up there?? Wow... (I love the car, and I greatly respect the brand, the history of the model, reliability, value, etc; I just wonder sometimes that Skoda's "Simply Clever" isn't quite so much ...)

We've just received our new Octavia combi Scout (one of the last of the Mk III manufactured). It has the electric panoramic sunroof, and did not come with the sunglasses holder in the roof just between the sunroof controls and the sunroof itself. The salesman at the dealer said he wasn't sure whether models with the electric panoramic sunroof could have the sunglasses holder, though looking at it I don't see why not. It looks like there is a plastic cover there with three covered screws that could probably easily be removed and the sunglasses cubby installed. Can anyone recommend an aftermarket sunglasses cubby that fits there nicely in this model? thanks,

thanks all. I've sent an email to the delivering dealer asking if he can find out.

Please forgive my ignorance; what is the V5?

Hi @PetrolDave, thanks, Erm, hm, well, ok, how could I find out, via some other data or vía? (Where's that head-scratching emoji when I need it?!) cheers,

Sounds like a good theory, @J.R. I wonder, how can I determine, from the VIN number, the original country for which this vehicle was manufactured? cheers,

Hi J.R., The history of this vehicle is a bit of a mystery to me. By chance, we had rented an Octavia combi (not-Scout) and really liked it, so we went looking for the Scout model .. and were told by several Skoda dealers here in Spain that none were available. Looking used, there were just a few (mostly quite old). Then, one lightly used Scout - but without the drive profile select that we wanted - appeared at a Skoda dealer lots near Barcelona; we tested it and found it lacking only in features .. so we Hail Mary'd by asking the new-cars section of that dealer if they couldn't, please, really, look for one of these cars for us .. and - the salesman himself was very surprised - he found ONE, showing new, in inventory, at a dealer several hundred Km away. He contacted the dealer and we learned that the car had been specially acquired by that dealer for a customer who (like us) had requested a specfic car. We were unable to get any details on the provenance of the vehicle. In the end, that other dealer's deal fell through, and the car was transerred to the dealer near us from whom we now have purchased it. So, as far as we know, it was a Spain market car, and it's first registry with any driving office was here in Spain. But, that's just as far as we know. As of when I last looked (a couple of weeks ago) the 2021 Octavia Scout wagon was not yet for sale in Spain. (One Skoda dealer had called me to say that the model was beginning to become available, but only as the front-wheel-drive version so far). But our car was manufactured in April 2020, and we got it on a last-year's-model stock clearance deal, so it can't be a 2021. Unless Skoda simply did not sell the 2019 design 2020 model year Octavia combi Scout 4x4 7-speed DSG 2.0TDI 184HP motor in Spain, I just don't understand why it causes a large insurance company such difficulties in exactly identifying the car. So, this leaves me with the academic question of "What the F---?!" and the real question of "Despite the insurance company's willingness to sell me a policy on a _similar_ vehicle (they've quoted my insurance on Octavia Scout RS 4x4 2.0TDI DSG - although I think they may be calling it Octavia Scout RS 2.0TDI DS4), am I at risk that, should I ever need to make a substantial claim on the insurance policy, they'd give me difficulty for having bought a policy "on the wrong car model"!? many thanks.