JayLibove

In these cases, the use of off-road mode and descent control was purely to test the hill/descent feature. (In fact, driving on a deeply rutted, snow-covered [but not particularly steep] road a couple of days ago, I didn't even bother putting the car into off-road mode at all.)

Hi @e-Roottoot, I've tried this on rough unpaved road, good unpaved road, and good cement paved road. Gradients, hard to say - 10-15%? The worst that I noticed was actually on the slightly steeper, well paved cement road, although another day on a similar road it wasn't too bad (though it still wasn't nearly as smooth as my own foot on the brake).

So, downhill assist/ descent mode of off-road mode in my Octavia MkIII combi Scout seems a bit .. jerky. Like the downhill autopilot gets verrrry nervous when the speed isn't quite right and tends to mash the brake instead of touch it gently. In short, I can maintain downhill speed much, much more comfortably that the assistant does. And that surprises me. What do you think of your Scouts' off-road mode downhill assist? Do you find that it does a nice, smooth, comfortable job of holding the speed? Or is it a bit jerky? Any way to smooth it out - adjust the programming/ settings to allow for a little more variation in speed in exchange for more gentle braking? thanks. (2020 model year MkIII, 2.0 DSG-7, 135kW/184CV)

You're right - the VIN code "L" for the year is 2020. It's just that I thought that from the 2020 model year was when the MkIV came out, and mine is definitely a MkIII.

😅 Heh, I'm a newbie, sorry... Ok, virtual cockpit. Erm, please forgive my further ignorance .. what does it mean, and how to do it, "turn off personalisation via the headunit"? (Also, seems a bit counterintuitive that a personalised setting - "I like this virtual display" - would be better kept with "personalisation" turned off? Yeah, yeah, I know, I've been around software and systems entirely too long to actually expect anything to make sense...). thanks! -Jay

I apologise in advance as it seems that this must have been addressed here already, but I failed to find it searching. I'd like to change the default Maxidot layout on my 2019 Octavia combi Scout to the layout in the attached photo. How may I set that, either in the infotainment configuration settings, or using an OBDeleven (that I've ordered and is on its way)? thanks!

Kudos to @ExSEAT - it is indeed the "adaptive" option within Lane Assist which makes the car behave like a hyper-coffeinated mother-in-law (apologies to all the mothers-in-law out there; my dearly departed one was a wonder of a person, and we miss her) about stay EXACTLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LANE! With the "adaptive" (why would they call it that??) option turned off, Lane Assist does just what I want. thanks!

Thanks @Cd01101, very cool that these sorts of things can be added to even the more base models of these cars. For now, I'd still prefer to stay with factory provided (even if not factory-enabled) features (and anyway as my car does have Lane Assist and Adaptive Cruise Control I hope to be able to tweak things to my liking with less investment in new toys). warm regards,

Thanks @ExSEAT, your description is how I'd expect Lane Assist to work. How I've actually experienced it working is that it's a perfectionist, frequently tapping the steering wheel frankly earlier than is needed to do adequate lane-keeping. This makes it sound like my experience is what you describe as "adaptive". I'll re-check whether I have an adaptive setting under the Lane Assist configuration, and if I turn it off whether that takes care of the annoyance. Thanks, I'll post back - probably after tomorrow (no plans to go out driving today!)

I actually found these posts on the Skoda Storyboard: This first one states that Lane Assist works above 65km/hr. This, I guess, is what the feature does when the Lane Assist feature is "Active" (activate, on, not disabled). This is the thing that I find too aggressive. Next: Although this appears under "Traffic Jam Assist" (which I will now further investigate to see if I can OBDeleven enable... hehheh .. Oh, maybe not: https://forum.obdeleven.com/thread/6856/traffic-jam-assist as it seems to require actually flashing additional software onto the car, which goes a bit beyond what I'm willing to try, just yet!) it discusses "adaptive lane guidance" as a sub-feature of Lane Assist, and it describes it as "helps the vehicle to stay in the lane at speeds below 60km/hr". I'm not sure why Skoda would call "below 60km/hr" "adaptive lane guidance", and "above 65km/hr" "Lane Assist". But neither of them seems to include tuning the aggressiveness of the feature (per @ExSEAT's comment). @ExSEAT I'm a little confused, what do you mean when you noted that "it has a limited ability to learn your road position and use that as the datum"? "Learn" to me implies developing a model of how an individual driver drives, which I'd hope Lane Assist would not do since its goal is to drive better than we do... Also, your description sounds a bit different from Skoda's Storyboard explanation. Could you clarify please? Thanks everyone.

New Skoda owner here in Catalunya, Spain. Just got our 2019 model year (dealer says it rolled off the factory line around April-May 2020) Octavia MkIII combi (station wagon) "Scout" all-wheel-drive. We chose the Octavia Scout for it's good driving characteristics, fantastic history and longevity, mated with all wheel drive and slightly higher (17cm) ground clearance as we're hikers and do go onto unpaved roads at times. (Though a nice little old Catalan lady in the hills did suggest that we not try one particular road, as she said that the ruts in the road are too deep for this car. We respected her guidance). Basic infotainment system (is that what's called "Bolero"? Sorry for my ignorance; I've found Skoda's marketing information, catalogs, even the owner's manual, well, less than clear). It doesn't seem to have telematics/ over-the-air updates/ Skoda Connect... 2.0L Diesel 135kW/184cV, 7-speed DSG automatic transmission, Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Assist, Front Assist, Rear parking sensors and camera, Drive Mode Select, Hill Start Assist, Off-Road Mode, Blind Spot Detection, Front Assist, Cornering full-LED lights,

You all rock - thanks! I'll let you know how it goes once my OBDeleven arrives in a few weeks. (The offer of InfoSec assistance stands. :-) ).

Hi @langers2k, I'm unfamiliar with the camera model option codes that you mention, and I found nothing in searching for them. (I found some VW group option codes documents, and the website http://vag-codes.info/, on which these codes don't seem to relate to camera models). My Scout has Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Assist, front and rear parking assist, rear camera .. Where may I find details about the option codes/ camera types that you list, and what exact cameras my car has? thanks, -Jay

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.