VRT24

I looked at the Skoda UK servicing website today https://www.skoda.co.uk/owners/servicing-maintenance-fixed-price and note that the cambelt option at year five says 'recommended' but then gets a X against it at year ten. That to me indicates that the change at year five is not a requirement - only at year ten. Cambelts can fail, but I suspect that nowadays the percentage that do fail, given the volumes of cars manufactured every year, is very low and even then are probably caused by external influence (oil or other contamination) rather than manufacturing faults. Using the word 'recommended' helps Skoda 1) in batting back claims for replacement engines if the cambelt fails and the change wasn't done and 2) gives work for the dealerships. If Skoda just said 'recommended but the cambelts are designed with a 100k mile / 10 year life', then they'd lose these two benefits.

Or get a 5 litre carton of battery top-up water (de-ionised water) from Halfords / other motor stores.

Manual says just a brief press of the button, but may be worth holding for a longer period (if you haven't tried that).

If there is a online subscription in place then map database updates as well as live traffic info etc. are provided over the air. Whether or not you can do a map update via USB at the same time I don't know. As to Seat MIB3 systems, I don't know whether they operate the same as Skoda.

Yes - November 2021 is the latest on the update portal. I believe that the cw25/2022 means it was released in week 25 of 2022. I keep checking the portal from time to time and hopefully we might get a November 2022 (22.11) database release in the not too distant future. There are 'over the air' updates provided for those that have a current infotainment online subscription in place, but whether or not they are full database updates I don't know. I'm happy with just an annual downloaded update for the car as my go to satnav is Waze which provides the essential traffic delays, re-routing, speed camera etc. info and just costs the use of a small amount of mobile network data. Might be a better alternative to try out in Germany?

Traffic info (plus I believe parking and petrol price info) come as part of the Infotainment Online service. Free for a year on new cars (or it was in 2020/21) and then you have to pay a fee to renew the licence each year. Skoda should contact you to offer the option, but at around £40 I didn't feel it was worth it. We use Waze on our iPhone which connects wirelessly to the car via Apple Carplay, meaning the phone's screen shows up on the Infotainment screen and you can control Waze etc. from there. Yes, having the Skoda satnav as the go to service given it is integral to the infotainment system is missed, but is traffic info really worth paying £40 odd a year for? Infotainment online (plus other online / over-the-air functions) can be activated by dealers when selling used cars that have MIB3.

Indeed - but if you had read my post closely you would see I was responding to KaroqyBalboa, and not the OP.

You can update mapsusing usb-c slots. You go to the Skoda Update Portal and, using your VIN, download zip file with maps. Then unzip it on PC then transfer files onto flashdrive which then gets put in the USB-cslot and you leave it there until the maps have updated. There are instructions on the update portal. This thread also might help https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/499013-mib3-map-updates-again/

You'll need to refer to your owners manual for the definitive answers for your age of car. However based on the 2021 Columbus owners manual info, it does play MP3 and FLAC files. No reference to maximum drive sizes, so I guess that may not matter. On 2021 cars we have USB-C sockets, but assuming the USB-A in yours perform the same functions, then they will provide power and data transfer & thus you can play media through them. Can't help re SD card sockets as we don't have those in 2021 cars. As to factory fitted extras, the only certain ways of finding that is A) to see the original buyers invoice (unlikely) or talking nicely to the sales/parts departments at your local Skoda dealership - they might be able to print out the car's 'full data' from its VIN or C) from erWin - https://erwin.skoda-auto.cz/erwin/showHome.do (the Electronic Repair and Workshop Information service from Skoda Auto) where you can buy an hour's access fairly reasonably. As to live traffic via your mobile, I don't know. You have a SIM socket you say - could be that inserting a data only SIM (such as those from Three) would give you what you seek, but again you need to go through the manual for your age of car. For 2021 cars onward, there is no SIM socket - they have built in eSIMS and those give 'Over the air' map updates & traffic info - but only free for the first year - thereafter its an annual fee (c.£40). Personally, I don't bother and just use Waze via Android Auto. I update the car's satnav map database, when new releases are made availble from the Skoda Update Portal, via flashdrive and USB-C socket. I think you should be able to do the same using SD cards and the sockets in your glovebox. Hope this helps and enjoy the car!

If you have MIB3 then just leave the flash drive plugged in and whenever you drive the car have the navigation on. It updates in the background - no option to force the download.

In all honesty, having the most up-to-date map database installed is academic for me as I use Waze - I just like to see if the update download releases work. A map database up to last November, which I now have, is unlikely to have changed much in the ensuing months, so updates say twice a year is enough for me.

Update 01P73EU20222 failed to load, as others have found. Put the latest map update from the portal onto the usb flash drive (01P73EU202225) and after just a few short journeys (c.15 mins each) it's loaded successfully. So I'm now on November 2021 map data. It's bad enough having to go through the rigmarole of manually updating the maps (yes I know I can pay c.£40 a year for infotainment online subscriptions which will provide over the air map updates) without Skoda releasing update data files that fail to load! 'Simply clever' was it?

The OI_P73_EU_202222 update stick is still in the car but I haven't done any long journeys to see if it loads successfully. I did note that the unzip and load to stick took ages this time, so maybe the upload to the car will also take longer than the previous (successful) upload, which installed itself over a 2 hour journey.

Had 2 cars ceramic coated following paint correction. Can't remember the brand used but it came with a 3 year lifespan under normal conditions. Not sure about your detailer needing to 'top up' every 8 weeks - are you sure it's a ceramic coat he's proposing? In any event I will have all future cars coated as it makes cleaning so easy and my days of spending a weekend doing the full monty on cleaning, prepping and coating a car are long over. With my ceramic coating, key is to abrade it as little as possible, so my routine is a simple hose down all over, then re-hose the panel that I'm going to work on followed by a wipe over with lambswool mitt using a weak shampoo mix. Hose off and move to next panel. Two bucket method used and frequent re-hosing to stop the water drying (we have rock hard water) and then when all washed it's drying time with the towels. No pressure washers - doesn't help the longevity of the ceramic coat, and besides if it's a decent coat then the dirt doesn't adhere bad enough to need it. All sounds a faff, but I can do the whole job in under a couple of hours. In fact the same amount of time is spent on the wheels as on the body - those damn fiddly Crater Alloys!

Unfortunately not all dealership's are the same! Thankfully it sounds like the supplying dealer is at least willing to help so with any luck (and the software update) you should get things sorted. It would seem that among dealership staff, product knowledge of the MIB3 system is not always comprehensive. The various staff at the dealer that did my software update thought map updates were via SD cards and/or over the air updates were a permanent feature, despite my pointing out Infotainment Online will only work if the facility is paid for after the free first year.

Mistac I'm assuming your car was built around May 2021 and (assuming again) is/was new to you - in which case as a new car you would benefit from the Skoda Connect services. Key in those is Infotainment Online. That is free for the first year and enables the infotainment to obtain things like live traffic reports when navigation is being used and also over the air map updates. Theoretically the car should connect over the air at some point in that year to update the maps to whatever is current. However, one of the faults with software version 0270 is that those over the air updates never happen. This issue is covered under Skoda's TPI 2063258/7 - there have been posts on this forum covering this TPI which time prevents me from searching for at present. But from your point of view you need to talk to your dealer and get them to perform the software update from 0270 to 0276. Once done, your maps should then update over the air and you won't need to play around loading them yourself via USB-C flash drive. Bear in mind (if my assumptions were correct) your first free year of Infotainment Online will expire in May, so the sooner you can achieve the software update the longer you'll have for the system to perform the map data update itself. Regretfully, I think you will see other glitches start to appear if you don't get the software updated - the SOS button feature starts to drop out from time to time but magically resets when you stop the car and then restart it the next day. Finding the TPI thread here will give you more details of faults that can occur at anytime with 0270 software version. It will help your cause considerably if your dealership's service team understand that the maps should update over the air under the first years Infotainment Online service - if they acknowledge that then you can show them that the factory build map database is still in place, so clearly something is wrong! Good luck.

Just a thought - if your map data is staying on 21.7 - was the download you took from the update portal 'OI_P65_EU_202125'? That was the one I used and if it was the same for you, then you may be trying to get your MIB3 to update to what is already installed.

Success! Our navigation map data was still from when the car was built (2020), and by following the update portal instructions I have now loaded the July 2021 map database. A software fault meant the car wouldn't update the maps under the free Infotainment online feature available for the first year. The dealer has now uploaded a newer software version (0276) and today I put the usb-c stick with new map on it in one of the two slots next to the 12v cigarette power socket and opened the navigation screen, but didn't get it to provide route directions. We went from M3 to M25 then M1 and when we stopped at the services I checked and the map database had updated. Took about 4 hours, although may have been quicker as I didn't check it at the earlier rest break. I'm not paying £44 to renew the Infotainment online for another year as whilst I'd get over the air map updates now plus traffic delay info, we use Waze via Android Auto which we find a superior navigation app compared to the Skoda one. So the bottom line is - you can update your MIB3 maps via the USB-C sockets. If people cannot achieve success, it may be you need to have software version 0276 or newer to achieve it.

Yes you have to leave the navigation screen open and I think you shouldn't actually use the navigation process either until the download is complete. There is another posting on here giving other people's experiences (Stuartv's ''MIB3 map updates - again'') which may also give some help. Good luck!

Washed it (again) despite it being the wife's car - process seems to be I wash and she then drives around searching out the muddiest, saltiest roads to use and never ever considers any form of cleaning other than assuming I'll get fed up looking at a filthy car and do the job for her. I wouldn't mind, but I paid for it to be ceramic coated so that it would be easier for her to clean! Only positive, however, was before washing it the wife did actually spend the kid's inheritance money by filling the tank with petrol! Our local Shell garage is currently changing prices several times a day!

Don't forget you'll need an adaptor for your flash drive as it's USB-C sockets in the car, unless you have a USB-C equipped flash drive. I bought this adaptor https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07XYTHCXV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 As to how long to leave the flash drive installed, I believe it is quite a lengthy upload - hours, so open navigation, plug it in and go for a drive. If you stop and turn the engine off the upload stops, although thankfully it restarts from where it left off when you next turn the engine back on. Agree the instructions are hard going - lots gets lost in translation! The online manual is just as bad - at least the MY21 manual is available now, as when we bought our car all there was was the MY20 version which didn't have the MIB3, so all the infotainment instructions referred to screens/options/selections we either couldn't find or just didn't have! A situation compounded by the poor translation into English!

How long did they have the car for to do the software upgrade? As I said in my earlier post, there are some system software updates that only a dealer can install and going from 0270 to 0276 takes an hour or so, and is not an update that you can do yourself. So not sure what the dealer did - if they said to look for upgrades after you left, I wonder what exactly they were referring to, as when I went from 270 to 276 it was showing when I picked it up from the dealer. And has the navigation database changed since they had it? As to the map update file, yes that is the latest file for MIB3 Columbus. When you go through the https://updateportal.skoda-auto.com/ and enter your VIN, it automatically produces the latest map file for your vehicle. Let us know how you get on - if you manage to successfully install the updated file into your car - I have the file unzipped and loaded onto a flashdrive, but I'm waiting for a long journey before I try to upload it into the car so that it has as few interuptions (engine offs) as possible.

If MY21 then its MIB3. The Edition comes with the Columbus interface - larger screen and no buttons. You'll have 5 'touch buttons' printed on the left side - Menu, Home, Vol up & down and power. As to satnav map database, if the MIB3 shows 21.5 that means 21 = 2021 and 5 = May, so you are behind. This indicates that there has been an update installed since the car was built, although whether that was over the air (under the Infotainment online feature) or it was manually updated by the dealer ahead of the sale, remains to be seen. What software version do you have? Version 0270 seems to have some issues which can include not acting on over the air map database updates. There have been over the air map database updates released since you bought the car in June 2021, so I'm guessing you have software version 0270 and over the air updates therefore haven't been acted on. There are software updates that only dealers can apply and won't show on the update portal. Infotainment online is only free for 12 months from registration, so unless you pay to extend it for a further year the maps won't update over the air anyway. You should be contacted by Skoda to tell you the free Infotainemnt online period is due to expire and offering renewal at a fee. However, if you are on software version 0270 and it is not acting on over the air map updates, then even if you accept that renewal offer, the over the air map updates still won't happen unless the software is updated to a version since 0270. If that is your software version, then talk to your dealer pointing out that the over the air map updates don't appear to be being acted upon so would they kindly update your software version. Hunt around on this forum - there have been posts outlining what the MY21 Skoda online package provides and what you lose if you don't pay the yearly fee after your first free year of Infotainment online expires. Main things that I can find missing are the map database over the air updates and live traffic data - but there are other things you lose such as Remote Access (I've never used that so won't miss it). In the absence of achieving successful over the air map updates, you will have to do it manually by downloading them off the Skoda website and uploading them to the car via the USB-C sockets in the front.

Sorry to hear that. Guess the blind spot assist fault on ours (which I suspect was a hardware fault) was logged in the obd so gave them something to start with. The other was that the Satnav maps had never updated since build and with the over the air updates that 'Infotainment online' should have provided free in the first year, there was further evidence all was not well. The Brockenhurst dealer is praised over on the Karoq forum, although I suspect that's principally from a car sales point of view, but maybe worth phoning?

Supposedly so. This page on Skoda's website - https://www.skoda.co.uk/owners/how-to-videos - gives you the details. In simple terms download via pc onto a flash drive and then put the flash drive into one of the 2 usb sockets beside the phone charging pad (ahead of the gearstick/shifter) and leave it there for a few journeys until the update has fully loaded. So far I've loaded up the flash drive and will try the install to the car in a week or two when we will be driving up to Cleveland. If all goes well I'll try and create a 'how to step by step guide' and post it on the forum.