DaveFromSydney

Our VW Golf Alltrack's battery failed after 20 months and the dealer replaced it under warranty. After that we always disabled Auto Stop on every trip. I have retained this policy on the Skoda which is now at 4.5 years and still on its first battery.

That does sound like a lot but it is several years since I needed that done (on a VW Alltrack) so I could be out of touch. I use Alto and Pennant Hills since they are ones that sold it to me and I have been fairly happy with their service over 4 years. We stopped using McCarrols Volksvagen in Waitara for our VW when it went out of warranty 2 years ago and have been very pleased with the service from the independent workshop Vision One Mechanical at 275 Peats Ferry Rd Hornsby (https://www.visionone.net.au/). I would probably do the same with the Skoda when it runs out of warranty in 2028. Vision One also have the advantage that I do not have to wait many weeks for a service appointment.

I have one and I think it is one of the best features of the car. I hardly ever need to glance at the dashboard since everything I need is there - speed, cruise control, lane markings, navigation. The only thing it gets wrong is when navigating using Google Maps and there is an off ramp, unlike the built-in SatNav, it does not show the exist as a veer left (as it should), not as a turn left (which would be better) but as a straight ahead.

Not sure if it is the same thing but my 2021 VRS is fitted with these. My grandkids loved to try them out but one broke and then needed to be replaced under warranty. They do not seem to be very robustly designed. I made sure they never deployed the wings again.

I had the service last week. They said that since they could not reproduce it they had taken note of it being reported but we need to wait until it is reproducible before they will investigate. Of course it does not do it now in winter. So if, as I expect, it will start happening again next summer, then I will have to take it back and leave it with them.

Mine (MY 21) started to do something similar last summer (December here) and is no longer doing it now we are in autumn, so it may be heat related. Back then I had many cases of sound volume going to very low – ALMOST inaudible. Adjusting the volume on the slider or on the wheel was ineffective in returning normal volume. The display showed 100% but the audible level was like 10%. A reboot of the infotainment system worked but it is slow and cumbersome. The problem could occur many times daily. Then I found a workaround: A quick fix was to press on the little volume scroll wheel on the left of steering wheel to mute and again to unmute. The volume then returned to normal. It is going in for its annual service in a few weeks, still under its 7 year warranty. I will mention this problem. Perhaps they will recognize it as a sign that the whole unit needs replacing.

I am happy with my VRS. I have had it for 3 years. I have not driven the others. I came from a Honda S2000 but I am not disappointed in the Skoda. I enjoy the size, the comfort and the various features and the performance and handling.

I got 3 keys with mine - no extra charge.

So have I

I have it on my MY21 VRS. It works well.

I got 4.9l/100km on the 200km outward leg of my last big drive. Sunday morning, little traffic, all on motorways, virtually never needed to use the brakes or the accelerator after the first kilometer - just left it on ACC at 80, 100, 110 as needed for the posted limits on different stretches of road. A calculator says that 4.9l/100km equates to 57.65 miles per imperial gallon. For the whole day I did 475km and included some more congested driving but where possible I used ACC and I got 6.0l/100kn. That is 47.08 miles per imperial gallon.

I also disable it on every drive. For me it is not so much about intending to cross the lane boundary and therefore needing to indicate. It is about situations like driving on an isolated country road with broken up edges and no other traffic where one might want to use the unbroken centre area of the road (to avoid damage to the tires and suspension) but it would be weird to use an indicator in such a case. It seems to me there are many such cases. Especially since it appears that the car will try to nudge you back even though you have not crossed the line but must be fairly close to it.

Mine has been updated to 1941 but in the process the system got reset. I think I forgot to reset the Auto mode to use a stronger fan setting. I shall try that next time. In any case it gets up to a reasonable temperature fairly fast - certainly less than 10 minutes.

The temperature here has been as low as 6 Celsius some mornings. Nevertheless, after only a few minute of driving the engine water temperature reaches its normal value of 90 degrees. If I leave the Clima set to Auto the airflow is feeble and the cabin takes a long time to warm up. I fix that by doing what I would do in an old-fashioned car. Clima to manual. Temperature to 27 degrees Celsius. Fan speed to maximum. Turn on the vents for face level and foot level. After a few minutes the car is nice and toasty warm and I can revert to Auto mode.

I had that problem around 2 years ago. The defining part is the clunk. Turned out to be something to do with a loose or stuck flap in the air path. The dealer repaired it under warranty.

I said above that I got updated to 1896 and all of my problems went away but I should have mentioned voice control which, as for you, stopped working with that update. Anyway, this week it went in for an annual service and they updated it to 1941 and now voice control works as it should.

For me going to 1941 fixed voice control which had not been functioning for over a year, since an earlier update.

II did it today. The files for Australia were only 2GB and I used FAT32 format although the docs say 64GB and exFAT. It seems to only load while the car is running so it seems best to just leave it plugged in and go about your daily driving. It does not matter that you stop and lock the car before the process is finished. At some stage you will run the Settings>System Info and it will show an increased version number. You can then remove your USB stick. Doing this today my version it took no more than an hour and went from 21.2 to 22.12.

The instructions say "7 INSTALLATION Insert the USB Flash Disc into the proper connector in the front part of the car. The vehicle uses the data on the USB disc while driving to update the required map regions. For proper updating, we recommend to leave the USB Flash Disc plugged into the vehicle connector each time you drive.". If you took that literally the USB could never be removed. I take it that you think this really means "leave it in until the update has completed". Also it insists on using a 64GB USB stick yet the download files for most countries are much smaller. For Australia, after unzipping, they are less than 2GB.

I think you would find the labour is close to $200 per hour so those changes for the 3 wiper blades represent a total of about 15 minutes or 5 minutes per blade.. Probably 5 minutes is their minimum charging unit. It is what I have come to expect so nothing to get upset about. Although it is annoying that this job is probably done by an apprentice yet they probably charge the same for a really experienced mechanic who works on the engine or gearbox.

From my VW Golf invoice in October 2023, in Sydney, Australia: Replace wiper blades, front (labour): $35.27. WIP. BLADE (part): $58.00 Replace wiper blade, rear (labour): $17.64 WIPERBLADE (part): $22.00 GST (10%): $13.29 Total: $146.21 I expect the Skoda dealer to be similar. So AUD 160 is about right for replacing all 3 blades. And these are consumables so not covered by warranty. As for Australian Consumer Law, I think you could argue the case if they lasted less than a year but two years seems a fairly typical lifetime.

My best is 5.3l / 100km doing 100 km/h on the highway under cruise control in my 2021 petrol VRS wagon. That works out at around 53 miles per imperial gallon.

Do the wiper arms actually seem worn out to you? I have had my Octavia almost 3 years without this issue, nor has it occurred on any of my other cars over 50 years including a VW Golf owned for the past 8 years. On the other hand if it was wiper blades - yes those seem to need replacing every couple of years.

And seven months later, still no problems.

Mine came new with some similar damage but I considered it too minor to bring to their attention. I think it would be difficult to repair.