joek666

Good luck, but all seems like going around in circles to be honest. Most of the people you come into contact with don't seem to have a clue how the TMC system works, nevermind how to fix it! The longer this drags on the less likely I would ever buy from Skoda/VW group again! Absolutely shocking customer service.

Further update: I have contacted a well known car mag about the issue, would urge others to also reach out to press and/or social media to try to bring more publicity to this issue. It's the only way any of the vehicle manufacturers and/or Trafficmaster are going to feel motivated to do anything to resolve it.

A nonsense reply from the dealer tbh - the TMC system doesn't use satellites!

Trafficmaster supply VW group, amongst other manufacturers. Or at least they did until it was suddenly shut down without warning or explanation.

Saw another thread posted in this sub forum to say there are new maps available. Is it too optimistic of me to hope that this might resolve the issue if it's designed to be INRIX compatible rather than Trafficmaster? Or will any solution not be so simple and instead require a firmware update?

I have now reached an impasse with Skoda. They're saying because my vehicle ownership details are not up to date, they cannot escalate the issue. They want me to go to a dealer with my V5C and two forms of photo ID. I've obviously explained this is completely irrelevant to the issue, particularly since the dealer themselves have said it's clearly not an issue specific to my car. Also, how are the vehicle ownership details not up to date when I bought the vehicle from Skoda? Going to refer the issue to the press now, let's see if the prospect of some widespread publicity of the issue gets Skoda to sort themselves out.

Reply from Skoda UK essentially making out like they don't believe me and will need to contact the dealer to verify what I've said. They say I may need to take the car in for diagnostic 🤦🏻 Running out of patience now. It's always someone else's problem isn't it?

Same, and yes I believe that's how TMC works, it's constantly receiving the updates, even if you're not listening to the radio at all. Thank you, very interesting. Can't claim to understand everything in the thread you linked to but I get the gist. It may be that Skoda could fix this issue if they rolled out an update to either allow reception of TMC over DAB, or alternatively switched vehicles over to INRIX.

Yes I agree - they seemed fairly keen to just effectively say, "it's not our problem". To be honest, since the dealers can't really resolve this I'm not too bothered about them not choosing to act as a middleman on this issue. I'll post a further update once I hear back from Skoda UK.

This makes sense. Having said that, this is the description of the Trafficmaster service on Wikipedia: That sounds like quite a lot of infrastructure to just chuck in the bin. I would hazard a guess that all of the above infrastructure still remains, and it's just the transmission of the data via RDS-TMC that has been arbitrarily and abruptly switched off. The easiest solution would surely be to just flick the switch back on... We still don't know yet if this is a case of car manufacturers deciding to stop paying Trafficmaster for the data, or Trafficmaster deciding it no longer wants to provide the data to car manufacturers.

Yes - not to go off topic too much but it's another example of a half baked idea to 'improve' things.

Update: took my vehicle to a main dealer this morning. They verified the problem in my own vehicle and also another vehicle on the lot. Quickly checked to see if any error codes in the system, and there was nothing. Software up to date so nothing to do there (thanks to a forum member for helping me perform the update myself). They agreed it was pointless taking my car in for any deeper diagnostics as it was obviously nothing to do with the vehicle or even Skoda specifically, since the traffic data is supplied by a third party. They recommended I go back to Skoda UK to explain the issue and hopefully they will escalate it with the supplier. I have emailed them and now awaiting a response... I would encourage others to pester Skoda about this too, whether it be main dealers or Skoda UK. The more people raising it, the greater the chance they will do something about it. If we don't get anywhere, then I think we will be looking to get media involved as someone else on here suggested, Doesn't surprise me, from their point of view we are not direct customers. Better to escalate through Skoda, as described above.

Fair point. Even more reason for Skoda to sort this problem out. I still find it incredulous that this service could be switched off without any advance warning or communications to vehicle owners. By comparison, the proposed end to banking cheques was widely communicated in advance and in the end it was u-turned because so many still use them for various reasons. The proposed deactivation of the analogue phone system seems to be going ahead, but not without a lot of communications and advanced warning - I believe it's supposed to take until 2025.

Reading one of those recent Honda threads I see there was a reply from Honda to say Honda agreed for the service to be turned off. People with new/nearly new vehicles having functionality deactivated is absolutely shocking to be honest. Can't speak about Honda, but Skoda should immediately provide free Skoda Connect services to everyone affected.

I find their response hard to believe given how many vehicles must use it. Can't find any news stories announcing the shutdown, etc. I wonder if this is a case of slightly crossed wires as they could be talking about switching the signal from analogue to digital, i.e. DAB?

I am booked to take my Karoq to a dealer tomorrow morning, but as stated previously, I will not hand over the keys until they check some other cars on the lot. If the symptom exists with other vehicles then hopefully they will see there is zero sense in examining my own car. They can diagnose on their own stock if they have to, but really we need dealers to escalate to Skoda UK, who in turn should escalate to Trafficmaster.

Somewhere, there will be a person or team at Trafficmaster who actually do know about TMC, how it works, potential problems, etc. The challenge is cutting through all the guff to speak to someone like that. I believe the correct approach is to get Skoda to escalate it. They will have much more clout than an individual end user.

My 2013 Nissan was receiving TMC updates absolutely fine up until I sold it in 2022. I don't believe it's possible for TMC reception to be 'switched off' for individual vehicles since it's a purely one way thing. In much the same way as your FM radio or GPS reception couldn't just be arbitrarily switched off. It is possible that all VW group vehicles have a preprogrammed expiry date for TMC reception, but to be honest this seems very far-fetched. What other 'features' will get deactivated? Windscreen wipers? Indicators? Brakes?

Could well be something as simple as the VW group not paying for Trafficmaster data. The question is, was this incompetence or a deliberate act? It could also be nothing to do with the VW groups, and instead it's a problem at Trafficmaster's end, e.g. the data they broadcast contains an error which is preventing it from being correctly interpreted by certain manufacturers' sat nav systems. I am due to take my vehicle to a Skoda dealer next week but before I hand over the keys I will ask them to try one or more vehicles in the yard. If other vehicles present the same issue then I don't see the point of carrying out diagnostics on my own vehicle.

If you keep reading that link you will see the following paragraph: If anyone is looking to circumvent Skoda and go direct to the provider of Trafficmaster data, then I think this would be of interest: https://www.teletracnavman.co.uk/company/contact-us

Interesting... especially since I don't think the TMC system uses satellites. Perhaps they were confusing it with GPS which obviously does use satellites. I'm waiting on a dealer getting back to me, hopefully they can escalate the issue.

Personally I'm not quite at that stage yet; first need to get them to investigate and confirm there is a problem and what they're going to do about it. Of course, if this drags on for too long then the threat of press intervention may help to 'motivate' them! Yes, I made sure to mention that - should be easily testable by comparing to other vehicles on site.

Thanks, good advice - I will report back when I have made a bit more progress

Latest reply I have from Skoda is that they want me to take the vehicle to a dealer... suprise suprise! This is despite me insisting that it seems very unlikely to be a vehicle specific issue since so many vehicles seem to be affected at the same time. I am going to have to look at my warranty to see if it's still covered, and if so it will be less risky to take to a dealer- may help having a dealer verify that the problem is not specific to my vehicle.

I have contacted them too - currently a bit of back and forth by email trying to get them to understand what I am talking about! If I make some tangible progress I will provide an update on my own thread about this issue.