Stoker

I have heard this so many times and I'm not under any illusion its cheap or the best. But I feel I need set the record straight a bit. If it turns out to be durable, it needn't be such a rip off that people say as a default answer without supplying facts. It would be far more useful if someone could please elaborate on products far superior to autoglym Cerafuse and far cheaper. You've got £230 to beat and I'd love to hear it. Clearly the dealer will still have made money somehow and don't get me wrong their opening price was insultingly skyward of £500 initially but several polite refusals over a couple of days and other carrots thrown in we got there. Maybe they made £50 from me and £400 from the previous 2 customers, I don't know but they are happy and so am I. Lets say and I'm guessing individual application cost but .... - I effectively paid something like £50 (or £77 maybe if you read on) for some average Joe to do the elbow grease but he's done 20 plus cars in terms of experience vs my zero. I'm OK with that. - The 3 products initially applied can be bought on eBay right now for £27.99 with no guarantee registration (OK name some alternatives cheaper and better I'm all ears) - I now have an after care kit which Halfords and the like all sell this allegedly inferior autoglym and the costs are Instant tyre dressing It will get used (maybe not all the time) £11.50 Custom wheel cleaner same as above. £13.49 Fast Glass DEFINITELY good £11.50 Interior shampoo ( I doubt I'll use it, never needed anything like that ever). £10.99 Autofresh (what the hell is that?) no thanks £10.49 Foaming car wash, of course £11.99 Rapid Ceramic spray £22.99 Bird dropping wipes, I'll use these if caught out and can't get to good old water in time. £10 Microfibre drying towel £20.99 Microfibre cloths x 2 not sure lets say £6 Sponge £3 The total purchase cost for the aftercare kit from a shop is approx £133 Initial application products and guarantee £27.99 Application service from garage I guessed £50 I have a rough figure of £208 so that is £22 less than what they have actually billed me for. But when you consider I still wouldn't have been able to apply it myself by now that is worth the £22 on its own and I have a few conservative guesses in my post rather than generous. The downside is I would never have purchased autofresh, branded cloths or interior shampoo and that means I could have saved £25ish.

Not sure how many of the above answers have actually had experience of it to come to the conclusion its not a quality product? Also anybody who applies a product (good or poor) will only be in it for profit so why shouldn't the dealers be? Thats why I was really after first hand experience from those who had the product applied by the dealer. Maybe nobody cares to admit it 🤪 But I liked the look of it https://www.lifeshine.com/ And at least there is something on from day 1 (i.e. before the gritters hit the roads). I do expect that a car detailer would have a few tricks up his sleeve to achieve good results and stand by the products he would use, where as a dealer will have likely have someone young 'on the books' who is neither qualified by either decent training or experience. As it happens, I've never taken it out before but as they all but threw it in when I declined several times listening to the price fall, I did get it. Now we've had a teeny little bit of rain recently so the puddles on the road have been well....shall we say MASSIVE and every200 yards so I have hit a few with force which will have acted like a pressure wash here and there. I'll report back on it's durability when I wash the car which is likely to be next month at the earliest.

She who must be obeyed got a new iPhone 14 to replace an iPhone XR. Prior to attempting connection of the new one, my phone and hers were both showing in the 'known' list. I followed these steps - I held my finger on her phone name until it was no longer greyed out and selected the bin icon to delete. Next - I went into the bluetooth settings on her new phone and it found the Skoda so I selected it then a verification PIN number appeared on both the phone and the infotainment screen. I selected each to confirm. - At this point that should have completed the process. So for some of you that may be it, simple as that. However, The spinning wheel just kept on spinning and eventually it said on the phone, 'pairing unsuccessful' or 'connection unsuccessful' (I don't remember). I then went through the process below but you might want to skip to the one in bold font below. - Back into bluetooth settings it found the Skoda again but would not connect. (Did this a fair number of times, no joy). - Turned off the infotainment system and the phone, tried again multiple times and no connection. - I made the iPhone forget the device and this gave me a new pairing verification PIN number but this time it didn't appear on the infotainment screen as well. Again I got into repeating this and all the above steps in different sequences and with no luck. Now desperately frustrated. - I renamed the iPhone and went through some of the above steps over and over. Still no luck. - Not knowing it would reset, I held the power button on the infotainment screen for over 10 seconds and watched it turn off and back on with a short period of a spinning icon on screen indicating some sort of reset. - Went back into bluetooth settings on the phone, it found the Skoda, got the verification PIN on the infotainment screen and the phone, selected both and Voila!!! I'm guessing there was some kind of hang over between the bluetooth data packets that bluetooth uses in a 3 way battle and the reset started with a clean slate.

I have a question 4 for you @ambientsound What if I declare the change on my insurance? It's the right thing to do of course but they may wish to see a Certificate of Conformity. Thats not the end of the world if you consider this while choosing/buying a set. All UKCA approved products will have one but I doubt seller get asked for it very often such is the lack of knowledge. See this from the California forum.

I'd suggest taking it to the dealer then it's 3 years (ish) old so they should be helping you.

How many times have you hit retry? Maybe get a dealer to try.

As a new owner still in the honey moon period with the car, yet author of this thread I thought I had better chime in. I like so much about it thats new to me from the Skoda brand so deeper thought takes me to this........ The size! It's not small inside and it's not like I feel I'm dragging something unnecessary about. I've had bigger SUV's (X3 & Evoque) I've had estate cars and currently (as I keep managing to throw into posts 😞) I have a VW California to feel high and mighty in. Also have regular use of a Fiesta and the car this Kamiq replaced was a Kia Cee'd, so finding it nicely spacious on the inside and still pretty small outside.

You can delete users so ridding information when you sell. But yes its a bit overkill for some and a personal touch to others.

64 views to date. I guess thats a no then 🤪

The former usually!! My California for example has a couple of strips of 3M tape that the roof shuts down onto at the front. The only thing special about them is the shape so the fit the contour when peeling off the backing and applying them. My dealer knows the part number but on the California forum many complain that their dealer cannot find the part number. Anyway, clearly Skoda do expect the bulbs to last a life time on this planet (so fingers crossed they do).

We have the Amundsen set up and currently access Smart Link through the menu button, then choose the appropriate phone through the list (of 2 phones). Thats Fine but it would be good if we could set a short cut on either the Home Screen or by dragging down the favourites bar. But I've drawn a blank as when I press and hold on either of those 2 screen options the list that comes up never shows Smart Link (Car play). In my VW California there is a dedicated button for car play beside the screen. So despite being the same group it appears VW see the value of instant selection and Skoda less so. Perhaps it's just because I'm used the quick access that I find navigating to the home menu, then smart link, then car play /phones a chore.

Good Luck.

@Mikey_au I will too. You see I'm not claiming I was smart enough to test specifically the road noise. But instead just wanted to see if the Kamiq was a better car for me. I'd pretty much made my mind up the Fabia was too noisy on rougher surfaces to a point that it would fatigue me. So when I hopped in the Kamiq it just became obvious. I love the exterior of the Monte Carlo but like you I prefer a lack of tactile pretence and a more reserved interior colour scheme.

We initially went to look at the Fabia and the test drive route did reveal a road noise rumbling resonance on rougher surfaces. My first thoughts were that it's present in most cars I have driven to some extent which includes more expensive brands. But I felt straight away that I wasn't happy with the result in the Fabia and took a Kamiq out on the same route. This did seem a lot less intrusive and a lot less frequent. I have no idea about car platforms or causes but just went with results. It wasn't something I knew about except for those 2 test drives and I'm happy with the Kamiq so far. I'm sure the Scala will have attributes to offset this irritation that. some cars don't do as well as the Scala. I once test drove a sporty Audi Avant and instead opted for the more plush and refined SE. There was no contest for the same reasons in these 2 cars and the sporty Audi was so much worse than anything else I've driven (much worse than the Fabia) and costs big money for the pleasure. So bad I knew in the first 2 miles that it intruded on conversation in the cabin.

Good Luck and keep us posted 👍

In my VW I don't have Sat Nav so I depend on wired CarPlay. Hence I get GPS from the phone and any Sat Nav app I choose from my phone (Apple Maps, Google maps or Waze) just uses that through the infotainment screen. So thats the set up you re replicating by plugging in I suppose. With that capability (and back to my first stab at answering) I can't imagine CarPlay ever uses the infotainment system for GPS.

I'm not sure that I understand your issue (haven't seen anything else you have posted) but I don't see why google maps / maps on CarPlay would be influenced to show the same thing that you are getting issues with on Sat Nav. I believe Car play mirrors your phone and shows it in the infotainment screen. Where as Sat Nav will be subject to it's own signal via system. So if you are getting the same on both it doesn't feel like a Skoda issue to me (I'm far from knowledgeable but) spooky!

Thanks for the link @marineboy And all for the subsequent endorsements......Just ordered one of these 👍

Tuesday it is then 👍

@marineboy We've had a hell of a lt of rain since July. Just wondering if / hoping you managed to sort this out?

Ha ha I see how you managed to read it that way 😄 But no I have H7 headlamps on the Cali and they get scoffed at by those who insist LED's are the only headlights that are worthy. I agree LED's are superior and nicer aesthetically but there was no way that amounted to be worth a £1500 upgrade when H7's do a great job so I stayed with H7's. They aren't even bottom of the pile. Some models got H4's and still approved. So that was my point.

Lets try that again with out the auto corrects (too late to edit so amended in quote) Anybody got first hand experience of these packages?

Not exclusively about the Kamiq I know but we took this out for the first time when buying a new car. Normally I have spec'd a purchase unto the our budget and couldn't justify it. But this time I we decided to just do it to see if its truly easier to keep the car nicer in the long term with much less effort. It's not cheap in my opinion but that said if it is 3/4 as good as they say then it should be worth every penny, saving me from a couple of hours hard graft a few times a year.