Chinook

The fact that you have a Parrot mic above the rear view mirror suggests that you have an after-market Parrot fit, rather than a factory-fit VW/Skoda system. Unfortunately, I have no experience of the Parrot system. Good luck.

The Skoda was seen on my Galaxy as "SKODA_BT". Are you absolutely sure that you have Bluetooth fitted to your car? Check under the driver's seat for the BT module. Edit - Just had a thought, I am sure that one of the options in BT on my maxidot was whether to have the Skoda BT discoverable or not, and for how long. Check that you have set the car to discoverable. I didn't have to do that on mine, but you never know.

My Galaxy SIII paired without problems. But I initiated it from the phone, not the car. On the phone I switched on BT, then made it visible, then searched for new devices. It found the Skoda, a set of numbers appeared on my Columbus, and a voice backed this up saying 'Enter code XXXX on your phone'. The Samsung then asked me whether I wanted to pair using SIM access (ie RSAP). I said yes to that. Then the phone asked me if I always wanted to connect automatically in the future. I accepted that. The SIII is one of the very few modern phones to use RSAP. The down side is that, when connected via RSAP, you won't receive emails. The up side is that you get excellent reception (it uses the car radio aerial), and you can see incoming texts on the Columbus (in my case).

I would like to add one further point. Having done all of the above, before you can use BT audio, you need to start the music playing on your Iphone first. If you don't, the Blutooth option on the Media page will be greyed out. That button is only available when it detects a BT audio signal.

Have you tried searching for new BT devices from your phone? It should pick up Skoda.

Iphones are not RSAP compatible but, luckily, the GSM III connects to phones using RSAP or Hands Free Protocol (HFP). So your Iphone will connect using HFP. The only thing you will miss out on is that you won't get texts on your Bolero/Maxidot. HFP will copy your phone book to your car, and you can dial names, favourites, recent calls, etc, but texts will stay on your Iphone.

Yes they do, and my handbook and chassis number plate both carried the code for Variable servicing. However, when I picked up my brand new Fl Octavia, I found it was set to Fixed. I reckon unscupulous UK dealers are changing them to Fixed during the initial prep period, so that they can see customers coming back for servicings at about twice the rate they should do.

I have had mine for 18 months, and it's coming up to its first service at about 18000 miles. Runs as sweetly now as it did the day I got it. It took about 5000 miles for the engine to settle in and produce good fuel consumption. I averaged high 30s mpg in the early days, and now average 42-43 mpg. Like you, I am not a high mileage driver, I calculated that I would need to cover about 90K-100K miles to recoup the extra money for the deisel engine, so stuck with the petrol. I would say that the engine is easily powerful enough for the size of the car (the same engine is, of course, also available in the Superb). The combination of supercharger and turbo means it pulls quite strongly at all revs.

There is such a demand for Skodas (hence the long waiting lists) that Skoda dealers are under no pressure to sell. They sit and wait for buyers to come to them. My local dealer doesn't even bother opening on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday. And in fainess, why should he?

Sorry, but I beg to differ. I agree with your statement when referring to Columbus/Bolero in Skodas from MY 2011, but for those with older cars, an Android phone will not connect, as they require the phone to have RSAP integrated. It's not actually anything to do with Columbus/Bolero, it relies upon the BT module fitted to your car. From MY 2011, the BT unit was changed to accept RSAP (pretty much only Nokias) and Hands Free Protocol (HFP), which is integrated into every phone. There are one or two execptions to the incompatibility though, and that includes the Samsung Galaxy series, as in the post above. As Fluffmeister has said above, you can replace the BT module in older cars with the latest version, and any phone will then pair.

But..... If you carry out the modification as above, your car will no longer comply with the EU regulations which states that you should have an indication of speed in both mph and kph. As the speedo is only calibrated in mph, the maxidot is normally configured to show just kph. Of course, if you have the maxidot set to anything other than MFD (nav, phone etc), you won't see the kph reading anyway, so it makes a nonsense of the regulation even without the VCDS mod.

Have you spray-washed your car recently, or driven in heavy rain? I have found that if moisture gets in behind the rear bumber, then I get this problem until it dries out.

Not having the safety cameras is indeed a pain. But my solution is to use the app 'Radardroid' on my Android phone. This gives me an audio alert when approaching a camera, and a warning buzzer if I am over its speed. The only drama is that I have to disable the media player BT link every time I fire it up, otherwise I get no audio from my phone. So for me, Columbus for nav, music and phone, and my phone for safety cameras.

You will not be able to access the text aspects of your iphone or, indeed, 99% of Android phones. That is because to use the remote text facilities, your phone needs to connect to the car BT using the RSAP protocol. Iphone doesn't support this, and only a very small number of Android ones do.

Not my experience though. I have had a few TomToms over the years, and subscribe to the Live services. It's true that TomTom 'stifled' the HD Traffic by limiting its ability to look well ahead on your journey. But I understand that has been reversed, at least partially. But in use, I have rarely lost the Live services. When I have, it is because I was in a Vodafone black spot, as TomTom uses a Vodafone sim card to download data. HD Traffic is simply the best on the market, as every TomTom user contributes towards the situation, as your progress, or lack of it, is sent live to TomTom. If a couple of TomTom Live users hit a jam, within minutes it is on the system. As far as I am aware, no other traffic system does that.

Reading other threads, it seems that Skoda have temporarily run out of Boleros, so are fitting (the better) Amundsen in the meantime. This will be why you were expecting a 6 CD Changer (Bolero) and got single CD and Satnav (Amundsen). Lucky you! By the way, excellent price on your car.

Head over to VWNavi, HERE . All the info is there. My upgrade was painless, once I had the right combination of CD and burner software.

Firstly, have you got Bluetooth installed in your car? If not, you cannot use this facility. Assuming you have, ensure that your phone is paired with the car, and is also paired as a media player. Then, start the music on your phone. On the Media page of Bolero, you should see the BT button now active. Select that - job's a good 'un.

I too have a Desire HD and it works perfectly happily in the Hands Free Protocol (HFP) mode as the phone does not have RSAP. But I am quite happy with that. With HFP I can look at my phone book and the sent and received calls list, which is all I need. As far as I can tell, the only real advantage in connecting via RSAP is that you can read texts on the MaxiDot. I can live without that. But RSAP also has a disadvantage in that it kills the data reception to your phone (it effectively makes a smart phone a dumb one), so no emails, map downloads (therefore no Google Maps etc). Pros and Cons.

The gear indicator is a single white digit at the top right of the MaxiDot display. To see it, you need to have a gear selected and the clutch released. It also 'nags' you to change gear. If it thinks you need to change up, the digit will be replaced by an inverse video number of the gear it thinks you should be in, with an up arrow. Conversely, if it thinks you need to change down, the digit will be replaced by an inverse video number of the gear it thinks you should be in, with a down arrow. Not much more than a party trick.

When you set up your presets, did you 'pick' them from your phone contacts? If so, that might be the problem. Some people have found that it is more reliable to set the presets up manually, ie tap in the name and phone number from the Bolero/Columbus keypad. The problem might be caused by the phonebook being a little slow to load when you connect your phone. Bolero/Columbus looks for the preset, can't find it, so gives up. If you do it manually, it is held at the Bolero/Columbus end, so should always be available.

My 1.4 TSi Manual has done 11,300 miles now, and I have kept a record of its fuel top ups since new. My motoring is a mix of commuting 11 miles each way, and weekend and holiday driving, a mix of motorway and main roads. My overall consumption, since new, has been 43 mpg. It started off at about 30, eased up towards 40 over the first 7000 miles, and then went into the 40's from then on. My maxidot is pretty accurate as far as mpg is concerned. Often it will be with 1-2 mpg of the actual brim to brim calculation.

I too do not think Columbus is a load of rubbish! As far as built-in satn navs go, it is up there amongst the best, far better than Ford, Honda or even Merc for quality of map display. Where it scores is in its integration. I will have the map view on Columbus, with a split screen showing Overview. This gives me the main close-in nav on the right of the screen, and a north-up map of the remainder of my journey on the left. I have my Maxidot set to Nav, so I can see the manoeovre symbol for the next event, which shows current and next road. At the same time I am listening to music either on the hard drive or on the radio. That music mutes as Columbus announces the next event (the level of muting is adjustable). Yes, lady does say 'stay on this road for a long time', but only when the next leg is more than 10 miles. Not too unreasonable, I would say. Columbus is expensive compared to a TomTom, Garmin etc, but it is totally integrated into the car (rear parking sensor graphic, sound muting during reversing, etc), there are no trailing wires draped down to the power socket and, when it is VAT free, reasonable value for money. Go, Columbus!

Just got my first Android phone, a Desire HD. Keen to get warning of speed cameras (absent from the Columbus system), I downloaded and installed Radardroid on it. But I have hit a problem. My phone is paired to the car bluetooth system (luckily I have the latest version with HFP!), but this suppresses the Radardroid audio warnings. So when I am driving with the phone in hands free mode, I cannot hear the warnings of upcoming cameras. Has anyone solved this with Radardroid, or is anyone using another app which gives audio when paired with the car kit?

Watching the video clip on the Zenec link, the GPS lock seems very flaky!