Graham Butcher

Not if you weren't paying proper attention and was straying unintentionally into another lane and risking an accident. The assist in this case is going to be attempting to return you back into the lane that you're about to leave by accident.

In that case, it certainly seems to be better than that fitted in my hire car, I can't wait till I get my Superb back from the body shop.

Hmm, but that is not going to be much use unless you are actually looking at the dashboard at the time is it?

I doubt that the Passat b5.5 did that, I have had 3 Passats before switching over to the Superb and to the best of my knowledge the systems are identical.

OK, you've poked my curiosity now, if you have off steering wheel vibration off, how is the system alerting you that you're in danger of straying from your lane?

My current hire car has that lane assist, and I have to say that it is not very effective either, the vibration through the steering wheel has a similar feel to a road surface that is less than perfect but not a pothole and can so easily be ignored. I went out today to deliberately test it out and was not impressed. Similarly, the blind spot detection was also underwhelming, consisting of an orange LED in the door mirrors which is so easy to miss, especially when the sun shines on the mirrors, totally washes out any LED glow, it requires audio signals as well, preferable a different signal for each side. My hire car is a Nissan Qashqai, I don't know if the Skoda's with this technology are better?

@KenM I can tell you that the chestnuts mentioned in the video don't work, already tried in the house, and they still get in. However, I have ordered some spider killer from Amazon, how effective it is remains to be seen, supposed to be here by 9pm tomorrow.

Maybe a bit of an unusual question, but what is the best way of getting rid of spiders in the car? I was driving along today and I saw out the corner of my eye what I thought was movement on the dashboard, I glanced down and there was this large brown spider with large body and short legs making its way from the demister slots down to the middle air vents and promptly disappeared inside them and was not seen any more during the drive. I now want to get rid of it and any others in the car as they are in my opinion a liability in the car and are an accident just waiting to happen, especially when driving at night and something dangles in front of you or crawls over you, a major distraction for sure. So girls and guys, what is the most way effective way of getting rid of this/these bugs from the car? Edit, I just spotted this in my news channel, part of an article from "WalesOnLine" "Although spiders in the UK are rarely harmful, for those with a fear or strong dislike for the creatures, it can be stressful to know that there is one in immediate proximity. In the case of drivers, spiders can also suddenly appear mid-journey, causing a distraction to whoever is behind the wheel. In 2015, a woman in the UK caused a fatal crash as a result of a spider falling into her lap from the sun visor, highlighting how the consequences of having a spider in the car can be incredibly severe." Apparently, you can also be fined upto £2,500 as well.

Many thanks for the clarification, I just had another look in the drivers manual, and for the first time I have seen it mentioned in the section about the air con and heating, WTF, no mention of sunroof at all in the index, how odd.

I did indeed raise the question about the solar sunroof here a couple of years ago and never got a satisfactory answer, it is that rare, and I have never seen it offered on any other car apart the L&K Superb in 2013, out of 301 sold, only 272 are still on the road, so the question is how many of them were optioned with the solar sunroof? The owner's manual nor the workshop manual mentions the option, and so I can only surmise that it was offered once only on selected L&K models in 2013 as a possible test bed before including it on the Bentley Continental, I may be wrong on that, however. I know that the Superb has a umbrella in its door as a standard fitment, just as a Rolls-Royce does, and I don't think it is available on any other cars. Ross-Tech have confirmed tonight that after checking my VIN number, their VCDS will talk to the Solar Sunroof, so now I need to locate a VCDS for sale, without costing an arm and a leg.

Thanks for your replies, I expected that it was 1 VIN per car, so the 3 option is fine for me, I'm the only person in the family with VAG product. I already have a Carista OBDII BT device with an annual subscription but it is a 1 click job and there is no way of drilling down deeper into the data etc, for instance coding the battery change does seem to work very well unless you have one of the batteries for which they have the data preprogrammed in for. I suspect it is overcharging my new battery as a result. The Carista measure battery voltage as being 14.8V, which is what I would expect the alternator to kick out to the battery when its nearing the end of its life, but this battery is about 4 months old, so I would like to resolve that issue properly. Also 3 years ago when the alternator belt shredded itself and the battery depleted itself, RAC fitted a temporary battery without any coding and since that day, the solar panel in the sunroof has not been driving the cooling fan to the interior cool whilst the car is parked in the sun. So I'm asking Ross Tech if their system will talk to the solar sunroof or not as my local dealer has not been able to get the fan working via the panel despite me changing the air fan motor which had seized up a year later.

Ok, thanks for the replies, can someone please clear up a question I have about the VINS, there are 3 options, 3, 10 or unlimited VINS. I understand that certain functions use up a VIN so how does this work in practise, I only have the 1 car to use it on, so I was thinking that the best one for me is the one that has 3 VINS. So if I use it as a code reader on the basic error messages, I don't use a VIN for those, I get that, but if I was to try and modify or use one of the various test functions that I would use a VIN for that. Am I correct in saying that I have to enter the car's VIN number to unlock that function? Once I have done that, and I want to do some other tweaking or forcing something into a test mode etc on the same car, do I use another of the VINS or is it that once I have registered the car to the VCDS, I can then use it freely for anything on my car and I only use up another of my 3 VINS if wish to use it in another VAG car for something other than basic code reading and resetting?

I notice that the one I posted earlier, along with many of the others, all had the identical serial number H10-000000, it seems I have found another load, this time with H11-025771, I'm not sure about the H11-002336 Are they even upto H11 numbers yet?

That is my conclusion as well, and for the record, the last one I downloaded directly from Ross Tech and closer inspection, they have blurred out the serial number, the 2nd one I have seen the same photo being used by loads of sellers, so I came to the same conclusion, fake and the first one, is a fake.

I'm seriously considering the purchase of a VCDs lead, but it would have to be a second hand one because of cost. I have been looking at some on-line I can spot some that could be possibly be fakes and as Ross Tech provide the software for free as a download, I assume that those advertised with a CD containing software may be considered as possible fakes. I assume that the leads labelled as HEX-V2 with the ROSS TECH logo moulded into the body to be genuine and those that don't have the logo, but stickers instead are fakes, would that be correct or am I missing something here? I attach a couple of photos I have downloaded from some adverts I have found on the internet, showing the features I describe, I would appreciate your comments / suggestions.

Are that makes sense and explains why some adverts say 3 VINs used, or unlimited VINs, thank you.

I don't think that VIN's refers to the car VIN number because many of these on offer in the 2nd hand market say that they either come with so may VIN's left or they come with unlimited VIN's etc. I think it must be something to do with the ability to input parameters into the ECU's or support requests etc.

I'm thinking about buying myself a 2nd hand VCDs HEX-V2, I really cannot afford to purchase a new one, being retired now, and the current economic climate has considerably devalued my private pension plan. I can understand the reasons about buying genuine lead/interfaces, so with that in mind, how can I detect a clone from a genuine one? Also I keep seeing references being made to VIN's and also DTCs but reading the downloaded manual from Ross Tech I can find nothing that provides any further information on these terms, can anyone throw any light on these for me?

I'm thinking of upgrading my Carista scan tool for a LAUNCH CRP909E Elite tool and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience of this at all and what you think of it?

An update on the topic for you, it has been a whole week since the body was cleaned, and I've done a fair bit of driving in that week, in traffic with the stop/start performing absolutely brilliantly, not missing a beat, stops instantly with no rough shudder and starts the same way. Power delivery is also perfectly smooth when pulling away from stationary, and the idle is once again nice at 800rpm. So the video I found on YT was correct and also a big thank you to DEL80Y, it really was just the throttle body that needed cleaning.

If you run the cable down the A pillar and into the fuse box, you can pick up the feed and earth there, but be aware that the dashcam uses 5v, not 12v, so you will need a convertor,

Check the fuse, if they both stopped working at the same time, it has to be something they have in common and might be the fuse.

I have had my throttle body cleaned by a local garage (Trinity, in Springfield Road, Chelmsford) and I have to say that they have done a good job, originally estimated an hour's work but due to a stubborn bolt it took almost 2 hours. The car is actually smoother on take off now as before sometimes it would snatch a bit and also the engine is idling around 800rpm, before it would fluctuate between 800 to 1000rpm. I'm also noticing that it gets into 4th gear a lot more now during town driving at speeds of 25mph, before it was nearer to 30mph, so fuel economy should be better as well. Time will tell on that front. When I went to pick up my this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised when I was informed that had a couple of photos for me to show what they found on removal and another showing how clean it was when they refitted it, I attach these below, and I'm amazed at the state it was in and can see why the OBD2 error report said that the body was giving an implausible reading, the gunk was preventing the flap from sitting correctly and thus giving the ECU an input that might suggest the engine might run at too high rpm if the start/stop system were to start the engine and the car shoot of at unexpected speed? Does that make sense?

This morning I had another request from Carista support to do yet another scan of the cars ECU's and send them the report direct from the app, this what the scan produced, the same as before, no errors on anything apart from the TV Tuner, which despite throwing out these error codes, is actually working. I look forward to getting their analysis of the codes back in due course. ECU info obtained with Carista 7.1 for Android: VIN: TMBBF73T9E9021678 CAN network gateway Part #: 7N0907530AL Component: J533 Gateway Software version: 1642 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 353303 (hex) [No fault codes] Engine Part #: 03L906018RQ Component: R4 2.0l TDI Software version: 9977 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_ECM20TDI01103L906018RQ Coding: 001D0032042501080000 (hex) [No fault codes] Transmission Part #: 02E300062A Component: GSG DSG AG6 Software version: [none] ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 20 (decimal) [No fault codes] ABS Part #: 1K0907379BL Component: ESP MK60EC1 Software version: 0152 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 863D6016092400FB611106EB90210092350150 (hex) [No fault codes] Power steering Part #: 1K0909144R Component: EPS_ZFLS Kl. 196 Software version: [none] ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: [none] [No fault codes] Steering angle [ECU not present] Steering wheel Part #: 1K5953521AK Component: LENKS.MODUL Software version: 0140 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_SMLSNGVOLWSXS Coding: 0882140000 (hex) [No fault codes] Airbags Part #: 3T0959655D Component: J234__LDM VW10 H Software version: [none] ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 17485 (decimal) [No fault codes] Instrument cluster Part #: 3T2920941M Component: KOMBI Software version: 0811 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_Kombi_UDS_VDD_RM09 Coding: 410E01 (hex) [No fault codes] Navigation Part #: 3T0035686C Component: RNS-MID Software version: 5274 ASAM/ODX identifier: ------------------------- Coding: 04060002000000A11000 (hex) [No fault codes] Radio Part #: 3T0035686C Component: RNS-MID Software version: 5274 ASAM/ODX identifier: ------------------------- Coding: 04060002000000A11000 (hex) [No fault codes] Sound system Part #: 5C6035456A Component: KonzernAmp10K Software version: 6813 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_AudioVerst10KanalBNO1 Coding: [none] [No fault codes] TV tuner Part #: 7L6919148A Component: R0078 TVhybridDV Software version: [none] ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 3 (decimal) Fault codes: 00464 Controller with display unit for radio and navigation (J503) 01299 Diagnostic Interface for Data Bus (J533) 03210 Video Connection red 03211 Video Connection green 03212 Video Connection blue 03213 Video Connection sync Telephone Part #: 3C8035730D Component: Telefon Software version: 0946 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_UHVPremi Coding: 020100000100010000000101 (hex) [No fault codes] Immobilizer Part #: 5K0953234 Component: IMMO Software version: 0811 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_Immo_UDS_VDD_RM09 Coding: 000000 (hex) [No fault codes] Headlight aiming Part #: 5M0907357F Component: AFS-ECU Software version: 0111 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_HeadlRegulVWAFSPt Coding: 01C600003F000000 (hex) [No fault codes] Heater & air conditioning Part #: 3T0907044CJ Component: Climatronic Software version: 0709 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_Climatronic Coding: 0010080003 (hex) [No fault codes] Parking/steering assist Part #: 3T0919475D Component: PARKHILFE PLA Software version: 0005 ASAM/ODX identifier: EV_EPHVA2CAS46X0000 Coding: 149301 (hex) [No fault codes] Central electronics Part #: 1K0937087AN Component: BCM PQ35 H+ Software version: 0779 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 46990A26EC7BF1C0500800C171008DEC0F7000CD63208760E280C7040041 (hex) [No fault codes] Body/convenience system [ECU not present] Driver's door Part #: 8X0959793H Component: TSG FA Software version: 0415 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 011D0220DE01001000 (hex) [No fault codes] Front passenger's door Part #: 8X0959792H Component: TSG BF Software version: 0415 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 011D0220DE01001000 (hex) [No fault codes] Rear left door Part #: 8X0959795D Component: TSG HL Software version: 0415 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 010C00200001001000 (hex) [No fault codes] Rear right door Part #: 8X0959795D Component: TSG HR Software version: 0415 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 010C00200001001000 (hex) [No fault codes] Driver's seat Part #: 3C8959760E Component: Sitzmemory Software version: 3001 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 00003B (hex) [No fault codes] Battery regulator Part #: 7N0907534 Component: Batt.regelung Software version: 1642 ASAM/ODX identifier: [none] Coding: 030F185A (hex) [No fault codes]

Well my Superb is still on its 2nd set of pads from new, has almost 79000 miles on the clock and nearly 10 years old so if don't drive a boy racer with the pedal to the metal until the last minute, the cars natural compression braking works just fine with the DSG automatically down changing to assist the braking effort. You will also benefit from increased MPG figures and that in todays climate is a positive and also helps to lower emissions.