Skoda Superb navigation system gone bust! Help!

[smf1007]

I agree will all who suggest the sale of goods act for your remedy...do not give in. First things first, you must make it official and put in your complaint in writing, by regular mail, to the man at the top of Skoda UK, and keep a copy of all correspondence in/out.

[babugos]

I have contacted CAB and they have advised me to write a letter (from template in adviceguide.org.uk) to financial company underwriting loan (car under finance agreement) under Supply of Goods(implied terms) Act.I am doing this to see whether this helps. In the meantime a local specialist in Columbus satnav systems has said that fault is with the motherboard and can be repaired but parts are the problem. He also mentioned that this fault is commonly seen with the Columbus Nav systems

[100andthirty]

I hope that Citizen's Advice told you that your contract is with the dealer who supplied the car and that your finance company is jointly liable. Skoda UK isn't a party to your Sale of Goods Act and other legal remedies.

However a bit more persistence with Skoda might help, especially as the Columbus seems to be the main weakness of the Superb 2 - at least as far as one can see from this forum.

[lowest]

its probably failed due to the hard drive which, which is very complex to replace as the whole unit needs to be disassembled to virtually a shell before it can be removed.

I've come across a page on the net which describes how to replace the internal hard disk (HDD) in the Sat Nav, I'll try and find it again and post a link.

I think it's based more towards replacing the HDD with a larger drive or an SSD (solid state disk) but the result is still a new HDD. I read through the process and it seems very straight forward, I would be happy to test it out if anyone has a failed unit. Mine failed in the first month of life in a new car and if it had not been a free of charge replacement I would have replaced the HDD myself. So long as plenty of photos are taken and the correct tools are available most things can be disassembled and reassembled.

This will only fix HDD related problems but I work in IT and HDDs do fail on a regular basis even bad batches are recieved from time to time.

Edited to include this link to the instructions. http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/forums/f78/rns-510-hdd-replacement-ssd-swap-diy-60984.html

Edited 15 August, 2012 by lowest

[AJB1]

The link I gave above (http://www.vwcruise.com/Audi-VW-Sat-Nav-Repair-service.html)

Will replace your motherboard for £300.

It might also be useful for their opinion of MB failures, it might strengthen your case.

[xreyuk]

I'm very surprised they've not offered to foot the bill as a gesture of goodwill.

People over on the SEAT forums have no problem getting goodwill out of SEAT for up to 6 months. Being a couple of days out of warranty, I'd have expected them to foot the bill for parts, and maybe you pay labour.

[patnmand]

My Columbus did exactly the same thing. Skoda did make a gesture of goodwill to bring the price of replacement down, but I wasn't wildly excited about forking out a hill of money for another unit that might well do the same thing. In the end I went for the Kenwood DNX520VBT unit that you can get from the dealer. When I get time I will post a full review of it, but the summary is that I think I wish I'd gone for another Columbus. The Kenwood is OK, but it lacks the classy look/feel of the Columbus and the maps are just hideous,

[babugos]

Updating on the thread re: my Columbus Radio NAV failure after a long gap. unfortunately things stand as they were 2 months ago without any resolution. Sent a letter to Skoda Finance (hire purchase agreement) with Supply of Goods(implied terms) Act clearly mentioned to resolve the matter without any expense to myself- this was also suggested by the CAB. Though my letter was acknowledged no further correspondence from their side for 7 weeks. Unable to talk to my nominated 'case handler' as will not take my call on various pretences and excuses. In the meantime Skoda finance has got in touch with Skoda Customer Service(without my knowledge) and Customer service are repeatedly calling me with their 'goodwill offer'(provided I carry out car servicing with SKODA). Customer Service says that after warranty expiry I have no rights. CAB till now was quite certain I have rights and I should let Skoda know that next step will be Financial Ombudsman however today CAB adviser was not very sure whether SKODA/SKODA finance company have any obligations to replace/repair free of cost. So after all this back to Sqare One. Any suggestions folks??

[jrw]

Updating on the thread re: my Columbus Radio NAV failure after a long gap. unfortunately things stand as they were 2 months ago without any resolution. Sent a letter to Skoda Finance (hire purchase agreement) with Supply of Goods(implied terms) Act clearly mentioned to resolve the matter without any expense to myself- this was also suggested by the CAB. Though my letter was acknowledged no further correspondence from their side for 7 weeks. Unable to talk to my nominated 'case handler' as will not take my call on various pretences and excuses. In the meantime Skoda finance has got in touch with Skoda Customer Service(without my knowledge) and Customer service are repeatedly calling me with their 'goodwill offer'(provided I carry out car servicing with SKODA). Customer Service says that after warranty expiry I have no rights. CAB till now was quite certain I have rights and I should let Skoda know that next step will be Financial Ombudsman however today CAB adviser was not very sure whether SKODA/SKODA finance company have any obligations to replace/repair free of cost. So after all this back to Sqare One. Any suggestions folks??

Stick with it and send a letter to the dealer you purchased it from and also send a copy to SUK stating that this issue has dragged on long enough and you are currently without a feature of the car which you paid £1600 odd to when new and you want a resolution within 7 days of this letter. Mention SOGA, CAB and trading standards to them and that failure to comply will result in legal action in the form of filing a claim with the small claims court to recoup the costs of a replacement unit and also time wasted chasing this matter.

[babugos]

@ FREEDOM, I have written a letter again with content similar to what you have mentioned and given them 7 days time to resolve the matter. Will update once I get a reply.

[micloi]

If nothing else works contact one of the car magazines that might take this on for you and you will see how quickly this can be resolved

[Tech1e]

Has the dealer tried running the repair/update disc in the head unit? If its the correct part number then we have a disc to update the unit. One of the faults that this may help with is the head unit either turning itself off or on randomly.

[Cholly]

I had what appears to be the same symptom in an '09 unit. I contacted a UK sat nav repair company, who, after listening to the symptoms, told me the hard drive needed replacing and it would take 2.5 hours and cost over £300! As an electronics engineer of more years than I care to remember, to me the failure mode did not support this. The HDD holds the media and navigation maps/info, it does not hold the operational software. I posted on here and received the same advice from Tech1e which sent me searching (Thank you, kindly). I searched the net and found the my-gti website which carries the links to the downloadable firmware for the unit. I blew a DVD with 2700 firmware, and following the web procedures, successfully loaded the firmware and my unit is fixed! According to a VCDS scan, my unit was a HW11 with 1104 original firmware.

There is a lot of great info on the various forums and also a lot to be sceptical about. My symptoms were the Skoda flash screen would appear for around 20 seconds and then go black for around 20 seconds, before starting the cycle again. Noticeable at night; when the the illuminated Columbus button lights are on, they blinked off/on at the end of the 20 second black period, ie the unit rebooting. I used Josi's recovery firmware, which loaded successfully, but the problem remained the same. After some days I noticed that the flash screen was not appearing, but pushing the on/off button sometimes brought the flash screen on for a variable amount of time. This confused me for a while until I realised that the 40 secondish reboot timing was still occurring. and the amount of time the flash screen appeared for depended on where in the 40 second cycle I pushed the button. I had not realised that the on/off button, does not turn the Columbus on/off but really just enables the unit.

If your symptoms are like mine I suggest you ask the dealer to reload the latest firmware relevant to your unit. It takes less than an hour.

Hope that helps.

[wirral cars]

you could by a unit off ebay they are not to expensive however get trading standards involved write to auto express they have wanted to have a go a skoda.

I would email the CEO of skoda direct that normally works.

my partner email the ceo of fiat about a dash board squeak car out of warranty within 3 week it was replaced so have a go nothing to loose with skoda

Not skoda uk skoda CZ skoda UK part of VAG and they are not interested in customer service