Hi Guys,

I have had my Greenline 2 Octavia for 5 months now and have put 20k miles on the clock. I use it as a taxi in a small town but do lots of out of town runs also. The stop start system worked brilliantly up until 15k miles but has slowly been woking less and less untill now it shuts the engine down only 10 times a week where before this would happen 8 out of ten times while stoping. Fuel consumption has droped by about 5mpg also. I took the car in for the 20k service this week and mentioned the problems, they couldnt find any problems with the car at all and said it should be working fine. I changed the air filter the next day even though skoda say it will not need changing untill 40k miles, it was dirty and have found the fuel consumption is back to what it was but the Stop Start is just the same.

I am driving the car the same as I always have so cant see my driving style has anything to do with the DPF filter which does not allow the car to top if it is in regeneration mods?

Anyone had a similar problem?

There are a number of reasons that would cause the stop/start system not to operate as expected.

These are detailed in the manual but include low charge in the battery, an engine not up to temperature, the requirements of the heating and ventilation system and a regeneration of the DPF amongst others.

If the car is in regeneration in fact it will not turn the car off as it could stop the regeneration process, even though onced engine back on it should restart regeneration.

All VW group makes have this issue. My 1.6tdi works fine, stop car in REG. start car and REG. starts again. Have people that donnot do this.

Also if in REG. if you press the gas and let go, sometimes this will interrupt the REG. not good. I recomend to go for a small drive and push a few gears .

I myself also notice that with some fuel makes it will REG. more often.

Edited 6 September, 201213 yr by alberg

Thanks Guys,

Yes Ive been right through the manual several times when my local garage looed at it, they tested the battery temperature and type but hat was fine. Apparently there was a recall on some batteries as they were the wrong type fitted my car is fitted with the correct type. I cant understand whats going on because as I said the first 15k miles it worked perfectly and i would like to think that nothing has changed with the way I operate the car, ive adjusted temperature in the car taken it for a 15 mile journsy at 3000rpm to gibe the DPF filter a good regeneration but doesnt seem to have made any difference. I will see how I get on with the weekend and will have to take the car back to the garage next week.

Well Skoda have looked at my car and have found that 94Ah is being drawn from the battery, they say anything above 70Ah and the stop start system will not shut down the engine. The mechanics blamed my taxi meter even though the system worked fine for 15kmiles.The light on top of my car had 2 5W bulbs in it and the meter itself draws only a tiny bit of current certianly not 24Ah worth. The system has now not worked for over 2 weeks, there had got to be some sort of underlying problem.

Hi do you have a hole drilled through the roof to feed your power cable for your roof light or does it come out through the boot.

I've seen many taxis have problems with the power cables or aerials due to them being fed out through the boot and the plastic outer sheath getting smashed over time with the boot being repeatedly closed.

If this is the case it would be worthwhile checking over the power cable for any kinks or exposed wire; don't think the dealer would pick up on this..

HI Folks just got my New Octy greenline today Took it for a 50mile run a mix of town ,country and about 15 miles motorway , but my stop start will not work at all not even once, there is a symbol comes up top right of matrix screen with a diagonal line thru it , and it is turned on ie the light on the off button is off

anyone help

HI Silver surfer 59, the cable just comes out between the door and the frame. Ive even removed the fuse from the power lead for the meter so that it is disconnected and ithas made no difference at all. Im certain it has to be something with the car.

gOgb, sounds odd that a brand new car hasn,t worked. Did you have the aircon on or the temperature set and max or minimum? IF you had it wouldnt work. The maxidot is working fine if the little A had no line through it the engine would shut down. The diagnal line signals that not all the parameters for shut down have been met.

hi Taximan2008 ,Have not been using the aircon as yet and temp has not been set to max but may have been set to min on heating , have been out today and it still does not work at all , rang the dealer ,who have said to run it over weekend, and if no better to ring them on monday so they can put it on diagnostic, so far it has not shut down even once, dealer told me there are 25 paramaters to be met before it would shut down, i do love the car ,but need this sorted

i don't belive it , out for only a short run in the octy pulled up at the lights and today on day 5 the stop/start works for the 1st time, over next 30 mins i take every chance to test it out and it works everytime :beer:

now i'm happy

Well I have just had mu 30k service done and the stop start system has not worked for 10k miles now., My local garage still havent fixed the problem and my fuel economy is suffering i now struggle to get 44mpg per4 day now where I was getting 50mpg. They are going to make a few calls "up the line!", if I dont hear back soon I may have to complain to Head Office.

with so many systems needing to be spot on before stop/start works i am not suprized , great when it works a pain when it don't

do we know if uprated battery and starter are fitted to greenline over other models? I think mine being new and maybe stood on the docks for a few weeks or months the battery was a bit low which caused stop/start to not work , until fully charged, these batteries and starters need to do a graet deal more work than standard

hope you get yours sorted soon taximan

Hi taximan2008. I have the same problem with my Skoda octavia Greenline. After 20k km start stop just didn't work. Maybe once a week. Today's I have 55k km and still doesn't work. I am taxi driver myself and looks like we have common problem. My roof sign is LED and cable goes through the front driver door but this just couldn't be a problem, meter too. I think maybe battery causing problems ( my is Varta 64Amh) i don't know what's the problem is. Did you fixed yours octavia ?

Well I have just had mu 30k service done and the stop start system has not worked for 10k miles now., My local garage still havent fixed the problem and my fuel economy is suffering i now struggle to get 44mpg per4 day now where I was getting 50mpg. They are going to make a few calls "up the line!", if I dont hear back soon I may have to complain to Head Office.

You said that you did 50mpg. Is that with start/stop? Or without? At the moment I am driving mostly in heavy traffic and without start/stop I can make 50mpg. Just curious. Thanks

Hi Rafalbenitez,

Yes I found out the issue in the end. Essentially all cars equiped with a stop start system are NOT sutable for taxis if you want the stop start work. The elctric system in these cars are very particular if you draw any more current than 72mA off the cars electrical system the cars alternator can not cope and will not provide enough current to keep the battery toped up. As you know the stop start will not work if the battery is not near full charge untill the battery is toped up by the alternator.  The taxi meters in our cars draw more than 72mA therefore the cars alternator after time 15 - 20 K miles can not provide enough current to keep the battery in a full charged state. The batteries internal memory will then not allow the battery to reach full charge again even if you connect a mains charger. The car will continue to work fine with all electrical systems working but because the parameters for the stop start system to work are so small it wil,essentially tell the car that the battery is not charged enough for engine shut down to take place.

Took a long time for skoda to find this out for me, they did say fitting a larger alternator may fix the issue but this wouldnt be done on warranty as the issue is with the meter not the car plus they wouldnt guarantee that a larger alternator would fix the issue completely. Also worth noting that the battery is probably unable to reach its maximum charge again due to the internal memory of the battery being damaged/lowered so if you do put a bigger alternator on you will still need to get a new battery fitted about £180 from skoda.

I did try getting a new battery from somwshere else but it seems the only place you can get a 68 A stop start AGM battery is skoda itself Varta wouldnt even suuply one. You can get a 70 A AGM stop start battery but if you fit this the cars computer will get confused and wouldnt know what to do with it due to the 2 AMp difference.

I just learnt lo live with it, it does effect fuel economy not only becasue of the stop start system's not shutting down the engine but also due to the fact that once the battery reaches full charge the alternator is supposed to dis-connect from the engine further saving fuel, because the battery never gets fully charged the alternator doesnt disconnect from the engine as its continually trying to get to a fully charged state. I reckon I lost about 5 - 8 mpg on a longer run.

Hope this explains things a bit for you

Taximan 2008

Thanks for huge explanation seriously, Skoda dealer doesn't know too much about start/stop. I just give up months ago and just live with this. Just annoying when something you payed for doesn't work. But at the end, I will probably spend less for new battery because start/stop doesn't work and less for new starter. thanks again for explaining me the problem.

NO worries mate it does take a little explaining. The thing that I cant understand is that all new diesel skodas have the stop start system fitted now so have they fixed this issue for any other taxis drivers who are planning on buying new skoda's. i did ask my dealer and he didnt know