Nearly a year on with my Estate Elegance Greenline

[birket]

Hello again all. Been a while since I was last here. I've had my car almost 12 months now, covering less than 10k miles from new! It is still a good car, and I like the practicalities of having something so roomy, particularly as a 6'5" driver. However, a couple of things are annoying me and I wondered if anyone else has a similar experience.

When running from a cold start...not freezing temperatures BTW - this morning it was 18 degrees when I left for the school run - I find that the engine sounds awful. A lot like a transit van. This suprises me as it is a modern car with an efficient engine. I had always assumed diesel engines built in the last 5 years would be much quieter and like their petrol counterparts. It is almost an embarrassing sound when I am starting out in the morning 1st and 2nd gears. I can't imagine people expect a sleek looking car like this could produce such a clattering sound. Is this normal?

The other oddity I have experienced of late is like a miss-firing/loss of power when the engine is running cold. Its normally in 1st and 2nd gears again, and you can feel the power dropping for a split second sometimes when you put your foot down. The power picks up again almost instantly, but it certainly feels a bit weird. It doesn't happen all the time, and only seems to happen when the engine is cold. What could this be? Though my local garage is nice enough, I hate taking cars in as last time I went with an 'excessive interior moisture' issue and they were really very little help as it wasn't exhibiting the problem on the day. They say that they can't really do anything if they can't see the problem for themselves. This, of course, makes sense, but I can't guarantee that the car will show the awful noise and/or the loss of power when I take it in, particularly as the car will likely have warmed up by the time I get it there.

The third minor irritation is the fact that the media/stereo/radio can take an age to get going when I start up the car. This is weird. I could understand it if it was trying to access music from the hard disk, but even if I click on Radio, it can still take a good 30-40 seconds to actually start - it just says 'System Starting...' or words to that effect on the screen. Surely a Radio station should be able to start almost immediately? Again, this doesn't happen all the time. Perhaps 50% of the time when I first set off from the engine being off. Anyone else have this?

Other than that, it is quite a nice car to drive ;-)

[bill2]

hi

the Columbus in my old superb was like that some times taking 2-3 minutes to start i video this to show skoda and eventually they replaced it.

i had mine for 18 months really liked the car but the noise and vibration from the engine at 1500-2000 revs drove me up the wall just had to change the car.driving a new ford kuga now engine smooth as silk sounds more like a v6 diesel very good pity the skoda did not sound like this would still have it

[Caspian]

My 2009 CR170 DSG is always a bit noisier when first started in cold weather, but nothing like as noisy as a transit van. It does sometimes suffer from some lazy tappetts when cold, but that tapping noise goes away as soon as the oil is warm. In fact when it is warmed through its as smooth an engine as I could wish. Except below about 1200 revs, its as smooth as the KV6 in my old Rover Sterling.

As far as loss of power goes, it sounds as if there is something not right. Perhaps a faulty sensor or a dirty injector or even a poor electrical connection. Its difficult to say without testing.

Taking 2 or 3 minutes for the Columbus to start seems a long time, but I would expect it to say'system starting' and take say 20 or 30 seconds to start, after all it is a computer system, not just a radio. It does need to load its operating system before it starts.

[silver1011]

All three issues are warranty fixes.

Issue one and two are almost certainly linked.

Issue three is likely to require a firmware update or a new headunit.

I had cold starting issues with my previous Octavia. I ended up dropping it off at the dealers the night before so they could start and drive the car from cold themselves and witness the symptoms first hand.

[birket]

Thanks for your replies. Never really had any issues with my previous cars, so I am just a bit frustrated by these intermittent problems. I guess quality control with Skoda just isn't quite as good, though I guess that is reflected in the cost of ownership.

(for interests sakes, previous cars were AudiA4, Lexus RX300, Navara Adventura, BMW 320d)