Car is a 2018 Skoda Kodiaq Scout with Columbus infotainment.

 

Decided, as I tow a caravan, to retrofit a rear view camera. On the internet the kit seems to sell for a little over £200. Before going ahead I contacted my local Skoda dealer to see about coding the camera. This would be 1 hours work at £118. During the conversation the service manager pointed out that there was an official Skoda kit for £146. Decided to buy the kit and fit it.

 

The kit is great with full instructions and the pipe for washing the camera lens. However getting all the trim out as suggested is a mighty task. I did the following. You do not need to remove all the trim or the two back seats (7 seater) the most difficult part is the trim on the nearside of the boot. The wire can be fished through using a strong piece of wire, however you need to release the trim at the front, near the door to get at the earth point. Removing the trim around the fuse box to get the wires in place is tricky but doable. 

 

Having carried out the fitting I thought I was over the worst part - wrong.

 

Took the car to the Skoda dealers to have it coded, 1st attempt they could not find the camera, my fault I had not provided a live feed to the camera. 2nd attempt dealer tried to code but car would not accept the codes. Dealer said check your wiring. Wiring checked several times but reluctant to return to the dealer as nothing on the car had changed. Decided to go to an independent VW  specialist called Unit 20 near Neston on the Wirral. 3rd attempt, their Skoda technician could not get the car to accept the coding but rather than leaving me in the lurch they phoned around and discovered that the Skoda dealer (Mitchell's Skoda) had had a similar problem but had solved it with the aid of Skoda.

4th attempt booked the car in for a 2 hour session, they successfully coded the car. I cannot recommend Unit 20 enough for their professionalism and care even though they were not successful in coding the car.

 

To say that I am not impressed with the whole event would be an understatement. I have spent more than the £500 quoted for fitting the camera by the dealer but believe that this is not a 'simple' coding issue. I think, but cannot prove, that either the wiring given in the camera fitting instructions is wrong or, there is a different set of codes to get the camera to work.

 

Simply NOT clever.

 

 

 

There are a few Skoda technicians advertising on Facebook that will fit and code the camera for you for £320...

 

Hi silver1011

 

I would, in retrospect, do this but it’s a littlto far away, I’m on Merseyside

But see my point, I was getting an O.E.M kit from Skoda at a price cheaper than the internet plus I like to fit things on my car. I have had a tow bar fitted and coded on the drive on this car which was no problem. I needed a quick job.

My worry is why the camera could not be coded either by the dealer or an independent workshop and needed to go to another dealer who had previously solved the problem. Perhaps these later cars need different coding!

 

Regards

14 hours ago, KScout said:

4th attempt booked the car in for a 2 hour session, they successfully coded the car. I cannot recommend Unit 20 enough for their professionalism and care even though they were not successful in coding the car.

 

Ah, I'm confused, is the issue now resolved, you got it successfully coded in the end?

 

I wasn't sure if your post above was suggesting the issue was fixed, or that you're still unable to get the car coded properly?

Yes I am happy to report the camera is working properly. What I was trying to say was this was the 4th attempt to get it coded. Nothing had changed on the car from the 2nd attempt at coding, strange?

 

regards

 

 

It wouldn’t surprise if they didn’t know how to code the car.

 

I have re-coded half a dozen dealer fit tow bars where the dealers had cocked the coding up.

Thanks for your post.. Have you got a link to the parts used?  Any pics of the install??

 

Many thanks