Intimidated by the idea of switching from a tiny VW up! to a Superb Estate, I ticked the option box for the automatic parking option.  In a world where many are saying the age of the autonomous car is already here, surely parking a car would be easy?

 

I've not been convinced by the Superb system, in the one day I've owned the car.  It seems very quirky in the spaces it detects, and its end on parking is rubbish.  It ends up very close to the car on the driver's side and not quite straight.  Also, on several occasions it was heading into the space ok when it suddenly unwound the lock and lazily reversed straight towards one of the cars it was aiming between.  I kept going as long as I could before having to take control as the sensors screamed and the auto braking slammed on (ouch).  Every time, a second attempt worked fine.

 

 

The parallel parking works better, but it keeps refusing to use spaces that seemed big enough, sometimes because of "An obstruction on the other side".   I reckoned I could easily park in the gap, and so I could!  Not really what I paid £400 for.   Anyone else made the mistake of ordering this?

The only time I've ever used it was trying its parallel option on our road outside our house - I too got the "obstruction on the other side" warning.  Granted, our road is narrow and I didn't really want the car mounting the other side's kerb - so I parked elsewhere.

 

One day I will have a crack at using it - I may use the bay park function when picking Mrs up from work later...we'll see how good that is.

I've never even tried it after three years ownership. After living in a terraced house on a steep hill I got used to squeezing previous cars into very tight spaces. These days I just park somewhere easier.

You either love it or hate it. The majority of threads on here claim it's used once and then never turned on again i.e. a bit of a gimmick.

 

The feature also has a tendency to drag your precious alloy wheels along kerbs too 

I find parallel parking works pretty well , I only had the “obstruction on the other side” issue once, and that was in a lane barely wide enough to allow a car to pass once parked, and a stone wall beyond. I do find it will squeeze the car into a pretty tight space.

 

All that said, I don’t use it often because the reversing camera make manual parking so easy.

 

Bay parking I find less clever as it seems to take a few backwards and forwards goes when I could have done it in a one-er.

I had it for 4+ years on my S2 (as standard) and never used it once. Read it scraped alloys and that was enough to put me off, although I can park a Superb estate in the tightest of spaces with no issue as I have very good visual and spacial awareness luckily.

 

We went for a family meal last winter and the only space in the pub car park was a little tight for the estate, up against some bollards and a fence. I dropped all the passengers off and calmly proceeded to park perfectly on the first go. I walked in the back of the pub through the conservatory overlooking my car and 3 guys stood up and clapped me. They had been sat at a table and watched, and had a wager when they realised I was going to try and park in that space - only 1 bet I'make it and got all the free drinks 

I have this but have only used it once. The reason I got it was because it added parking additional sensors which are very useful.

It’s a fit, use once and forget addition. I gave up on it on the first attempt.

 

It does have a very irritating side effect, the side sensors go off all the time. 

Did it again today.  Backing nicely into a bay on full lock when it suddenly unwound the steering wheel and headed straight for the side of someone's pride and joy (a Fabia), just as they returned to it!  Rather embarrassing - "It's not me , it's the car!".   I'll try to video it next time.

The sensors were already on my car, according to the specification printout, so I paid £400 for nothing.  The system is less reliable and harder to use than parking by hand.  If the garage cannot fix it, I will be asking for a refund, as it is not fit for purpose.  I ordered it so that I would not feel guilty about forcing my petite wife to drive such a big car, but she is actually very competent and I can't see her bothering to use something so scary which gives the impression that it will cause an accident. I was covered in sweat after a session practice parking;  "often working" is not good enough. Annoyingly, the car is now likely to be less reliable and harder to maintain with all the extra hardware fitted.

Bit of a gimmick, but I have used it a few times.  Biggest problem with it is that it can take a while to select a suitable "space" - you are quicker doing it yourself.  That said, once it is locked into a parallel park manoeuvre, I have found it to be nothing but perfectly accurate.  

 

I have it included in the L&K spec (bought an ex demo) but wouldn't pay £400 for it as a stand alone extra.

 

 

I too have it for “free” as part of the L&K spec. I’ve used it once, shortly after I got the car, just to see if it worked. I was messing about getting it to bay park while my son was at football training. It got there eventually, but I wasn’t convinced. Never used it again and had just about forgot about it till I saw this thread.

I’m another one who had it wrapped into the L&K spec. I tried to use it once to see what it was like and it gave up on a space that I ended up putting the car into myself. This isn’t an indictment on my parking skills, more a comment on how cr@p the parking gizmo is.

 

But it was also part of the spec on my previous car, and that too was useless. And also fitted to a previous Mercedes and that too was rubbish. So I’d not single out the Skoda system as poor, in my experience they’re all pretty dire....

As predicted, my wife was scared off using it today when it appeared to be putting us straight into a metal fence.  She then competently parked in normal fashion.

 

In a world where autonomous cars are happily roaming US cities (with test drivers in place), how dare they sell us this rubbish bit of kit?

No issues in my Kodiaq. Don't really see the reason to use it, especially when you have the dynamic lines.

I've used it a couple of times for parallel parking and it did a very good job at parking in a small space. But I do not use it on a regular basis and could live without it (but as for many others it came standard on L&K)

After using the car a bit longer I have come to accept that parallel parking is ok, but the end-on bay parking is still rubbish.

 

The best thing about selecting automatic parking is that is assesses the length of the space so you KNOW you can get into it.   The space in this photo for example. (Both the other cars were positioned such that they had plenty of space to pull away from me - they were bordered by a driveway entrance and a double yellow line.)

 

The worst fault with end-on bay parking is not technical.  You have to drive PAST the space to detect it.  In a busy car park, which is the only reason I need help to park quickly, someone is immediately up your chuff assuming you have given up on the space.  You then have to drive on, and the same thing happens again... A manual manoeuvre would start much closer to the space and "reserve" it.   As previously mentioned, the reversing manoeuvre is always done in two parts, when a good driver would get in with just one.  It also takes you perilously close to the door of the parked car.  You are responsible for the forward and back movement of the car, and it can be tricky with an automatic as it comes to a halt every time you dab the brake and takes 4-5 seconds to resume creeping motion.  Unless you are brave enough to blip the throttle when only inches away from another car!

 

On 02/06/2019 at 20:44, silver1011 said:

You either love it or hate it. The majority of threads on here claim it's used once and then never turned on again i.e. a bit of a gimmick.

 

The feature also has a tendency to drag your precious alloy wheels along kerbs too 

 

I use it alot, because I'm lazy. I have 19" alloys and the self-parking has never rubbed one against the curb

In fact, in some cases it picks up the curbs on the parking diagram and avoids them

 

I would miss this feature if I swapped to a car without