Bought an approved used 2018 Fabia 1.0TSI 95 SE. Lovely car, good price. However as standard it comes with smartlink, but when I click on this on the bolero screen, it says it needs activating by dealer. This costs £145. Should it not be already activated if it is part of standard spec? It’s not an available option to add when purchasing a new car at SE spec. It makes me wonder if they deactivate it on used cars in order to generate more revenue. Anyone know  if it should be pre activated? 

I should also add that this also happened on our 2016 octavia SE L. I forked our the £145. But now I am thinking it shouldn’t be necessary. 

Presume VCDS may activate this option?

I have no idea. Why is it not active though? Surely it should be by default?

22 hours ago, OctFab said:

Bought an approved used 2018 Fabia 1.0TSI 95 SE. Lovely car, good price. However as standard it comes with smartlink, but when I click on this on the bolero screen, it says it needs activating by dealer. This costs £145. Should it not be already activated if it is part of standard spec? It’s not an available option to add when purchasing a new car at SE spec. It makes me wonder if they deactivate it on used cars in order to generate more revenue. Anyone know  if it should be pre activated? 

We bought an approved used 2018 SEL and smartlink was active on this already. I'm sure there was a step to do when connecting the phone the first time, but that's all. Even our previous 2016 SEL had it active, and that had come straight from SKUK in Milton Keynes off their car scheme.

I just spoke to Skoda and gave them my reg and they insist that smartlink should be activated on my car, but it comes up that it needs activating by the dealer so i questioned whether i could have this done free as it is supposed to be default with car but they are having none of it and want 150 quid to do it even though it should already have it, Theiving buggers.