Hi everyone, and thanks again for all of the input. With the recent relaxation of some of the lockdown restrictions, I've been able to get out on my mountain bike, involving driving to/from various places, now have about 1000 miles on the clock for a car collected just before the March 23rd lockdown. My journeys often involve driving along eg M3, M4, and I've found that Lane Assist is 'very nice to have' on motorways (just makes the journey more relaxing) especially combined with ACC. I find that I tend to use LA only on motorways or A-roads, sometimes turn it off for the latter, and never use LA on the smaller roads.

 

For me and the situations in which I use LA, I'm very glad that I have it, but can understand why some will be indifferent or even hate it. Fortunately it's very easy to switch LA on/off (not that the manual is much help here, hence why I'm really happy that I joined this forum!).

We have had a lovely Scala for a fortnight, and Iam finding the Lane Assist a complete pain, to put it politely.  It's loud "ping" keeps going off regularly, making me jump and telling me to put my hands on the wheel, and I curse back at that my both hands are firmly on the wheel and I was driving the correct course down my side of the road.  This morning it even did it constantly for ten or so "pings" as I drove (straight) down my side of a straight, quite wide, open B road with dashed central markings, with both hands firmly on wheel as always.   Does anybody think there is a problem with our car, or does it simply not like me?    90% of our driving is on B or unclassified local roads here in Devon, and there ought to be some way to just switch it on occasionally when needed, rather than it defaulting to On every single journey. 

Not sure about the Scala, but the Kodiaq LA doesn't care how hard you grip the wheel, because it detects 'driver input' ie the small, automatic steering corrections that you would make. I've kind of got used to the foibles of LA and have learned to let the car do the steering, hands lightly on the wheel, with the occasional steering input to stop the warning chime occurring if it thinks I'm not paying attention. Occasionally though I get caught out and the chime sounds, "wake up you dozy ba****d and give me some attention please". Um, where have I heard that before? Let me think....

 

I've found LA to be helpful by giving you a not-so-subtle reminder to indicate when changing lanes eg on a motorway, because if you don't indicate, you can feel it pushing you back into your lane. Not a problem for me since I've always used my indicators appropriately in such circumstances, but clearly, many drivers (looking at you, yes, you, in that Audi or BMW) appear to have had their indicators disabled.

 

Again, don't know about the Scala, but my Kodiaq remembers the LA setting ie on or off. When I collected the car, it had been previously set to 'on' so my first experience of LA was, er, involuntary. Thus if you switch yours off, it should remain so. 

Interesting that on the Kodiaq if you turn it off it remembers. 
 

on the Q7 it will default back to on when restarting the car, which is like the scala

I wonder if it could be changed via VCDS. 

 

That said I use it a lot, but our roads aren't as tight as in the UK.

That is indeed interesting - thanks Chin, I'm often puzzled about the philosophical differences between cars that all come from the same lineage ie VA Group. For example, in my previous Golf (and all my various cars before it) the 12V sockets were only live with ignition, but my Kodiaq is live all the time (and I so wish I could change it easily). Beats me why the Q7 and Scala revert to LA on, but not the Kodiaq. Why, FFS? I can see arguments both ways, but, please, make your mind up and be consistent.

You can change the power sockets to be switched easily, just by using a piggyback fuse.  I did it on the Kodiaq, it took 5 mins. 

 

For the lane assist, turn it off and on twice.  E.g.:

- use the assist button on the steering wheel

- un-tick LA

- press back

- press assist button

- tick LA

- Repeat once more

My LA cuts out regularly (I think it needs calibration) and if I just enable it once, it will be off again next restart.  Enabling it twice means it comes on next start as expected.

Thanks wokwon - I will research this 'piggy-back' fuze, it sounds like exactly the solution I need. The 'master technician' at the dealership told me point blank it could not be done

Edited 17 July, 20205 yr by SinglePointSafety
Extra info

Interesting regarding the 12V sockets - found this video which implies that, in theory, all I'd need to do is move fuze 40 to its lower position, and then it would be ignition-only for the 12V sockets. Anyone tried this? Haven't yet looked at my Kodiaq's fuze panel, heard some stories that the manual isn't always correct regarding which fuze does what. Do you need VCDS to clear an error code or something afterwards?

 

Thanks to those who have responded.   Unfortunately none of the ideas seem to work on our car, so it looks like we are stuck with it permanently on unless I fiddle with it every time I start the car.   

Interesting that doing a bit of fishing on Google with the words "Skoda Scala Lane Assist problem" came up with a road test which included the following observation:  

"Also irritating was the lane-assist steering system.  For reasons unknown it would bleep, rumble and flash as if we were driving "hands-off".   This happened unprompted on multiple occasions."

I also found another road test that came up with the fact it was the first car they had tested where it was impossible to make it default to off as the standard setting.

So that makes me feel slightly better, its not just me!

Simply clever.

Drive the car.

 

Get in car,

put on seatbelt,

start car,

put off what you do not want on, stop /start, lane assist,etc etc, 

put on what you want, lights, radio, rear screen, A/C, Heating, heated mirrors etc.

Mirror, indicators, look back and e-brake or hand brake off, and off you go.   

 

While driving you can use wipers, heating / ac and indicators, brakes, lane assist, stop / start , information, entertainment as and when you wish. 

Ah, I remember the days of twisting a key, putting the car in gear then dropping the handbrake easy peasy... 

 

Nowadays you have all this tech yet some manufacturers don’t memorise settings for f*** knows why. 

Those days still exist with some with a key and DSG & Autohold other than dropping the 'parking / hand / emergency brake' bit. 

KISS.

We know why they memorise them for Europe / EU. 

For other world regions then some places might suits some of the crap.

 

The thing is that if you do not want some of the crap then just get a Dacia / Lada or even a cheaper / smaller Skoda without it.

My problem is lack of memory - I’m not sure how my custom drive mode of standard everything and comfort exhaust would negatively change emissions. It’d be nice if the car remembered to select your custom mode if the engine mode was set to normal/eco. 
 

Skoda was probably too lazy to set cars to remember drive mode for RoW countries imo. 

On 18/07/2020 at 05:46, SinglePointSafety said:

Interesting regarding the 12V sockets - found this video which implies that, in theory, all I'd need to do is move fuze 40 to its lower position, and then it would be ignition-only for the 12V sockets. Anyone tried this? Haven't yet looked at my Kodiaq's fuze panel, heard some stories that the manual isn't always correct regarding which fuze does what. Do you need VCDS to clear an error code or something afterwards?

 

 

I did look at this on mine, the lower fuse position exists but there isn't any metal contact inside.  Perhaps other markets have the contact fitted.  That would make it really easy.

 

You would not need to clear a code as it's not interactive with the computer.

 

VAG cars have two main power circuits (yes there are more but I'm simplifying).

Terminal 15 - Switched on and off with the ignition

Terminal 30 - Always powered

 

In my experience (not guaranteed - just based of this being my third VAG car)  the top half of the inside fuse box with the larger blade fuses is powered off terminal 30.  The lower half with the mini blade fuses is powered off terminal 15.

 

Basically all you're doing is moving the power for the lighter socket from terminal 30 to terminal 15.

 

 

Thanks wokwon, I had a 'live chat' with Skoda UK but it was worse than useless: the SUK person said 'I'm not technically-minded' (which is really, really useful for that job eh?) and when the Q on fuse positions made its way to the techies, I got a stock answer which is 'we don't support/recommend anything other than the standard current flow' (their words more or less), so my next stop will be a local auto-electrician, or independent Skoda specialist. I suspect that you are indeed correct and that changing fuse position won't work because of the lack of terminal 15 pins below fuse 40.

Hello again, we have noticed a couple more rather worrying tendencies.     Twice the radio has come on when I started the car in the garage in the morning (I never use the radio normally) and twice the doors have suddenly locked themselves when driving along - and refused to stay unlocked for more than 10/15 seconds before locking themselves again each time we unlocked them.   These peculiarities happened on four different journies, over the course of ten days or so, and everything is perfectly normal next time I start up.    Any ideas, please?

2 hours ago, Scalachris said:

Hello again, we have noticed a couple more rather worrying tendencies.     Twice the radio has come on when I started the car in the garage in the morning (I never use the radio normally) and twice the doors have suddenly locked themselves when driving along - and refused to stay unlocked for more than 10/15 seconds before locking themselves again each time we unlocked them.   These peculiarities happened on four different journies, over the course of ten days or so, and everything is perfectly normal next time I start up.    Any ideas, please?

Are you using different keys?

1 hour ago, Kenny R said:

Are you using different keys?

No, only ever my key.

9 hours ago, Scalachris said:

Hello again, we have noticed a couple more rather worrying tendencies.     Twice the radio has come on when I started the car in the garage in the morning (I never use the radio normally) and twice the doors have suddenly locked themselves when driving along - and refused to stay unlocked for more than 10/15 seconds before locking themselves again each time we unlocked them.   These peculiarities happened on four different journies, over the course of ten days or so, and everything is perfectly normal next time I start up.    Any ideas, please?

At low speeds? If so make sure that “lock while driving” in your car settings is off 

11 hours ago, ZacDaMan72 said:

At low speeds? If so make sure that “lock while driving” in your car settings is off 

Thanks, yes, it is off.   On the first occasion we did happen to be going slowly over speed bumps after setting off, but it continued to refuse to stay unlocked even out on the open road.  The second time we set off normally, and were driving along at 30/40 when it locked, and despite us hitting the unlock button, it wanted to stay that way several times after short intervals.

8 minutes ago, Scalachris said:

Thanks, yes, it is off.   On the first occasion we did happen to be going slowly over speed bumps after setting off, but it continued to refuse to stay unlocked even out on the open road.  The second time we set off normally, and were driving along at 30/40 when it locked, and despite us hitting the unlock button, it wanted to stay that way several times after short intervals.

Get someone to watch the key as it lights up when it sends a signal to the car. 

Where was the key when these locking incidents happened. If it was in your pocket, perhaps going over speed bumps caused something in your pocket to depress the lock button.

2 hours ago, Kenny R said:

Where was the key when these locking incidents happened. If it was in your pocket, perhaps going over speed bumps caused something in your pocket to depress the lock button.

From the factory if the engine is on, key presses don’t lock/unlock the car. 

Edited 11 August, 20205 yr by ZacDaMan72

1 hour ago, ZacDaMan72 said:

From the factory if the engine is off, key presses don’t lock/unlock the car. 

 

Would you care to elaborate, that sounds like tosh to me.