I would like to believe that you are right but even if it is available in UK and Slovenia it might not be available immediately here in Australia.

11 minutes ago, DaveFromSydney said:

I would like to believe that you are right but even if it is available in UK and Slovenia it might not be available immediately here in Australia.

Unfortunately you are right.

It's pretty disappointing that you weren't offered a courtesy car considering your car is less that 2 weeks old and they've asked to keep the car overnight.

Can I ask which dealership you're using ?

 

I've read if you hold the Home and Menu buttons for 10 seconds you can access the service menu.

There might be more software versions that can be checked there after updates.

5 hours ago, DaveFromSydney said:

And the RS offered so many advantages over the Alltrack including:

 

Add fuel economy to that list.

 

I averaged 5.8l/100km on a trip last weekend and travelled 760km before stopping to refill.

9 hours ago, DropBear said:

It's pretty disappointing that you weren't offered a courtesy car considering your car is less that 2 weeks old and they've asked to keep the car overnight.

Can I ask which dealership you're using ?

 

I've read if you hold the Home and Menu buttons for 10 seconds you can access the service menu.

There might be more software versions that can be checked there after updates.

Given my situation where I am retired, I have another car and I was offered a lift I did not expect a courtesy car.

I will try that service menu thing today.

9 hours ago, DropBear said:

 

Add fuel economy to that list.

 

I averaged 5.8l/100km on a trip last weekend and travelled 760km before stopping to refill.

That has not been my experience yet. I have seen 5.8 out of the Alltrack, although it would usually be nearer to 7 using cruise control out on the open road. And around 10-11 in the city.

But the RS has done 700km so far and averages around 11. The best it did was 6.9 using cruise control out on the open road - round trip Sydney-Wollombi-Cessnock-Sydney.

And I would expect the RS to be worse than the Alltrack since it has a 2.0 litre motor vs 1.8; it has 180kw vs 132; it weighs more.

 

9 hours ago, DropBear said:

Can I ask which dealership you're using ?

I am using Alto at Pennant Hills.

Nothing to really criticize them for at this stage.

I think they are at the mercy of the Skoda organization.

14 hours ago, DropBear said:

I've read if you hold the Home and Menu buttons for 10 seconds you can access the service menu.

There might be more software versions that can be checked there after updates.

I tried that. The results are attached. Not that there is much I can do to interpret them.

I noted there was also a possibility of a software upgrade. Not sure I should do that, if it would even work.

 

Continued.

On 09/06/2021 at 02:34, DropBear said:

 

 

- the speed in HUD, my understanding is that is a feature of Traffic Sign Recognition which is conveniently disabled for us plebs here in Aus.

 

I looked elsewhere in the forum and found this: 

 

 

From that I gather that Skoda/VAG could not get TSR to work well enough in Australia back in 2017 so they have probably disabled it in subsequent models.

Which is fine but it would be nice if the speed limit from the SatNav could be shown in the HUD instead.

On 09/06/2021 at 17:36, DropBear said:

Re the Navigation, personally I find it no where near as good as Google maps simply due to the fact that the car has no data connection and hence maps are not 'live'. No traffic. closures, and road works info.

This is very disappointing as I find the map integration in the main screen awesome.

Also the navigation lane guidance is pretty terrible, waiting until the absolute last moment before showing which lane you need to be in.

I agree that Google Maps is very good and better than the inbuilt satnav but its shortcomings include :
a) only available if you have a data connection so not suitable for country driving (although using a downloaded map may work well enough)

b) its speed limit signs are too small for me to read with my driving glasses on (or maybe that was Waze?)

c) cannot show its maps in the virtual cockpit.

 

Have you tried turning on the Skoda's Traffic Reports? I have had several so far in my 700kms of driving and they have turned out to be correct although sometimes unnecessary - like "Watch out for car stopped in left lane" but the car is actually parked on the shoulder, away from the traffic. I also liked its "Police spotted ahead", which also turned out to be accurate.

 

I haven't yet had a problem with late lane guidance but I had hoped the satnav wold be the same as in the AllTrack, which I have found over 5 years and 75000 kms to be very good, including warning you early of the lane to be in.

 

Add another problem.

It already occurred once 9 days ago but it recurred today. I am using Android Auto more since the built-in Skoda stuff has the problems already described. And I am listening to music a lot. So after I got back into the car after shopping the music did not resume. I tried Pause/Play and nothing. I tried increasing the volume and nothing. I tried switching back to the built-in radio and nothing. In the end I had to restart the infotainment but apparently you need to cut the engine to do that so it is not a solution you can invoke while driving.

7 minutes ago, DaveFromSydney said:

Add another problem.

It already occurred once 9 days ago but it recurred today. I am using Android Auto more since the built-in Skoda stuff has the problems already described. And I am listening to music a lot. So after I got back into the car after shopping the music did not resume. I tried Pause/Play and nothing. I tried increasing the volume and nothing. I tried switching back to the built-in radio and nothing. In the end I had to restart the infotainment but apparently you need to cut the engine to do that so it is not a solution you can invoke while driving.

 

What music player are you using?

I had this issue with Rocket Player and cured it by enabling 'Third Party Control' in its settings, which allows other apps to take control of the player. 

 

The other app in this instance would be Android Auto, trying to give Rocket Player a command. Other music players will work on the same principle, so could be something in your music player settings you can adjust.

 

I think mine had previously been enabled, but had become disabled after a Rocket Player update.

I was using YT Music. It works most of the time. This seems to be related to turning off the car and then returning some time later.

But it it is not just the Android apps. Once in this mode it would not even play the car's DAB radio until the infotainment was rebooted.

 

And when I said "the music did not resume" I should have said that the music DID resume (since the Play/Pause button turned into a Pause button) and when I adjusted the volume the display indicated that it was already at a medium level.

The problem is that all sound just went away and nothing except a reboot could bring it back.

 

A longshot possibly, but you hadn't muted the radio while using Google Maps? Even if in error possibly, while using the steering.

 

I picked this up in a previous car, but it also worked in my Octavia, if using Google Maps to navigate, as long as the Google voice isn't talking to you at the time it is possible to mute the radio and it will still allow Google to speak directions to you.

 

As I say...a longshot, but with me being a total divvy there were a few times where I've thought to myself why the F won't the radio make a sound, before realising I'd previously muted it on that trip.

Edited 15 June, 20214 yr by Gax

Well my first reaction was to use the volume knob on the steering wheel to turn up the volume. I ended up taking it as far as it would go and the display indicated 100%. Any such change should take it out of mute. I also tried using the slider underneath the infotainment screen.

Well, I had the same happen with Apple CarPlay via wireless, while using Spotify and Waze! I was about to start my trip, and had spotify playing music, but while fiddling with waze the music was interrupted and I was not able to bring it back, not even the car radio! Audio was simply gone...

Not sure what caused it. If it was the interruption of the music by waze, that never got "de-interrupted", or, my bet is that waze tried to access the microphone to dictate my destination but got stuck (audio stops when dictating).
Since I was stationary, just rebooted infotainment and it never happened again since, even after repeating the same steps...

After having my car for 3 days last week and being unable to cure any of its problems, Skoda has requested to have the car from Monday to Friday next week to, hopefully, get to the bottom of this.

They have offered a courtesy car, if I wait for three weeks, but I declined, since, as before, they provide me with lifts and I have my wife's car still while her broken arm heals.

 

I am happy that at least they are taking my problems seriously. Surely now they can fix the issues. After all there seem to be many other Octivias where these functions work correctly.

 

None of the other 15 cars my wife and I have had in my 53 years of driving had faults that could not be fixed. But I am not sure that is a good predictor of the future now that there is so much software involved.

 

On 11/06/2021 at 10:03, TheUltraRunner said:

According to other people who were in direct contact with Skoda, there should be a new major update in few weeks. A lot of people are relaying on this one to fix majority of the issues. 

Absolutely. I had a voicemail from Skoda UK yesterday afternoon - still on track for a s/w release next week.

I am a new owner , purchased last week of the RS . I'm finding the contactless boot opening extremely erratic as well as the touch to lock . Sometimes it works ,sometimes not. I have the key on me every time in proximity. Also the infotainment, key presses hit and miss. Not impressed and wonder whether to talk to dealer .apart from that love how it drives so far.

9 hours ago, Kodatheskoda said:

I am a new owner , purchased last week of the RS . I'm finding the contactless boot opening extremely erratic as well as the touch to lock . Sometimes it works ,sometimes not. I have the key on me every time in proximity. Also the infotainment, key presses hit and miss. Not impressed and wonder whether to talk to dealer .apart from that love how it drives so far.

I felt the same in the first few days but I got used to it. I can control the boot properly each time now. But, of course, you could easily have a more serious problem. Reading the other posts on this site shows that almost no area on this car is immune from the software gremlins.

Interesting that you find same problems, I do love how it drives so that's a bonus and as you mention there could be other more serious problems. I'm also wondering wether to mention to the dealer . I have had more success with the boot opening by moving foot slowly across the underside of the bumper rather than the fast forward kick motion advised. 

15 minutes ago, Kodatheskoda said:

Interesting that you find same problems, I do love how it drives so that's a bonus and as you mention there could be other more serious problems. I'm also wondering whether to mention to the dealer . I have had more success with the boot opening by moving foot slowly across the underside of the bumper rather than the fast forward kick motion advised. 

Yes. I would say the important thing is to be centred, then to move the foot in and out at a moderate speed, then stand back and wait a second or two. 

 

When I said "you could easily have a more serious problem" problem what I meant was that although it worked for me (the screen touches and the boot opening) I did not want to deny the possibility that you had something else going on there that implied a real fault.

 

I think you could mention these things to the dealer but most likely they are what I would call Skoda quirks rather than actual faults that the dealer ought to be able to do something about.

Just now, DaveFromSydney said:

Skoda quirks

An example: using the swipe gesture to move from one screen to another on the touchscreen is a rather hit and miss affair. Sure I can do it 90% of the time if I think about what I am doing but when I am driving and I have to reach across and divert my attention from the road I get it wrong 50% of the time. And, conversely, sometimes it seems to activate when I am doing other things, such as with the left stalk on the steering column, and the screen changes when I do not want it to.

And when you see all of the video reviews you would get the impression that the display customization would allow anything. But it is limited. If I could I would place the following buttons onto the shortcuts the you can drag down from the top of the touchscreen:

• Start/stop off
• Fake engine noise off
• Lane assistance off
• Warm my feet
• Fresh air (to my face)

The first IS available as a shortcut but the rest require visiting various screens.

And I could also wish that all of the above were available immediately on switching on the car, rather than up to 30 seconds later as the system boots up and the engine warms up.

And of course I could also wish that the car remembered my choices and restored them automatically after a restart.

 

But none of these are faults, just quirks of design.

 

On 16/06/2021 at 16:31, DaveFromSydney said:

After having my car for 3 days last week and being unable to cure any of its problems, Skoda has requested to have the car from Monday to Friday next week to, hopefully, get to the bottom of this.

They have offered a courtesy car, if I wait for three weeks, but I declined, since, as before, they provide me with lifts and I have my wife's car still while her broken arm heals.

 

I am happy that at least they are taking my problems seriously. Surely now they can fix the issues. After all there seem to be many other Octivias where these functions work correctly.

 

None of the other 15 cars my wife and I have had in my 53 years of driving had faults that could not be fixed. But I am not sure that is a good predictor of the future now that there is so much software involved.

 

This is the situation at the end of the week (my 4th week of ownership).

Although they claim to have had multiple interactions with Skoda in Europe during the 5 additional days (8 in total) they have had the car the result is that no faults have been fixed.

They offered to return me the car today but since a) I have my wife's car since she is incapacitated at present; b) there is a Covid scare on at present; I told them to keep it over the weekend and to keep working on it next week.

I also told them that we are getting close to the point where I may need to invoke Australian consumer law which says that after giving them "a reasonable time" to effect repairs I am entitled to my choice of a refund or (fault-free) replacement.

For those that are interested here are the links to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions publications on the subject):

https://www.accc.gov.au/update/just-bought-a-new-car

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees/consumer-guarantees

https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/1449_ACL Motor vehicle sales and repairs_FA_WEB.pdf

 

I did suggest that they do something heroic by replacing control units as necessary but they are reluctant to go to that extent until Skoda suggest it.

There is also the question of whether that would involve taking them from a donor car that is working correctly (if they could find one), or ordering them from Europe with the implied delay of weeks or  months.