Is Columbus trying to kill me?

[ArisaigDavid]

This car has too much electrical cleverness, which doesn't always work very well. Instead of a perfectly good variable intermittent wiper, for example, it has a rain-sensing system which never matches wiper speed to amount of rainfall. One kind soul on this forum told me how to switch this off in the menus and use it manually, but even with that the fastest intermittent speed is too slow in many situations where the continuous setting is too fast (how Skoda, and presumably the VW group in general, managed to conduct hundreds of thousands of miles of testing all around the world without noticing this is beyond me). The curious thing is that automatic rain-sensing mode occasionally re-selects itself, which it obviously shouldn't, but even more oddly the continuous-wiping will occasionally start varying its speed according to rainfall, which shouldn't even be possible!

 

This is only an annoyance, caused by manufacturers replacing something which worked perfectly with something that doesn't. However, something happened last week which is of far greater significance. I was reversing out of a supermarket parking space when a car drove past behind me. I am cautious enough for this not to have caused a problem, but it dawned on me that the car used to give a warning of this and, thinking back, it had been quite some time since I had heard that warning. When I got home I turned on Columbus and went into the appropriate menus, to discover that not only had it de-selected this option but had also turned off the blind-spot monitor. Now, these could be considered safety-critical features, in a way that rain-sensing wipers might not, and perhaps should not be turn-offable at all, let alone for the car to be able to turn them off without telling me!

 

I would suggest, therefore, that we should all check the safety-feature settings in Columbus on a regular basis.

[xman]

Maybe a dealer has messed about with it at a service or pehaps your wife is thinking of a more drastic alternative to a divorce.....

[daveo138]

Have you used a different key, with different 'personalisation' settings?

[xman]

14 minutes ago, daveo138 said:

Have you used a different key, with different 'personalisation' settings?

 

Good point, you also can tweak the RH thumbwheel to start as Driver 1, 2 or 3. Maybe check which driver is selected.

[KenONeill]

2 hours ago, ArisaigDavid said:

oddly the continuous-wiping will occasionally start varying its speed according to rainfall, which shouldn't even be possible!

Erm why? Multiple continuous speeds from wipers have been a thing since the early 1980s.

[MarkyG82]

3 hours ago, ArisaigDavid said:

Instead of a perfectly good variable intermittent wiper, for example, it has a rain-sensing system which never matches wiper speed to amount of rainfall. One kind soul on this forum told me how to switch this off in the menus and use it manually, but even with that the fastest intermittent speed is too slow in many situations where the continuous setting is too fast (how Skoda, and presumably the VW group in general, managed to conduct hundreds of thousands of miles of testing all around the world without noticing this is beyond me). The curious thing is that automatic rain-sensing mode occasionally re-selects itself, which it obviously shouldn't, but even more oddly the continuous-wiping will occasionally start varying its speed according to rainfall, which shouldn't even be possible!

 

 

I am on my third VAG car with this system. Apart from the phantom wipes it's occasionally does in the dry I haven't had any issues with it. You set the sensitivity with the little selector on top of the stalk and leave in auto. When it rains the wipers start. If it rains harder the wipers go faster. If it's stops then the wipers stop.

 

If you are having issues then maybe give the windscreen a good clean as the sensor patch could be dirty and the rest of the screen not clearing how it should?

[ArisaigDavid]

2 hours ago, daveo138 said:

Have you used a different key, with different 'personalisation' settings?

I cancelled that nonsense right at the beginning - I come home in the car, lock up, the wife needs something from it and the seat motors into her position, and vice versa. A complete waste of battery power and seat motor lifespan, when there's a perfectly good set of numbered buttons on the side of the seat for when we really do need it.

[ArisaigDavid]

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

Erm why? Multiple continuous speeds from wipers have been a thing since the early 1980s.

One of us is being a bit dense here, and I don't think it's me. My car has an intermittent wiping function with four selectable speeds, which can be used with automatic rain-sensing function if required. It also has continuous wiping with two speed options to which, as far as I can determine, the rain-sensing function does not apply, except that on about four occasions in the last four and a half years it has decided to temporarily apply it of its own accord.

[ArisaigDavid]

28 minutes ago, MarkyG82 said:

 

I am on my third VAG car with this system. Apart from the phantom wipes it's occasionally does in the dry I haven't had any issues with it. You set the sensitivity with the little selector on top of the stalk and leave in auto. When it rains the wipers start. If it rains harder the wipers go faster. If it's stops then the wipers stop.

 

If you are having issues then maybe give the windscreen a good clean as the sensor patch could be dirty and the rest of the screen not clearing how it should?

I am perfectly aware of how this works and how to use it. Maybe I'm the only person it doesn't suit, or maybe mine is the only one with a system in need of calibration, but I just couldn't get on with it at all - at night, with drizzling rain, the windscreen is uncomfortably obscured either with manual intermittent or automatic operation, except when it decides to imagine monsoon conditions and wipe like crazy. The windscreen has not been dirty.

[ArisaigDavid]

3 hours ago, xman said:

Maybe a dealer has messed about with it at a service or pehaps your wife is thinking of a more drastic alternative to a divorce.....

Funnily enough, it was in the garage a month ago getting the new dashcam hardwired to a permanently-live fuse, but I have the (perhaps false) feeling that the rear traffic alert has been quiet for longer than that. Whatever the case, why is it possible to turn off these safety features at all?

 

Incidentally, the wife assures me that she still loves me and couldn't live without me, so it can't be that.

[MarkyG82]

@ArisaigDavid didn't mean to teach you to suck eggs. Sometimes people miss things or don't links stuff together.  I've been guilty of thinking the screen was clean only to notice a big blob of birdy do do over the sensor.

 

Hope you figure it out and please share when you do.

[Tin82]

Do you have a trailer hitch? If i connect a trailer AND drive off with the trailer, the car switches off the blindspot detection and a function called maneuvre aid. ( translation, don’t know the correct term). They do switch on automatically when the trailer is disconnected.  

Edited 4 August, 2021 by Tin82
Typo

[KenONeill]

1 hour ago, ArisaigDavid said:

One of us is being a bit dense here, and I don't think it's me. My car has an intermittent wiping function with four selectable speeds, which can be used with automatic rain-sensing function if required. It also has continuous wiping with two speed options to which, as far as I can determine, the rain-sensing function does not apply, except that on about four occasions in the last four and a half years it has decided to temporarily apply it of its own accord.

I can't see why the rain sensing function wouldn't do anything from slowest intermittent through to frenetic continual depending on weather; Certainly that's what I'd want and expect.

[daveo138]

14 hours ago, ArisaigDavid said:

I cancelled that nonsense right at the beginning - I come home in the car, lock up, the wife needs something from it and the seat motors into her position, and vice versa. A complete waste of battery power and seat motor lifespan, when there's a perfectly good set of numbered buttons on the side of the seat for when we really do need it.

 

Me too.  I cancelled mine because I have the seat all the way back and all the way down, but Skoda don't like that, even when stored in that position.  It would always move the seat upwards and forwards when unlocking.

 

I've never found rain sensitive wipers to work properly on any car, so I always disable that feature.  Also, ISTR that I once had a Passat where the wiper speed would sometimes change at random.

[xman]

Auto wipers are useless, all in the same league as the rear audio assist (electronic voice amplification aka echo) and digital assistant/voice control and hand gesture detection... (on Columbus)

 

[ArisaigDavid]

15 hours ago, KenONeill said:

I can't see why the rain sensing function wouldn't do anything from slowest intermittent through to frenetic continual depending on weather; Certainly that's what I'd want and expect.

Please read what I have actually written before making any more remarks.

[Bap33]

On 04/08/2021 at 22:28, Tin82 said:

Do you have a trailer hitch? If i connect a trailer AND drive off with the trailer, the car switches off the blindspot detection and a function called maneuvre aid. ( translation, don’t know the correct term). They do switch on automatically when the trailer is disconnected.  

I would have suggested the same. 

 

21 hours ago, ArisaigDavid said:

Please read what I have actually written before making any more remarks.

I understand that your wipers experience is nerving you (It would probably nerve me too). But don’t forget that the community is simply trying to help you. Sharp answers are not mandatory. 😉

[ArisaigDavid]

7 hours ago, Bap33 said:

I would have suggested the same. 

 

I understand that your wipers experience is nerving you (It would probably nerve me too). But don’t forget that the community is simply trying to help you. Sharp answers are not mandatory. 😉

 

In reply to Tin82, that was a thoughtful suggestion but, no, I don't have a trailer hitch.

 

In reply to your view, Bap33, of my answer to KenONeill's posts, he was misreading what I've said and then seeming to try to make me out to be some kind of simpleton. I'm sorry if you feel that my response to that was "sharp". I know full well that this community is trying to help me, and has been of great help on a number of occasions already, for which I am grateful. I hope that I have been of some small help too, in the past, and I started this thread in the hope of keeping you all from being caught out by safety features being turned off - the whole wipers thing was merely an introduction to that main point.

 

It does look most likely that xman was on the right track, and maybe something happened as a result of the dashcam being hardwired in, so a thank you to him. I would therefore like to modify my original suggestion to read - "We should all check the safety-feature settings in Columbus every time the car gets back from the garage."

[Bap33]

4 hours ago, ArisaigDavid said:

every time the car gets back from the garage.

You’re right!

I’ve discovered something missing on my mk3 last week.

I had left it at my local dealer to fix a problem of play in the driver's seat slide. They replaced both slides, but they forgot to put back the 4 slide ends covers! 🙄

Since this happened already weeks ago, it’s hard to prove it. Thus I’ll have to buy all 4 for about 20-25€! 🤬

[ERIK99]

I have only had my car in for a service once but I also found that the primary driver was NOT being loaded when I switch on.

 

It took a few days to realise what was happening. Easy to fix so all OK now.