Hi Guys,

 

A bit of background before hand. About a year ago (October 2021), I hit a fox late a night whilst driving on a country road. The point of impact was precisely where my front assist/radar was and the fox also went underneath my car, causing minor damage to the undertray. The radiator and aircon condenser holder was also slightly damaged. The dealer wanted to replace it all and charge me over £2,000; I obviously did not take them up on the offer! Fast forward to today and the aircon still works fine, the cruise control still works fine and all is good except the front assist/radar, which is now giving me a check engine light.

 

After I hit the fox, the front assist unit survived and remained plugged in, but was completely ripped off of the bracket. I managed to zip tie it back onto the bracket (most of the bracket survived, just the screws were gone and the metal bent)  and it is now secure and does not move whilst the vehicle is in operation. Obviously the sensor needs re-calibrating (or maybe even replacing) and hasn't functioned properly since October 2021. It appears to work fine for the first 5 minutes of any journey, but then an error flashes up on my dashboard to say "Front Assist Not available", which is fine and does not concern me since I rarely use it, but now I have had a new issue prop up.

 

For just over a week now I have had a check engine light appearing on my dashboard accompanied with a "Start-Stop Error" warning message. I took it to my local Skoda dealer and they've told me that my engine is fine(the tech guy stated "no loss of power or difference in drive") and that the error is related to the adaptive cruise control unit, more specifically, the front assist radar system. I am not sure why it is now affecting the start-stop system, but apparently it is and since that is linked to automatically restarting the engine, I can only presume this is why the check engine light is now coming on. They've told me that in order to fix it, they will need to re-calibrate the front assist radar.

 

I asked them if they could just remove the check engine light warning for that error. I really don't care about the front radar system if it is not affecting the engine (it's something I can live without!!!), but apparently they cannot remove it. They have stated that the car can no longer detect the front assist and for that reason there is no way to remove the check engine warning light. This is odd because it still states 5 minutes into my drive "Front Assist Not available" and works for the first 5 minutes, so it clearly can detect it.

 

I guess my question is does the diagnosis of my local Skoda dealer sound correct and if so, is there really no way to remove that check engine light without re-calibrating the front assist? I may have got the diagnosis slightly wrong because I never got to spoke to the technician 😞 It's the usual setup with a local Skoda dealer where you deal with somebody customer facing and they are the middleman/middlewoman between you and the technicians....

 

Kind Regards,

 

Phillip.

6 minutes ago, ph244 said:

I really don't care about the front radar system if it is not affecting the engine (it's something I can live without!!!),

 

Have you told your insurance company that the Front Assist doesn't work?

 

Do you know any of the error codes that are / were showing?

 

Thanks, AG Falco

Phillip, you can disable this function, but I don't know how this affects the ACC as we don't have it, you have to do it every time(? see below) the ignition is switched on (like with the Start/Stop) have a look at your copy of the Owner's Manual page 124 in ours. I'm not too sure exactly what they mean with the following. -

 

 

 

Up to you if you take any notice of this bit but I'd check the "Start-Stop Error" isn't just related to your car battery being low in charge regardless of if the car starts and lights seem bright enough and hook up an appropriate battery charger to give as long a charge as is required.  The recent very hot weather was also not kind to car batteries.

 

I'm with you about not caring about the availability of the Front Assist (I drive a car from 1973 where the only drive aids are things like self-parking windscreen wipers) but it's on the Fabia and also intertwined with other complicated computer programs and part of what the car is insured as.

 

I'm not joking, a leaf blew on to the the front of my wife's 2015 Fabia Mk3 front grille and this caused the "Front Assist Not available".

 

I always like to start with the simple stuff (as it's all I know anyway) and if I was you I'd start with a a long, low, slow recharge of the car battery which will do no harm and possibly some or a lot of good anyway even if it turns out to not actually do much for your issue.  Then I'd get the error codes removed, again this can often help things but if the problem hasn't been resolved they will obviously return.

 

Here's a map of map of VCDS owners who may be available to remove the error codes and possibly dig deeper depending on their knowledge and experience. - https://tinyurl.com/yn6mmtyk

 

HTH.

Edited 5 August, 20223 yr by nta16

19 minutes ago, nta16 said:

Phillip, you can disable this function, but I don't know how this affects the ACC as we don't have it, you have to do it every time(? see below) the ignition is switched on (like with the Start/Stop) have a look at your copy of the Owner's Manual page 124 in ours. I'm not too sure exactly what they mean with the following. -

 

 

 

Up to you if you take any notice of this bit but I'd check the "Start-Stop Error" isn't just related to your car battery being low in charge regardless of if the car starts and lights seem bright enough and hook up an appropriate battery charger to give as long a charge as is required.  The recent very hot weather was also not kind to car batteries.

 

I'm with you about not caring about the availability of the Front Assist (I drive a car from 1973 where the only drive aids are things like self-parking windscreen wipers) but if it's on the Fabia and also intertwined with other complicated computer programs and part of what the car is insured as.

 

I'm not joking, a leaf blew on to the the front of my wife's 2015 Fabia Mk3 front grille and this caused the "Front Assist Not available".

 

I always like to start with the simple stuff (as it's all I know anyway) and if I was you I'd start with a a long, low, slow recharge of the car battery which will do no harm and possibly some or a lot of good anyway even if it turns out to not actually do much for your issue.  Then I'd get the error codes removed, again this can often help things but if the problem hasn't been resolved they will obviously return.

 

Here's a map of map of VCDS owners who may be available to remove the error codes and possibly dig deeper depending on their knowledge and experience. - https://tinyurl.com/yn6mmtyk

 

HTH.

+1 for check battery condition for the stop-start error.

East Midlands is a big area and Northampton is at the very bottom of it but if you're anywhere near I could borrow my neighbour's scan tool and do a 'Health report' (list of error codes) and then delete them to see which return and also check the battery with another tester tool and/or with my optimistic multimeter.

 

Thanks for the information guys. I have not told my insurance company that it is not functioning properly. Let me guess, if I get into an accident and they find out that there was a check engine light and that the front assist was not working properly, they'll say they are not liable for anything. Hopefully that does not happen.

 

The Skoda dealer didn't give any codes unfortunately 😞 I should have asked for them I guess. I might just pay for them to re-calibrate it, see if it fixes it. I tried a few local garages but they wouldn't touch it due to it being a stop-start issue. All said they don't have the staff/technical expertise to deal with such an issue..................-_-.

 

All I see on my receipt for the check is "No loss of power or difference in drive. Carried out test plan and erased faults. Vehicle needs ACC calibration to rectify".

 

 

This all really boils down to fix/no fix.

 

You could start pricing up bracket and all the mountings you need to replace, and hunt about for cheapest source, the only big cost is ACC calibration, again takes some money for this as it's not a simple process - all 4 wheels need alignment, before you even get to adjustment screws.

 

Then your battery needs inspection, and probably beforehand as higher priority for certain.

 

 

Choice two is to code out any and all references to ACC, which given how integrated it is into the car needs someone good with VCDS to carefully unpick it all, odds are something is still left behind.

10 hours ago, ph244 said:

erased faults

Erased faults?  Does that mean clear error codes?  The fact that the warnings and codes reappeared is no big surprise.

 

As mentioned cheap easy things to try that will/might help is to check battery and recharge it, then erase error codes and disable the Front Assist and see what happens, if only to buy time to research prices for a permanent fix.

 

As with the "switching on and off the ignition system several times" above you can see the computers sometimes need repeated conformation or cycles of events to accept the message (a bit like partners, kids and pets).

 

Depending on your insurance premiums it might be less expensive to just put it through the insurance, they might want grizzly photos though.

 

Things could be worse, think of the fox, the millions of other vehicles users always struggling on without the aid of ACC.

Edited 6 August, 20223 yr by nta16
spelling

19 hours ago, ph244 said:

Let me guess, if I get into an accident and they find out that there was a check engine light and that the front assist was not working properly, they'll say they are not liable for anything

 

No, they will still be liable  ( at least for third party claims ) but the car is insured assuming that the front assist is working.

 

 

On 04/08/2022 at 21:07, ph244 said:

accompanied with a "Start-Stop Error" warning message.

 

Have you tried turning the stop start off before starting the engine?

 

Thanks, AG Falco

1 hour ago, AGFalco said:

Have you tried turning the stop start off before starting the engine?

I didn't realise you could do that, thanks, I just gave it a try and it could be an easy habit for me to get into and I can then decide when it's appropriate to switch it on again.

16 hours ago, nta16 said:

easy habit for me to get into and I can then decide when it's appropriate to switch it on again.

 

I get in the car,

turn ignition on but don't start the engine,

turn off stop / start,

then start the engine,

every time. 

 

And yes I can turn it back on if required, as and when.

 

Thanks, AG Falco

By coincidence minutes ago my wife said she'd forgotten this but as I said habits don't always fall into (or out of) place immediately., I'm sure I'll forget.

 

Hi,

 

the issue with my car has been resolved. It wasn't an undervoltage, but it was an overvoltage that disturbed the front assist. The solution was, that a skoda technican built in a condenser to filter out overvoltages.

 

regards