Hi everyone I have a Superb iv and using the Skoda app to set departure planner to put the air con on to heat the car in the morning it is set for 07:00 for air con only and is not plugged in and will come on fine I have also set it to come on at 17:00 to come home with only air con the same setting as the morning and is not plugged in but it does not come on when I get home it says on the infotainment screen it will come on at 07:00 and when I get to work it also says it will come on at 17:00 but does not has anyone got any clues what I am doing wrong and the battery is 100% charged many thanks 

It will be something to do with the locations maybe. Have you set them to do different things? 

Reminds me I need to set my home one to only work when plugged in.

Skoda broke it! My Superb iV stopped heating as per departure planner some time in December. Am discussing this with the service, was told it's a common problem and there is apparently no easy fix. I will apparently have to bring the car to the shop a couple of times to get it assessed and fixed using technical assistance by the importer (to Finland).

 

Seems to be quite obvious that it's a quality assurance issue in their software, as that appeared after 2.5 years I suspect they broke it by means of a buggy OTA software update.

 

It's regularly -20° degrees here, charging plug locking mechanism tends to freeze in also 😩

13 hours ago, MarkyG82 said:

It will be something to do with the locations maybe. Have you set them to do different things? 

Reminds me I need to set my home one to only work when plugged in.

No they are both set to do the same it has nothing to do locations as on the infotainment screen it says it will come on at 17:00 after the morning start up and at 07:00 when I get home in the evening but only the morning setting will come on but if I disable the morning setting the afternoon setting will come on but they did both work when both on but does not now 

Have you had an update? Maybe it's broken something. Not uncommon with software based stuff.

Hi,

I've been facing the issue with unreliable departure planner climatization/heating for over a year, since I bought the used Superb iV.  The case has been also open at importer/Skoda in Finland for over a year, (with some lost focus on it during last summer).
The car has been in service multiple times but they haven't been able to fix it yet.
The issue is especially annoying in the very cold winter mornings, in the -20 °C temperature range.

 

After extensive hours of troubleshooting, I have the following observations:

• The combined (charging and heating) departure plan does the charging but often fails to start the heating.
• With enable preferred charging time (to use the cheapest night electricity), the charging is ready few hours before the planned departure. (At 16 amps charging, from 20 to 100%, charging starts at 1:00, ready around 4:30, departure is planned for 7:30.)
• The heating is either started or not . If started it starts only 10 minutes before the planned departure (at 7:20 if departure is at 7:30). That is way too late!  You need to leave too late to have acceptable cabin temperature. The heating stops 30 minutes after the planned departure.
• The heating only starts when the battery stays at 100%. After the charging, battery level might drop to 99-98%, probably due to the cooling of the battery pack, and that seems to prevent the start of the heating. This explains the random nature of the missed heating.
  This might be only present in cold climate countries like Finland, and the software developers in southern Europe never though about it? 
• Interestingly, if the charging is explicitly configured to a limited level, e.g., to 90%, that also seems to prevent the start of the heating. This is probably due to the same bug in software, which expects 100% level, even though the car is on the charger.
• If the heating is missed due to the battery level drop to 98-99%, instead of heating, only the battery is topped up to 100%, starting 10 minutes before the departure.
• To circumvent the issue, the following can be used: 1st plan is configure to charging only, the 2nd plan for heating only. This hack is only sufficient for the morning, since the afternoon schedule would need 2 more plans, but only 3 are available. 

I have done my observation with the help of integrating the following to my Home Assistant home automation:

• The car itself through with Skoda Connect
• WiFi temperature sensor placed inside the car
• WiFi connected socket for the portable charger (ELOAD P1) to measure the charging power

I'm attaching few screenshots from Home Assistant of working and failing climatizations, showing the cabin temperature, battery level and the power usage on line to the charger.
On the last image, the red question mark shows the power usage to bring back the battery from 98% to 100%.

 

At the moment I'm waiting for a new climatization controller unit.
I'm a bit suspicious about the results, since the issue seems to be related to the charge level, and that is probably the responsibility of the battery management unit.

Also, if it is an incorrect logic in the software of one the modules, replacing the physical module might not solve the issue, unless a new module might also mean a new branch of the software.

 

I wonder if the same code is running on VW or Audi models with similar issues.

 

I'm just really hoping that this gets resolved soon, especially that importer/Skoda has been "flooded" with my test results and finding, doing basically their job myself.

A few comments/questions from me:

The conditioning runs for a while after the departure time so I have my time set to be about 20 mins before I actually leave.  This enables the battery to catch up.

On the subject of battery, when do you have the charge period set for?  Mine is set to start in line with cheap rate but finish after the departure time.  This opens the battery up to be fully topped up while providing the energy for the car conditioning system.  It's worth noting that the car takes the power for the AC from the onboard system rather than the mains (assuming 12v via transformer from 400v).  This then needs topping up.

I think it's clear you have an issue with the coding that requires the 100% SOC which is odd as mine will happily drain the main battery if not plugged in.

I configure the preferred charging time before the departure, at the moment from 2:00 to 7:00, departure time is at 7:35. Maybe it is worth experimenting with putting the end of preferred charging time after the departure time.
Normally the charging takes around 3,5 hour (from 20%) and leaves a kind of big gap between charging and heating.
Now, I'm just thinking if I slowed down the charging to max 10 amps, I could shorten the gap between the charging and heating, perhaps avoiding the the 1-2% drop of battery charge level. One possible approach to consider, if Skoda is ultimately unable to resolve the issue.

My Skoda Superb iV, while connected to the charger and the heating is actually started, takes the power from the charger. It is also clearly visible on the charts above. It starts with a usage around 3,3 kW, and gradually decreased after 10 minutes, till the end of heating cycle. 
Regarding heating while not on the charger, I don't have much experience with, since I keep the car on the charger during the nights. I try to avoid the electric heating when car is away from a charger and use Webasto instead, started through the app or with the remote. The few times I used electric heating while not on charger worked for me. Long time ago I also tried scheduled plans for heating while not on charger. As I remember that was also unreliable.

I think reducing the charging rate will compound the issue of battery charge as it wont be able to top up.  But that statement is based on my experience of the car taking the power form the battery and needing topped up.  Maybe it's a generation thing as my passat is the first GTE with 10kw battery.  The Superb and current passat both are on the same platform with 13kw battery.  I had assumed the systems functioned the same.

It's interesting that yours will take form the mains even after the charging slot has ended.

There still seems to be a strange situation where your car fails to preheat if the battery drops to below 100%.  On the rare occasion that I have experienced no charge or similar it is usually down to forgetting to set the timer or not inserting the cable correctly.  The timer thing is rare as I usually charge every night the just leave it set.  The cable thing is annoyingly more common.  The locking plunger activates quite soon after the plug starts to enter the hole.  If it's not fully home before the pin activates then the charge will fail.  It took me ages to realise this so I sometimes replug just to be sure.  It's entirely possible that preheat fails are related but I've not been able to find a pattern.  The only time I can think of is when I charge as soon as I get home to make use of solar.  This means I have turned off the timer via the button by the cable and it requires a replug to engage the timer.

Last Friday the car has received the new climatization unit. 
Unfortunately the very fist workday test shows no improvement, the climatization was missed. 
However, there seem to be some difference: the battery stayed at 100% after and climatization was still missed. So the previous theory of less than 100% battery would block the heating cycle is either dismissed, or the new unit fails differently.
I haven't changed much in the scheduled plan, only adjusted it in the app to force the sync of settings between the app and the car.
The target temperature was 25,5 °C, with enabled "Use battery for climate control".

I think there is something wrong with the coding in your car.  Has the software in EVERY module been checked?  

 

I also wonder if it's related to your cold temps?  But then it should be warming up a bit?