Short version

Skoda Connect is taking a long time to pull in traffic data. At least 3 minutes for anything, and then longer for the full data which includes the red/amber/green traffic status of individual roads. Is anyone else experiencing this much longer lag recently?

 

Long story

I have been using Skoda Connect together with a CarStick and PAYG SIM for a year now and it's been working fine. It pulls in lots of traffic data within a minute or so of starting the engine. Data usage on the SIM has been ridiculously low - in one year it's cost about £8 of credit thanks to the now no longer available O2 Classic PAYG tarriff. However, I didn't drive for one month, and it's ended up causing me quite a headache. First, O2 deactivated my SIM card, which took several days of phonecalls to get reactiviated and to regain access to my credit and online account. Secondly, I had purposefully allowed Skoda Connect to lapse, with a view to renewing it for a further year once I was back driving again. I have since renewed it, and expected all to work smoothly as before, but now there is a long delay of getting traffic data of any sort (~3 minutes before seeing things like road closures, and longer for the full data including the red/amber/green traffic status of individual roads, all of which I used to get prior to all this). It seems that I can trigger it into pulling the data more quickly, simply by going into the Skoda Connect menu and accessing some kind of online service, e.g. News - it's almost like this coaxes it into action, but it seems ridiculous that I should have to do this every time I start the car. I've tried a different SIM card with no difference in performance. I've also tried de-registering and re-registering the car to Skoda Connect, and even uninstalling and re-installing the MySkoda app, all to no avail. The car is going for a service in a couple of weeks, and on the phone the garage said it's due a software update. I have no idea if this is accurate or not - I thought I had installed the latest software thanks to a fellow BriSkoda member last year - are they really releasing new software for a six year old Karoq?

A bit normal that mobile phone companies steel your credit if you don't use the device for two months or so. I buy a 120gb EE SIM of Amazon, £60 for my tablet and bin it each year and buy another one. Think they are loss leaders. Handy for mobile hot spots in hotels where the wifi is no good, expensive or slow. They work in Europe if activated before you travel. Popular with canal boat people etc... cheap per gb data.

 

On your other issue no telling how they interface the traffic data with connect services. It probably gets piped to Germany and slowly piped out.

Update on this:

 

I have tried rolling back the map version to the last one that worked well, but this made no difference to the performance issue - it still takes around 10 minutes(!) to download the traffic data. This sort of makes having live traffic data pointless, because I either set off without a route informed by live data and then inevitably hit traffic, or I sit and wait in the car for 10 minutes while the live data loads in and then start my journey, thereby increasing my journey time by around 10 minutes. Contraray to my OP, there isn't really a way to 'coax' the system into action, that was just my imagination. It takes a long time regardless of whether I actively mess around with the system or just leave it alone to do its thing. 

 

This does not appear to be related to a mobile signal issue, because I have already tried swapping the SIM card in my CarStick (to a different network) and I have also tried operating the system in singificantly different geographical locations. I have tried moving the micro SD card to slot 2 instead of slot 1. I have error checked the SD card itself - no issues. The results are always the same with regard to the massively protracted time to download the live traffic data. 

 

To summarise, I believe I can already rule out the following causes:

• SIM card/network issue
• SD card/slot
• Map version
• Geographical location

 

I feel less confident to rule out Skoda Connect being the source of the problem. After all, I did let the service lapse, and when I restarted the subscription I began to experience this issue. I wonder if allowing the service to lapse and then restarting it a month or so later has caused an error in the system somewhere, either within my own vehicle, and/or in the Skoda cloud. I guess my next step will be to ask the Skoda Connect people, since this is a paid service. I can already predict what they are going to say..."Take it to dealer." 🤦‍♂️

 

 

Edited 3 September, 20241 yr by joek666
typos

1 minute ago, joek666 said:

Update on this:

 

I have tried rolling back the map version to the last one that worked well, but this made no difference to the performance issue - it still takes around 10 minutes(!) to download the traffic data. This sort of makes having live traffic data pointless, because I either set off without a route informed by live data and then inevitably hit traffic, or I sit and wait in the car for 10 minutes while the live data loads in and then start my journey, thereby increasing my journey time by around 10 minutes. Contraray to my OP, there isn't really a way to 'coax' the system into action, that was just my imagination. It takes a long time regardless of whether I actively mess around with the system or just leave it alone to do its thing. 

 

This does not appear to be related to a mobile signal issue, because I have already tried swapping SIM card in my CarStick (to a different network) and I have also tried operating the system in singificantly diffferent geographical locations. I have tried moving the micro SD card to slot 2 instead of slot 1. I have error checking the SD card itself - no issues. The results are always the same with regard to the massively protracted time to download the live traffic data. 

 

To summarise, I believe I can already rule out the following causes:

• SIM card/network issue
• SD card/slot
• Map version
• Geographical location

I feel less confident to rule out Skoda Connect being the source of the problem. After all, I did let the service lapse, and when I restarted the subscription I began to experience this issue. I wonder if allowing the service to lapse and then restarting it a month or so later has somehow caused an error in the system somewhere, either within my own vehicle, and/or in the cloud. I guess my next step is to ask the Skoda Connect people, since this is a paid service. I can already predict what they are going to say..."Take it to dealer." 🤦‍♂️

 

 

Probably a system issue of the data passing more slowly through their systems before it gets transmitted out to you or their polling to the car. On the positive side using old maps still works well with FM and @pcbbc modules. Many more traffic reports than you ever got with the Trafficmaster system.

Just now, Tell said:

Probably a system issue of the data passing more slowly through their systems before it gets transmitted out to you or their polling to the car. On the positive side using old maps still works well with FM and @pcbbc modules. Many more traffic reports than you ever got with the Trafficmaster system.

 

I just don't believe that Skoda Connect coincidentally became many magnitudes worse in the four weeks that I happened to not be driving the car. The chances are very low, but it would be good to hear from others that use Skoda Connect to understand how long they wait until they get live traffic data (i.e. from the point of getting into the car and turning it on). If you think about, it should be almost instaneous - this is data being passed over a 4G data connection, not FM radio signals. The data volumes can be measured in KB or low MB, it's really not much at all.

 

Old maps are just not an option for me - living in London it would be a nightmare to rely on such old maps given how many changes have been made to the roads here over the years. 

1 minute ago, joek666 said:

 

I just don't believe that Skoda Connect coincidentally became many magnitudes worse in the four weeks that I happened to not be driving the car. The chances are very low, but it would be good to hear from others that use Skoda Connect to understand how long they wait until they get live traffic data (i.e. from the point of getting into the car and turning it on). If you think about, it should be almost instaneous - this is data being passed over a 4G data connection, not FM radio signals. The data volumes can be measured in KB or low MB, it's really not much at all.

 

Old maps are just not an option for me - living in London it would be a nightmare to rely on such old maps given how many changes have been made to the roads here over the years. 

Rural here going to the big Welsh smoke on the M4 so those hold ups are usefull and any local rural ones we now see. Mib2 high for trips to England so see the new road and traffic reports... mind you using my car on the our NHS tourists trips to get treated. More comfy but get to see the rural ones on our local run around.

 

Probably Skoda's end of life service on mib2 connected services. Guess it will be the same for mib3 eventually. I'd put your issues down to Skoda internal mib2 connected services being run down on old hardware. Could be a minority of Skoda drivers took mib2 connected services and still use them. They never came to Seat in that form.

11 hours ago, joek666 said:

I just don't believe that Skoda Connect coincidentally became many magnitudes worse in the four weeks that I happened to not be driving the car.

What else happened in those 4 weeks?

 

Many mobile operators have been turning off 3G, this has affected me - there are now many areas locally where the only data coverage is EDGE, which is painfully slow.

 

So I'm speculating that this could be the cause of your very slow traffic updates recently - no 3G, no 4G, no 5G so reverting to slow EDGE.

23 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

What else happened in those 4 weeks?

 

Many mobile operators have been turning off 3G, this has affected me - there are now many areas locally where the only data coverage is EDGE, which is painfully slow.

 

So I'm speculating that this could be the cause of your very slow traffic updates recently - no 3G, no 4G, no 5G so reverting to slow EDGE.

 

The Skoda CarStick is an LTE (4G) device though, as is the SIM, so don't think this is the issue. Mobile coverage in most parts of London is very good in any case. 

20 minutes ago, joek666 said:

 

The Skoda CarStick is an LTE (4G) device though, as is the SIM, so don't think this is the issue.

 

Mobile coverage in most parts of London is very good in any case. 

4G devices will fall back to 3G or EDGE, so I wouldn't discount this as a cause that easily - has a new building been built in the area meaning that you are now in a "not spot" for example? Radio propagation is a fickle thing, as I well know from my time as a Chief Engineer with a mobile comms company.

 

When you're away from home (for work or with friends or family) does the traffic data load at it's previous speed?

That's a possibility.

3 hours ago, PetrolDave said:

4G devices will fall back to 3G or EDGE, so I wouldn't discount this as a cause that easily - has a new building been built in the area meaning that you are now in a "not spot" for example? Radio propagation is a fickle thing, as I well know from my time as a Chief Engineer with a mobile comms company.

 

When you're away from home (for work or with friends or family) does the traffic data load at it's previous speed?

 

No, I've already tested for geographical location by driving a significant distance away from home and back on several occasions. Location appears to have no bearing on load times.

 

I'll be following up with the Skoda Connect customer services, since I have paid for a service and it is currently sub-standard. Let's see what they come back with.

They have probably just downgraded their servers. The other thing is to factory reset your dongle thing if you haven't done it already. Skoda car stick. Presumably that puts out wifi to the car.

26 minutes ago, Tell said:

They have probably just downgraded their servers. The other thing is to factory reset your dongle thing if you haven't done it already. Skoda car stick. Presumably that puts out wifi to the car.

 

Who downgrades their servers? Lol

 

I don't think there's a way to reset the Skoda CarStick. No buttons or controls on it.

 

It plugs straight into the front USB and provides a data connection for the vehicle (assuming you have already inserted an appropriate SIM card into the CarStick). It's essentially a proprietary version of those mobile dongles that were prevalent in years gone by for people to use their laptops on the go. It doesn't put out any kind of WiFi signal.

 

I understand more modern Skodas don't require the CarStick as they have a SIM slot directly in the glovebox. And even more modern cars don't even need a SIM card as such, they just have a built-in data connection. 

Was eventually given what should be the correct email address to chase this up with Skoda, although in the intervening weeks it seems to have improved somewhat. I'm still not getting near-instant traffic data after starting the car, but it does start pulling in data within a minute or two. It takes a while to build up to a 'full set' of traffic data where all of the incidents + traffic flow colours have loaded in, but apart from very short journeys it is at least usable and effective now.

 

I have held off chasing this with Skoda for now and will see how it goes, particularly once the next map update comes.

In my previous car, Audi Q3, I had a SIM in the dashboard. The data connection for that had become erratic to say the least in the last few months. I only paid for the live traffic. 

Could be the same issue Vag has a habit of down grading it's offer as it judges the life cycle is over. Web pages disappear and slow data speeds through duff servers would be another. I recall the thread did give a pretty good explanation.

 

I'm pleased with using old maps for mib2 standard and the mod. In the other car, mib2 high, the mod and the latest maps. Inrix isn't a bad service for giving road works and holds up. Different service to Google obviously.

If possible try making your phone a wi-fi hotspot and connect the car to it.

 

 

Yes that will avoid any slow 4g. Where Vag buys data off providers and gets it cheap. But then if it's their servers and internal data comms it won't help.

10 minutes ago, Tell said:

Yes that will avoid any slow 4g. Where Vag buys data off providers and gets it cheap. But then if it's their servers and internal data comms it won't help.

 

A 2016 vehicle may now be using 2g if the network it uses was using 3g.

 

https://www.vehicletracksolutions.co.uk/the-3g-shutdown-is-your-car-affected/

Edited 20 February, 20251 yr by Stonekeeper

2 hours ago, Stonekeeper said:

 

A 2016 vehicle may now be using 2g if the network it uses was using 3g.

 

https://www.vehicletracksolutions.co.uk/the-3g-shutdown-is-your-car-affected/

For sure when I wrote to Audi about this and asking them for a proposed solution they were totally uninterested or pretended not to understand the concern or blamed their data partners Cubic Telecom. (Yes, all three!) 

I tried in the aftermarket and there was no viable low cost solution. 

 

What I observed was that data connection became patchy but when it connected (I assume via the 2G network) it was a massively strong signal. ...but the updates to the NAV were v slow. If you were lucky on some journeys you got enough traffic info to make it useful, others you were back to the traffic bulletins.

 

For clarity, in the UK Cubic does not run it's own mobile network in the UK, it buys space on one or more of the 4 actual MNO's network. As you can imagine this immediately puts it at a disadvantage in terms of service provision. 

Edited 20 February, 20251 yr by Aldfort
added more info.

3 hours ago, Stonekeeper said:

If possible try making your phone a wi-fi hotspot and connect the car to it.

 

 

This might not work. part of my in-depth search for a solution to this problem on my Audi made it clear that the car can only get Audi Connect data via the SIM in the infotainment. I guess this is why most people use Apple Car Play or Android Auto nowadays. This is one area where all auto makers lag behind IMHO! 

Cunning.

 

Well the mapping systems are only as good as the cartography and Google maps for one is pretty bad since it isn't a cartography company. The traffic speed data is useful but connect services is catching up.

 

The adhoc Apple and Android Auto methods obviously provides a solution when Vag stops supporting the system. This will be a worry with connected cars although Audi were off the starters line earlier. Your probably seeing what happens when they stop supporting certain aspects of the car. It stops working or slows down.

1 minute ago, Tell said:

Cunning.

 

Well the mapping systems are only as good as the cartography and Google maps for one is pretty bad since it isn't a cartography company. The traffic speed data is useful but connect services is catching up.

 

The adhoc Apple and Android Auto methods obviously provides a solution when Vag stops supporting the system. This will be a worry with connected cars although Audi were off the starters line earlier. Your probably seeing what happens when they stop supporting certain aspects of the car. It stops working or slows down.

It is true that Audi adopted "you buy a SIM and we'll let you connect the car" fairly early and then to e-SIM pretty quickly but their charges to access data are pretty steep. Mind, one of the "benefits" when I got the Audi was that for the first 4 years of ownership they could not figure out how to charge for the traffic data so it was "free". Amazing to think that 15 or so years ago the only traffic data you had came via TMC and was pretty flakey! 

@joek666 was using a dongle thingey which gave the car traffic data. Skoda Mib2 standard which I think you pushed any old mobile card in ?.

2 minutes ago, Aldfort said:

It is true that Audi adopted "you buy a SIM and we'll let you connect the car" fairly early and then to e-SIM pretty quickly but their charges to access data are pretty steep. Mind, one of the "benefits" when I got the Audi was that for the first 4 years of ownership they could not figure out how to charge for the traffic data so it was "free". Amazing to think that 15 or so years ago the only traffic data you had came via TMC and was pretty flakey! 

5 years ago till mib3 came along for the cheaper Vag brands. Seat and Skoda. The others got connect services more early.

 

Yes you are probably best to cough up for the services when you got the car new then stop paying up when they stop working. The software updates come that way.