Evening all,

I'm going to see a car tomorrow - it's a 2020 L&K combi, the body appears to be post facelift - but the steering wheel isn't... which is a bit odd... Two things -

• Should I be looking out for anything else on a car that was manufactured right on the cusp of the facelift?

• If I got to the point of purchase - and wanted to swap the steering wheel for the newer style; is that a thing? (I know that the FL L&K has things like a heated wheel etc... which might complicate things).

Also - the car has a sunroof - I know that there have been leak issues, is there any tell tale signs that I should look for?

All thoughts welcome!

Thanks,

G.

It’s not overly surprising about the steering wheel. Some stock items will run out before others.

I managed to deactivate my heated steering wheel by a VCDS option so best case scenario with changing it is changing the option. Worst case (and more likely) is changing other parts but it probably depends on which parts have been used.

Panoramic roof is meant to be worst than the normal sunroof and not had problems (so someone else will have to comment on that).

What engine does it have?

Sorry - should have said - it's the 1.4 hybrid IV model...

I assume it's a pano roof - it seems to go back a fair way from the pictures!

Edited 18 July, 202518 Jul by gr0m1t
add content -

Yeah pano in the estate.

Not sure on the engine. I think it carried over to the Superb mk4 so that forum might have more users with the engine.

Edited 20 July, 202520 Jul by travs

Sounds similar to my car, a September 2019 L&K . Its a facelift model ( blind spot warning in the wing mirror etc) but has the earlier steering wheel.

My car has ACC but doesn't have lane assist, just some of the oddities of the change over.

I suspect you'll have the MIB 2.5 head unit as well which is a good thing. Check in the glovebox to see if there's and SD card and DVD slot.

I'm pretty happy with mine, its a 190 TDI.

One other thing to check, is it on 18 or 19" wheels. I'm on 19s and whilst they do look nice they don't help the ride comfort.

Hey rgrigsby,

Thanks for your reply :)

• Weird, huh! I have no idea if it has lane assist - I'd be happy if it didn't to be honest...

• How do I tell if it is MIB 2.5? I had a look in the glovebox; it has a blanking plate which looks like where an SD card reader/DVD drive/CD changer(?) might have been...

Mine is on 17" wheels I believe - I have no issue with smaller wheels - they ride better!

If you hold down the MENU button for about 5-10s it will enter service mode and you can see the version and type there. There's a pinned thread in at the top of the forum where you can match up the version number with the MIB type. It sounds like it might be a MIB 3 though.

17" wheels is good, I agree entirely, prefer the better ride. Interesting that it's on 17" though, I thought all the L&K's had 18" as standard, maybe it's a hybrid thing.

Ah - thanks :)

Forgive my ignorance - what is "bad" about MIB3?

Yeah - I thought that about the wheels - I don't mind though; they're hopefully going to be comfy, and they look good too :)

I went to see the car yesterday - it's lovely!

It’s been less stable hardware-wise and earlier versions of software were catastrophic in some cases.

Blanking plate sounds like MIB3; Did you happen to spot if it had a USB-C port in front of the gearstick? That’s where software updates are uploaded now the SD card slot has been removed.

Edited 20 July, 202520 Jul by travs

Ah, yep. It has the USB c in front of the gear selector... I'm a little worried now, thanks for pointing it out... Catastrophic worries me... Is there anything specific I should look for to mitigate risk on that?

USB-C would indicate that it is definitely MIB3.

MIB is the "infotainment" system used across the VWAG family.

in summary, MIB2 is stable, but "old". MIB2.5 is the best of the pick, with the MIB3 have a lot of issues, ranging from freezing, lagging, wireless not working, loosing sound, bluetooth dropouts, mic issues.

below r some of the key differences bet

MIB2 - pre-facelift mk3 MY15 to MY17.

• Head unit paired with screens (up to 8") with physical buttons.

• USB-A.

• SD-Card, CD/DVD drive

• Wired Android Auto & CarPlay.

• No Virtual Cluster.

MIB2.5 - pre-facelift mk3 MY18 to MY19.

• Head unit paired with screens (up to 9.2") with NO physical buttons.

• USB-A.

• SD-Card, CD/DVD drive

• Wired Android Auto & CarPlay.

• With Virtual Cluster.

MIB3 - facelift mk3 MY20 onwards.

• Head unit paired with screens (up to 9.2") with NO physical buttons.

• USB-C.

• No SD-Card, No CD/DVD drive

• Wired and Wireless Android Auto & CarPlay.

• With Virtual Cluster.

Edited 21 July, 202521 Jul by JR RS

Thanks for the clarification JR RS. I would say that it's definitely MIB 3 then. Do you know if there is a specific software version that I should be looking for to try and reduce these issues?

I would assume (probably wrongly) that most of the niggles got ironed out by the end of MK3? I have agreed to purchase the vehicle... There must be thousands of vehicles with MIB 3?

Also, I'm assuming that the wired carplay/aa is from that USB-C just forward of the gear selector?

Many thanks for all your help.

2 hours ago, gr0m1t said:

Thanks for the clarification JR RS. I would say that it's definitely MIB 3 then. Do you know if there is a specific software version that I should be looking for to try and reduce these issues?

I would assume (probably wrongly) that most of the niggles got ironed out by the end of MK3? I have agreed to purchase the vehicle... There must be thousands of vehicles with MIB 3?

Also, I'm assuming that the wired carplay/aa is from that USB-C just forward of the gear selector?

Many thanks for all your help.

There have been many updates to the MIB3. I've had Karoq and Superb with MIB3. It's stable enough now. I sometimes have the odd glitch with playing media from USB but that's about it.

I mainly use Wireless Android auto anyway,

That's great to hear logiclee, thank you!

The car has been serviced by skoda as recently as Jan this year, so hopefully it's as up to date as it can be!

I use on mined Android auto on the front USB-C and have in the central cubby a USB-A with a couple of flash drives loaded with different music. Once in a while it does "freeze", or become silly in not recognizing the phone, but other than that is OK.

Pano roof you can search for discolouration (?) in the trim, which would show where water/humidity has stained it. Also, there should be a record of cleaning/unclogging the drain pipes, you can ask the dealer for that.

Ah, so it's mostly based around the phone... Gotcha.. I can deal with that, I'm used to a sony aftermarket with wireless android auto which was somewhat finicky to say the least! I'm sure I can manage the occasional freeze.. tech is tech huh... At least there are mostly physical buttons and none of this haptic nonsense that all the big OEM's are now backtracking on!

The headlining looks clear, I'll see what the garage say about history of clearing the drainage holes etc.

Many thanks, all.

Don’t worry about rubbish software. Plenty of know-how here to steer you through updating it as well as finding out which version is in it. Don’t count on the dealer having pro-actively updated it during a service - they’d do it if asked by the customer or if a technical bulletin requested it. Otherwise it’s hit or miss depending whether it’s a good dealer or not.

Either way, don’t let software scare you out of what could be a good car that you like. All you’d need is an 8Gb USB stick either USB-C or USB-A with an A-C adapter. Or if you’re lucky there might be a USB-A port under the armrest. That is also connected to the data system (ie not just power) but it was an option so not fitted to every vehicle.

V278 was awful; as soon as they updated to V306 after that everything was fixed. Since then they’ve had 308, 324, 330 and 332. No real difference between them. I have 332 and it has one disconnect from CarPlay each journey; usually within a couple of mins but sometimes up to 5. Disconnects, reconnects and then never misbehaves for the remaining journey no matter how long. I can live with that.

Talking about USB sizes, anyone has tried larger sizes, say 64 or 128 Gb, to see if it becomes too much to handle in terms of music files? Just curiosity ...

I've got a 64 Gb USB stick in my USB-C with lots of music I've taken from CDs and they play correctly.

My current car has MIB3 and my last one was MIB2. There are some improvements in MIB3 compared to MIB2, but unfortunately it's lost many useful features, such as being able to enter destinations by map co-ordinates. I've had the newer car for 9 months and twice so far the navigation's frozen on me, but I wasn't using it on both occasions for navigation and on each occasion it happened when I first started the car. I could vaguely see a blurred map on the screen, but nothing more and it came back after I switched it off for a short period. I'm not too bothered about it, so long as it doesn't happen just at the point when I need it to negotiate, for example, a complicated junction that I'm not familiar with.

Hi All,

Travs - you're totally right. I'm sure I can navigate my way around any software issues - especially with everyone on here being so helpfu! I have been a user of android auto since it was released - and it was absolutely AWFUL on first release, so; I'm used to niggles like that! I wonder if AA is more stable than CP...

Penpusher - Thanks for the info - I'll be using waze/google maps for nav through Android Auto anyway :)

Looking like I can pick the car up on Thursday! So, looking forward to getting into all the settings! Exciting!

Thanks, all!

You also have to remember that everything has problems. The number of forum topics on EA888 water pump failure would have you believe that cars like @travs and mine wouldn't make it past the end of the driveway.

Equally, the MIB2.5 software in my Octavia is pretty rubbish, if I'm honest. Random CarPlay disconnects, and sometimes the buttons on the steering wheel don't do what I want Siri to do.

I don't really think about it - it's no worse than my Leon, or anything else we've owned in recent years. Dad's just picked up a new 118i and we've yet to work out how any of it works - at least MIB is fairly intuitive. As above, there are plenty updates and workarounds for the various shortfalls in the systems - most of which are the result of updates (or lack of).

The only issue I've had with MIB3 in addition to the odd USB issue is the twice it's not booted the canton amp up so I've had no sound.

Shut down, get out, close drivers door, lock and then get back in and restart then it's back.

I'm sure later models get OTA updates.

21 hours ago, OccyVRS said:

You also have to remember that everything has problems. The number of forum topics on EA888 water pump failure would have you believe that cars like @travs and mine wouldn't make it past the end of the driveway.

Equally, the MIB2.5 software in my Octavia is pretty rubbish, if I'm honest. Random CarPlay disconnects, and sometimes the buttons on the steering wheel don't do what I want Siri to do.

I don't really think about it - it's no worse than my Leon, or anything else we've owned in recent years. Dad's just picked up a new 118i and we've yet to work out how any of it works - at least MIB is fairly intuitive. As above, there are plenty updates and workarounds for the various shortfalls in the systems - most of which are the result of updates (or lack of).

Are you def on the latest version of the software? I thought 2.5 was pretty stable. Guessing you've probably checked but if not get on it

Quite right @OccyVRS, literally everything has some issues...

@logiclee, that sounds super annoying... Glad it's not that often that that happens!

Picking the car up tomorrow!

7 hours ago, travs said:

Are you def on the latest version of the software? I thought 2.5 was pretty stable. Guessing you've probably checked but if not get on it

+1

My experience, and others with MIB2.5 that I know off is that it is very stable.

I'm currently running 1440 (MHI2_ER_SKG13_P4526_1_AIO_MU1440)