What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?

[StevenRB45]

My golf had parts taken randomly from other vag cars such as a little piece of boot trim I had to replace which came from an Audi.
The Scala estate probably shares about as much in common with my car as my car shares with a mk5 hatch.

How you finding the over the air updates?...or have they changed the brain of the car entirely in line with the architecture of the Golf 8 and ID cars since yours was built?

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Not what I’ve said at all.

I said that they took the look of the mk6 essentially the front chassis rails, front wings, bumper headlights and bonnet… everything else back from that is different or modified over the standard mk6 hatch.

So no it’s not comparable to say it’s a facelifted mk5. Also where do we draw the line with “facelift” when it comes to cars. My mk1 Punto shares parts in common with the mk2b structural parts such as floor panels but they didn’t call the mk2 Punto a facelift of the mk1.

Then for my generation of cabriolet the electronics have been upgraded to match those found in the mk7… my point being is that while there are much newer cars, VW doesn’t make new cars from scratch (normally) they evolve what they already have. The Scala is an evolution of other VAG products and the DNA, what under pins it is not all that far detached from cars that are a few years older.

Case in point the Scala shares its platform with the t-roc and the t-roc cabriolet..

The t-roc cabriolet uses the same roof as the golf cabriolet. How similar does the underpinning platform have to be, to still be able to use something as significant as the whole roof. They don’t change the platform all that much.

My golf had parts taken randomly from other vag cars such as a little piece of boot trim I had to replace which came from an Audi.
The Scala estate probably shares about as much in common with my car as my car shares with a mk5 hatch.

I like cars which are a "development" of the previous model. So often when a completely new model is introduced it goes through a period of "sorting what they failed to get quite right" I'm amused that you talk about the Scala "estate". There is only the one body which although a hatchback, has also been described by the reviewers as an estate. It was one of the things which so attracted me to it. The cargo area with the rear seats down or up is very comparable to the Ibiza estate I had before it but the Scala is slightly wider which already has proved useful on a small number of occasions. The platform on which it's built is, I read, an extended version of the Polo/Ibiza rather than the similar sized Golf/Leon. I wondered if the more rudimentary suspension system, which some reviewers made large of, would be detrimental to it's general performance but I find it more than adequate. It can't be described as "sporty" but does hold the road well and is considerably more comfortable on long journeys than the Ibiza was. In fact there's only one real criticism I can level at it's mechanical make up (I won't start on all the "silly" electronic "aids" I would happily do without) and that is the "first gear lurch" when you move away from a standstill. There are quite a number of others I've read complaining about it so I'm pretty sure it's not just me being over sensitive to it and there is, so far, no solution. I suspect a combination of throttle mapping and soft bushes in the front suspension arms combine to cause it. VAG seem to have a general problem with the later generations of the EA211 engines. There's even more people complaining of driveability issues with the 1.5 ACT engine, especially when cold. I understand upgrades have been introduced but would seem, from what I read, to be only partially successful. With my 110hp version of the 3 cylinder 1 litre engine I find slipping the clutch for slightly longer before letting it fully "bite" largely overcomes the problem but annoys me because I don't like slipping clutches intentionally due to possible increased wear of release bearing/driven plate. So, mostly, I just put up with having the small degree of "lurch" as the clutch fully bites. Annoys me but Mrs J hardly notices anything and in most other aspects of the car's construction and the way it drives I'm more than pleased with, I find it especially good on our long distance drives down to Wiltshire and Devon when visiting family.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

How you finding the over the air updates?...or have they changed the brain of the car entirely in line with the architecture of the Golf 8 and ID cars since yours was built?

The Scala comes up with "Update available" on the central screen and invites me to "download now" or "delay". As I've no idea what it's doing I asked at the garage and they said just to always enable "download now" which is what I do. Everything seems to be working well but I do notice that the sat nav, which I hardly ever use as I'm always on roads I know, has not been showing any road works notifications for quite some time now.

 

[The Panda Nut]

The Scala comes up with "Update available" on the central screen and invites me to "download now" or "delay". As I've no idea what it's doing I asked at the garage and they said just to always enable "download now" which is what I do. Everything seems to be working well but I do notice that the sat nav, which I hardly ever use as I'm always on roads I know, has not been showing any road works notifications for quite some time now.

One day you will get in and it will fail to go.
You will only have yourself to blame.
It will be the auto downloaded immediate total obsolesence update!

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

One day you will get in and it will fail to go.
You will only have yourself to blame.
It will be the auto downloaded immediate total obsolesence update!

Sadly that might be absolutely the case!

 

[The Panda Nut]

Sadly that might be absolutely the case!

You bought the wrong car! You need a March 2017 Panda Lounge

 

[StevenRB45]

One day you will get in and it will fail to go.
You will only have yourself to blame.
It will be the auto downloaded immediate total obsolesence update!

I didn't want to bring this up but there was a Gentleman with a Skoda Enyaq who as you do planned to take his son to university. Sort thing a big car like that would be perfect for..

Unfortunately he got in on the morning of the big planned trip and it had bricked as a result of an overnight software update so he had to fit all of his sons and also his son and other son and wife who were coming stuff into a 15 year old polo instead.

Somewhat amusing but weirdly he's looking for a new car now, can't think why.

You'd hope with the combustion cars updates couldn't kill the car to the point of being unusable.

 

[portland_bill]

I didn't want to bring this up but there was a Gentleman with a Skoda Enyaq who as you do planned to take his son to university. Sort thing a big car like that would be perfect for..

Unfortunately he got in on the morning of the big planned trip and it had bricked as a result of an overnight software update so he had to fit all of his sons and also his son and other son and wife who were coming stuff into a 15 year old polo instead.

Somewhat amusing but weirdly he's looking for a new car now, can't think why.

You'd hope with the combustion cars updates couldn't kill the car to the point of being unusable.

There's a house up the road from me, that was the first in the street to have an EV, an MG6. Didn't seem to use it much, but the older car, an ICE vehicle, (can't remember what it was) got used even less, and them disappeared. Then another MG6 arrived, and both got used, but neither very much.
Now, strangely, the newer MG has disappeared, to be replaced by a 2015 Hyundai i10. The Hyundai seems to be used significantly more than the remaining MG.

 

[StevenRB45]

It would be unkind to compare VW electrics to the absolute horrors the Chinese are currently doing.

Cars that unlock themselves and open their doors in an automatic car wash come to mind...and indeed the other day I was in a tail back caused by a newish MG that had failed to proceed.

They are a bit you get what you pay for I think it's not like their combustion cars are brilliantly reliable either with things like control arms falling off etc.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

I didn't want to bring this up but there was a Gentleman with a Skoda Enyaq who as you do planned to take his son to university. Sort thing a big car like that would be perfect for..

Unfortunately he got in on the morning of the big planned trip and it had bricked as a result of an overnight software

I couldn’t find anything online about this. Also I’ll refer you to my signature.

Technically speaking if it was because of an over night update and the update was the cause of the problem then I would expect it to have effected all Skoda Enyaq’s in which case there would be very obvious media coverage of the problem.

It also depends if it was an electric model as apparently (and this isn’t just a vw/VAG thing) a lot of electric cars from all manufacturers have “glitches from time to time that leave the car undrivable faults in software that depletes the 12v battery the electronics then won’t run the charging circuits of the main battery and the car won’t start or charge. Modern cars are way to complex, even an electric car does not need the over the top complexity that they build into them, it goes back to the discussion about failed body modules, the whole car on an electric vehicle is controlled but an overly complex body module/computer. Throw in all the driving aids they like to include and it gets really out of hand how much processing power and technology They are throwing in to one module/part in the car.

Some have technology comparable with the desktop computers that run high end games using GPUs for running ai learning algorithms, ita mad how far they have taken it now….

I’m not sure that jocks humble skoda is quite that well endowed with computers, but it will have its fair share of gadgets it is probably similarly equipped to a vw or Audi that is a few years or a generation or two older because of that trickle down approach VAG use.

 

[StevenRB45]

Hmm definitely not the first thing that comes up if search for Enyaq and bricked at all

You definitely can't get similar lists by replacing Enyaq, with ID3..4, 5 or buzz either.

But anyway my point in this was mainly chances of your Golf bricking due to a failed OTA...zero. Chances of new car that's not built in the same way bricking due to a failed update. Well that's more than zero which is infinitely worse as a percentage I'm sure you'll agree.

It's almost like they redid the full electrical system at some point round about the mk8 Golf/Id when all the haptics started coming in. A generational shift if you will in the philosophy of the company.