Octavia servicing!

[Umai Naa!!]

Reason was, technicians were scanning cars at the service, as you do, and were dumping software updates into them without the customer knowing. Sometimes, the updates change the way certain aspects of the car appear or function which made some customers unhappy, and as you know, it can't easily be reversed.

[Transporter]

Fair enough.

[kralster]

...or take it to independent workshop, like Camden GTI.
What year is your RS, I can check if there were any sw. updates. If not then it's one less reason to take it to the dealer.

Mine is 4/12 build. 15k service was done in March of this year. If you could check if my car needs any updates that would be great.

[brad]

But, if there was no need to address the issue, there wouldn't be a software update.

Not neccessarily.

When we had the diesel 4sp captiva it developed a vibration at 1800rpm-2000rpm. It sounded like a loose heatshield but was actually the torque converter not being able to decide if it wanted to lock-up or not (something like that). The cure was a software update. The downside was that it used about 20% more fuel.

Only a minor percentage of diesel auto Captivas developed this problem, so it would be foolish to automatically apply the software patch to all diesel autos if there wasn't a problem.

[Transporter]

Not neccessarily.

When we had the diesel 4sp captiva it developed a vibration at 1800rpm-2000rpm. It sounded like a loose heatshield but was actually the torque converter not being able to decide if it wanted to lock-up or not (something like that). The cure was a software update. The downside was that it used about 20% more fuel.

Only a minor percentage of diesel auto Captivas developed this problem, so it would be foolish to automatically apply the software patch to all diesel autos if there wasn't a problem.

...maybe they stuffed up something there.
I always ask the software engineer whether the sw update is to be applied to all or only if there was a fault. And so far, the answer was "yes if it says update available, it's safe to update".

I've the first hand experience of my own, when we had the sw update done on our Jeep, it was part of the recall and it changed the car dynamics so badly that we ended up trading it on the Touareg in 2008. Yeah, whole recall was a joke.
Not the case with Autologic though.

[Transporter]

Mine is 4/12 build. 15k service was done in March of this year. If you could check if my car needs any updates that would be great.

I'd know only for MY10, since we have it in our family. Otherwise it only can be found if the car is connected to diagnostic equipment.

[woofy]

Hmm our car threw an exhaust emissions fault light just now, its getting looked at next Friday, my wife is calling them to see if they can get it any earlier. Seems the slightly higher revs thing that has happened twice at the lights the last fortnight is getting worse. Yes Brad it is silly money, but I figure if something like what's just happened occurs, they can comp me some leeway with any repairs for all the extra Dosh I paid them. They used to be the cheapest dealer around, but the best and cheapest is Geelong and I'm not driving that far with a now more painful issue. Volkspower are not far from us but still undecided as to whether I should break my service history to go with them if this could be the last service before selling the car next year.

[brad]

...maybe they stuffed up something there.

It's a Captiva, the whole car is a stuff-up - especially the suspension damping.

The issue was that they programmed the torque convertor to lock-up (under ideal circumstances) at 1800rpm to minimise fuel economy. Unfortunately, once the vehicle got a few thousand miles on it, the parameters became a bit "grey" and the torque convertor would cycle from lock/unlock very quickly causing a vibration. The software change moved the lock-up point to around 2100rpm.

Surprisingly, my missus chose another Captiva (V6 this time) for her latest vehicle instead of the Passat Alltrack she could have had. Nothing much had changed with the Captiva in the 5 year interim period. It's adequate & gets the job done but it isn't what I'd call a great vehicle.