VAG experts – faulty Skoda

We have a Yeti Monte Carlo with a faulty head unit.

It went for an MOT and service last week and was supposed to be up for sale by now but the bloody radio has stopped working.

The head unit just blacks out and slowly reboots constantly. Sometimes it lasts a few minutes, sometimes we get 10 seconds.

Google brings up tonnes of similar complaints on forums and stuff but no solutions. I’ve tried disconnecting the battery for an hour, I’ve tried holding the power button which is supposed to reset the unit.

I know everyone on here owns a Skoda and there’s a few mechanics. Very grateful for any assistance.

Is it worth popping the dash and cleaning connectors for the unit with electrical contact cleaner spray ?  I have a 22 year old Nissan (satnav etc built in and all controls via the screen) and occasionally get air bag alerts that are fixed by contact cleaner.

I’ve said on here for a couple of years that I will.never buy another Skoda because of their absolutely dogshit. Skoda UK don’t care and the dealers just shrug their shoulders…

Nothing worked for me I had to get shot of the car as it was just so bad. I tried all the fixes on Briskoda and other sites. Never again.

Unfortunately this isnt down to the screen but rather the 5f unit in the glovebox. Hundreds of cars across the vag group have the issue.

Sometimes the hard rest does the trick but most of the time the issue comes back.

Weve had it in my wifes ibiza, one of my octavias and my inlaws old passat.

I’ll stick with my old 22 year old Nissan then… yikes…

Unfortunately this isnt down to the screen but rather the 5f unit in the glovebox. Hundreds of cars across the vag group have the issue.

That’s a good lead thanks for that. Not sure why I didn’t spot it in any of the forum threads.

It’s bad timing considering we were literally about to advertise it for sale but it’s been faultless for 2 years so far. If I have to chuck money at it we’ll end up keeping it.

Check the earth on the head unit and the control box that should be behind the glove box. My Fabia’s unit did the same when I didn’t out the earth back correctly after fitting a permanent phone charger cable, both earth were fine but they need a good contact between the two for some reason. A quick clean and check of good continuity between the two points and it’s been fine since.

Thanks, I’ll be searching for dangly earth cables in the morning.

While you’re there, check the big plug in the back of the unit in the glovebox is secure, too. (May require laying upside down in the footwell, but IIRC you don’t have to remove any trim.) Unplugging and re-plugging can sometimes jar things into working again.

And is your battery up to scratch?

Might be worth talking to these guys: https://eastyorkshireretrofits.co.uk/products/mib3-software-updates-skoda?variant=42523584364709 about which software you could/should have installed.

Also I see suggestions that turning off bluetooth/wifi can help, also doing 3 resets in a row, but I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope for them.

I bought a 69 plate karoq a couple of months ago. Really like the car so far but still in the honeymoon period. The radio has rebooted itself randomly a couple of times but I thought that might be due to my phone as it happened while using Spotify / Google maps. I hope it’s not a sign of things to come…

My Superb did the head unit powering off / on cycle a few times. Turned out to be the stop / start battery on its last legs. New battery and it’s been fine since. 

@bigblackshed

What age was your car. My Superb is 6 years old on original battery.  I am wondering how much longer it will last.

I turn stop/start off every time I am in the car. Not sure if that makes any difference to battery life.  I just do it because of the annoying hesitation if it needs to restart.

I swapped the battery in my Octavia after 10 years. I never switch of the stop/start as it cuts emmisions and saves petrol, so cannot understand why you’d want to do that to be honest.

I turn it off because it’s triggering AF. PTSD from having to get through urban traffic in a dying shitter, doing the three pedal dance knowing that if it dies it’s not going to restart. Stop start brings back all that trauma and I don’t need that. So it gets turned off. I’ll happily lose a quarter of an mpg.

Monte Carlo will have the RNS510/Columbus sat nav head unit I assume? A boggo standard Skoda/VW head unit (RCD210 or something, I can’t remember) will fit straight in and people throw those things away for nothing (I’ve skipped two of them in the past). See if you can find one going spare locally and swap it out – its a 5 minute job and see if the fault persists. At least then you can narrow it down to the headunit (easy fix – just get a new one) or something behind it in the wiring (a bigger ballache).

I turn it off because it’s triggering AF. PTSD from having to get through urban traffic in a dying shitter, doing the three pedal dance knowing that if it dies it’s not going to restart. Stop start brings back all that trauma and I don’t need that. So it gets turned off. I’ll happily lose a quarter of an mpg.

Not really understanding what you’re saying at all. It’s estimated it saves about 5% petrol minimum and probably much more since you mention urban driving. Plus why would you want to create extra pollution, especially in an urban environment?

Saving 5%? Doubt. Even so, that’s still all of 1 mpg, probably. Will that offset the extra wear on the starter motor and battery? Maybe. Will that offset PTSD triggers? No. It stays off when I’m driving.

Monte Carlo will have the RNS510/Columbus sat nav head unit I assume? A boggo standard Skoda/VW head unit (RCD210 or something, I can’t remember) will fit straight in and people throw those things away for nothing (I’ve skipped two of them in the past). See if you can find one going spare locally and swap it out – its a 5 minute job and see if the fault persists. At least then you can narrow it down to the headunit (easy fix – just get a new one) or something behind it in the wiring (a bigger ballache).

Won’t they had component pretention and need someone who knows what they are doing to re-code it? I thought the component protection is why people throw them away for nothing!

Will that offset the extra wear on the starter motor and battery?

The motor and battery are upgraded to deal with the extra load.

I came here to post the same as Davey Boy Wonder – those VAG head units are cheap as chips on eBay. Even if you can’t fit and code it yourself someone will be able to do it in a jiffy.

Haha, that’s what I originally came on here to say as well. My RCD300 started doing that a few years ago, so I replaced it with an RNS310. They’re cheap and overlooked because everyone wants the 510 instead. As long as you know the unit code it should be fine – it was in my case – but if not then the likes of Carista should see it coded in fine.

Finally got a chance to look at the car today.

Cheap Bluetooth OBD reader didn’t bring up any fault codes.

Battery is on charge just in case that was the cause.

Got the feelers out on the Yeti FB group for a suitable replacement unit

Thought I’d have a look for the 5F unit in the glovebox but not sure which one of these little boxes it is yet.

We were supposed to be going to test drive a Superb Sportline today but I’m trying to be sensible by fixing this and selling up first.

You can buy the Skoda RNS310 head unit pretty cheaply on eBay. Get one with a code obviously and also make sure that the MAC address on the outside chassis has a code and is not all zeros.  That way it will have built in Bluetooth and not need the separate module.

it was less than a couple of hours to replace a head unit on my 2012 yeti with one and that included fitting the gps aerial and microphone into the roof light cluster.  Although I don’t know what year yours is or whether it will have the newer component protection

Ours is 2015. It does have some kind of Bluetooth connection but it’s always been patchy. Sat nav is crap but we always use Google anyway.

I didn’t realise this was such a common problem because it’s always just worked so I never had to check.

Taking a break because unsurprisingly it’s pissing down right now.

Ah ok, if yours is a 2015 then it probably doesnt have the 5f thing in the glovebox.

If it did it would look similar to this:

Nope definitely not! Well at least I’ve had a look.

I’m on the lookout for a head unit locally but found nothing yet.

The one we have looks like this…

In my 20’s I had a friend that was sure he was a real vag expert but I’m not sure he would be able to help to be honest.

@sharkattack I gave just noticed that a guy on eBay does repairs for those units, if you search

SKODA YETI 2015 2016 2017 SAT NAV MEDIA UNIT DISPLAY TOUCH SCREEN REPAIR SERVICE

looks like around £130 and you could message him with your issue first

Looks like an MIB2 – a VW RNS510 without the spinny discs and 2 card slots.  Also known as a VW Discover. Basic integration to the car over canbus (you’ll get steering wheel controls, HVAC, parking guides, some limited info in the MFD and a speed input for the nav in tunnels).

VCDS or Carista can probe it. It’s unlikely you’ll get much back though other than software and hardware versions.

Try removing the SD cards and any leads first (ours is very sensitive to faulty lightning leads), then attempt a manual reboot by holding the power button down with the engine on until you get the skoda logo and welcome message. I would suspect there’s nowt wrong with the hardwear and you’ve got some corrupted firmware.  Unfortunately VW no longer allow you to download firmware updates yourself as you could with the older 510s. A VW specialist would be my first port of call.

If you’re near South Wales I have a VCDS that could be useful.

Saving 5%? Doubt. Even so, that’s still all of 1 mpg, probably. Will that offset the extra wear on the starter motor and battery? Maybe. Will that offset PTSD triggers? No. It stays off when I’m driving.

I fitted a Start/stop defeat switch so its always off (available EBAy, think you can program it with VCDS instead) . I was told the batteries and starters don’t cope as well with it as well as I was led to believe, and it triggered a management warning when it failed to start (which I was told was down to battery voltage demand – it would always clear itself eventually) so off it goes. Peaceful since, no noticeable deterioration in mileage but I rarely sit in traffic.

Yeah you can program out start stop in VCDS. Its a clunky bodge to do (you set the minimum system voltage to something daft like 18v) but it works well. Anything with pre-mqb architecture and it’s hideous: on our van it makes parking, particularly reverse parking on a hill a hazardous activity. Why would anyone want start-stop enabled when you’re in reverse gear, or 10seconds either side of that?

I was told the batteries and starters don’t cope as well with it as well as I was led to believe

The problem with ‘car people’ (including many mechanics) is that they are rarely automotive engineers; more often blokes with spanners, and they deal in lore handed down from generation to generation. The problem is that cars are changing fast, and old advice is remarkably difficult to kill, it keeps floating around like a virus.

Now that I’ve removed the glove box and disconnected the passenger airbag switch, we have a dash light on for a faulty airbag. Even though it’s reconnected and back the way it was.

I’ve tried the car scanner and it doesn’t throw up any fault codes.

This car has been absolutely faultless for over 2 years and it should have been on eBay this week with a full 12 months MOT. Now I feel like it’s going to start rinsing me for money.

Anyone got any matches?

If you fire up any vag car with a break in any of the airbag circuits it will ping the airbag light on.  It’ll need resetting with vcds /Carista or I think any OBD2 scanner as it was part of the original legislation.