"My wife has an Audi A3 with the 1.5 litre petrol engine......."

Is that a manual or an automatic gearbox, please?

I have the same problem on Octavia with this engine and have complained about it for months and the dealer has been fantastic. Skoda came up with idea that dealer should buy an ex management Octavia to compare mine. They did this at great expense and compared the two vehicles and found mine to be different from the purchased one. results sent back to Skoda Technical and silence. Answer eventually was wait an upgrade software. Have learned this week from dealer that no update is going to happen.

" My perception is that I have been fobbed off. Cannot believe that VW don’t know about this."

Yes you, along with the rest of us, are being fobbed off and yes, VW group knows all about the problem. See www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/446820-15-sel-first-...4 which now runs to 44 pages about the 1.5 engine.

See T Roc forum you may still be able to reject car, give notice if you are unhappy. There many with the same complaint, many have had a refund no questions asked.

Kangarooing and exploding engines - hundreds of thousands of failing gearboxes, a seat belt "fix" that involves pretending your 5 seat car is only a 4 seat car - and you pay a premium for this rubbish - VAG cars have been patchy (to say the least) for well over a decade - and still people will queue up to buy (lease) this tat in an attempt to impress the neighbours.

Avoid VAG products

Taking the opposite view since 1986 we have had 7 VAG cars (4 VW's, 1 Seat and 2 Skodas) in which we have covered over 320,000 miles. In the 27 years they have been on the drive we have very few expenses other than the usual and expected items. Been totally happy which is why we keep buying them (with our own money).

Likewise I've owned VW and Skoda cars for many years and they have generally been bullet proof:-

1984 VW Polo owned for 19 years from new - other than servicing and a clutch at 120k miles just about faultless

1990 VW Passat - owned from 1996 for 5 years high mileage to start with and put another 70k miles on it. Sold with well over 200k miles on it. Had an inner CV joint issue near the end of ownership.

2001 Skoda Octavia 1.416v owned from new - Now 130k miles and still going strong (with my son now)

2003 Skoda Superb 1.9pd owned from 18months old and run for a further 10 years doing 15k miles a year. Still going strong with its new owner on original battery, exhaust and clutch and over 215k miles on it

2014 Skoda Superb 1.4tsi owned from 14months old - thus far faultless at 68k miles.

One thing to note - I have never believed in long life servicing and have always asked for the car to be on fixed servicing (currently 10k miles/1 yr)

The main thing for me though is I fit comfortably in most VAG cars where in many others I don't - although I was rather taken with a newish Volvo S90 I was in this weekend.

Edited by Big John on 07/02/2019 at 20:33

Many thanks for coming back to us, Waino. Let's hope that unlike the post-Dieselgate fix, ths one works.

So far SWMBO's new A3 1.5 TFSI convertible is fine - but for some reason we haven't so far heard of the kangaroo-hopping happening with Audis. Maybe the difference is the F in TFSI, which I'd thought bore the same relation to TSI as RTFM does to Read the Manual.

Firstly, I have no idea what is mean't by "Our versatile Skoda Karoq SUV has starred with all-round".

And secondly I don't intend clicking on a link to "bluestacks" .... whatever that may or may not be.

Suspect this is a dodgy link - don't click on it!

Yes - it is related to the WLTP test and, reading on the T-roc forum, it is further complicated by built date and phasing in of the WLTP rules. This would explain why some have the problem and others don't.

I picked up my Karoq on 10th April after the software update had been applied. Initially, I was quite optimistic and, after just over 900 miles, there has been no repeat of the 'dying at junctions' - but the kangarooing is as pronounced as ever. I had agreed to keep the car and await the software fix with the proviso that if it wasn't fixed by the end of the second quarter, then the car would be rejected. The end of the second quarter is rapidly approaching. I have heard (from Skoda) that there is to be a second stage to the fix - it had better hurry up.

It will be a sad day if I have to reject the Karoq because, in every other respect, it is an excellent car.

Running in dynamic mode means that you have increased the engine revs over and above the base manufacturers settings from idle. It may solve your own individual problems but is the car as fuel efficient as it could be even though the car will obviously be more responsive all the time. There does appear to be a basic flaw in the software on this engine for some. I would be very annoyed if I had such a car with this problem considering the cost of the thing and the very poor driveability.

We purchased a Skoda Karoq 1.5 Petrol in July 2019. We have both experienced the loss of power and stalling in 1st and 2nd gear. As you have said potentially very dangerous.

My wife was driving the car on an open country road with no traffic in front or behind at between 30 and 40 mph when the emergency brake triggered bringing the car to an immediate halt.

The car is back at the main dealer being looked at.

Report this to HJ himself so it can go in the Good & Bad section for your model of car and for more general reference on this issue across VAG.

This week's HJ Agony column (part2) is saying that there is now fix for the 1.5 kangaroo problem. Well we'll see as VAG have offered fixes previously without success. Looking on Autotrader old 1.4 Octavias are holding their values well against newer 1.5s. As for the emergency braking it sounds like the problem that HJ has mentioned in the past with a flying crisp packet setting it off in a Golf.

Note quite, as I understand it:

A previous 'software update' for existing cars with the 1.5 TSI engine did not appear to work, by the accounts of Backroomers and people writing to HJ for his collumn;

Th 'fix' that I believe many people are now speaking of is actually for recent new cars by changing the design of the engine to add a mild hybrid system that appears (I'll wait and see for owners of these new cars to say whether they have any problems or not - none reported yet, but these cars have only been on sale for a month at most) to 'absorb' some of the torque/power and supposedly smooth out the negative effects of the engine itself when pulling away from a standstill/low speed.

Note that the updated engine design CANNOT be retrofitted to the '1st generation' 1.5TSIs, so we'll need an update as to whether VAG are going to attempt another software update if it proves that the first did not work on existing non-hybrid versions of the engine.