December I took it across the channel past Luxembourg with a few miles of unlimited autobahn into Trier and down the Mosel and back. This time it was going to stretch it legs a bit further across France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Luxembourg. A journey that turned out to be 3,000 miles including the UK element.
The car, “a fully specified” 4Drive TDI190 DSG, less the towing bracket, which I ordered in the pre launch period in July 2016. Been driving “it” for the past six months. Bit like buying a computer system thought I’d go for all the extras except the tow bar. The “extras” are parcelled together so it is in any case difficult to separate out the bits you want with the bits that you might not want or don’t understand what they offer. It’s not really clear how useful some of the features are till you have tried them out – my excuse for buying £5,500 of extra features over the base price.
North Croatia coast holds attractions for hiking on the island of Cres (trusty hiking guides Sunflower and Rother), but the co-drive a zoologist by training threw in the western wetlands of Croatia as a destination as well where the Danube over flows to create a large wetland nature reserve, Kopački Rit. The breeding haunt of the white tailed eagle. Not too sure about getting the side of the car muddy agreed we’d visit that as well a six hour drive across Croatia on the border of Serbia.
Due to landmines off road driving isn’t a good idea or hiking off trodden paths in certain locations in parts of Croatia, this is one of them. Saved going off road and yes we did see a marked out landmine field by the side of the road returning from Kopački Rit. On the outward bound sightseeing in Wurzburg in Germany to break the journey. The return journey was more hiking in north east Slovenia in the wine growing area for several days.
The EU site Urban Access Regulations tells you whether you need a special LZ pollution sticker for petrol and diesel vehicles that need to be displayed if you enter specific urban areas – none on this trip.
http://www.urbanaccessregulations.eu/
Vignettes are required for travelling on highways in Austria and Slovenia.
The normal placing of Headlight stickers for travelling abroad is a thing of the past with the Ateca LEDs as the light beam is angled to be within temporary legal restrictions for driving on the “wrong side of the road”. These are called Tourist Lights settings in the Ateca manual. You can wave off the guy that tries to sell you the sticky bits whilst queuing for the ferry, pull back the panoramic roof and enjoy the sea breeze. One of the treats of the sunshine roof.
On the ferry you can disable the volume sensor and motion detector so the car doesn’t sound the car alarm if it’s a rough crossing. This is a rapid two presses on the key fod lock button… one of the few times you use the key fod if you move to totally hands free with the Kessy. The car’s manual shows a fantasy button in the door pillar for this, you won’t find it.
It’s also worth noting that the sensors for reading the Kessy key’s presence in the car to prevent auto locking and indeed opening can be problematic at times so best not to close the last door or tailgate with the keys in the car. Sometimes one side of the car can refuse to open which may be due to the system powering down to save energy. An emergency key lock is hidden on the drivers side where the actual key is inserted in a hole from underneath to flip off the plastic cover to reveal the barrel of the lock. That one is really there for if the battery becomes flat but it something you need to locate for peace of mind if you have the Kessy system. We took both keys on the trip and kept them on us.
The Adblue filling strategy was upper most in my mind since I knew it was going to come up whilst away. Wanted to opt for a standard lorry fill pumps off the stuff rather than bottles, pipes, funnels and sloshing out of bottles. That’s the old way of doing it. It’s half the price at lorry pumps than Halford type of bottles and cleaner to fill, whilst garage fillups or necked bottles with valves is four times the price. Adblue pumps were not too common in Croatia according to the app.
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=438647
Fuel filling strategy, diesel is cheaper in France, Germany, Austria and in Slovenia and Croatia. Cheapest in Luxembourg. Auchan in Dunkerque was the first stop where I spied out an Adblue pump as well for future reference. The Adblue app and map had placed one there, handy for future reference.
Probably also worth mentioning that if you do have a car that uses Adblue and it doesn’t appear to be using any Adblue you might want to get the Adblue tank sensor checked since when the sensor starts reading you might find it’s too late and the car will refuse to start. The costs of Adblue are minimal and you do get a 1,500 mile or so safety warning distance before it will refuse to start. Increased warning as it goes down below 1,500 miles. You get get an indicated range of 5,500 miles on a full 11 litre tank of Adblue. UK filler stop the price are about 70p a litre, you would probably put in 8 litres till filling automatically stopped, making a refill just under £6 at the first warning of 1,500 miles. The range I found is actually more than 5,500 miles on 11 litres, more like 6,500 miles.
Spent the first night in Gent where it’s worth mentioning the beauty of the virtual pedal tailgate. There are detractors but the hands free opening of the virtual tailgate is so you can load and unload without putting things down and doing the journey “in one” to the car and from the car. If fully laden it will always reduce the journey to and from the car by one. Handy for loading and unloading the car at each hotel. If you are feeling your age stretching up to whack the tailgate shut which can be painful is also removed with a motorised tailgate.
I modded the lock and unlock function to the normal VAG one of one click or door sensor touch to lock / unlock and close the mirrors in or open the mirrors out. Without using the standard Ateca method you are hanging around holding the sensor / button for a couple of seconds to get the mirrors in. Juggling luggage at the same time between parked cars, one touch makes life quicker and easier.
As for stop / start that can be modded out if it troubles you on a DSG. In areas of heavy traffic with the engine cutting out and the few seconds of restarting can mean all the difference in a difficult situation. Why most people if they can turn it off via VCDS / Obdeleven do. Never worried me since
.
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=438134
Parking is a dream with the 360 degree top view camera and park assist which gives you front assist. Whilst you might not use park assist – I’ve never, the front assist that can only be obtained this way and is very good.
The top view gives you a choice of views which are sowed together from four cameras, tail, front and below the wing mirrors. You never or almost never have to get out and move the car since you didn’t get it positioned how you wanted it first time. Combined with the ultrasound warnings you can generally park reasonably well although small projections / objects, the ultrasound may not pick up them up. Large objects the ultrasound sometimes can get the range wrong. Generally a loud howling and red on the screen means proceed with care or don’t move the car at all. That facility was useful on single track country roads where the sensors can be used to gauge whether it’s safe to proceed when passing a car at a passing place.
Blind spot and rear cross these are packaged together. Blind spot is useful in detecting cars coming past in the “blind spot”. Rear facing radars are built into the car either side which create a flash in the blind spot mirrors. Driving on the continent seeing these warnings gives you extra protection. Rear cross is for when reversing out of a parking spot where an audible alarm is sounded and a red mark is shown on the reversing image to warn of a car approaching. The system uses the same radars, proved to be very useful.
Fitted to all Ateca’s is Front Assist which is a radar behind the “S” badge which monitors front collisions with cars or pedestrians. This system perhaps is the most troubling system for owners of the car and has been since it was introduced in the Golf Mk7 in 2013 where much of the Ateca’s system are the same. Any issues with the Ateca you may well find them going back to 2013 in the Golf MQB on boards on the net.
The two issues with Front Assist is the system generating the warning ahead of applying the brakes or the warning and braking when there isn’t a problem. Tall road banks, bendy roads with approaching traffic that the radar sees as an issue will lead to warnings. The process can be turned down to “late” in the car’s settings which generally seems to fix these issues. The other issue is in wet weather when the radar detects that it can not function correctly and generates a warning message that front assist is disabled. Once the badge area is dried out, the warning goes away.
On the trip there were several incidents of front assist generating the warning message that it was not working in wet spray conditions threw Germany. It also generated an error report in the car’s system that could be read on the OBD port. This was the only error generated by the car in the 3,000 mile trip in 18 days. Very satisfying that the car didn’t pick up any errors whilst away other than the wet Front Assist one.
Another front assist incident happened when the co driver was admiring a Ryan air flight coming in at Frankfurt airport in slow moving traffic. The car slammed the brakes on and howled. True ACC could have been used with Lane Assist and the car would have been self driving itself. I tend to have lane assist turned off preferring to drive the car myself picking out the best part of the road to drive on, missing potholes.
The other front assist incident I had was when driving down a very narrow bendy road to the port for Cres – bit like Italian busy roads that wind. In that incident I had the red warning, not braking, the obstacles it could have seen was a lorry on the opposite side of the road and a rock wall bank on my side as the road twisted and turned, both came into view one after the other – neither of which was in the way of the car based on it’s steering. At the minute I have kept the setting to the normal period, will move to late if I find it can’t handle Welsh country roads with high banks too well.
On ACC locking onto the car in front, this runs the risk of speeding with the car in front. It was a function I soon stopped using after I experienced the car going down a hill much faster than I would take it myself as it shadowed the other car and that was at maximum distance. A newer implementation of the system on VW cars which is about to arrive is where ACC is integrated with reading the road signs and maximum traffic speed for the road so as to cap the speed to the legal one. The Ateca system does not offer this at the moment.
I loaded up all European safety cameras, using traffic sign recognition and road speed warnings so I drive the car within the warning beeps and bleeps. That works very well to keep within speed limits.
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=437989
The car, “a fully specified” 4Drive TDI190 DSG, less the towing bracket, which I ordered in the pre launch period in July 2016. Been driving “it” for the past six months. Bit like buying a computer system thought I’d go for all the extras except the tow bar. The “extras” are parcelled together so it is in any case difficult to separate out the bits you want with the bits that you might not want or don’t understand what they offer. It’s not really clear how useful some of the features are till you have tried them out – my excuse for buying £5,500 of extra features over the base price.
North Croatia coast holds attractions for hiking on the island of Cres (trusty hiking guides Sunflower and Rother), but the co-drive a zoologist by training threw in the western wetlands of Croatia as a destination as well where the Danube over flows to create a large wetland nature reserve, Kopački Rit. The breeding haunt of the white tailed eagle. Not too sure about getting the side of the car muddy agreed we’d visit that as well a six hour drive across Croatia on the border of Serbia.
Due to landmines off road driving isn’t a good idea or hiking off trodden paths in certain locations in parts of Croatia, this is one of them. Saved going off road and yes we did see a marked out landmine field by the side of the road returning from Kopački Rit. On the outward bound sightseeing in Wurzburg in Germany to break the journey. The return journey was more hiking in north east Slovenia in the wine growing area for several days.
The EU site Urban Access Regulations tells you whether you need a special LZ pollution sticker for petrol and diesel vehicles that need to be displayed if you enter specific urban areas – none on this trip.
http://www.urbanaccessregulations.eu/
Vignettes are required for travelling on highways in Austria and Slovenia.
The normal placing of Headlight stickers for travelling abroad is a thing of the past with the Ateca LEDs as the light beam is angled to be within temporary legal restrictions for driving on the “wrong side of the road”. These are called Tourist Lights settings in the Ateca manual. You can wave off the guy that tries to sell you the sticky bits whilst queuing for the ferry, pull back the panoramic roof and enjoy the sea breeze. One of the treats of the sunshine roof.
On the ferry you can disable the volume sensor and motion detector so the car doesn’t sound the car alarm if it’s a rough crossing. This is a rapid two presses on the key fod lock button… one of the few times you use the key fod if you move to totally hands free with the Kessy. The car’s manual shows a fantasy button in the door pillar for this, you won’t find it.
It’s also worth noting that the sensors for reading the Kessy key’s presence in the car to prevent auto locking and indeed opening can be problematic at times so best not to close the last door or tailgate with the keys in the car. Sometimes one side of the car can refuse to open which may be due to the system powering down to save energy. An emergency key lock is hidden on the drivers side where the actual key is inserted in a hole from underneath to flip off the plastic cover to reveal the barrel of the lock. That one is really there for if the battery becomes flat but it something you need to locate for peace of mind if you have the Kessy system. We took both keys on the trip and kept them on us.
The Adblue filling strategy was upper most in my mind since I knew it was going to come up whilst away. Wanted to opt for a standard lorry fill pumps off the stuff rather than bottles, pipes, funnels and sloshing out of bottles. That’s the old way of doing it. It’s half the price at lorry pumps than Halford type of bottles and cleaner to fill, whilst garage fillups or necked bottles with valves is four times the price. Adblue pumps were not too common in Croatia according to the app.
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=438647
Fuel filling strategy, diesel is cheaper in France, Germany, Austria and in Slovenia and Croatia. Cheapest in Luxembourg. Auchan in Dunkerque was the first stop where I spied out an Adblue pump as well for future reference. The Adblue app and map had placed one there, handy for future reference.
Probably also worth mentioning that if you do have a car that uses Adblue and it doesn’t appear to be using any Adblue you might want to get the Adblue tank sensor checked since when the sensor starts reading you might find it’s too late and the car will refuse to start. The costs of Adblue are minimal and you do get a 1,500 mile or so safety warning distance before it will refuse to start. Increased warning as it goes down below 1,500 miles. You get get an indicated range of 5,500 miles on a full 11 litre tank of Adblue. UK filler stop the price are about 70p a litre, you would probably put in 8 litres till filling automatically stopped, making a refill just under £6 at the first warning of 1,500 miles. The range I found is actually more than 5,500 miles on 11 litres, more like 6,500 miles.
Spent the first night in Gent where it’s worth mentioning the beauty of the virtual pedal tailgate. There are detractors but the hands free opening of the virtual tailgate is so you can load and unload without putting things down and doing the journey “in one” to the car and from the car. If fully laden it will always reduce the journey to and from the car by one. Handy for loading and unloading the car at each hotel. If you are feeling your age stretching up to whack the tailgate shut which can be painful is also removed with a motorised tailgate.
I modded the lock and unlock function to the normal VAG one of one click or door sensor touch to lock / unlock and close the mirrors in or open the mirrors out. Without using the standard Ateca method you are hanging around holding the sensor / button for a couple of seconds to get the mirrors in. Juggling luggage at the same time between parked cars, one touch makes life quicker and easier.
As for stop / start that can be modded out if it troubles you on a DSG. In areas of heavy traffic with the engine cutting out and the few seconds of restarting can mean all the difference in a difficult situation. Why most people if they can turn it off via VCDS / Obdeleven do. Never worried me since
.http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=438134
Parking is a dream with the 360 degree top view camera and park assist which gives you front assist. Whilst you might not use park assist – I’ve never, the front assist that can only be obtained this way and is very good.
The top view gives you a choice of views which are sowed together from four cameras, tail, front and below the wing mirrors. You never or almost never have to get out and move the car since you didn’t get it positioned how you wanted it first time. Combined with the ultrasound warnings you can generally park reasonably well although small projections / objects, the ultrasound may not pick up them up. Large objects the ultrasound sometimes can get the range wrong. Generally a loud howling and red on the screen means proceed with care or don’t move the car at all. That facility was useful on single track country roads where the sensors can be used to gauge whether it’s safe to proceed when passing a car at a passing place.
Blind spot and rear cross these are packaged together. Blind spot is useful in detecting cars coming past in the “blind spot”. Rear facing radars are built into the car either side which create a flash in the blind spot mirrors. Driving on the continent seeing these warnings gives you extra protection. Rear cross is for when reversing out of a parking spot where an audible alarm is sounded and a red mark is shown on the reversing image to warn of a car approaching. The system uses the same radars, proved to be very useful.
Fitted to all Ateca’s is Front Assist which is a radar behind the “S” badge which monitors front collisions with cars or pedestrians. This system perhaps is the most troubling system for owners of the car and has been since it was introduced in the Golf Mk7 in 2013 where much of the Ateca’s system are the same. Any issues with the Ateca you may well find them going back to 2013 in the Golf MQB on boards on the net.
The two issues with Front Assist is the system generating the warning ahead of applying the brakes or the warning and braking when there isn’t a problem. Tall road banks, bendy roads with approaching traffic that the radar sees as an issue will lead to warnings. The process can be turned down to “late” in the car’s settings which generally seems to fix these issues. The other issue is in wet weather when the radar detects that it can not function correctly and generates a warning message that front assist is disabled. Once the badge area is dried out, the warning goes away.
On the trip there were several incidents of front assist generating the warning message that it was not working in wet spray conditions threw Germany. It also generated an error report in the car’s system that could be read on the OBD port. This was the only error generated by the car in the 3,000 mile trip in 18 days. Very satisfying that the car didn’t pick up any errors whilst away other than the wet Front Assist one.
Another front assist incident happened when the co driver was admiring a Ryan air flight coming in at Frankfurt airport in slow moving traffic. The car slammed the brakes on and howled. True ACC could have been used with Lane Assist and the car would have been self driving itself. I tend to have lane assist turned off preferring to drive the car myself picking out the best part of the road to drive on, missing potholes.
The other front assist incident I had was when driving down a very narrow bendy road to the port for Cres – bit like Italian busy roads that wind. In that incident I had the red warning, not braking, the obstacles it could have seen was a lorry on the opposite side of the road and a rock wall bank on my side as the road twisted and turned, both came into view one after the other – neither of which was in the way of the car based on it’s steering. At the minute I have kept the setting to the normal period, will move to late if I find it can’t handle Welsh country roads with high banks too well.
On ACC locking onto the car in front, this runs the risk of speeding with the car in front. It was a function I soon stopped using after I experienced the car going down a hill much faster than I would take it myself as it shadowed the other car and that was at maximum distance. A newer implementation of the system on VW cars which is about to arrive is where ACC is integrated with reading the road signs and maximum traffic speed for the road so as to cap the speed to the legal one. The Ateca system does not offer this at the moment.
I loaded up all European safety cameras, using traffic sign recognition and road speed warnings so I drive the car within the warning beeps and bleeps. That works very well to keep within speed limits.
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=437989
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