Skoda Yeti !
I've just covered 150 miles in our 1.2 TSi SE in Muscovado and so far so good.
I previously owned a Roomster and got rid of that mainly due to road/engine noise and a rattly cabin. The Yeti however seems much better put together, road noise is also well supressed. The gearchange is a huge improvement over the five speeder in the Roomster and in fact feels very similar to the 6 speed box in my old MKII Octavia 1.8 TSi. The engine pulls from low revs and I found myself block changing without thinking. The engine in fact doesn't immediately feel like a turbo unit, instead demonstrating similar characteristics to a larger capacity normally aspirated unt. I found the same with my old Octy TSI, so assume it is a trait of the newer engine design. The older 1.8T unit in my MKI vRS's by comparison was very much a turbo unit, which little below 2500rpm and then wallop.
We also run a Qashqai 1.6 petrol and the difference between the 2 is huge. The Qashqai is much noisier on the road (engine and tyre roar) and feels significantly slower, despite figures suggesting the 2 cars are virtually identical in terms of performance. The Yeti is down around 10 BHP, but makes up for it somewhat with around 10% more torque. 70 mph in the Yeti equates to around 2500 rpm vs 3500 in the Qashqai. Early days yet, but the fuel economy appears to be around 30mpg urban and just under 40 mpg extra-urban. I presume this will improve as the engine loosens up, although the Qashqai has returned a 34 mpg average, virtually from day one and almost irrespective of usage.
We did originally plan on a 1.2E in red, but after seeing the SE in Muscovado SWMBO decided it was worth the extra. The car is standard apart from park assist and rubber mats. I will look into ordering a proper spare wheel and replacement boot floor, but the supplying dealer doesn't yet have a price or part number for the Yeti kit.
The only slight negative thus far is the Bolero stereo. It seems very slow and unresponsive when playing from a SD card, and the controls for the radio and CD seem illogical and overly complex. I found the system in my Octavia II Ambiente much more intuitive, although obviously less functional. Still a massive improvement in what was fitted to my old Mk I Octavia vRS though.
Overall quite impressed with the Yeti (so far)!
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The only slight negative thus far is the Bolero stereo. It seems very slow and unresponsive when playing from a SD card
I've got the same in my 2 week old octavia (not got round to posting a report yet). How big a card have you got and how are your files organised? I got myself a 16GB SDHC card, and it's about half full at the moment - that's far more CD's then I'd ever be able to fit in the glove box. It does take quite a long time (30s or so) to read the card from when you turn on the ignition or insert the card. Files are organised into folders by artist and album, and there are quite a lot of artist folders in the top level on the card, and I find it's rather slow navigating round these folders, but within each folder it seems fine. I need to experiment before but I think the trick is to not have too many folders or files at each level, which makes it quicker. Otherwise maybe get a few smaller SD cards - definitely gets slower the more that's on it.
My main beef about it is that it's a bit fiddly navigating through folders using the touch screen, would have been easier if the knobs could have been used to scroll up and down and select. Still easier than changing CDs though.
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I'm using a 4Gb Sandisk SDHC. The files are arranged the same as yours (1 album per folder). The Bolero is a definite improvement in terms of sound quality compared to other Skoda's I've owned, but navigating through the various menus is definitely a triumph of style over function.
The radio is also lacking LW, so no test match special! This seems a strange omission as every previous Skoda I've owned (x2 MKI vRS Octavia's, MKII Octavia 1.8 TSi and a Roomster) had this, in addition to MW.
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I think the lack of LW is as per any VAG stereo these days, and I need TMS too. Depends where you live but I've found R4 on 720 KHz MW and doesn't really sound worse than LW in Surrey. So got that on the preset already.
By the way I've got my album folders gouped by artist folders so you don't have so many folders. That should speed it up a bit.
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Worth looking around MW for Test Match Special.
It's on 603KHz in County Durham/Tyne and Wear.
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thanks for the suggestions, I'll have a root around the MW frequencies and see if I can locate TMS.
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TMS ? I think anything which could cause a driver to fall asleep should not be available on a car radio.....
" A man has just thrown a ball at another man with a bat "
" Oh dear, he missed it"
" A man has just caught a ball another man hit with his bat "
Hours later......
"A man has just thrown a ball at a man with a bat"
" He's hit it this time"
Zzzzzzzzzz
;-)
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Where else woudl you get classics like "the bowler's Holding, the Batsman's Willy"
The secret of using and accessing external mdedia (mp3 players, usb sticks, sd cards), in car radios is not to have any sub level folders. Put all folders in the root. By album or some other name. That way you only ever step through single folders, not get lost in nests of them.
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I think I disagree - If I was anal enough to experiment to prove it I would. I find that, once I've selected a top-level artist folder (which takes a long time because there's lots of artists), selecting one of a few album folders by that artist is very quick, in other words the performance penalty is caused by having loads of top level folders. OK it needs a few more button pushes to get to where you want to go but seems to be worth it.
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I have 6 gb on an exteranl USB drive connected via the USB socket on the radio. Believe me, on the move and using the radio buttons, just having 1 level of folders is much easier when driving.
the loading time is the same, the radio is loading the file allocation table when the media is connected, not the files themselves.
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Well, I'm still a newbie to in-car MP3 music so maybe I'll have to give it a try.
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