Avon calling!

[Dav3smith]

Mine's in for its first service tomorrow, I'm just back from a 700 mile round trip to Cornwall and not one bong, I've told them to not update the software under any circumstances. I've been pretty much bong free since day one and done 7K miles now so I don't want to "upgrade" to the latest bongware.

I haven't had any of the OTA updates for months either which is a relief. To be honest I think I would be fine to update but it's just not worth it in my case.

Unless you had been manually updated by the dealer to a newish version you won't get OTA updates. I think only 1896 onwards does OTA.

Ah that may explain it I'm on 1890 and thankfully still on it now I have my car back. I did used to get OTA updates but they stopped. There was a very unfortunate person in the waiting room with me today who was waiting on his GTE getting a fix, he said he'd been in yesterday after months of waiting for a new steering wheel and that they'd replaced it only for this morning the car to be bonging as bad as ever, he said it's been bonging repeatedly for  two years, I felt so sorry for him. If your reading this I hope they fixed it today.

[Colh]

I've noticed in some dealership photos of new cars that you can configure the dash to look like this, i.e. the Nav/maps view with round speedo/rev counter either side. Looks quite nice and it isn't possible in my car as far as I know.

Can anyone on latest software (1899?) confirm whether they can get their clocks to look like this?

You can do that on the older cars. Mine is a 21 plate and you can do this, but not from the instrument display settings.  You do it from the Nav. 

[JoeGTI]

How??!!

I can get the maps to display alright but the speedo and rev counter don’t display nicely like that with round clocks. They instead appear within ugly rectangles (I’ll grab a pic next time I’m in the car)

[joet]

How??!!

I can get the maps to display alright but the speedo and rev counter don’t display nicely like that with round clocks. They instead appear within ugly rectangles (I’ll grab a pic next time I’m in the car)

Same here on my April 21 CS. Only ugly rectangles

[fredgroves]

Can anyone on latest software (1899?) confirm whether they can get their clocks to look like this?

Its not software, its the display unit itself.... the newest Golfs can do it, not the older ones.

No idea why, it is just graphics in code.... but hey, VW.

[Colh]

Sorry I misread it.  Ugly rectangles for me too

[BillSan]

My CS is a 21 plate.  I have no hope at all that VW will fix the Bongs, as it seems to be a combination of poor software and hardware.  The software could probably be fixed, given suitable investment (in time and money) but I think the parts causing the problems are fundamental to the cars electronics and would cost VW too much to repair the millions of cars that they've already sold.

They may get better/more suitable parts for later cars and I'd expect any Mk8.5 to be Bong free.

Older cars like mine will always be flawed and anybody buying one will need to live with it.  I miss Travel Assist for long journeys but other than that I've learned to live with the problems.

[SRGTD]

My CS is a 21 plate.  I have no hope at all that VW will fix the Bongs, as it seems to be a combination of poor software and hardware.  The software could probably be fixed, given suitable investment (in time and money) but I think the parts causing the problems are fundamental to the cars electronics and would cost VW too much to repair the millions of cars that they've already sold.

They may get better/more suitable parts for later cars and I'd expect any Mk8.5 to be Bong free.

Older cars like mine will always be flawed and anybody buying one will need to live with it.  I miss Travel Assist for long journeys but other than that I've learned to live with the problems.

Sadly, I think you’re right.

I wouldn’t buy a mk8 Golf or any of its current generation VAG MQB-based ‘siblings’ that share the same hardware / software for that very reason. Ongoing bongs and pings would annoy the hell out of me, and when you think they’ve been fixed they may return; in some cars with a vengeance.

To sum up the mk8 Golf - a car with Marmite looks IMHO (I’ve never been a fan of the front end), very accomplished dynamically but let down by its software .

[fredgroves]

What I don't really understand is:

a) what is the root cause of the problem? Its definitely something software related as this wave of insanity started with the last software update

b) why VW seem to be so slow at attempting any fixes and even are unable to communicate with their customers

I think the ultimate reason is that they are trying to operate in a software world when they still have a car makers mindset - "we get something wrong, we fix it by the next iteration of our car, f*** the buyers of the last one they will buy the new one anyway"

In the world of software you wouldn't last long with this attitude.

[M6TT F]

Without wishing to tempt fate, my Formentor is completely bong free, so far. So it’s not everything across the platform that’s affected