Infotainment screen failure

[NeilS]

Hi,

This is my first post. I have a 2018 registered Karoq which I bought in February 2020 and by far it has been the best car I have ever owned. It's my 5th car (and 4th Skoda) having had 3 Fabias and then I made a horrid mistake of owning a Suzuki S-Cross for 4 years before returning to Skoda.

My Karoq has been brilliant and in the summer of 2023 we drove from home (Hertfordshire) to Croatia and back again and I couldn't have been in a better car to do the job! Most importantly the built in sat-nav covers all of Europe and was in itself indispensable.

But shortly before Christmas the screen went wrong, sometimes it would be black, sometimes a glow and sometimes lines of various colours. The system hasn't completely failed because despite the display not working the touchscreen does still work; therefore because I know the positions of our favourite radio stations and the quick dial I can make some calls via Bluetooth however its use is limited.

I have checked behind the unit and checked that there were no loose connections but all in all it looks like I need to have the Infotainment system changed. Unfortunately my local Skoda dealership's service department want to charge £225 to simply run a diagnostic and then talk me through my options as it could be a "software fault" according to them. Well I'm a software guy and I know that it's knackered, in my opinion it just needs replacing.

The question I have is; can I simply buy a new Infotainment device and replace it myself or is there more to it than that? i.e. needs to run an external software installation?

See attached

Thanks,

Neil

[mart4856]

I am inclined to think that the LCD display has failed but the touchscreen is still working. Whether you or a specialist firm can simply replace the display i think is quite likely. This is likely to be cheaper than buying a new or used head unit.

I had the reverse situation on my wife's Mazda and I bought a new touchscreen and replaced it myself for about £45 with the aid of a YouTube video and some patience. There was no need to update the firmware and I would suspect this to be the same for replacing an LCD. My other options where £1200 from Mazda to fit a new head unit or £150 from eBay for a used screen.

[NeilS]

Thanks for your reply. I can get a replacement unit for a little over £200, physically swapping out the current one for a new one would take me 5 minutes. I suspect that if I go to my local Skoda dealership's service centre they'd mark up the price for the unit, take half a day's labour and add VAT would probably cost me over £600. If it's a case of plug and play I'd do it myself but if I'd need specialist software/firmware to be installed it's unlikely I'd be able to complete the full task myself.

[IanW]

Any replacement system will almost certainly need recoding to the car.
Might be worth a look here ]ttps://www.satnavsystems.com/diagnostics-repairs/

[mart4856]

Thanks for your reply. I can get a replacement unit for a little over £200, physically swapping out the current one for a new one would take me 5 minutes. I suspect that if I go to my local Skoda dealership's service centre they'd mark up the price for the unit, take half a day's labour and add VAT would probably cost me over £600. If it's a case of plug and play I'd do it myself but if I'd need specialist software/firmware to be installed it's unlikely I'd be able to complete the full task myself.

That's pretty reasonable for a replacement unit but as mentioned above it will most likely need coding but still you should be able to get it all done for less than £250-300. Not cheap but a bargain compared to the main dealer option.

I would then stick the old unit on eBay as spares or repair to get some money back as someone will be able to fix it or use the parts.

[NeilS]

I've sent a query to the website that IanW mentioned, they're based about 20 miles from where I live, I'll wait to see what they say.