2025 Arona Special Edition 115 FR Ltd Edition - with some weird actions

Aug 3, 2025
7
2
Ive had the above since April, it was registered in January 2025 and returned to the dealership as buyer changed their mind. Its a manual gearbox.

When I first set the car up, My SEAT App would not let me become Primary User - seems the previous owner was.
I raised this with SEAT in Coventry, who tried some resets themselves and got the same problem.

The car unlocked the doors and boot over night, I signed in as myname used my PIN and went out, stopped quickly to shut the boot properly. I came back to the car after an hour to find it say Hello, rather than Hello nyname and did not ask for my PIN. When I got home I found the previous User was not listed and my additional user had disappeared. Since then the car chose to unlock the boot 3 further times, but leaves it on the catch.

Following another trip to the dealers they followed the official Reset Battery, Car, Keys and still had the same problem - they are now requesting a replacement M3 unit (I presume the infomation systems inners).

I don't drive that often, I had some time off work when it rained - I found the instructions to use the auto wiper function to be confusing. Driving in the rain felt odd, it felt like the car was driving according to the conditions. I also noted that the drivers wiper arm is set low - I have 2 to 2.5" strip of unclean windscreen on the drivers side by the A Pillar.

Other gremlins.

I was driving in a 30 mph zone, the speed monitor dropped to 5 mph, I had no warning beep. actual speed was 30mph. On another occasion I was on a a single carriage way running parallel to the motorway and was informed my speed should be 70mph. Driving around my sons village estate, I am faced with numerous warnings I am speeding because the car thinks it is 20 mph, or rather it will be at some point as there are no signs to say 20 mph.

Yesterday I went out to a Military Fair, I approached a village with Average Speed Cameras. I was in 6th I braked, slowed down to 30 mph and came back into 3rd Gear, at which point the car sped up to 35mph ... causing the speed beeper to go off. I slowed down quickly under the speed limit.

I have had the car stop me in an emergency when another car nudged forward very slightly on a side street. I presume thats a good thing, I was grateful the vehicle behind me was at a safe distance.

The other issue relates the rear camera, because of the wide angle, it makes the car impossible to park parallel to the kerb - I either park with the rear tyre on the kerb side and the front out about 4", or park 4" out at the rear and 8" out at the front.

Had the door open buzzer go off when sat close to a van in at traffic lights, no warnings on the display. Doors were all shut, shut off engine and start again.

I've sat in the car with the engine on and the infomation system turned off, it then starts telling me to add a user or add my pin number and keeps repeating that, turning the engine off had no effect as it came back on with a restart. I solved the problem by turning the infomation system back on.

Several times I have stopped at a destination and left the driver door closed whilst I listen to the radio - the car indicates the A for auto engine off and suggest restart manually.

The gear recommendation tells me I can go into 6th at 40mph, but 6th works below 30 mph and when you do this you cannot stop, the car appears to speed up slightly (as I mentioned above with the Average Speed Camera).

When I turn the steering wheel it reaches lock then I turn it a little more and it moves again - does this both ways.

Yesterday I noticed a new light on the infomation system top left looked like a warning similar to the self parking feature.

The car appears to be slow, that could be due to the ride height, although 4cm shouldn't make much difference. There is a worrying wine from the engine when pulling away fast, revs go up to 6000 rpm but seem to lack the increase in speed my previous car could do at 4000 rpm (Previous car2016 i20 SE).

With all these issues, you can imagine I'm not a happy owner. All I wanted on a new car within folding mirrors and a reversing camera on top of parking beepers; I got the Tardis instead. Hopefully once the Dealers get the module and solve the issues I expect the car to behave lol. I find the amount of information on the digital dash is to confusing - will try to turn off speed recognition and rely on my eyes on the signs rather than a computer telling me to speed or slow down to a crawl. 6th gear will be discussed with the dealer - whether thy can adjust a setting so 5th is the highest choice until say you reach 50mph?
 
Aug 3, 2025
7
2
I mentioned about turning the speed recognition off - you can, but then you have to turn it off every time you start. Bit of black tape on the display...?

To clarify the 6th gear issue, it might be that as I change down, it picks up the revs of the lower gear forcing an increase in speed? ie you need to go 6 5 4 3 rather than 6 3. if so that makes it a pointless gear to use on winding country A roads.

In the back of my mind I think the previous owner has done something to the car - otherwise their are hundreds of FR 115 ltd editions with the same faults
 

Glosphil

Active Member
Nov 10, 2004
489
222
Gloucestershire
You drive in 6th gear at 30mph!!! That's less than 1,000rpm. I won't use 6th at less than 50mph in my wife's 2019 Fabia with the same engine/gearbox. Nor would a friend with same combination in Polo.
 
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Aug 3, 2025
7
2
You drive in 6th gear at 30mph!!! That's less than 1,000rpm. I won't use 6th at less than 50mph in my wife's 2019 Fabia with the same engine/gearbox. Nor would a friend with same combination in Polo.
To be honest I thought new cars would be clever, this one clearly isn't why does it let me to change down ffs.
 

Glosphil

Active Member
Nov 10, 2004
489
222
Gloucestershire
If it's a manual car how is it supposed to stop changing into an inappropriate gear? The instrument display will show the suggested gear in all situations - in my experience often suggests to high a gear. It will also show when you should change up or down the gears.

How long have you been driving? Trying to use 6th gear at 30mpg suggest a you haven't been driving long.
 
Aug 3, 2025
7
2
Thats a bit of a rude question - Ive been driving for 39 years, I have never had a car with a 6 speed box before and had the Arona for 3 months, I'm learning it still. I have read the manual and it doesn't suggest speeds for 6th, its just optimised for consumption...

My concern here really is that why did the car speed up in third when dropping the gear from sixth?
 

Tell

Full Member
Staff member
Moderator
You got a Tardis... did you try the sonic screw driver 😉.

I can recognise some of your issues. You are driving with ACC on. The youngsters like that since they can glue themselves onto someone's bumper in front and follow. ACC I'd say is really designed for automatics else you will find yourself in the wrong gear as it slows the car up and speeds it up. That change of speed is governed by the speed of the car in front, the distance you have set, the digitised road speed it's reading from the built in maps and traffic sign recognition if fitted (TSR). Reading your text it sounds like you have that. I'd have to read the car spec, but I'll pass on that. Talking about tape to cover up the V shape camera so it must have it.

I drive with ACC turned off and it stays turned off that's in the Ateca 2016 model when you could buy all the bells and whistles which I did apart from the tow bracket. The Arona here is a 2019 model doesn't have TSR. Yours might be more luxury. Then you had to buy them as packages so you couldn't specify all the bells and whistles.

The issue with driving with ACC is if the road speed isnt digitised correctly or if it has TSR as well and in correctly reads a sign the car will respond. The 5 mph speeds will be when it thinks you are off road. When that bit of road isnt digitised or the cars recognition to the road is at fault with the map.

The Ateca with the mib2 high suddenly decided after a map update that the road I live in was 5 mph. Everytime I turned into it, bong, 5mph. No 5 mph signs that it was reading. I checked out the Here Maps they were digitised correctly. I got Here Maps to check them out as well. They agreed yes the maps are correct. The registration of the road to the GPS geography was correct. 5 mph is the default off road speed.

Mib2 high has an auto calibration feature where after a bit of back end work which you can't do in mib3 it has the ability to recalibrate the car to the road. I have seen this a few times after I have updated the maps. Last time it started off from home, bong off road. Next turn bong off road. Wasn't driving the car then, broke my shoulder bone so was a passenger, bong. Don't worry it will sort itself out. After half a mile it fitted the car back onto the digitised map and now the street is at the correct speed, no bong as I turn into it. It spent 4 years bonging at me ever time I turned into the home street. Calibration of the car to the road is pretty important since if it's not it will bong. Ditto if the map isnt digitised correctly for the piece of road you are on.

Well ofcourse the youngsters like ACC and Google Maps / Android Auto little do they realise the built in maps have a roll to play in the cars behaviour. Regenerative braking in hybrids and EVs is informed by the digitised in car road map.

So I suggest you turn ACC off and just use TSR if the car is fitted with it to indicate whether you are speeding or not based on traffic signs and digitised so speeds. I got lane assist and keep that off, it stays off. Newer cars after 2020 will default to that on. You can default that to off via coding but I got a suspicion that they may have stopped you entering the unit to do that now. Cars that come with SFD2.

Early Formentor and Leon 4 drivers were doing via coding to stop it defaulting "safety features" on. Stop start you can default to off but again Vag have taken steps to take that away. That I think was SFD 1. They change the Stop Start button to a modified one now that remembers it's turned off. Fakes the behaviour.

Well at some stage I'll be changing to an EV, no stop start but I reckon their will be pesky stuff turned on automatically that I wont be able to turn off unless I manually do it each time I start a trip. Have to research that at the time.

I didnt cover Front Assist. You mentioned that with the car sticking its nose out. You get more warnings in wet conditions since side foliage bounces back the radar signal. I have had turning lorries well off the road in a lorry park start the squel off. I have a suspicion that the dealer might have turned the sensitivity of that down since it's not so bad as it first was. Just wet foliage on bends in roads. That's a here we go moment. Other occasions it has stopped the car when it should have done. Heavy braking in front whilst checking the right at roundabouts or the copilot air plane watching and not driving the car by looking at the road in front. Have no complaints on that.

Blind sport issues. You might not come across this yet. The rear radar that does blind spot and rear cross will turn itself off if the signal is judged to be blocked by mud or a high bank. Front assist if blocked by rain warns you, front assist is not available. Rear cross / blind spot toggles itself off. I dont reckon they will have changed that in recent models. Mud you clean the tail side of the car where the radar is so it can see out again, toggle back on.

The day of the silage lorries on a single track road reversing to let them go past, high banks in the Arona, toggled them off. Technical assistance was to hand. I think that's the high banks turning off rear cross / blind spot. We did have the car nearly embed in a bank to let the silage lorries past. Rural life, silage must get through after harvesting it's a rural cattle feed production line running. Moral there. Never drive up a single track road if it could be silage harvesting time. The car hadn't hit the bank, but rear cross turned itself off because it deemed the radar was inoperable. Blocked.

Mib3 issues we dont have... not a mib3.
 
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