Sparking Noise and Infortainment restarts

[zen200sx]

We have a 2020 Arona Ex Lux which has keyless entry and push start.

The car was purchased as used from Seat main dealer in July 2021 but only had 10 miles when I purchased it, so its a pre purchased vehicle but sat on their forecourt for 9 months.

The car has this strange issue and its been getting worse over time.

Randomly when starting and stopping the car there is a sound which resembles 2 jump leads being touched (sparking sound) which appear to come from the passenger side speaker area it seems. Also the infotainment system restarts sometimes, but not all the time.

This generally only happens at the start or end of a trip and not whilst driving.

The purchasing Seat garage advised to get seat assist out to look in Dec 2021 and they said its probably a software update needed but they couldn't do it so the vehicle was booked into the local SEAT JCB ASHFORD dealer to the update.

SEAT JCB did the update, but the car came back with the same issue.

The vehicle was therefore taken back to SEAT JCB and booked in for a few days in Jan 2022, but they were unable to fix the fault and said that its a relay that's causing the issue, but they said as they have a colleague whos VW GOLF does the same its a characteristic of some VAG cars and they would not replace the relay under warranty as its not broken. They said the relay is to do with the keyless entry system.

Personally I feel that they have no clue what the issue is or how to fix it, but 7 months on and the car still has this issue and i want it fixed before the 3 year warranty expires.

Does anyone on here have any clue, experience of a similar issue on their VAG/Seat vehicle and if so what was the fix?

Thanks for reading.

Phil

 

[Seriously?]

If it is a relay, then a sparking noise suggests that the contacts are arcing. If that's the case it's a problem that will only get worse as the contacts will continually be eroded by the spark. It will also cause electrical 'noise', which might be the reason your infotainment is throwing a wobbly (although infotainment issues in VW group cars are well documented and not necessarily connected with the issue you raise).
I've got a central heating controller at home that does the same thing and interferes with our DAB radio in the kitchen. Replacement is the only solution.
Either way, it is a fault and not just a "characteristic of the car" ( I love that catch-all cop out that garages like to use)

 

[Tell]

On our 2019 Arona I have nuerilised the stop start as I've done on my Ateca. "The voltage method" set to 12 volts and stops stop start from kicking in. Reckon that would work on a 2020 Arona only the Leon 4s and Formentor have they stopped you from coding it out.

As Serious above the infotainment might be the mib3 type, no SD slots in the glovebox it's a mib3. They can be problematic. Firmware updates may fix that one. So that's a secondary problem un related.