Tips for new Enyaq / EV owner

[ricky10]

Charge at home as much as you can. Like religiously.

Get a granny charger anyways to tide you over while you getting a DC wall charger installed.

Also keep the granny charger in the car as it comes handy on holiday trips. There are places you can plug into 3pin and get that bit of top up - every little helps.

Super markets usually have cheaper 7kw or 11kw chargers. Some places even offer free charging so take advantage of that.

Charge to 100% before big trips otherwise keep it between 20-80%

Don’t bother with B mode. It’s not as efficient as coasting in D mode.

Learn to use the regen paddle effectively. And learn to take advantage of goign down a hill.

Get EV tarriff or go on octopus tracker. Octopus tracker will likely result in similar electricity bill if you do circa 8000miles a year and use about 10kwh/day for the house. More house usage means cheaper rate on tracker and more mileage means cheaper on EV tariff.

[Goaty]

I’d recommend adding Auto Hold as one of your shortcuts. Auto Hold is useful when you want the Enyaq to stay still at traffic lights etc, but a bit of a pain when you’re trying to parallel park into a tight space for example and it suddenly slams the brakes on !! (Hence I turn it off when performing such manoeuvres )

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[Jonsson]

Use your brakes. Some EV-religious people think that NOT using your brakes is a good thing. Well, if you don't use your brakes enough they will with time corrode, seize up and require maintenance. Without proper brake function you don't have functioning stability controll either. Use your brakes and you will recoup some of the energy while retaining the health of your brakes.

[Ken3966]

Use your brakes. Some EV-religious people think that NOT using your brakes is a good thing. Well, if you don't use your brakes enough they will with time corrode, seize up and require maintenance. Without proper brake function you don't have functioning stability controll either. Use your brakes and you will recoup some of the energy while retaining the health of your brakes.

That’s not strictly true. All light braking is done by regeneration. Even the brake lights don’t come on until you regenerate harder with the brake pedal.
Proper brakes only start to work once braking requires more than regeneration alone.

But you are right, some firmer braking is a good idea to keep the brakes in good condition.
Those who manage to drive in B mode all the time hardly using physical brakes may well get problems eventually.

[ricky10]

Rear wheels are drums they don’t rust like the front discs. Visual check regularly should prevent such issues tbh

[Jonsson]

Rear wheels are drums they don’t rust like the front discs. Visual check regularly should prevent such issues tbh

Just got word yesterday from our dealership that our replacement brake drums, that were out of stock, have come in. We're getting them replaced on our four month old Enyaq. I can't really see how you as an owner could do a regular visual check to see if your calipers are functioning correctly - there is a wheel, a brake disk and a shield in the way - or if, as on my Ioniq, the inner brake pads didn't actually touch the brake disks, causing them to corrode. I just had them replaced last week but they had done 130000kms so that's still ok.

[peters_enyaq]

On YouTube there is a blog called:
Speicher elektrisiert
His videos are in German and English, very good information regarding Enyaqs

[ZheMan]

Thanks everyone for your replies so far!

I've had the 80 for almost 2 months now and after 1.7K KM (~ 1K miles) of mostly city miles I think it's great! It was a In Stock purchase with a 15K Euro discount since the new models were coming in shortly but it has almost all the Basic options installed and I'm really happy with it.

Below some observations I've had about the car:

The Good:

• I got a car with the Arctic Silver paint scheme. Initially I wasn't happy with the choice but once I saw it in person I fell in love with it.

• Interior is great. The Loft interior still looks and feels high quality for it being the entry level option

• ACC works great in town once I disabled the "Adjust speed according to road signs" option, however the braking still feels a little agresive. I know it's not meant to be used in stop & go traffic, but it works.

• To add to the ACC, it seems I always get better "fuel economy" when I use the ACC to get up to speed rather than pressing on the gas myself.

• Acceleration is really zippy at slower speeds. I knew it wasn't gonna be as fast as a model 3, but pleasantly surprised by how quick it is in town.

• I love using the paddles to adjust Regen / coasting to a red light. It's fun to see just how much I can maximise regen when stopping.

• Unfortunately I live in an apartment complex so public chargers are my only option, but I did find a free AC charger around 10 minutes from my home, so the last 200 KW have basically been free for me.

The Bad:

• Man, the cold and AC on 19C just eats through the SoC. If it's Sub Zero outside it gets even worse. Realistically, I don't think I could get more than 180 KM (~ 100 miles) at 80% SoC, in stop and go traffic with the AC on. If I didn't find that free charger it would hurt.

• Braking with the regen set to Auto seems to not maximise the amount of regen. Only option I found to maximise it is to hit the paddles and switch to manual regen before braking.

• Long Beam automatic switch was not included with the car. They want 300 Euro to unlock it in the Shop. I'd like to have it, but I like the money more

• The tailgate gets really dirty really fast due to the aerodynamics behind the car.

• The app's lack of functionality: You can turn the AC on, which is great, but it's missing the Lock / Unlock, Honk and Flash functionality that ICE cars have.

• Software in the car is slow to initialise but once it gets going, it mostly works. A lot zippier than the other VW group cars (not the latest ones). Carplay is great.

The Ugly:

• Automatic window wipers seem to stop working whenever it wants in the rain and I have to turn it off and on in order to get it to start wiping again. The Dealer said I should not keep them on Automatic when it's not raining but that really defeats the purpose of them being automatic, doesn't it.

• The entire frontal touch sensor for the lights stops working a few minutes after getting in the car. The dealer acknowledged the problem but is still waiting for confirmation from the factory to change it under warranty.

• Projected Range in KM (Or miles) is way off in the winter. It always says I can get more than 300 KM with the AC on but in practice I've noticed it's more like 160-180, starting from 80% SoC.

• I haven't figured out a way to turn on the Clima system with Ventilation only in mind, to reduce electricity use during winter times. I could live with just the seat and steering wheel heating when driving on my own if it wasn't for the windows fogging ). If it turn off the AC option in the Clima menu the electricity use stays the same as with it on.

Question: I generally use Waze when driving but since it's not integrated with the Car Systems it doe not give me any estimates for range or charging options when setting it up for a longer trip. Can I trust the cars navigation system to automatically recommend charging points for longer trips or should I plan everything out on my own? Seeing as the range estimates in winter times have been quite off I'm not to keen to end up stranded somewhere.

To note: I am in Romania so no PowerPass options are available. Stuck running the however many charging apps are needed for public charging .

[Aragorn]

• Braking with the regen set to Auto seems to not maximise the amount of regen. Only option I found to maximise it is to hit the paddles and switch to manual regen before braking.

if you disable Eco Assist it'll stick to the regen setting you select. I much prefer this as it makes things very consistent when lifting off the throttle pedal. EcoAssist/Auto-regen means the amount of regen varies too much for me and its quite disconcerting.

However in any drive mode, using the brake pedal will first use any remaining regen before activating the mechanical brakes.