Joined the club - first impressions and queries

[paultoon]

Hi all,

Picked up my ID.3 yesterday and did my first 60 miles so thought I'd post my first impressions (and queries). Also, as I've been "lurking" on this forum for a few months, I want to say thanks to everyone for posting on here, it's been really useful.

I went for a Family Pro Performance in Manganese Grey and added East Derry alloys. I ordered on 5 August and was scheduled to get it on 5 November, but ended up getting it yesterday, so almost 6 months.

Just for background, this is my first EV, I've had several Golfs, and my last car was a Ford Focus ST-Line 1.0 Ecoboost (great car to drive).

First impressions of the ID.3 were really good. Easy and fun to drive, enjoyed using the ACC (after I realised "RES" means "RESUME" not "RESET"!) and the other driver assistance features. Very nippy, handled motorway and city driving really well. Perhaps not quite as fun as my Focus but a bit easier to drive - effortless really.

A few gripes, obviously! First, when I picked the car up from the dealer it didn't look like it had been cleaned and valeted - swirls of wax on the outside, bits of mud and a layer of dust inside. And the dealer couldn't set up the WeConnect app, so I had to wait to get home and look it up online. (Thanks for the advice on here guys!)

Unfortunately, the mechanism for moving the driver's seat up and down is broken (and the seat plastic is scratched behind the lever where they've tried to force it) so that will need to be booked in for repair. New mechanism or completely new seat?

Also - no mats included. I already knew about this, but it's not good for a £30k+ car.

It's probably worth mentioning what I did get in the car: Charging cable (Type 2-to-Type 2, not measured but I think about 4 metres?), wheel jack, tyre repair kit, first aid kit, warning triangle and hi-vis vest.

In the glovebox there's a mini wallet containing a little "readme" book, not so much a manual, useful only for identifying warning lights really. The first page has space for vehicle details and dealer's stamp but mine is blank. There is no service log book. Is this correct? Is it all "online" now?

Speaking of the "glovebox", it's not really a proper glovebox is it? As others have said, VW hasn't bothered moving the fuse box from left to right for the UK right-hand drive car, so you only get half a glovebox, which isn't big enough to fit a standard logbook in, and can barely fit a pair of glasses in a case. It's about 20cm wide, smaller than A5 size (so you would need to fold an A4 letter in 4 to fit it in!). So there's nowhere really to fit any paperwork you might want to carry. The centre console storage has quickly been filled with glasses, sunglasses, phone charging cable etc. The little netting caddy seems a bit useless. So I was very surprised to find storage a bit lacking.

The biggest gripe is definitely the lack of proper buttons and dials. The haptic things on the steering wheel just aren't as good as proper buttons, and the sliders for the temperature and pano roof are terrible! Really difficult (and dangerous!) to try to use when driving. I actually find the infotainment system to be quite responsive, but I kept accidentally brushing my hand on the sliders underneath.

Other things: The so-called "scratchy plastic" on the interior doesn't really bother me. I don't really go round scratching my fingernails on the car! It's not luxurious, but it's comfortable. Infotainment and navigation seem fine. Boot space is ample, probably bigger than I expected. I can't get the wing mirrors to lower when reversing, even when I've got the driver's side mirror selected, so need to keep playing around with that. Still got a lot to learn.

One question about charging: How do you set the car to only charge overnight at off-peak hours? I.E. if you plug it in at 5pm it doesn't start charging until 11pm or whatever.

Anyway, that's quite enough for now. Looking forward to getting going on my ID.3 journey....!

[Bromsgroveuser]

The mirror dipping has to be set with the control on lhs and reverse engaged , set the mirror to where you want it and that's that , at for setting charging time using the car settings forget it , it is useless use your charger to do it if you can, this is supposed to be correct in update 3

[MotMot]

The haptic buttons on the steering wheel also operate as touch sliders… that was a game changer for me on the buttons vs touch argument. Simply brilliant to mute the sound with a swipe - and increase/decrease cruise speed in 5mph notches with a swipe. Great feature.

I only touch the centre sliders to occasionally tweak the temp now…

Oh and a two finger double tap on the temp slider is a shortcut for the heated seats.

[sidehaas]

Re: the charging cable. I think it should be 5m type 2 that comes with the car. Worth checking - if it's only 4m, then it won't stretch if you park front-on to a charge point. 5m will (my tethered cable at home is 5m and I have to park front-on.)
Re: timed charging, the car's timed charging does not work and you need to do it using your charger. If you don't have a smart charger you could experiment with the car software but received wisdom is it won't work properly, at least until the car gets updated to software 3.0.
I quite like the haptic controls (including the Pano roof slider - my son loves that) but lack of backlighting on the central console slider is annoying.

[G43FAN]

I quite like the haptic controls (including the Pano roof slider - my son loves that)

And if not you've always got 'Show me the stars'...

[paultoon]

Thanks for the tips. Will try setting the mirrors, and using the steering wheel controls as sliders. Yes I'm sure the cable is 5 metres.

As for the charging, my "smart" charger is a BP Chargemaster, which doesn't even seen to have an app? You can log in to the website so will see if there are settings on there.

[Tabletop]

Re charging. Go to vehicle/charging/locations and set your home location, then for that location scroll down and you get a list of schedule options. I use this reliably. Plug in early evening, charging set between 00:30 and 04:30

[paultoon]

Re charging. Go to vehicle/charging/locations and set your home location, then for that location scroll down and you get a list of schedule options. I use this reliably. Plug in early evening, charging set between 00:30 and 04:30

Thank you, will try!