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Definitely not a DIY job, the system must first be vacuumed-out (usually for several hours or overnight) to remove any moisture after replacing the condenser and the drier - the vacuuming also confirms if the system will hold pressure or not - then the correct gas/lubricant charge has to be measured into the system. All the above requires specialist equipment.

Picking the sweet spot is the aim.

You'll certainly use it a lot, since towing destroys the range.

Really quite small, not much bigger than a shoe box. Certainly lesson learned about charging up when one stops for even 15 minutes and half full if it is going to give one enough to complete the whole journey and battery is going to be warm to accept good charge rate although the charging from 59% to 90% or invariably slower than the charging from 19% to 50% is the reality. Nice cheap sub 10p a KWh today and looks even cheaper for tomorrow 4th of September and even cheaper than that, possibly negative, on the weekend ahead. Hopefully some plunge pricing at public charges due to over abundance of wind and solar generation as we approach the autumnal equinox.

Tesco was not the only supermarket with duff fuel. I once cross-fuelled a diesel car and had to be towed to an AA depot, where they drained the tank and flushed the fuel lines before I could continue my journey. I was actually on my way to a job interview in Birmingham at the time 🫨.

Tow one of these behind you

Only of fuel pumps giving engine wrecking fuel as Tescos did and I think there gas been other similar instances. DC and AC charges seem to work or not work and I have not heard of battery wrecking over amperage or over voltages thankfully. EVs systems seem good at controlling the amperage and voltages where ICE vehicles will readily accept contaminated fuel, fuel with water in it or the wrong fuel entirely petrol in a diesel car is it not but other way round does not happen due to different nozzle sizes.

Hi guys and gals. Not posted on here for a while as my 2016 Skoda Octavia estate, has been issue free since I bought it 6 years ago. Just recently though, the infotainment system has been playing up. It switches on no problem, but takes ages to load from the sd card 2 where I store my music. It also turns itself off and on when I am driving, meaning that I have no sat nav. This happens every few minutes now, but it turns itself back on again straight away, only for it to repeat the same operation minutes later. I have checked YouTube and performed the reset by pressing and holding the on off button until it switches itself back on, but it’s still doing it. It’s driving me crazy. Any advice would be most welcome. Cheers Skiprat.😉

All of the issues with duff chargers, etc., have been reported before by @Evolution13 and by one or two others, plus numerous vloggers such as Dave Takes It On, etc., and yet still there are those who live in denial and often complain that these events never happen and the grid can cope perfectly. Only today @Evolution13 mentioned that he was sharing a 22KWH charger but was only actually getting 3KW each, and he regularly posts about issues with chargers, etc. When has anybody ever heard about a pump spitting out fuel at dramatically reduced rate because of an ICE car pulling up on the opposite side of a pump at the same time?

Still adding weight and taking up space in an already pretty small boot. Better not to try and not play "count the pennies saved" by avoiding that little extra top-up to give yourself that safety margin. Come on you know the rule: keep the battery between 20% and 80%, and there's the ABC rule (always be charging) whenever you stop.

My a/c condenser has a leak, it's been checked and it's not the compressor or the evaporator core. The system is empty no pressure in it. How hard is it to replace it, I was thinking of doing it myself (haven't looked into yet) as the garage wants £355, plus the condenser, plus the gas. All told over £700, I was thinking after replacing it I could get one of those kits from Amazon to recharge it. Has anyone replaced one and can give some tips, be much obliged or do you think it's a no go for diy?

Skoda Octavia 2019 MK 3.5

Not the 5 kwh battery with 6 kw supply but the little sub 20 kg power supplies, only longer journeys, no problem, don't take up much space, make sure one has the tyre pressures pumped up but one is only adding 1% or so to the weight as most EVs are already in the 1.5T to 2T zone. Not like the days when my mini, ford escort etc weight less than half the current vehicle weights. Would only be on those odd months I do a 200 miles plus journey having learnt that public chargers are still nowhere near 99% reliable.

Hi. I’ve managed in one go to crack the windscreen and break the passenger side bonnet latch on my daughter’s Scala. Don’t ask how!! I have a replacement hood latch lower portion and wondered if there was any guidance on fitting. In particular it looks like there are two slots for release cables but I have so far only seen one cable on the broken part. Photo shows the two slots.

Hi all, I'm getting intermittent P200200 fault codes and occasional CEL that resets with Torque or OBDEleven apps for a couple of regens. From what I can tell online, this indicates a EGR blockage/fault issue rather than DPF itself. VAG DPF app shows that measured soot climbs faster than calculated soot in the DPF - the measured often going negative after a proper DPF regen. Soot mass is <60% according to the app, so seems like DPF doesn't imminently need work. Car is at ~110k miles and no plans to change in the next couple of years - the sensible answer is to keep it as long as it's a reliable workhorse. What I'm pondering over is how much money to sink into resolution. New EGR valve/cooler? Cleaned EGR/cooler (s this a thing?) New EGR and new/cleaned DPF. I'm happy to spend money on what actually needs fixing, but I have trust issues with unnecessary fixes, and snake-oil "DPF cleaning" salesmen, and so on... Does anyone have any experience, thoughts or wisdom? I use a small local garage for general servicing, but not a specialist - so any recommendations near Nottingham are also welcome. BW, Jono

I can't believe you are suggesting the average person will carry that lot about... What a load of tosh

Having been let down by Gridserve twice last Sunday, chargers said payment verified, took my ten pound deposit then said not playing, very poor service. They are suppose, like all CSPs, to be 99% reliable but they clearly are not. Whwether it is Grid overload or Russian hacking or too much local load to take on another EV on that bank of chargers it is a mystery as to what happens when the DC charger shout not playing. 5 days later these £10 deposits are showing pending or processing. Crap. Should have gone to the Tesla chargers at Frankley, even at peak time they are only 66p per KWh, 34P at the 10 pm to 7:59 am period. Made several charging mistakes that day but at least I know the real limti of my Urban 40 Kwh R5 which proved to be just over 20 miles past 0% SoC being shown. Got going again thanks to my VTOMAN 2200W which supplied 8A on my granny charger ie just under 2 KW supply for about 20 minutes which, presumably with a bit of chemical recovery in the depleted battery got me the last half mile home no problem. Did not even bother to put in the VTOMAN 2200 slave battery which would give me a total of 3 KWh and as each weights less than 18 Kgs are easyish to carry. Their day job is saving money on downstairs larger electricity consuming devices ie TV, my computer setup but not the Sky, BT or router as they are low powered but good to be able to pop them in the boot, even the Mini's boot, and take that power out to where it is needed. Need power units which are atleast half as big again ie with more than 3 KW stable output and a 2 KWh battery capacity so over 4KWh in total. Hopefully not over 22 Kgs in weight plus more solar than the VTOMAN 2200W one which can only take 400W of solar. Expect there will be megadeals for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Wpould also like to add a portable ie on wheel but probably 50 Kgs or so home battery to add to my smaller one already have. The Aferiy PH062 looks a bit of kit... Should pay for itself in a few years and give me peace of mind if we actually get the blackouts we got close to this summer. Not too difficult to move to a new house. I could genuinely charge the EVs with gathered solar electricity with this and even at 3.7 KW or maybe more. 5.12kWh LiFePO4 battery with up to 6,000 charge cycles for long-lasting performance 6200W AC output power to support high-power home appliances and backup needs Up to 6500W PV input with built-in 120A MPPT solar charge controller for efficient solar charging Dual AC outputs with pure sine wave inverter for stable and reliable power supply Portable design with built-in handles and universal wheels for easy movement Smart BMS provides comprehensive protection for the battery and entire system Supports WiFi & GPRS connectivity with smart app control Wide PV input voltage range (60–500V DC) for flexible solar system integration Dust protection kit included, suitable for harsh outdoor environments RGB lights clearly indicate different operating modes Dimensions (H × W × D): 780 × 440 × 230mm; Net weight: 58.5kg

12years, 50000km, EA888 Gen2 1.8t, 6at Such perfect !!!

What a load of total guff IMHO, unless maybe doing some world travelling in a region that is not the UK. Scotland just happens to have 32 local authorities and many of these have no commitment to helping get to net zero with the upkeep of public ev chargers. £5 minimum charge here and i am at £6 after nearly 3 hours. Now 12 kWh of a charge. The other car must have unplugged and now i am getting 6 kW i expect.

Getting economic and logical to carry a power station and ones own solar panels perhaps. With the right battery ie one that can supply 3.7 kws, and granny cable doing 16A and maybe some foldout portable solar panels one can have an onboard backup in the boot. Also versions of onboard software coming out every few months and updated battery packs every 2 years the problem goes away.

I think they went a bit mad and stripped stuff out in the 24 model year facelift - our late 23 SEL has front parking sensors and I recall there was other stuff missing from the facelift version. I forget what now - did they come down a level in the digital dash? I was surprised the Kamiq SEL came with one as standard that was a hefty upgrade cost in Karoq SEL. So I guess they've gradually brought stuff back.

To be fair, you’d be able to check the oil on any flat surface, be it the cargo hold of a 747 or the deck of an aircraft carrier.

That is not what you want to see is it, so further delays in getting a decent charge

I'm trying to troubleshoot a niggle with my 2006 Octavia VRS, that only happens when starting the car after it's already warm. I'll try get a decent video/audio of the symptoms as soon as I can, but wondered/hoped if anyone would recognise the problem from a brief description. Octavia VRS 2.0 TFSI / MK2 2006 / EA113 / BWA / Manual / 123k miles / Stage 1 remap. 2-3 second stumble/chugging sound when engine is started whilst already being warm/recently used. Sounds like the engine is either getting too much or not enough of something, before sorting itself out and settling. Normal cold starts are generally fine. Normal running/driving is fine and still pulls strongly. Symptoms first occurred in May 2026 - the first day of the really hot weather (I'd spent around four hours throughout the day driving mostly short journeys, some fairly "spirited" driving). No relevant error codes. Work already done in the last 12 months (some required, some preventative maintenance): cam belt and water pump, four new injectors, cam follower, PCV, intake carbon clean, spark plugs, coil packs, stage 1 remap and diverter valve (GFB DV+), new battery, EVAP valve checked and clear, vacuum system passed a smoke test. Other minor niggles: throttle lift-off/overrun feels a little rough/jerky sometimes; temp gauge sometimes drops to 70-80 on motorway journeys. My local garage have had the car in twice for diagnostics and couldn't identify the problem. Had it earlier this week, after I asked them to check for the thermostat sticking/failing, to double-check the EVAP valve, and to check that the GFB DV+ diverter valve wasn't sticking (all suggestions from forum research, and ChatGPT/Gemini), but the garage couldn't find anything obviously wrong. I was very tempted to get them to replace the thermostat and EVAP/N80 valve anyway, since they're fairly inexpensive (parts and labour), but they advised that unless I want a full engine rebuild, it's probably best to stop chasing little niggles if the car generally runs fine. A separate VW/Skoda/Audi specialist also had the car for a week (a couple of months ago, to replace the fuel injectors and perform a carbon clean/walnut blast) and couldn't replicate the chugging sound either. Presumably because they didn't restart the car after it was already warm. They also mentioned that the intake manifold motor/actuator was sticking a bit, so they took it out, cleaned it up, lubricated, etc and put it back in (doing whatever reset/coding was necessary too), and said to keep an eye on any related error codes popping back up. So far, nothing. Does this startup chugging sound familiar to anyone? I'm trying to not just throw parts at it and hope for the best, as I've spent enough already. I'd just like to get these last few niggles sorted out, then I can relax a bit - until the next time, haha! Thanks in advance. I'm very much not a mechanic - just stuff I've read online. Any help is greatly appreciated.

PS. So 45 minutes & it had charged 2.2 kWh. The other car plugged in is a 28 kW 2020 Hyundai Ionic and with 22 kW charger is only giving us 3 kW each not even 6 kW each. So likely in 5 hours plugged in max I get is 15 kW at 55 pence a kWh. I will be heading 4 miles to the Farm Shop to get a charge in the DC @ 55 pence a kWh.