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Owned the Roomie from new since 2013 and I can say it has been a pleasure and the most reliable and least expensive vehicle I have owned. Apart from dealer services I have spent nothing on repairs, I admit it has only travelled 40k but everything is original apart from one number plate bulb which blew and tyres. It comfortable cruises around Europe up to Mount Blanc and down to Lake Geneva without a murmur. Would a buy another Skoda- most certainly

No rust there ... she’s a keeper 🤣

Simple enough to just flip them on their roof and let a Police Examiner and loss adjuster give them a good inspection.

Passed this on the way to work this morning. Shame I hadn't set the trip at the right place. (89.0 miles). but still.

@shyVRS245 I leased from Motability the more expensive e-Corsa with the cloak of invisibility and no show without more go as in the Peugeot e-208 GT (not GT Line which is cheaper.) Advance payments have changed 3 times in the past 3 quarters, i have ended up paying more because the price at order is fixed, but now if i ordered one it would be £900 less. (It was a 11kW onboard charger one i ordered, but these are not built yet so i had to re-order.) Loads of bargains available now with Motability for EV's, but diesels and hybrids advance payments are up quite high. The e-Corsa drives different to the e-208 and has more standard spec and no silly dash, steering wheel and un-comfy light coloured seats. All that glitters is not gold it can be a diamond in a goats arse. I have driven most of the available EV's now, and the e-2008 & DS3 e-tense included and got what i was wanting, but i could really of chosen any of the many under £40,000 EV's that are available. I want for the fun to drive one that will allow me to do 400 miles or so with just 1 rapid charge during a day.

EV range is increasing all of the time. As mentioned higher up in the thread I reckon 140 worst case and over 200 best case, depending on the time of year etc. I regularly do over 100 mile round trips and finding charging points on longer journeys is not much trouble. The trip to Scotland I mentioned will be easy as a little research has identified various rapid chargers at each waypoint. The fact that these points are free to use is the iceing on the cake.

Mine is a Motability car, leased through their scheme.

A better update,,, Skoda UK and repairing delaer said they wouldn't offer any more goodwill. The dealer I bought the car from refused to offer any support at all and the used sales manager there has not returned my call yesterday, as promised. So I won't buy any more cars from Marshall in Northampton and suggest anyone else considering doing so keeps my experience in mind. I decided to phone Skoda Approved Warranty (0333 043 3782) and spoke to a very helpful chap. He informed me that no warranty claim had so far been made and was clear that dealers should not be making decisions about what is and isn't warrantable, on their behalf. I described the issue and he agreed to phone the repairing dealer on my behalf to urge them to make a warranty claim. Less than five minutes after finishing speaking with me the repairing dealer phoned back offering their sincere apologies. Apparently they didn't understand the extent of warranty coverage(!) and confirming that the flywheel and associated parts and labour were being covered by warranty. They also offered a good discount on a replacement clutch and related ancilliaries. All in all I am looking at £200 rather than £2k initially or £1k after goodwill. An unexpected bill but in theory there is some betterment as a result and I think overall a good result. I've reported the outcome back to Skoda UK. I spoke to two different customer service people during the process. One was not very knowledgeable or helpful, the other was both of these things and has now transferred my case into their name and is exploring a further goodwill gesture on account of the my experience over the past few days. It just goes to show that sometimes it's not the facts of the situation which matter, but who you speak to. In this case, my phoning the warranty team directly was crucial in achieving a fair outcome.

I am genuinely happy for anyone who buys or rents an EV and perhaps when I retire I will sell both of our petrol cars and get one for the short commute to the shops.

As EV price comes closer and closer to petrol car prices, with more instant power and driving refinement, yet cheaper running cost, it's sad some people are still cynical about switching to the suprior drivetrain. The only downside for EV's is once in a blue moon, you may need to plan your long distance journey. It would cover vast majority of people's daily uses perfectly.

If I'm spending it anyway, what do I care?

Hi everyone! I thought it would be good to provide an update about my experience with the new car, for anyone thinking about getting an EV: The car itself - very happy with it! Ride and refinement excellent. Tech very good and all works. Buttons not the best for responsiveness and menus for everything as they all seem to be doing. I love the driving style of an electric car. Don't need to use the brake pedal much, with regenerative braking, instant response and serene driving experience. The best bit - Being tight, I try to use free charging as much as possible. Most bigger supermarkets offer this now and many towns have free charging points available too. I'm hoping to get a few days in Scotland next month where rapid public charging is all free! Working out my mileage since getting the car on 02/03/20 and the end of June, working out what I've actually paid for electricity in that time (via the Pod Point App), gives me an equivalent mpg figure of 250!!! This is better than I ever expected. If I get to Scotland next month I will do around 1,000 miles. I will fully charge before I leave and then when I get home. All of the 1,000 miles inbetween will be free. It's crazy, isn't it? I understand and appreciate that the government will look to replace their lost revenue once they have enough people using EVs. I reckon there's a way to go yet for that point to be reached. In the meantime, I'm going to take advantage of the current (geddit?) situation as much as possible. My wallet thinks it's Christmas every month! Best to all! Peter.

Here is a quick look at the new Octavia 4. I will have two more detail videos for you later. Enjoy! 😀

Well, I'm going to be leaving team Skoda soon. I'm expecting my new car on 1st March. I've got my order in for a new DS3 Crossback E-Tense, the electric version of this model. I had a test drive last week and thought it was an extremely comfortable, relaxed and quiet drive. A bit slower than the vRS though with 8.9 seconds 0-62 and a top speed of 93mph ☹️. To be honest, the main appeal is saving money. I do loads of short runs and overall have averaged 31mpg at an average of 17p per mile. The DS3 should work out somewhere around 3.5p to 4p per mile so I will be saving a fortune 😀. It's proving difficult to find a true dual tariff contract that's not a rip off. I'm with EDF now who do an electric car drivers tariff. I've costed it out using the last full year's consumption and adding 10k miles per annum on with the electric car. A good saving? Not likely!! It worked out at £28 MORE than my current single rate tariff! Why? Because the daily standing charges are both higher, gas is dearer and the electricity peak rate is a chunk more expensive too. I'm gonna have to widen the net considerably to try to find something better. Some of you may remember my promise when I joined the forum that I would never buy another Skoda after the experience I had with their customer service department. I've kept my word. Even if Skoda had a comparable offering, I wouldn't have considered it. I'm a firm believer that the only way manufacturers will ever change is if their order books get hit. I appreciate that one customer is neither here nor there but you can only do what you can do. I wish you all the very best for Christmas and the New Year. I've had some good banter on here and firmly believe that this is probably the best forum I've ever been a part of. Ho, ho, ho! Peter. 🎅

Not shown on the photos, but the car does have 2 plastic plates covering the left and right side, from the front to the rear wheels. Approximately, 75% of the middle underbody is protected by them. Not sure about the other variants, but since my car has a 3.6 engine (two exhaust pipes, two cats etc. and the 4x4 system, maybe there aren't full body plates available for it, rather two separate ones - for each side of the car, the middle portion left open).

I purchased the genuine armrest from the Skoda dealer for £139 which is cheaper than anywhere else I could find. I thought I'd put the installation instructions on here in case anyone else was thinking about fitting it. It took me 2 hours to fit taking my time, I used a boring tool instead of a drill and I didn't torque the screws to 1.5Nm (not sure how I would do that!) but someone more competent than me could do it in 1 hour or less. I'd even say anyone could do it. By far the most difficult part was #25, it's incredibly fiddly and took 10 minutes to get each screw into the hole, but that may just be my incompetence. It's definitely a huge quality of life improvement, I don't think I could go back to driving without it. Only negative aspect perhaps is that it is pretty slim, cant really be shared with a passenger

@horkin not sure where you’re based but saw this Fabia up the other day! It’s only on 11k and it’s a 1.2 TSI DSG hatch! Maybe worth looking at if you get a chance - https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202002147322432 Theres seems to be a few sub 9k on there that meet what you’re looking for!

The shank on the tap is small diameter so you cannot be sure that the tap will run square to the carrier This is what should be bushed to centralise in the caliper hole. Also if the drill does not cut square to the carrier and does not run concentric (centred) in the guide pin hole you could get slide stiction issues. Agree than hammering in not the correct method. Would like to see the instructions for use of the other system mrgf showed, looks like some sort of jig included to increase accuracy.

Hi I’ve updated a couple of times in my previous Sportline and now L & K via memory stick which on all occasions was very hit and miss ( mostly miss ). This week I’ve put a WiFi powerline adaptor in the garage and connected the car directly to this and Used a the online update to only update “England South” and “England North, Ireland” , some 984MB which took about 20/30 minutes to finish downloading and stopped so I locked the car and returned a couple of hours later to find all was finished ok and England updates were no longer in the list of available countries. Now they are showing ECE 2020/2021.

My Superb 190TSI L & K was first registered 12 Dec 2019 and became mine in Feb 2020 and having hardly used in the months of lockdown during the last couple of days I suddenly noticed the predictive cruise and was very impressed. Driving routes that I know very well it was popping up messages about bends ahead and coming up with very comfortable speeds and achieving them for some of the tighter corners. The car can access the web and I am assuming that it has installed in a recent update - or was it there all the time and I only recently accidentally turned it on! I'm loving it either way!

Chris message sent👍

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axle_track#:~:text=The axle track in automobiles,roadwheels on the same axle.&text=In a vehicle with two," and "rear track". The measurement of a car's track is not taken by reference to the car's axle. For example, the Smart 452 Roadster uses the same axle arrangement as the Smart 450 ForTwo. However, the Roadster has a 38mm bigger rear track. The only difference causing this difference is the offset of the rear rims. The Roadster uses 19mm less offset each side, thereby giving the increased rear track of 38mm over the narrower Smart 450 ForTwo. The offset of the rear rims on a Smart 450 ForTwo is ET(-)1 whereas the offset of the rear rims on a Smart 452 Roadster is ET(-)20. Notice, that these rims use a negative offset, whereas most cars nowadays use a positive offset. Only if you fitted rims with an offset of ET0 (ie. zero offset) would the track correspond to the axle width.

I've got a 280 and I changed the oil on the DSG and Haldex at 40,000 miles myself (as I wasn't sure whether anyone had done it). Further info here:

I was watching a video about the MK8 Golf last week and it has lost the bonnet struts that it has had for years; and gone back to a cheap rod. The video was from Europe so maybe it is not across all markets, but still amusing if Golf and Octavia have 'swapped'.

Many thanks for all the very helpful responses. I will definitely discuss the all-season ones with my husband, as this is his main car and we live in the West Yorkshire moors. I have a TTS and run a winter set of wheels and can really appreciate the difference over summer tyres on our muddy, often wet and sometimes icy/snowy roads. So far we've had 16,000 miles off the Turanzas with slightly less wear at the rear, but we haven't rotated them (and probably should next time around). I think we can probably expect 20,000 from these, but my husband likes to adopt a more 'sporty driving style' and so much more than this is unlikely ;) Good to hear about the Michelin Primacy too - that is excellent durability. I was surprised that the current Turanzas that are factory fit aren't XL - I presume we could replace with either though.

A couple of questions how many miles did you get from the Bridgestones and have you had to rotate them? I only ask because our front-wheel drive petrol 1.5TSi SEL came with 215/50R18 Michelin Primacy 3 tyres which I rotated at 17,500 miles IIRC and they have so far done 25,800 miles and will probably need replacing at 30,000 miles which is pretty good and I may well go with the Michelin's again due to excellent economy (car is currently averaging almost 50mpg with a range of 550 miles from the smaller 50 litre tank) and longevity.

I'd always choose all season tyres over summer tyres unless you're prepared to change from summer to winter and back each year. And I'm really annoyed that Skoda don't offer all-season tyres on their new cars! If Michelin make CrossClimate+ or CrossClimateSUV in your size, they'd be my choice after having them on my present car. They should last for a couple of years, so the cost is less important to me than the better grip in cold weather. Chris

Agreed, our 07 plate is a cracker and in much better general condition than our 10 plate Yeti with far far less rust underneath. Only complaint from me is it's cramped inside and very low to the ground

At least the Octavia Mk4 is finally getting what the Superb has had for years under bonnet sound insulation and bonnet struts instead of the cumbersome and cheap rod stay.

@peterhardy I just need to not get any points on my license in the next 3 years, so 'mostly' in ECO for me, A/C off, stick in 'B' and not even risking it for a biscuit on the most out of the way mountain passes with miles of views. Heated seats and steering wheel will be a help in colder weather, but then i don't need to drive an EV if proper wintery.

I haven't 😁. Tbh, I'm really enjoying being much more laid back in my driving style. I just let the idiots go on their own sweet way and happily pull over to let the 'want to drive in your boot' numpties past. That doesn't stop me turning the air blue but I try to shake my head and think of my blood pressure more these days 🤣.

What this means is that the ODIS work and CP has been done but the radio menu options will need coding to your car. I don’t really recommend this is a first time coding job and there are no instructions, it’s a case of scanning the old radio then copying over the relevant parts to the new one (isn’t a complete copy and paste as some stuff will be different). OBDEleven with the PRO pack will do it (you don’t use credits with PRO, that’s only for pre written apps that you should never, ever use!) but VCDS will be better. One wrong move with either can be damaging though so please tread carefully.

Fully confirmed

Cars are deeply personal. One person loves their new car is great for them. But what I find interesting is that in most EV related threads, across all different forums, people like to use a lot of first person perspective to justify their own personal choice, using "I" "my". It's almost as though people felt the need to belittle other people's deeply personal choice just because they have chosen a different type of powertrain. You don't see much of this with a new petrol or diesel car.

Check out ecotricity for genuine renewable energy tariffs, unlike most others "green" energy providers, if you want to be truly green.

No fix applied - definitely don’t want it “fixed” given some of the feedback I have heard. My fabia is maintained but a very good local independent garage who are not VAG specialists but do an excellent job. cheers

Chris... I've got the V12 map update in my possession, arrived yesterday but haven't got around to installing it yet. Apparently it needs a couple of hours to install, I'll get to it today and report back how it went.

If you still get oil pressure warnings with new switch, get the sump off and clean out or replace the pick up pipe.

Replace the oil pressure sensor, failure is common and a new one is cheap, you can get rid of the coolant level lamp by shorting the tank sensor plug contacts together.

It's the sensor, don't bother tearing the car apart to top up fluid that isn't leaking, a low fluid level doesn't put the warning lamp on and you have a definitive fault code, the sensor is much cheaper than the pump, take it to a different garage.

I believe that the CrossClimates only come in the SUV version for that tyre size, and I think they’re pretty expensive. Our Karoq is the non-4x4 version, which has 215 tyres rather than 225. There weren’t any CrossClimates available at all in that size when I was looking for all season tyres last autumn. So I went with Vredestein Quatrac Pro all-season tyres instead. We haven’t had any snowy or icy conditions to test them out yet, but they scored very highly in various reviews. One advantage compared to the CrossClimates is that the tread is not directional, so you can put one on your spare wheel (if you have one), and you’ll be able to use it on either the right side or the left side of the car, which you wouldn’t be able to do with a CrossClimate. I think I paid just over £100 plus fitting for my Vredestein Quatrac Pro tyres in size 215/50 R18.

It adds character (and hides the dents).

Seconded re Michelin CrossClimate

If you got a 2.0 petrol mk1 that was an MOT failure and for breaking - that's a good start ! Even a mk4 Golf GTi that is for breaking - Putting cams and upgrading a 1.4 is a money pit and very little gain - Make sure the donor car is a runner and work from there ! If you are relying on the car as a daily driver bear this in mind as to do this sort of conversion will take a right few weeks ! Try and think of all the pitfalls and good luck !!

My wife's 190 TDI SE L came on those same Bridgestones. However, I changed them over for the winter and fitted 17' wheels with Dunlop Winter Sport D5 which are great tyres. I bought a Yeti earlier this year and fitted it with Michelin CrossClimate+. If you're going to fit All Seasons, I think it'd be hard to find anything better than those. As ever, YMMV.

Tell you tomorrow when i do mine

That's a lovely colour! Got a delivery of some poorboy's products so gave him a good clean. Need a good paint polish, any recommendations? Used to use Autoglym resin polish on previous cars but was a hassle to buff off.

i've got the 2.0 TSI 190PS sportline and it's a very very nice car to drive the 4x4 is great you can go into the corners better at speed the 7speed DSG is very good had know trouble with it at all All in all a great car and you get a lot of standard spec as for mapping one 250PS is not a problem maybe 300 PS probably but will need to map the DSG to get the best out of it

Following with interest, my front door handles whilst not loose creak horribly when pulled or pushed to open or close the door. Seems it doesn't affect all Kodiaq's though so perhaps the design was improved at some point. Your photo illustrates perfectly Skoda's schoolboy error, the handle is formed by two clam shells, it's hard brittle plastic. If I was tasked with providing a solution for making something to move, flex and therefore squeak as much as possible then I'd imagine I'd end up with an identical design.

Another Mk1 VRS Fabia off to the great scrapyard in the skye (deliberate typo).