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Back in March when I got the Tesla I was asked if I would do a post about how it was going. Obviously events have meant I have yet to get much driving done, though we did manage to fit in a trip over to Belfast so I do have somethign on which to report. First up, having driven a Leaf for the last two years I am used to the instant torque and crazy accelaration, though the model 3 takes this to a level where I have yet to have the nerve to fully floor it. It is that powerful, mine is the base version so it only has 245 bhp. Handover was in the first week of lockdown, so it was totally touchless. I had to wait outside at a distance, they brought the car out, and then went back inside before I could approach the car and drive away (having paid the night before). Firstly, you'll have heard of issues with build quality. Right now it seems that Tesla haven't a clue about quality control and it is a lottery whether you get one that's perfect or a nightmare. In fairness most of the issues are related to the bodywork and the cars are driveable. It's not like a mechanical failure on an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle. Mine had:- 1) a scratch across the boot 2) a mis aligned bonnet (frunk) 3) the nose of the car hadn't had dirt removed before they painted it so it needed a new front end 4) driver's door misaligned 5) driver's door window wouldn'tclose properly 6) a rear quarter panel mis aligned 7) and it later emerged there was insufficient coolant in the battery cooling system (more of which below) These were all reported at handover - something you do via the app, and then attach photos. Tesla then allocate a repair appointment. The repair process is actually very slick though it was not great to have so much chance to witness it. Having had 10 Skodas starting with an Estelle and finishing with a 2015 Octavia I have never been accustomed to this level of defects. It was also filthy inside, covered in dust and grime from transit. I put this down to the fact that they were trying to minimise exposure to covid. The first appointment available due to COVID was 2 months later. 8 weeks passed and at the end of May they took the car in (touchless again) . They fixed the door and the window but the rest would have to await parts. More weeks, and then months, passed and since the defects were by now just cosmetic I didn't chase them. Last week, at the end of August, the car started whining and buzzing really loudly. It sounded like there were fans running and there was a lot of liquid gurgling sounds. I asked on a Tesla forum and was told off by Tesla fanboys - "all normal", "stop moaning". Basically don't question the sacred Tesla, if there's a fault I was told, the car will tell you via the screen. Except it didn't and there really was a fault. I logged it with a video. Within 12 hours an engineer phoned, they had connected to the car, run tests and established that the coolant level was very low. Seriously impressive. So a service appointment was booked, and I asked about all the other faults. "Faults? We've got no record of any faults?" Turns out they had forgotten totally. The merits of dealing with a new company that is selling cars as fast as it can make them. They then fixed everything within a week. So this week I have had my car fully repaired, everything looks like it should and they have filled the coolant to the level it shoud have had when it left the factory. So what to make of it? Well it is phenomenally efficient. EVs measure economy in miles per kWh (Tesla use Wh per mile but they just have to be different it seems). My leaf was pretty good and in the Summer would get around 4.5 miles per kWh, in the winter 3.8 was normal. So far since March I have been getting around 7 miles per kWh in the tesla. The equivalent in MPG terms is somewhere in excess of 200 MPG - Impressive. I can't comment on the supercharger network as they are few and far between in Scotand and I have been using the standrad Scottish Government chargers instead. Not all of them though because again Tesla haven't complied 100% with standards because quite a few of the older chargers simpoly do not detect that the car is connected. Driving it is different from any other car I have driven due to the large central screen, but you quickly get used to it. It's not though as good in many respects as Android Auto which I had in the leaf and the Octavia. Yiou ahve to pay £120 extra per year for data connectivity to use spotify or Tune in, no other apps are available. I used to use waze and pocket casts but those are not available to me. Elon says there's no need. Spotify is available but it si not as good as normal spotify, your music is in an entirely random order, nothing as boring as being in alphabetical order. You can of course use voice commands exceot they don't work anything like as reliably as google's version.One example, today I said "play Radio Scotland" to get the radio retuned. It played something called Hooked on a Feeling by a Swedish folk band. Don't even try asking it to navigate "command not understood". I aksed it to navigate to Drumnadrochit (ok that's a tough one but google can do it) - it thought I was trying to say something about a drunken doorkit and said it didn't understand. The excuse given to justify the 15 inch screen instead of buttons is that yuou'r esupposed to use voice commands, but in my experience they work only around 20% of the time. I can turn the heating up and down but pretty much nothing else works. ANother issue is that the sat nav is, well, pretty random. Not all the time but a heck of a lot of it. I asked it for a route from my house to my parents, around 12 miles. It suggested a 70 mile detour to the other side of Scotland. Like I say, random. When we went to Northern Ireland, the obviosu route is via the M77 and A77 - not for Tesla, It suggested a variety of B roads. Often re planning the route produces a more sensibke route but the point is if it is doing this on routes I do know how can I trust it when I am in strange territory? Answer is I can't. So i have gone back to mounting my phone in a cradle and using that as my sat nav. speaking of phones, like many people I have 2, one for work and a personal phone. In Skoda and Nissan I could connect both to bluetooth at the same time. WHichever one rang it was OK I could answer hands free. In the tech marvel that is the Tesla?? Sorry, only one connection at a time. Baffling. Speaking of Northern Ireland, that was somethign of a nightmare. We have done the trip in a leaf without issue, but the leaf uses the much older chademo charge port, rather then the eurpen standard CCS which is in the tesla. For unknown reasons Northern Ireland has only 14 rapid chargers, that's bad, but only half of them have CCS, the other half afre CCS and chademo. To make matters worse many of them are in shop car parks and these are locked shut when the shops close. In a SUnday you can only charge from 1pm to 5pm. More of a criticism of NI than Tesla but coming from Scotland where we have a very pro EV governmen and charging hubs springing up around the country it was a shock to the system. So how would I sum it up? It is an amazing car, probably the most advanced car I have ever owned, and yet lacking in every day tech like a sat nav that works or smart phone integration. Telsa want you to use their system and pay £120 per year extra for it. It is also badly let down by the abysmal quality control. Quite how they can send cars out of the factory with dirt underneath the paintwor is beyond me. Taking 5 months to fix it? Well it was cosmetic so didn't stop me using the car but it is hardly ideal. I had been due to buy a VW ID3 but they messed me around no end and couldn't guarantee I would get a car so I jumped ship. Now that the ID3 is arriving I am feelign a touch of regret. The model 3 is bigger than I really need and the VW would probably be a better fit with my needs. And yet 0-60 in 5 seconds is fun when you have a BMW M3 trying to ride your back bumper. Bottom line though is that with the SKoda Enyaq coming in December and more models likely in 2021 they are going to face a lot more competition. Even now cars like the e niro have a 7 year warranty and on a 50 kW charger it wil actually charge faster than the Tesla (don't tell the fanboys but this is true I have seen it with my own eyes).. Actually that last part may change on my car now that Tesla have actually filled it with the collant fluid it should have had from day 1, as I understand it that is used to both warm and cool the battery to keep it at the optimum charnign temperature. SO it's a mixed bag, it is impressive, and frustrating. I'm in a £40k+ car where I have to use my phone to navigate and a bluetooth headset to ensure I can answer both phones. I had to wait 5 months to get the car in a state which it would have been had there been a proper PDI carried out. But the way you can ghet a diagnosis remotely from a Tesla engineer is very impressive. But competition is growing and Tesla won't have it all their own way for long. Polestar 2 is starting to arrive in numbers and VW will be delivering at scale by the end of 2020. Would I buy another one? On balance, probably not. PS I forgot to add, not only does Spotify cost you an extra £120 a year, the car comes with no spare wheel, no tyre repair kit and you're advised to take out separate recovery as Tesla recovery will only recover you within 50 miles of a Tesla service centre (there's none on Norhtern Ireland and only one in Scotland (ie 33% of the UK land mass)

Briskoda Tree Odo porn is now acceptable in this thread, we will be at 2222 before long 🤘 https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/482615-offsetting-briskodas-environmental-impact-or-planting-trees-for-posts

Right, four of a kind for the Green Machine today having remembered with about 0.15 of a mile to go and a parking space on left that was long enough to roll into and it to tick over just at end of it. First pic, then after a short wait....

Welcome. Which type of Fabia do you have? Engine, year etc. I think that's the vent valve, to do with opening and sealing the tank, for the evaporative emissions control system. Normally unscrewing the cap changes it from open to closed (or vice-versa, not sure) and refitting the cap changes it back. Some people have found, by accident or deliberately, that pushing that with the fuel filling nozzle as you refill the tank lets more air out and increases the amount of fuel you can get in there. For petrol models this can have bad consequences, to do with the charcoal canister.

In reality, something pretty low. For popping to the shops etc, it's not needed at all. The reality is It's used for comfortable overtaking when required (of which the frequency is low) and needless acceleration when I'm on my own, just to make me smile. I also have a young family (a 1 and a 3yr old) and drive like a grandad with them in the car. My point was not to buy a vRS, I know that's over and above what is needed. My point is that even running a vRS is not particularly expensive and therefore for those times when the power is needed I think the cost is well worthwhile for me. However for many people it's not. But I don't get the advantage of the 1.0 over 1.4 even for the majority. Purchase prices and running costs are very similar but the day to day difference will be night and day. I had a 1.0 TSI as a hire car a few years back and on a ~350 mile round trip I only got low 40s as I just had to push it so hard to keep up with the flow of traffic. It wasn't as terrible to drive as I thought it would be tbh but there wasn't any real advantage to the loss of power/annoyance it did have.

Problem solved, the nut was loose. I must of cracked it yesterday and didn't realize 🤣

It's just as easy to get 3ph to a new build as single phase. Future proofing.......

It's a drain for the fuel filler so if you're filling up and the trigger kicks in a fuel spurts back or overflows slightly it'll go into the catchment and down the drain pipe and it will drip out next to the wheel below it. If it's a little blocked then use a pipe cleaner or use a high pressure air can which you use on a PC motherboard with its fine straw and give it a blast with that.

First practice at Monza. Mercs 1 & 2, Verstappen 5th after an 'off' into the barrier. Ferrari's 11th and 19th 1.2 & 2.2 seconds behind the fastest time. Sad times at Williams F1, but their glory days were when Frank and Patrick Head ran the show. Never going to forget Silverstone '87 when Mansell passed Piquet.

Beta testing is whatit feels like. They're on a mission to deliver autonomous driving and the customers are (willing) guinea pigs in many ways. When VAG get their backsides in gear they will give them a real run for their money. I had a pre booking for the ID 3 but had to cancel when they started to say I might not be gauranteed a car despite giving them money a year in advance. They cited Brexit as the reason for price uncertainty and lack of clarity over how many cars they would allocate to the UK. I baled out in Febriary and gave the money to Tesla. Now I'm not sure that was the wrong decision, if I had approached it with more scepticism and not swallowed the hype then I might have been less disappointed. It is by far the most expensive car I have ever bought so perhaps I was expecting too much? I dunno. Eagerly awaiting the Enyaq and its stable mates though. I would definitely not go back to petrol or diesel though, no way.

Sounds like the engineering for the drivetrain in the car is top notch but everything after that is in beta or budget mode. Many of the things you describe would be unacceptable on a £10k car, but on a £40k car pushed with many marketing millions Tesla should be embarrassed to produce a product so poorly finished. They might well struggle now the old manufacturers are bringing their electric game up. They (generally) know how to do QA better than this.

ah maybe I didn't explain that well enough...the stanav does work but produces some eye wateringly bizarre routing. I have used google maps to force it to replicate the tesla sat nav routing. I asked it for a route from Livingston to South QUeensferry (the two locations shown on the right of this map), it routed me via Kilmarnock (on the left hand side of this map). I suspect you may be right about my non use of the Tesla network, it came with 1000 free charging miles, but I have only used 300 of them, but that's due to the scarcity of Tesla chargers here which in turn is down to the excellent availability of the Scottish Government coordinated network). I certianly never had any charging availability issue with either a leaf or a zoe. The leaf issue was that it didn't thermally manage the battery, the zoe was that it was only designed to do 100 miles. The new zoe is a hugely impressive wee car.

I'm sad because it signals the end of an era really. Last of the garagistes. Also, there aren't many female team principles in high level motorsport, certainly none spring to mind (I don't count Formula-E )

Real world insight from a car user, not a tech fan.

finshed both sides, shows brightness in daylight... yes it’s an actual RRV 😬

Hi all - had this issue last year and it went away by itself - but has now turned up again. My remote car key won't open my Fabia. It will open the boot, but not the car doors. It will open the door only when I use the key on the driver's door itself - but then, if I don't start the ignition right away, then the car alarm sounds. I don't think it's my car key battery, but I will try this. Any other ideas? Thanks!

Whoever serviced it last probably did the shortcut rather than full reset which results in the car counting down 372 days or 9,400 miles from the last service 12 months ago. Dealers often do this on purpose to get customers to return sooner than they need to.

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/456868-noisy-folding-mirrors/

Yes hot air gun and fishing line and the old is off clean up new one on 👍

I've not got a link but got them from eBay they are T15 W16W 921 LED Car Bulbs for both

I see what you did there! Its been derailed!

Nah. They look fine. Normal wear and tear. Give them an occasional hammering to keep them clean. Tests the ABS at the same time.

Thanks, I solve the problems buying a male iso connector and one female and made the connections the wire of those adapters. In this way I avoided cut the original wire :)

You were spot on about this. I now much prefer the black roof, so glad they made the change.

Apologies if this isn’t the right place to post, I just thought I’d share the results of the eBay £30 LED sequential mirror indicators. ive been looking a king time for some of these and even posted on here asking around for them. Well fellow people I found them and here’s the results...

Yes the Yeti was available as a 1.2TSi 110PS Monte Carlo and it will have the 7 Speed, dry clutch DSG DQ200. Check there no clutch judder from start and the changes should be quick and crisp with no clutch slip. They are the two main issues this box sufferes with.

Then it will have a 7-speed, dry clutch transmission. Do not confuse this with the "old" type of automatic gearbox, which has a fluid flywheel and no clutch as such (colloquially called a "slush-box"). These were fine in their way, but because fluid flywheels are always "slipping" they are not so fuel efficient, and and could be very thirsty. The DSG transmission, on the other hand, is essentially a manual gearbox coupled to the engine through a clever double clutch, and the clutch operation and gear shifting is done automatically. In practice it gives almost imperceptible gear changes, very smooth, and can give even better fuel economy than the same car with a manual box. Incidentally, the DSG can be used as a manual if you wish. What you have picked up about 7-speed boxes being less reliable than 6-speed ones, is actually about the wet clutches versus the dry clutches. The gearboxes themselves are equally reliable. The dry clutches do suffer more wear than the wet ones because the "slip" relies on plate to lining friction (just as in a conventional clutch) while the wet clutches rely on oil-shear instead. But the dry clutches do not wear any more rapidly than a conventional one would... conventional clutches are dry, too. The DSG clutches are, however, very complex double clutches, machined to extremely fine tolerances, and some have had problems; remember, though, that there are millions and millions of these units out there giving no trouble at all....don't let the scare-mongers frighten you away! The 7-speed DSG, dry clutches and all, is superb, and you'll love it!.

Hello Alan, In theory, it's probably a good idea to get it done so that the car's records remain up to date but as always it pays to make sure that the dealer knows what they're doing. 😏

Great real world account of your experience. Indeed they have a real fanboi issue, and it's really hard to avoid on the internet. Honest brand based forums like Briskoda is hard to find. Shocking to hear they've forgotten about your issues! The satnav should work without subscribing to their premium connectivity? I think £120 per year only adds live traffic visualisation (they say it still takes live traffic into account when routing without paying) and streaming services. I've been thinking to use bluetooth for entertainment and the Tesla screen for satnav. I think not having access to supercharger network is your biggest reason feeling indifferent to the car and brand. Down south, it's either single stall chargers in a car park, unreliable ageing Ecotricity chargers or multi-stall Tesla chargers. For me personally, there is no way I'd replace my Skoda and repeat my Leaf long distance driving experiences relying on public charging network.

You could try rebooting the Columbus (if you haven't done so already) by holding down the < > and i keys. It's unlikely to resolve the problem but it's an easy first step. Assuming that doesn't work, you probably really need to scan with VCDS. It sounds like the system has been disconnected somewhere, but it might not be easy to spot. But VCDS should tell you if that's the problem or not.

not anything that ever prevents google understanding me. I was told on an army course that I had "a very strong accent which renders him unintelligible at times". I pointed out to the Colonel interviewing me that his accent was so plummy I struggled to follow him and he shouted "don't be ridiculous man, I don't have an accent I'm English". 🙂 I have an Edinburgh accent and work regularly with colleagues from across the UK as well as Government officials across the UK - no one has ever failed to grasp what I am saying. Going by Tesla forums the voice recognition is an issue right across the UK. The suggested remedy is usually to adopt an American accent which seems to have more success. THe lack of hatchback really hasn't bean an issue yet. THe boot is Octavia estate sized. I would struggle to load bikes in there but suitcases and bags are fine.

just about 3,000

I am no fan of PHEVs but 32 miles will cover the daily drive of a huge number of the UK driving population. If it helps clean up the air and save lives then I can accept it.

I think this dog guard will fit your criteria: https://www.travall.co.uk/skoda/travall-dog-guard-tdg1415

For you, yes, but then why spend time and effort posting on EV threads?

@domhnall things have been great with it. Driven 2,500 miles in less than 4 weeks since picking it up and no issues. The most ridiculous thing is there is no tripometer. Enjoyed ever mile of driving as none have been for anything other than pleasure and leisure.

early ones were Pirelli, P7's???, not sure on later ones, Bridgstone seems to lurking at the back of my mind.

My comments probably predate the advent of LEDs fitted into car lighting cluster, or as everyone "knows" LEDs last for almost ever - if these light clusters are designed and built correctly. Probably just a matter of time before a small business starts up offering a repair service - an opportunity for someone to fix some lights, maybe.

You can also get sided tyres, as well as LHD/RHD, symmetrical, asymmetrical and directional types. Thanks, AG Falco

if its the third (middle) brake light. They rarely fail but have been known to stop working when the ground terminal (E5 at base of LH 'C' pillar) in the boot has a poor connection The light itself is LED and rarely fails so, if the fuses are OK. (Left Hand fusebox F5, 5A) Check/clean the ground connection for corrosion. (This also goes for your boot light not coming on, especially in wet conditions.)

Absolutely, a hill be it uphill or downhill is just another flat road as far as the levelling systems are concerned, there is zero requirement to adjust the headlamp aim. Delete the erroneous sentence below and it reads correctly This system helps prevent headlights from pointing too far up or too far down when driving up or down hills

Sent to ecutuning, fault found, back in the car, lights off. Lifetime warranty on the unit now so hopefully that's sorted it. 😊

At least when I was logging the levelling system on my FL MK2 Octavia, it would dynamically react to acceleration/deceleration to keep the headlight range in check. That should also cover the weight transfer going up/down hill as it can adjust to keep the headlights a set angle from the road surface jut using the two level sensors. Take a look at graph I made ages ago, you can see larger changes in speed cause the headlight range/aim to change. As expected, they point up during braking and down during acceleration The AFS master coding seems to take into account being installed with MK70 'ABS' systems and MK60 'ABS + ESP' systems. The former has no pitch/roll/yaw data whereas the later does. That suggests it's at least receiving the data but I don't know what it does with it. As for bumps, I doubt the headlight motors can react quick enough to do anything meaningful to avoid brief moments of glare but the system might aim slightly low to reduce glare when the suspension is working hard. If I remember correctly, the sensors run at 200Hz which gives an idea of the maximum plausible adjustment rate. Obviously I have no data to back this theory up The latest AFS versions can include 'predictive lighting' where satnav data is used to predict where the headlights will need to point due to up coming corners etc. It's plausible they can react to upcoming crests and dips. I've also seen examples where the lane assist camera can pick out the taillights of a car in from and adjust the headlight height from those too. These features can all be implemented with xenon/bi-xenon or led/bi-led headlights. Matrix lights are fun as they can turn individual LEDs on/off to give permanent high beams without glare. However, the SSL technology is even better and give incredibly fine control of light distribution including the ability to show warning signs etc on the road ahead.

You’ll get conflicting advice! stop start in association with DSG is IMHO absolutely fine. It’s clunky if you reactivate the engine on the throttle, but a tweak of the steering wheel restarts the engine and then you drive off smoothly. It can cut the engine before you stop, but as the power to the brakes and steering are still there, it makes no difference. If you think you’re going to want the engine to run again (say it cuts out as you come up to a roundabout) , just keep a bit of tension in the steering and it won’t activate. To me, all cars have their quirks that you have to adapt your driving style to to get the best out of, this is one of the Skoda’s. Re the pedal box, on my 150bhp diesel I’ve never found a problem with the throttle response. but plenty of people don’t agree - suggest you see how you feel once you’ve got used to the car. Tyres - agree P7 Pirelli’s are a bit sketchy in the wet (mainly when pulling away as opposed to outright grip ) and are a bit noisy on certain surfaces. But when I looked into changing them, it was about £600 for some Michelin Cross Climates and I decided they weren’t that bad! when I got my car I was convinced that I would need to get the car coded, pedal box etc. But after driving it a bit, decided for my style of driving I didn’t need to do these things. Only by using the car can you really determine whether the changes are worth it for you. So my advice is to get the car, drive it for 1,000 miles of so, and see how it fits with how you drive before diving in and getting coding done, pedal boxes, lowered suspension, and the myriad of “essential” things folk tell you you’ll need to do. if this sounds like I’m having a subtle dig at people who make these changes - I’m not - we all have different driving styles, techniques and expectations. It’s more that only you can decide whether the changes are worth it for you. They weren’t for me!

So day out a crail on sunday first time the car been drag racing since the new engine has been fitted. No real aims as i knew i'd have to re learn how to launch the car. Managed 13 runs all day with the fastest being 14.043 @ 110.3mph , fastest speed was 111.4mph so the car does not hang aroung. Had a few runs at 14.0 so seem to be a glass barrier for me as i couldn't break it. Traction was the biggest issue, car didn't get any traction till 3rd then it just seemed to take off as you can see in the videos vs M135i vs Stage 2 Fiesta ST vs Polo GTi vs Focus ST250 vs LET Corsa vs 310bhp stage 1 308 GTi couple of random runs and a shoot danny from Darkside Developments did

I rarely clean it as living in the UK God sends frequent heavy showers so it gets cleaned for free and in an enviromentally sound way. No snow foam for my Superb just good old acid rain.

Rolling over to five figures:

It only works if you think in Russian!!

Thank you all for the great comments. Finally collected it today after having a few minor bits buffed and touched up. @Stuart-h would love a remap. You never know what the future holds 😉 Fortunately @FUBAR there wasn't any used Dragon Skin Green Superb 280 Sportsline going 🤣 @phil7 test drives at present merely need your drivers licence. I test drove my car with my brother present and the sales guy didn't come with. So if there's a car you fancy or can get a test drive in then go for it.

I had this issue, variable service done but, service set to fixed, so 11 months on it's saying service due in 30 days. Spoke to dealer and "eventually" found out that even if if that interval is reset, the ECU monitors the cars driving style. mileage and oil condition to estimate when a new service is due, normally around 18,000 - 20,000 miles or 18-20 months. To reset Hold dash reset trip button in with ignition off Turn ignition on Shows "Reset Service Interval" Press trip reset twice - "quite quickly" Dash shows service interval set for 365 days Sorted 🙂