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Welcome back, oh wearied reader, to yet another instalment of absolute dribblings. On that note let us get into things. So yeah, we all know what I did to it in Wales. Since then, I have replaced the wishbone and the shock absorber, both of which were bent. The boomerang shaped track rod was subjected to much fire, much swearing, and much hammer to straighten it back out somewhat. It's straight *enough* and is no doubt participating with the console bushes in scrubbing my tyres smoother than a Harry Hill's scalp, although it looks just as straight as before (and it wasn't). However, that'll get dealt with when finances allow, as I've not got two shillings to rub together thanks to renewing insurance and other "fun" things. A new track rod is next month's problem. Along with the bushes. It'll go for both at the once. Anyways, what else have I done since then? Well it's done 380 miles since the repairs, handling it like a champion. Even showing up a Golf GTI somehow. (no Mustang Slayer here ). Fitted a footrest too, will add photographs later. And have just been driving it, and hoping it doesn't blow up. Fine an' dandy.

CTS turbo inlet pipe and hose fitted. Didn’t need the hose but the inlet pipe makes a noticeable increase of intake sound and once tuned will add more power.

My preference would be the Vredestein Quatrac 6 as they can often last over 45,000 miles (depending on driving style), but if you are replacing just two tyres and already have four Hankook all-season tyres fitted then perhaps go for the Hankook's. One big benefit of using all-season tyres for low mileage users, is that unlike summer tyres they don't crack after just a few years. My current Vredestein Quatrac 3 all-season tyres still haven't cracked after 11 years, but my previous Michelin summer tyres cracked after only 5 years and had to be replaced even though they still had a lot of tread depth remaining. Hankook Kinergy 4S 2 H750 225/50R17 98V XL https://www.camskill.co.uk/m140b0s8019p164790/Hankook_Tyres_All_Season_Car_Hankook_Kinergy_4S_2_H750_225_50_R17_98V_XL_FR_TL_Fuel_Eff_%3A_C_Wet_Grip%3A_B_NoiseClass%3A_B_Noise%3A_72dB Vredestein Quatrac 6 225/50R17 98V XL https://www.camskill.co.uk/m140b0s8019p221178/Vredestein_Tyres_All_Season_Car_Vredestein_Quatrac_6_225_50_R17_98V_XL_TL_Fuel_Eff_%3A_C_Wet_Grip%3A_B_NoiseClass%3A_B_Noise%3A_71dB

Oh, now I've managed to find it a 03/2013 manual. It looks to be a feature of early MK3 Octavia's where the bonnet will pop up slightly to try and prevent injury. Given it only operates at 30-55 kph, I'd suggest driving over cattle grids slowly Al mention was removed in the 05/2013 manual so assuming your profile is correct and you have a 2019 car, this system is no longer fitted Section from a 03/2013 manual for those who are curious: edit: If you do want to check, you can see the differences pretty clearly if you open the bonnet. Example images are here:

Save us from Emmetts and Grockels.

For those whinging about charging in Cornwall etc, here is a user maintained map of charging HUBS down that way. There are plenty of single or double rapids down there too. The problem is lemming tourists all turning up at the same chargers to "charge over lunch" at the same time. There were no queues at the 16 charger Osprey hub at Buckfastleigh for instance. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1JFz9IAoX8-vjav4aSMsiJ6u0mQuYIWE&usp=sharing

Had a conversation with Marshall's Newbury about this the other day in reference to one of our company cars (Mk3.5 SEL 1.6TDI) The official line from Skoda UK is 140k miles. It used to be 5 years, but they have now gone to mileage rather than time. The same guidance for both Petrol and Diesel. One of the Senior Tech's said that cambelts are now so good, very strong, kevlar reinforced, that most have little or no degredation when thay do change them out. Much better than the days of my old Mk2 Cavaliers with a 30k interval......

theree's a new sainsburys site near there that has (I think) 6 ultra rapids. At the same time as there were long queues at the services there was only one car at the sainsburys site if it helps for context on my return trip from France last weekend I queued 20 minutes for diesel in Birmingham

Plymouth, next to the Cornish border, has quite a lot of EV chargers and we are awaiting the full Gridserve 32 or so chargers dedicated facility which has planning permission at Home Park Plymouth but Gridserve, usually notable for their motorway charging points, and since Cornwall and Devon have only a little motorway ie M5 and the A30 and A38 are the main trunk roads but two weeks ago Gridserve "opened"their facility at end of Bodmin bypass ie the so called Cornwall Services. Teething issues reported but once sorted should be the "go to" place with its 1 MWh on site mega-battery to help keep power outputs It is on the A30, which most use for Cornwall rather than the A38 which I tend to use as a Janner ie Plymouth/Devon person but a very welcome facility especially to us Zoe owners who can use either CCS DC or the AC outlets which their are half a dozen of either plus 3 LEAF connectors, when they are all sorted out after these teething problems. Good nosh stop there too. Not an issue for me as going from Plymouth to Lands End and back is do-able in the Zoe.ZE50. https://www.cornwall-services.com/gridserve/

Drive it like you stolen it... Sounds like it needs to be treated with a bit more stick.....

“It’s about X kg of CO2 per kWh of battery” Yeah mate, very well referenced number pulled out of your backside. The correction had to be made, because it was a mistake so fundamental, there is no excuse in the first place. If only he had double checked his figures and conclusion with reputable sources.

Hi, I've had several mk1 Octavia's over the years but a few years ago owned a BMW 3-series with a heated steering wheel. Wow...what a thing to have and a real solution to the raynaud's that I suffer with in the winter. Anyway..I sold the BMW and ended up in a mk3 Leon for a bit. I managed to retrofit a HSW to that car and wrote a how-to guide on the seatcupra.net forum. The Leon has now gone - because obviously I wanted to be back in an Octavia - and I have completed the same retrofit in my 2017 FL vRS, using some of the same parts. Got to love MQB platform sharing! So this how to guide is basically a rewritten version of the guide for the Leon, utilising some of the same pictures, albeit the Skoda specific ones are included. I'm going to say that this will work on any MQB platform Octavia, but I'm thinking you will need a 'high' level BCM to get it to work and probably heated seats as a minimum. Can't be 100% certain, but it was a straightforward fit on my vRS (with winter pack). Anyway...here goes: It's actually a really easy retrofit once you get the right parts and if you look around it needn't be mega expensive. The total cost for me to do this retrofit was in the region of £450. So it's not the cheapest by any stretch however if you keep an eye out on eBay and other selling sites the parts do come up for sale at reasonable prices. *I'm not writing this as an idiots guide and won't include how-to's for things like removing the glovebox, airbag, steering wheel or other things. There are guides for that online if you need them, but please only attempt this if you're competent to do so* This retrofit details the procedure for fitting the HSW from a mk3 Octavia/Superb. The mk4 platform wheels may well work however I preferred to keep the wheel and MFSW buttons that matched my car. Parts Required: - The heated steering wheel from a Mk3 Octavia or Mk3 Superb. They are available in both manual and DSG however if you want a flat bottomed one then it'll be DSG only as far as I can tell. I couldn't find a manual flat bottomed HSW anywhere. There are a variety of part numbers but as an easy reference you're looking for the tell-tale two-pin plug that provides power to the heating elements, like this: I bought one from a manual Octavia and sent it off to Royal Steering Wheels to be retrimmed in vRS leather with red stitching (you can see the plug in the below picture too). It's worth noting that if you want a retrim you will end up with a slightly thicker steering wheel because it's not possible to remove the leather from a HSW without damaging the elements. So the retrim leather is laid on top of the existing wheel. The heat still penetrates through without issue: - The HSW specific airbag for the steering wheel - part number is 6V0 880 201 T 1ZY. God knows why but Skoda, in their wisdom, use a different airbag because the wheel is a different shape at the top. This picture shows the differences - the HSW specific airbag is at the bottom of the picture: - Steering wheel control module (also known as clock spring or slip ring) - 5Q0 953 549 B or 5Q0 953 549 D. The 'D' suffix is the newest part number, supercedes the 'B' suffix and is available new on eBay for around £150. These control modules have a different type of plug (14-pin as opposed to 16-pin) which has larger power and earth pins for the HSW, pictured here: - Kufatec MQB heated steering wheel retrofit loom - the Kufatec part number for RHD cars is 43696-1. OR* - 14-pin multiplug so you can re-pin the existing 16-pin plug - 5Q0 972 726 * if you choose to repin the existing plug (as I did) then you'll need to sort out some wiring and pins to suit the power feed and ground wire needed to power the HSW. The Kufatec loom makes it pretty much plug and play. Tools needed: Standard workshop tools including Torx bits 12mm triple square (splined) bit for the steering wheel centre bolt VCDS (or equivalent) for coding - Hex-Net or Hex-V2 as a minimum for MQB coding. Procedure: - Grab a quick VCDS snapshot of the long coding on your current steering wheel module in case you ever return the car to standard. - Disconnect the battery - Remove the airbag, steering wheel, column shroud trim, glovebox and centre console side trims, something like this: - Remove the steering wheel control module. - Unclip and pull out the fusebox - Run the Kufatec loom from column to the fusebox using an appropriate routing where it won't chafe on anything - Fit the power feed and earth of the Kufatec loom to the fusebox and surrounding area according to their instructions (if building your own loom, you can use fuse position SC24 or any along the same row - they are a terminal 30 feed) - Refit the fusebox - Fit the new steering wheel control module - Plug the Kufatec loom into the steering wheel control module (if building your own loom, now is the time to re-pin the original column plug into the new 14-pin plug - this is well documented on other forums however the pin-out is as follows: Pin 1 (16-pin) red/white to Pin 2 (14-pin) Pin 2 (16-pin) brown to Pin 4 (14-pin) Pin 3 (16-pin) orange/brown to Pin 5 (14-pin) Pin 4 (16-pin) orange/green to Pin 6 (14-pin) Pin 5 (16-pin) black/white to Pin 7 (14-pin) Pin 6 (16-pin) black/red (if present) to Pin 13 (14-pin) Pin 7 (16-pin) purple/red to Pin 12 (14-pin) Pin 8 (16-pin) purple/blue to Pin 14 (14-pin) Pin 11 (16-pin) blue/grey to Pin 9 (14-pin) PIn 14 (16-pin) black/grey to Pin 10 (14-pin) Pin 16 (16-pin) black to Pin 11 (14-pin) Pin 1 of the 14-pin plug goes to a 15A fuse protected terminal 30 feed Pin 8 of the 14-pin plug goes to earth. - Refit the centre console side trims and steering column shroud. - Refit the glovebox. - Fit the heated steering wheel - Fit the new airbag Double check you're happy with everything, then reconnect the battery. Should look something like this: Fire up VCDS again, do the relevant coding. Module 08 (HVAC) - Coding - Long Coding Helper (and say "yes" to the "trying experimental features" to see more descriptions of bits) - Byte 11: Add a tick to bit2 and bit3 - Byte 13: Choose whether you want the wheel to come on automatically with either outside temperature or wheel temperature or not at all. Done! Enjoy a little HSW logo come up on your HVAC control screen (press the 'menu' button to access this screen) : Enjoy the extra settings for the HVAC where you can alter the temperature of the HSW, decide whether you want the HSW to come on automatically (3 degrees C or below if I remember rightly) and choose if you want the HSW to come on automatically with the heated seats. Also, if you do switch the drivers heated seat on then this option comes up where you can quickly choose the temperature of the HSW as well: Sorry about the dust and fingerprints on the screen....it's due a clean inside. Check on VCDS to see what's going on in the measuring blocks within Module 16 -Steering Wheel: Look forward to having warm hands come the winter. NB - Mine is a 2017 manual vRS so I didn't have to worry about any coding of the DSG paddles etc. All of the steering wheel buttons worked on my car without any issue. Yours may not be the same, but any issues would be easily solvable with the relevant coding alterations I'm sure. Thanks Tom

I'm currently looking after a '65 1.2 Fabia for a friend while they're on extended holibobs. When pulling away from stationary there's a momentary delay in drive, so it revs before engaging drive, much as like might happen with a manual gearbox if you rev before the biting point. In all other aspects the DSG is fine. Mrs Gaz's car also has the DQ200, but her Polo's a 1.8 (also a '65 plate) and doesn't do this. My DQ250 doesn't do it either. Both are driving from the get go. I was momentarily disconcerted by it, but then wondered if it's normal behaviour for a DSG on a 1.2? Ta for any thoughts, comments or observations. Gaz

I don’t think that’s very good, and having driven down there in an ev it wasn’t very good. No queues at Osprey Buckfastleigh probably because it is 79p/kWh.

Balls to all that, just tappy-tap-tap the bit into the head until it fits well enough to undo.

Hi guys, I am new to the forum and first time Skoda owner. I just bought this one: Octavia 1.4 TSi Combi 2015

Hello and welcome, Malky!

As it’s often empty there I would suggest more hubs are required in Devon and Cornwall. I’d love to see one at m5 j25 where the motorway and the connecting road to the a303 meet.

The Skoda employee is right. When I was at my dealer purchasing my new Octy, I've raised the towbar question as I am also planning to tow at some point ( bikes trailer only ). I did not purchase the car with a towbar fitted from factory, but I included in my order the towbar car preparation, which includes not only the mounting points of the towbar in future when I decide to install it, but also a different electric system with more powerful alternator and a slightly bigger cooling expansion tank.

@lol-lolthe thing is look at the price now of PodPoint, Instavolt, BP Pulse, Shell Recharge, Osprey and all the rest even for 7,11 or 22 kW AC and 50 kW DC. 44 pence or more for AC charging is just far too much. It is just a crazy cost for many of the chargers. 2 kWh might take you 8 miles or more for 158 pence. 1 litre of petrol might take you 10 miles or more for 145 pence.

In a word yes. They remain very quiet stable and grippy and after just over 10k miles don't seem to be showing too much wear. For reference I've also got Falken Zeix 310 Ecorun on the Swift and they have also proven good, and to me, are a much better tyre that the Bridgestone Ecopia that were fitted from new. I used to be a Vredestein or Michelin Cross Climate person but am very happy with the Falkens and would have them again, albeit with research first and the fact that I may go all season on the Kodiaq next time due to where we live.

I can tell you from the VIN. Visually if you look from the inside at an angle and focus on the glass itself you can just make out the very thin vertical wiggly lines a few mm apart running right across the screen.

I think these BESS storage sites are coming on line and it is possible to set this up in as little as 90 days as seen in Australia when Must took up a challenge, many times faster than making a carbon burning power station..... https://megawattmosaic.com/europes-biggest-bess-netted-nearly-us3-million-revenues-in-q1-2023/ As well as all this UK grid connected battery storage, and difficult to estimate is the amount of domestic/home storage which I would not be surprised is several KWh by many hundreds of thousands of home if not in to the million plus, hopefully powering EV charging, heat pump heating and all electrical device powering. As a side note very glad to see Octopus drop my day time rate for 40p to less than 30p per kWh though night time rate is popping up from 7.5p to 9.5p per kWh, standing charge up an incredible 5p a day from 47p to 52p per day. Gas down from 10p to 7.5p per kWh so I can expect much lower energy bills this autumn and winter. Well done Octopus. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Europe’s biggest battery storage system in megawatt-hour (MWh) terms earned £2.3 million (US$2.85 million) revenues during its first full quarter in commercial operation. UK-based investment fund Harmony Energy Income Trust said recently that its Pillswood Battery Energy Storage System (Pillswood BESS) in northern England was one of the best-performing battery storage assets in Britain in the first quarter of 2023. Chinese multinational corporation Envision Energy has agreed on a partnership with Harmony Energy Income Trust to provide battery energy storage systems (BESS) for projects in the UK. Envision Energy will develop liquid-cooled energy storage systems which are capable of providing energy time-shifting, capacity services and frequency regulation services. Harmony Energy Income Trust invests within the battery energy storage sector and currently operates 109MW/218MWh of BESS in the UK with a further 286.4MW/572.8MWh under construction. Wormald Green and Hawthorn Pit, the BESS projects Envision is contracted for, are set to commence in Q2 2023, both anticipated to be fully completed and connected to the grid in Q1 2024. Wormald Green has a storage capacity of 33MW/66MWh whereas Hawthorn Pit has a slightly higher storage capacity of 49.9MW/99.8Mh. According to Envision, its expertise lies in full-stack technical capabilities ranging from battery technologies to energy storage systems. This has also seen it support the deliverance of two-hour duration BESS. This could strengthen Harmony Energy’s vision with the company also exploring two-hour duration BESS projects. As of the end of the first year since the company’s incorporation, it had six two-hour duration BESS projects totalling 312.5MW/625MWh.

thanks. Have you seen the video where I had to go off script, late at night when they closed the A1 and I had to do an 80 mile diversion at the end of a 350 mile trip from Rugby back to Livingston? Guess what? I had zero issues 🙂 If you do long distances then I agree it can be an issue but the lingest drive is my regular 350 mile trip Edinburgh to Milton Keynes. I don't even have the longer range Enyaq

Parking by the sea, kerbing and auto car washes. It’s almost like you’re intentionally trying to destroy them. Seriously though, diamond cut wheels are, as said, not great for longevity. And the three points mentioned above really won’t help that.

@GazIt might benefit from a reset of the DQ200. How many miles on the car? It maybe is just slipping. So try it held on the Hand / Parking brake rather than the brake pedal and see if as you release the hand brake is the delay the same as the brake pedal to accelerator delay. ? How is it when you go to S and the RPM is up and then you move off in the slug of a car? (Skoda 'rally heritage and motorsport success' and they turn out cars with more show than go and 110 ps max.) There was the issue and still can be with the early ones that never got the software or clutch update. http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/439395-the-story-of-the-famous-dq200-clutch-slip

Brilliant handfull of information and help, thanks a lot! It makes sense about the weight, Mk1 Vrs used the TDI engine so the springs you say should be the right ones. Those are goong to be my choice, thanks again. I’ll post the result!

@cnc Sorry about TSI204, I´ve read too fast… Regarding the TSI220 on MK3, it has never been sold in France. Indeed, it’s a market thing. Considering the TSI280, the french government has killed it on French market since 2018, because of CO2 emissions taxes. For such an engine, you have to pay an extra ~€15k for this single taxe. This would mean almost €80k for a Mk3 Estate in L&K or Sportline version with some options! Crazy! So simple, that TSI280 isn’t available anymore on Škoda french configurator. 🙄 Recently another taxe against weight has appeared for all cars over 1800kg. Fortunately, it only concerns ~2% of the market. Taxe, taxe, taxe, taxe, taxe… Owning and driving a car is becoming something luxuous…

Yes at Exeter Services as well. I went there 4 times in 2022, to be fair 3 times I got straight on a charger. Had to queue last May though not quite on the scale of the report you quoted, it is a horrible feeling when you pull in and see a queue. I thought then that if it was bad in May then the summer holiday months would be worse. They have a double figure number of chargers as well. Unfortunately Cornwall is an ev charger desert so people will need to charge either entering or leaving and Exeter is an ideal location. Having a Tesla is obviously better with the supercharger network but it looks like even that is getting close to maxed out at Exeter

Not on early ones the opf is combined in the first cat off the turbo, I did quite abit of research and found a technical doc explaining it all, no sensors or anything monitoring the second cat it’s all around the first. I’ll find out when it’s on rollers and what it does on stage 1 map too

Yes, you can. I have a 71 plate Karoq Sportline with Amundsen and can confirm that the 'swipe and delete' method as shown in this Youtube video works very easily to clean up and remove unwanted sat nav destinations.

I wonder if the red oil light reported was an oil pressure warning, in fact I think it must have been. Level sensor (if even fitted) only gives yellow warnings, I think? Now the oil pressure could be low if there really was a hell of a lot of oil loss, but probably more likely to be a false alarm caused by a failing pressure switch. Classic symptom is oil inside the electrical connector of the pressure switch. This is mounted on the front of the engine just near the items 1a, 1b, 1c in the diagram above, green plastic body, single wire connection. Disconnect this and see if oil weeps out from within. If unfamiliar with releasing such connectors, watch this: How to undo VW wiring connectors. - YouTube

I'm glad I got a Tesla too

Can stop at Buckfastleigh now, if one use A38 rather than A30, lots of new and well priced charges so it is not just Exeter services now. Well done Plymouth beating Huddersfield 3 to 1 in new division.

Anyway... I have stuck on my souvenir from the ring to my car. A Nurburgring sticker that I originally planned to stick inside the car but it's now on the boot lid... +20hp until it falls off.

Someone is going to have to explain the logic of this to me, why would anyone choose to use a car that they thought would fail an MOT. Surely if you value your own safety, would maintain it in roadworthy condition, so won't fail.

Pic for reference when fitting roll bars. New bottom arms from super pro fitted at same time.

Lovely evening............. Q

This is the outstanding recall notice on the Gov.uk website.

Yup, my how to guide covers that bit too.

If they could start on the spurious foglights and mis-spaced reg plates too, they coud really make me happy.

So surely you should be welcoming Graham's interrogation of the data and news items? There are clearly many false statements being made on both sides of the fence... so a balanced discussion is needed, as opposed to a one sided evangelical 'do as I say' approach. Perhaps you should try to convince Graham rather than belittling him for his point of view and for not sharing your personal opinion on the matter??

No. The EPC light can indicate any of a vast range of issues, from about £50 to £4_000, and we'd need the associated fault code(s) to know which.

Lovely out at Carburton this evening.👌

I took my 280 round the ring. First in real life lap for me. Elevation changes is nuts. Busy session. Win because car still in one piece.

Interesting report, strange they are picking out Tesla. In the screenshots of the video all Tesla did was provide EPA or WLTP ranges. Same as every other car manufacturer. I can't comment on appointment cancellations, but unlike other auto makers, Tesla can do remote diagnostic. So from outside it may feel like shoulder shrugging. When has any vehicle actually achieved advertised MPG/range in non-ideal conditions? Many traditional car journalist doesn't seem to understand that to get most out of the car, pre-condition it before leaving. It is widely accepted in EV circle that Tesla's efficiency (and thus range) seems to suffer the least from temperature variations out of all EV's. I seems to recall the same correction were requested on Korean cars: https://evfleetworld.co.uk/hyundai-kona-electric-driving-range-corrected-to-279-miles/ That's the whole point! Instead of displaying a guess range based on unknown variables, Tesla display a consistent value based on usable charge remaining. The latter is much more deterministic and useful than a value that drops by 50% just because I was driving up hill for 1 mile. Personally, I never look at range estimates. I completely ignore the guess-o-meter in my Leaf, I set my Tesla to show %. The only thing I take note is sat-nav estimated arrival %, and it has always been within a few % for me, no matter the condition. This bit is interesting, until you go and read Edmunds test methodology: 60% urban and 40% highway. https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electric-car-range-and-consumption-epa-vs-edmunds.html I don't know about you, I find my first-gen 24 kWh Leaf has plenty of range for urban uses. The reason I buy a bigger battery EV is for driving longer distances on "highway". So the only efficiency value that I'm interested in for EV's are the highway efficiency. I'd take the Bjorn's 1000 km test over any traditional car journalist every time.

I will put this here rather than in a Tesla Model 3 thread, as it might be helpful.

Check your PM

If the car doesn't have stop/start then an AGM battery is not correct, and this may explain why the battery hasn't lasted very long. Varta C30 (smaller physical size than your current battery) https://www.varta-automotive.com/en-gb/products/varta-silver-dynamic/554-400-053 Varta D15 (same physical size as your current battery) https://www.varta-automotive.com/en-gb/products/varta-silver-dynamic/563-400-061

Hi folks, I got this beauty last week & i'm a big fan so far. Plenty of power & handles dirt roads with ease. I have a couple of niggles I'll be asking about shortly though, just trying to find the right thread to post to. 2015 Octavia Scout 4x4 2.0 TDI.