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From Car Magazine's long-term review of the Twin Air Panda (I'm back researching possible future purchases). I used to buy both Car Magazine and Top Gear back in the day, primarily for the purposes of reading these articles. Sad to say, in my view, the current crop of Car Magazines aren't worth anything beyond brief on-line perusal. Month 5: running a Fiat Panda: 'the Panda stands up well to a careless shunt' There’s a sublime episode of Father Ted in which he and Dougal attempt to tap out the smallest of dings on a car donated for a raffle prize. Of course, being Ted and Dougal, they end up flaying the whole thing into an exquisitely and entirely delaminated construct. Despite not being entirely convinced by the Panda’s ‘squircle’-infested styling, I’m fairly certain that little positive rectification would be achieved by similarly attacking it with a large lump of metal. Though someone had other ideas because – alas – the poor Panda has been subjected to a savage and unsolicited assault by a Blue Rinse Biddie-aimed battering-ram shaped much like a Volkswagen Polo. Minding my own business one cheery, I-am-bloody-NOT-listening-to-Tony-Blackburn-so-it’ll-have-to-be-Radio-4 Saturday afternoon, I tailed said Polo into a garden centre car park, whereupon it exited, stage left. I was just considering where to park up when the VW reappeared, at ramming speed, on my port bow. There was to be no windscreen-cracking, cursing co-pilot-accompanied barrel-rolling here, however. It was more like a low impact-speed Lambada, the cars thrust together in grinding embrace, pirouetting through a graunching, graceless 90-degree before coming to a standstill. No one was hurt, and no airbags were deployed in the pile-up. Almost a pity, that; let me explain. Years ago, Saab hosted an ice-driving time trial for a motley crew of international hacks. Happily, the British team’s chances were vastly improved (as he himself pointed out) by the presence of the most pompous, obnoxious Frenchman I have ever met. Fat cigar protruding from fat head, he insisted on going first. Ahhh, the collective power of thought. Willed into mishap by the combined might of miffed English minds, he never made it round the first bend. He assaulted the adjacent snow bank with sufficient vim to set off the airbag, which duly smeared myriad chunks of red-hot Monte Cristo all over his smug chops. No Englishman dodged the gentle indignity of having just a whiff of wee escape into his smalls that afternoon. Ever since, I’ve wondered what an airbag in the face must feel like. Anyway, although the Polo pilot (somewhat ironically hunting for the hospital next door, it transpired) was sufficiently shaken, she also proved sufficiently compos mentis not to admit liability. The VW certainly bested the Fiat, pushing the whole front suspension assembly backwards far enough to jam the tyre solidly against the rear of the wheel arch, making it undriveable. For only the second time in my life I came to experience the three most disheartening consequences of an injury-free accident: the appalling, extended ‘baaaang’ of crumpling metal served with a garnish of tinkling trim; the sudden metamorphosis of man’s only freedom into an immoveable hunk of costly junk and the dread, out-of-cigarettes wait for the rescue services. The AA was, of course, superb. Until it wasn’t. Some two hours after the quoted deadline had expired, precisely the low-loader I’d suggested would be useless lumbered up. Moving at the speed of lard, the operative first attempted to drive the Panda (wince) before deploying every plastic wedge in his armoury to painstakingly scrape it aboard. My last stogie long since smoked and a bottle of Famous Grouse now positively bellowing for attention from my larder, it… took… an… eternity. And to add insult to lack of injury, the AA operative even stopped on the way home to buy himself something to eat. And the lessons to be learned from this sorry tale? Take sandwiches and a good book everywhere; don’t bite the nice AA man; and never, ever build a hospital next door to a garden centre. By Anthony ffrench-Constant (©️)

Recent posts on the Octavia 4 forum suggest that not all Skoda dealers have the equipment to properly adjust matrix lights, maybe this applies not only to Skoda/VAG dealers but more widely?

Well changing the oil and oil filter every 10000 km does pay out !! And 2 minutes later hit the big 400000 km !!

My original suggestion for syringing out the expansion tank with a turkey baster was simply for eliminating any spillage onto engine bay paint (I'm not really that mean to save on 250mls of antifreeze 😄) But I do strongly recommend investing in a proper pair (inexpensive) of hose clip pliers.

When I replaced my Yeti I went for a Kia Niro self charge. The poverty spec model came with smaller (16 inch) wheels which I prefered for comfort and economy, (and cheaper tyres). I would have liked a higher spec model, but these all had larger (17 inch) wheels, and as above, there were no options to change the wheels on the higher spec models to make them the same as the base model? Assuming they all have the same size discs etc. I can't see why this would be a problem??

The option choice that frustrates me is that I can't select a smaller wheel size with higher spec vehicle variants. They let you choose bigger wheels with lower profile tyres on lower spec vehicles so why not smaller wheels with higher profile tyres on higher spec variants?

Tyres (& and the ability of the driver) probably key factors, although what a great video from an advertising perspective 👍

For me the worst offenders are vehicles with headlights almost at head height for car drivers, so I'm referring to 4x4s, SUVs, vans, etc. As they get closer to you when oncoming it becomes really difficult to see past them, especially if they are not properly setup.

H Folks - first time post from me. Apologies if this duplicates something else but nothing showed up on my search. I recently took delivery of a (new to me) 2020 Octavia but after about 1 month it's begun to smell of old cigarette smoke. I've got various remedies underway but one of the things I wanted to do was change the cabin filter. There's a few YouTube videos out there with different methods but I found that this one worked really well and I had the whole job done in about 5 minutes. I would say if you have fat fingers it may not be the easiest, but I'm sure pushing down the damper bar with a screwdriver would also work. Hope it's useful.

Sorry, I don't maybe a chat with your dealer might help. The only thing that might trigger an update is a factory reset, but that's a real faff and even then there's no guarantee that it'll work, hence why I suggested having a chat with the dealer.

The problem is if the silica bag breaks & silica gets into the cooling system & heater matrix your are screwed & left with a big bill to clean it all out. £1k+ from what I've heard. Newer cars don't use the silica bags anymore & have a different coolant spec. The silica bag was supposed extend the life of the coolant to 5+ years to save costs. Instead it introduced a problem that was never there if coolant was changed on a regular 2 yearly basis. So without the silica bag we revert to morer regular changing of coolant. Next time my car goes in for a service at my independent I'll tell them the bag has gone so they can replace the coolant with the correct one.

Saw a prat in an old A4 today with crappy bluish LED drop ins. Funny thing was he had one projector headlight that didn't glare but also wasn't putting much light on the road and one reflector which was horribly glary... Both on the same car.

yes, Finland; summer house hit -37C last week. Friday on the way home it was -17 in Lahti and -28 in Jyväskylä, switching +-5 degrees super fast. -33C on Saturday when I tried to start the car, here in town. Lots of batteries have given up the ghost, it seems. Mine seems to be ok again after some charging and use. Anyways, looks like things are on ice with the car change: the DEF problem is a hole in a pipe and 2 pipes need replacing (front and rear). €300+ each and 5 hours of labour. Yay! But no-one has the parts so I won't get the car back for a while... and then I won't be here so it's going to be a few weeks.

I have already replaced my container. But because of something else. There are no more with silica anyway. Simply disconnect the hoses, then separate them and quickly remove the container. I didn't need an injection. Insert a new tank and then adjust the level again.

I last charged the car at home on the 2nd January and it was at 100% and 103 miles in warmer weather. The last time the car was opened and turned on was the 6th and it was @ 100% and 96 miles. Sitting until i just turned it on at around freezing or lower and in the shade it is at 100% still and showing 93 miles. I plugged it in and it is Full / 100%. Pleased with this no loss while parked up, unlike the Corsa Electric that lost lots of energy while sitting doing what ever it did. This past week i did 700 miles getting over 45 MPG in the Diesel estate. With Summer tyres on icy roads. Next week i have 400 miles to do so just need to decide once i see if the snow that is forecast if i take the MINI and get a charge each 80 miles maybe and have the security of the All Season tyres or i risk taking the Barge and maybe slip slide around and can not get off onto back roads and get where i want off of the Motorway. Pre heating today was lovely. But the ice formed on the inside of the sunroofs is now dripping. I must do better drying and airing of the inside. AC has hardly been on during longer runs as it is energy heavy.

SAGA fully comp for wife and I , both old codgers 75yrs , £ 392.89 .

I spent Xmas & New Year in Finland back in the early '80's when we visited some friends in Helsinki. For the New Year we got a train up to Tampere & I remember standing late at night outside a club waiting to get in. It was -25c & my nose froze up!! As low at the temperature was it didn't feel that cold because the humidity was so low. No need for freezers in winter either. The people we stayed with kept their food outside on their apartment balcony🥶 Also memories of cross country skiing, which we were very bad at.

Noticed this last night on the drive up to Lancaster... It mostly seemed to be high end cars with matrix lights that weren't spotting and adjusting for vehicles on the opposite carriageway

From the spelling of the name and the road numbers, my money is on Finland. I was there in the winter of 1998/99 and it can be very cold. I'll not go there again in the winter as I ended up with pneumonia and spent Christmas to New Year in hospital on a drip!

When you spot a pointless clickbait, it's better to close the video and remove from watch history. Youtube algorithm are too good at baiting for engagement. For that reason, clickbait controversial ranty (non-informative) videos do really well, unfortunately.

PS. Lots and lots of people think the headlights self level and they do. But then there can be a manual setting sometimes beside where the setting is for the brightness of the dash lights. Many might never adjust this headlight height or do it in error moving the little wheel and think ' what does this do'. On my MINI this is very low down out of sight and makes a big difference to the height of the beam. Very very bright LED,s. I have them set low. (Worst headlights i see in town when driving in the dark (30 MPH area) in a low vehicle is the Newest Ford Pickups & Transit vans. far to bright, it used to be KIA lights.) Mine is to the right near door and low on the dash, out of sight.

So been a while. Was absolutely tortured with a coolant leak at the heater core. Wouldn't seal, wouldn't seal. So tried one of those adapter things from Skoda. Didn't work. Eventually got a new heater core because... ****ed. So that in, plus new silicone hoses to replace the crappy hardlines and FINALLY got it holding fluid. Had to borrow some brackets for the Monte so sourced some ones new genuine. Only €8.00 odd a side plus vat. Exhaust, intercooler and a few other jobs and I'll be able to test drive it finally.

I did it yesterday, same old battery. as far I know in Europe the AGM battery technology is called "Fleece" (at least for me that's the factory setting) at least make sure ur not using the "binary - AGM" because that's not the right one.

Thanks. I think my reservoir has two chambers & the bag is in the bottom one which has no access from the top. I've ordered a new coolant reservoir from Amazon (£25.79) so I'll just switch out the old for the new which looks easy enough to do & removes any chance of the bag splitting while trying to remove it.

Just FYI, if your lights are lighting up the large signs (you know, the ones well above any head height when driving) then they probably aren't 'really great' for anyone within 800yards of you, especially if it makes them too bright

Luxury. 😄 Try a 2009 Fiat Panda 1.3 Diesel with 135K miles under its belt. To be honest it has been a good car all its life. Thanks. AG Falco

Small English company owned by an Indian company, sounds a bit like Land Rover. Only 30 out the thousand electric buses TfL have. Expect they may find it difficult to get more orders. Optare Metrodecker 1050 bus.

My father is 92 year old and for the past 30 years anyway, I'm the one who deals with his insurance. In those 30 years, not once has SAGA been in the ball park for compeditive quotes - even taking into account their offers on cashback websites. They provide me with a quote but like my father, it's always once of the more expensive. Perhaps quotes in Wales are cheaper because you can only drive at 20mph? ( only joking of course ). For the record, he's never had a point on his licence, never been caught for speeding and his last claim was in the early 90's ! Neither does he have any health issues. He's renewed with his current insurer for the past two years, it's around the £500 - he lives in a low risk area. If I use comparion sites, the cheapest quote for him is around £1400 and rises to eyewatering amounts. Not many will even quote him. His current insurer do not offer insurance if he was after a new policy, just because of his age. They don't offer insurance to over 85's now, but because he's a current policy holder, they send him a renewal quote each year. And I'll say something else about the insurance industry that made me sick. When my mother passed I was just going to leave his policy alone until renewal time, but he insisted I inform them of the changes. So my mum's name came off and I changed his status from 'Married' to 'Widower'. The fu&*er$ asked for more money as those changes increased his then current premium. Disgusting doesn't even begin to describe it, but that's the insurance indusrty for you. It has little to do with you, but everything to do with that pigeon hole they place you in. I'm actually surprised they don't ask the colour of your skin. Racism, sexism, homophobic? They'd use anything to judge your insurance risk if they could get away with it. In fact they did with sexism - perhaps they still do? It'd be interesting to see the quotes for 18year old twins living in the same house as their parents, who've just passed their test and each want the same car. Do you reckon the insurance would be cheaper for the girl than the boy? That certainly used to be the case.

Anything is "fast charge" compared to the currently maximum of 3.5 kW that our PHEVs are limited to... (Octavia, Formentor etc.) 😁 Now on a more serious note, they specify on the press release note that it will be capable of a maximum charge rate of 50 kW: "Thanks to a maximum charging rate of 50 kW, it takes just 25 minutes to charge the battery from 10 to 80 percent" Source: https://skodamedia.com/en-gb/releases/1455

Thanks for the replies Delay in responding because life kinda got in the way and then PlusNet appeared to think I didn't deserve to be connected to the Internet! That piece from the manual is exactly what I wanted. Worried about being somewhere remote with the Scout, battery in key dying, and not being able to get into the boot area.

Thieving barstewards. PS. Are you going to Victoria Garage Maud? Which i recommend regularly. Did i not recommend them to you?

Rooted.... It was going through the first MOT and they phoned to say that it would not pass the MOT without back brakes /discs being changed.. I told them to do the brake change although puzzled as have never even with a hard driven company car gone through brakes.. (Skoda don't make brakes of quality like they used to I was told) Then another phone call to say front needs done .£750+ ..Thats when I stopped them... went to another garage, never went back to them and bought two new Skodas since... The VRS has had most likely 6 or 7 MOTs with same front discs that were needing replaced.. I do drive an hour away from them to service the car to a Village Skoda garage as lost faith in the dealership. Thank you for all the replies...

Come and have a drive of my missisus fiat 500 1.2 pop ,i bet your fabia will feel like a rolls royce then 😂😂

Thanks for your help - I have got an update and it works perfect.

Yes they are noisy. I love the Skoda cars as they have good value for money but they are noisy with a lot of creaks, hums, buzzes in the plastic trims etc and wind noise. I had a Fabia vrs for a short period of time whilst looking for another car. I am a car audio enthusiast so I may be a little more picky than others. I ended up ripping the car apart and sound deadening the whole thing. I am not suggesting you do that but you can get good results by going over the rubber door seals with some rubber moisturiser. And also buying some sticky backed felt sheets so you can cut to shape and apply to the inside of the door frame (if yours does not have any). I removed air vents, door trims, glove box, sunglass holder, interior light and anywhere that plastic touched plastic and put a layer of felt behind it or Tessa tape. After taking apart a lot of my previous cars (that have been Audi) I could see that yes the materials used were more premium but the main thing was they put more decoupling materials in between trims which added up to the car being more quiet with less squeeks and rattles.

We are also paying in to the pot for repairs to super car crashes like the £8.5m Pagani Zonda 760 LH in North Wales last summer. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-66538428 Interesting the in the BBC report it states "The car lost control..." Call me pedantic but a car, by itself, cannot lose control. It is the driver that loses control of his or her car of their car. BTW, I have driven through that tunnel many a time at 70mph - there is no reason why anyone should lose control. The article goes on to say "People with fast cars go down there and they want to show off in the tunnels and get it heard. Then the unexpected happens." - which can be heard in this dash cam footage https://uk.motor1.com/news/682679/lewis-hamilton-zonda-crash-dashcam-video/

Just reminder, my RS is diesel from the first years of RS, it had 240 BHP and 500 Nm out of factory. RS has steering with variable gear ratio and adjustable schocks, so runs great without any mods.

I've made a test yesterday, since we have negative temps in France these days. Thanks you guys, I discovered that front tear drops wiping is disabled by low temps (btw, I haven't found the minimum temp that disable this function yet. 4°C is possible) On the contrary, tear drops wiping on rear window is not disabled (at least above -2,5°C, I could not test below yet).

In Norway, parking lights are possibly the same as what you say are position lights (two white at the front and two red at the back) Not side lights The DRL illuminates with the same intensity when the light switch is in position 0 and in ´park light´

Just clean it up before going for MOT, no need to make a mountain out of a molehill. You may just have overfilled the joint with grease, also you need a special tool for OE clips which is expensive to buy.

Hey. Just wanted to thank you. Lately I've been noticing that rattling/vibration sound at 2K rpm in the right door area of my 2015 vRS, but couldnt pinpoint where it was coming from, until i found your post. I just unscrewed the outer endge nuts od the plastic bottom so i could "bend" it down and reach the frame where the fule lines are and stuffed the frame with four dishwashing sponges through the cutouts on the frame. That solved the "car is falling apart" sound and made me happy ☺️.

The LED,s might well be an issue, and MATRIX headlights also. But then there are vehicles in the UK that have poorly set headlights from the factory, never checked at the PDI and maybe picked up after 3 years on the road at the first MOT.

Definitely getting worse. Lots and lots of LED replacement 'bulbs' available and lots and lots of people too selfish and/or unintelligent to know they cause problems for everyone except themselves.

How could it be possible to insure your car against only having accidents with non electric cars?

It was online as pre reg. when I first enquired I was told I would have to wait until it had been registered for 3 months before I could take it home. then another dealership allowed me to buy their pre reg and take it straight away but it would have to stay registered to them until it was 3 months but when I collected it they registered it straight away in my name.

I had one of the og fabia VRS’s and i’m familiar with that one for sure. Remember getting covered in black weatherproofing sealant lying on the driveway lol I haven’t noticed it being wet under the door trim panels this time, i did check there by running some tissue underneath. Not to say it didn’t dry though before i noticed it and its only been a small amount so far. I was hoping Skoda would have learnt over the years about such a poor design but maybe not. I’ll make sure to check after the next downpour.

I think I've found it (the one for your car a 2017 Octavia)...diagram is useless..item number 32 here:- Car Parts Catalog - LLLParts

Here is some more information: Turning steering wheel I get no changes in Steering Aid Sensor angular velocity: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f9RPT7gXniQSG_6CEKJTBslHIr3-T1bY/view?usp=sharing Steering aid sensor voltage too low: Pump voltage increases when turning steering https://drive.google.com/file/d/1itqgXNLw3cZfoNR4KlQ-IWM-gCY4--cY/view?usp=sharing Fault code shown: (Also clear no voltage): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XUJ0iTY5T4hL7CrgCcfjjkv3mfyKd5Bv/view?usp=sharing So the question is, do these symptoms suggest a failed sensor or pump or can they be symptomatic of both?

Tyres are a good place to start looking and fit for use doesn't mean they're necessarily that good. As well as checking pressure (remember to reset the tyres from the menu if you adjust inflation) check the manufacture date on all tyres and that all four, or at least sets of two on the axles, match in make, model and (roughly) manufacture date. Even if there's loads of tread left on the tyres if they're old they can go hard and if they're done lots of miles and lots of tread left they may have started with already being hard hence the lack of tread wear and perhaps meaning they're noisy tyres. Noisy tyres can help to transmit other noise more giving a noisy cacophony. Wind noise might be drying/dried out door seals or perhaps door(s) fit if the vehicle had damage there (I'm sure my wife's car might have). Engine noise at 92k-miles, have you got any servicing and maintenance history on the car, do you know if the spark plugs and engine air filter have been changed, and how many times, was there regular and timely engine oil & filter changes? At 8 years old and 92k-miles I'd also be thinking of brake fluid changes and coolant (and perhaps gearbox oil but that's just me) condition of brake discs & pads. Do you know how the mileage was done and spread out over the years, MoT and service history should give you a lot of mileage history, high mileages can be good and low mileages bad but it depends on the owner(s)/driver(s) use and abused of the vehicle and its servicing and maintenance.

I have pushed the plates as hard as I could, but it didn't come off. Finally found a video on YT which explains how to remove the stucked tool :