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I bought my Octavia SE 1.0 litre in August 2019 when it was coming up to a year old. I had to think long and hard before part exchanging it for a Karoq SE Drive a few weeks ago. The Karoq is also just over a year old. I have to say that the Octavia was probably the best car I have ever owned. I have had many Fords in the past. My previous 4 cars have been Fabias but for all round comfort, space, performance and reliability, the Octavia was the best (even with the 1.0 litre engine). My only problem was the rear washer kept getting bunged up but apart from that, no problems. Once the car was out of warranty I avoided main dealer servicing. My local independent did the oil and filter changes with me providing the genuine VW spec oil. As part of the trade in deal, I removed the full size spare wheel and toolkit with the intention of putting it into the Karoq or selling it (I thought it might not fit which it doesn't). I'll put it on ebay in the next few days. I bought a skinny spare and tools which fit the Karoq perfectly. A gunge kit is little more than useless in my opinion. So far the Karoq has been fine. Getting in and out is much easier than the Octavia but you would expect that. The Karoq forum has answered a few queries I had, how the automatic handbrake works being the most important. I'll keep an eye on the Octavia forum in case I am able to contribute to the discussions. Thank you.

So... quick update on this... All finally sorted, new (lower) sump fitted by Liverpool Skoda and all costs picked up by Christchurch Skoda (dealer where I bought the car). Glad the issue is something that is easily fixed and hopefully won't be repeating itself. Car was off the road from 7th Jan to 9th Feb which isn't great, but I'm glad to be back in the Superb. Appreciate the various advice which was all helpful in negotiating getting this sorted 👍👍👍. Rob

Redpoll ,taken through kitchen window as everytime i went out it buggered off 😁

230k! This will probably be my last post to this topic with this car 😢

Glorious weather today 😎

Got 16k miles out of front tyres on the Zoe but I change with 3mm left as police and tyre companies advice for good wet weather braking. So Zoe burns through tyres quicker than Arkana which has similar power but is lighter. My zoe only uses the 16 inch rims rather than the 17 inch option so tyres were £65 rather than more like £80 for the 17s each. Fitting etc less than £20 per tyre plus complementary hoover and wash, very happy. OE tyres were Mich Primacy EV tyres so had less tread, new tyres Toyo comfort, A grade wet grip, seem good in all respects including energy consumption and I expect will last 20k miles even with the tyre shredding torque of the EV. Cheap running costs for energy, services and tyres.

Hi, I checked the list, and I think mine is similar to that of Khvarrioiren; Deep Sea Blue Metallic (D7D7) however, I wanted to confirm this with the broader group, what do you think? P.S. thanks for all the contribution in all felicia lists, you people have genuinenly made it so easy to work on this car! Cheers

No reason for excessive wear in the UK either is there when driven normally, or more than similar powered cars AWD or RWD or FWD with he same power but a bit lighter. But then there are lots of Performance Tyres with not lots of Tread Depth from new. (Octavia / Superb section and those there might say they get 30,000 miles plus and others not 12,000 miles out of tyres. Looks often like possible down to driver, or alignment, maybe how they set or check tyre pressures. Usually how driven though...) Use a M3 say like you use a RWD Tesla and is there much difference in tyre wear, or a keeping to the same manufacturers, a Porsche Taycan compared to a Porsche Panamera. I imagine @Lady Elanore gets value from her tyre life but does not hang about. She can maybe comment on her rear wheel drivers and tyres.

The interstates were mainly concrete, i think that would be more wearing to tyres than our tarmac.

USB ports installation This is the plastic we removed from the back side. We need to remove the part that is the ashtray and replace it with the USB base With a plastic tool or a small screwdriver, press the plastic pins (there are 4) and the ashtray comes out easily.press the plastic sheets (there are 4) and the ashtray comes out easily. In the opening created, put the plastic with the USBs and make sure it clicks correctly. We connect the brown plug in place and fasten all the plastic to the center console. ΅We are done!!! Now we can enjoy our new USB ports.

Agree with @nta16 https://www.caffynscarparts.com/fabia-iii-anita-black-16-alloy-wheel-5200-p.asp?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI78SymqSjhAMV0T8GAB1EDwypEAQYBSABEgJqdPD_BwE Gaz

I'm no expert, just looking at the12/2016 brochure I have - if your car is a 'Colour Edition' and it has stock wheels 16" wheels the same as my brochure they are listed as "16" Anita Black Alloys". The photo in my brochure is very small and not too distant to me eyes but they look the same as yours. As always, always double or treble check any information from any source (including manufacturers) with a couple of other reliable sources, don't just trust some bloke on the internet particularly if they're old and forgetful and often wrong like me. HTH.

I had a 2nd viewing and test drive, weather was slightly warmer and not as wet. Zero smoke/condensation at any point, even whilst giving it some again on the dual carriageway. Purchased based on this. Hopefully it's all good 🤞

New clutch master now too. Couldn't get the clutch to bleed right. Got a Sachs one in it now. Seems to be bleeding fine and behaving, pray it's not the slave as it's concentric. Intercoolers on too.

So today i had a spare few hours so i started on the passenger door. The plan is to run all the wires in all 4 doors and the tailgate, that means when it comes to doing the big strip out, ill of saved a massive amount of time. What was carried out? Well, first is to strip out the front door so door card off, speaker out, all covers off and remove the complete wiring assembly as one. Now the wiring was out i had to strip all the insulation from between the 2 gasket sections to allow the new wires to be ran. The wires then all need to be moved from the 27 pin to the 25 pin, and add the LVDS cable. This took a long time, and 4 of the wires needed their pins changing to MCON 1.2 pins from the previous MCP 2.8mm pins. As you can see, the actual housing for the connector is different as well, this is to allow the LVDS cable more room, Part numbers in the pictures Note: The post above with the excel spreadsheet of wiring covered everything, except 2 things of note - the wiring sometimes changes colour across the plug, and also the original 27 pin connector had a red/white wire on pin 12 that I simply moved to pin 12 of the new plug that i didnt account for in my post above. Once this was done, the loom was refitted to the car and then the same process was repeated on the car side, this was a bit more of a squeeze working in the passenger footwell. All moved from the black connector to the new white connector, the LVDS cable which is 4m long was then coiled up inside the car behind the trim and all was boxed back up. To add to the OE feel and to also reduce vibrations in the door, I didnt want the LVDS connector to rattle around where it connects to the mirror and the OE solution to this is a foam sock that goes over the connector to prevent vibration and noise. This cant be purchased from Skoda so i had to make my own. 4mm Open cell foam sheet is the solution, rolled up into a tube and glued together with superglue to make my own socks. These were then slid over the connector and cable tied in place, exactly how the rest of the door connectors are done. The other option for securing the LVDS connector is this holder 7P6937545 which looks like this: Or 1K8937545 could be used (but that only fits a elongated hole that isnt common). But this also needs one of the mounting method (6mm hole or sheet metal edge) holders to connect the 2 together. 8Z0971848F is the 6mm hole mount, 3B0919136A is the sheet metal edge mount. Then it started to rain so i had to quickly box it all up and forgot to get photos of the inside of the door and plus this side alone took me around 4/5 hours. When I do the drivers side and boot lid ill get the extra photos.

Hi All, Just to say I have successfully had the following kit fitted…. Raises the Ride height by about 30mm. I have an L&K Octavia estate with the 4x4 but not a scout model. Wanted that extra ground clearance as not afraid to use it on the odd occasion off road if needed. Also on the way to work often come across some large floods/puddles so this would help. Done over 500 miles since having them fitted, and make no difference to the ride comfort and haven’t noticed any issues with handling. I am Running 225/50 R17 Michelin Cross climates as well, Informed insurance about the lift and no additional charge. Fitting Kit: https://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/products/mk7-platform-mqb-platform-30mm-lift-kit.html

Thanks for your reply. I'm looking to swap my manual non mfsw for a dsg one as I'm doing an engine and gearbox swap. And will be going to dsg from manual. I'll have a search for mk3 dsg ones. Thanks again

Could get it retrimmed in fresh leather. It's also possible to get steering wheels reshaped to your liking if you want to go for an oem+ look. Another option would be a mk3 steering wheel, there's quite a few posts in this forum about it, give it a search.

Primacys, yes, that the evil little rubberbands. They sell these things as saving a fair bit of mpg saving over a standard tyre, but neglect to tell you that the tyre itself contributes relatively little to the cars overall mpg figure, hence a moderate saving in tyre derived mpg figures, is bugger all in overall mpg terms.

My M4 did like to wear down its rear tyres a little, but I did a fair bit of motorway driving in it, so it helped to reduce the wear rate out overall. Plus the car had nearly 50/50 weight balance and that probably helped wear the tyres out at roughly the same rate, well obviously the rears went first). My M3 which was 4x4 was wearing its tyres out pretty slowly to be honest. That was a heavy car with a decent dollop of power/torque, so I assume it fed power around the 4 tyres relatively evenly in normal circumstances and it also had the 50/50 weight distribution thing to help. Come to think of it, I used to get through front tyres on cars like my old Strada 130TC Abarth well within 12,000 miles. Which, when you consider the car only had 130bhp and weighed about the same as a packet of Rich Tea biscuits, is interesting. When I look back, FWD cars seem to chew through tyres (at least the fronts) at the fastest rate, RWD was better overall and the 4x4s were probably the best. A lot of those cars had moderately performance related tyres too (P6 Pirelli's on the Strada) and at least 6 of my 4x4s were of a permanent type (Scooby's, proper Quattro etc), rather than a Haldex/FWD type, so that may well have helped??

The Goodyear Vector 4Seasons is still a good tyre and I used them on a Yeti a few years ago. However, when buying all-season tyres for our Karoq Sportline 1.5 last month, I decided against them for 3 reasons: 1. They are said by some people in the tyre trade to have thinner sidewalls than the competitors, making them more susceptible to pothole and kerb damage. 2. When I was shopping last month, the 4Seasons Gen 3 (the current tyre) was on sale in very few places; most places were still selling the 4Seasons Gen2. Moreover, according to this page, the 4Seasons Gen 3 is not being made in the 225/45 R19 size: https://www.thetirelab.com/goodyear-vector-4seasons-gen-3/ 3. Compared to more recent designs, the perfomance of the Goodyear 4Seasons is now a bit middling. See https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-Auto-Bild-All-Season-Tyre-Test.htm Instead I bought the Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6, the newest of the all-season designs, having gone on sale in 2023. It is nothing like the rather hard summer tyres that one is used to seeing from Bridgestone. Our Karoq with 19-inch Vega wheels came on a set of those summer Bridgestones (225/40 R19 Turanza T005) and I couldn't wait to get them off. On the Turanza All Season 6, the ride is transformed as well as the grip. For one example, sometimes I can't feel cats' eyes, only hear them. Some will say why not go for the obvious choice, the Michelin CrossClimate 2? The original CrossClimate revolutionised the all-season tyre market and is the best-selling all-season tyre in Europe. It still wins many comparative tests -- on several criteria but not all. In particular it beats all competitors on snow perfomance. Michelin optimised snow performance to a remarkable extent in moving from the original CrossClimate to the CrossClimate Plus and then the CrossClimate 2. They know their market. The tyre is aimed at all those parts of Europe that get more snow than we do and appeals to people who can use it to get snow performance almost equal to a winter tyre without the bother of swopping from summer to full winter tyres. But - and it's a big but - Michelin optimised the tyre's snow performance by reducing performance on cold wet roads, both in braking and in lateral grip. Does that suit the UK market? How many days of snow per year do you get where you live? Maybe none, maybe two or three? Now how many days are there with cold wet roads? Fifty? A hundred? The Turanza All Season 6 beats the CrossClimate 2 easily for wet braking and wet handling. That makes it a better choice for much of the UK, I suggest. However, I did not replace the 225/40 R19s with 225/45 as you are contemplating. Instead I went for 245/40 R19. That size is a Skoda-approved tyre as one of the factory fitments to Crater wheels for the 4x4 Karoq. Some dimensions: 225/40 R19 -- 89 mm sidewall height, 481 revs/km 225/45 R19 -- 102 mm sidewall height, 465 revs/km, a 3.46% increase in circumference 245/40 R19 -- 99 mm sidewall height, 469 revs/km, a 2.55% increase in circumference. A tyre does not get its final width until mounted on a rim. Widths when mounted on 8J rims will (I think - open to correction!) be 230 mm for the 225 tyre, 242 mm for the 245 tyre. So the 245 in use is 12 mm wider than the 225, not 20 mm as one might think. Thus if you choose 245/40 instead of 225/45 as you were contemplating, you will get 12 mm more width at the rim (6 mm each side) for better kerbing protection, only 3 mm less sidewall height than the 225/45 but still 10 mm more than the 225/40, so adding a useful amount to the ride improvement given by the softer all-season tyre, and a bit less of an unwelcome speedo error. 245 tyres will use a little more fuel than 225 but that will be offset by the small increase in gearing, not that you'd notice either change. In conclusion, the Turanza All Season 6 tyres in 245/40 R19 suit our 1.5 Karoq perfectly and have transformed its comfort and its grip on winter roads. I also regard their size as looking better suited to the car. You could of course get an even softer ride by fitting smaller wheels, but I didn't have the money to spend on that as well as tyres. With the right tyres the 19" wheels are quite OK. I must thank those who have posted here in the past on the tyre threads for helping me reach a good decision, particularly Carlston.

Handy that I did get round to checking before MOT; an inner pad on left side and outer pad on right were both 'vanishingly thin'.

I hired a Car in Malta many years ago (90s) Asked the car hire guy to confirm what side of the road to drive on and he said " In the shade" 🤣

@JiJiJi For 26 years old you have it in almost excellent condition.

Easiest way to get the skoda history is by using the live chat on Skoda's own contact us page (https://www.skoda.co.uk/discover/contact-us) I'm also looking to buy and have got the history of a good 10+ cars this way. They'll email you a pdf on the spot. Be warned though - the history is often pretty vague and doesn't give you much detail, which I've found frustrating.

I wore my way quickly through tyres on a Citroen Saxo 1.4 16V 75 bhp auto & a Kia Picanto 1.1 68bhp Auto. Only the drivers side tyres though. Low annual mileage cars and the tyres / wheels were changed when taken to Autotest events so that was not where they got the wear.

Control unit: B7 Start System Interface System description: VWKESSYMQB Software number: 3Q0959435Q Software version: 1400 Hardware number: 3Q0959435Q Hardware version: 037 Serial number: 061244xxxx ODX name: EV_KessyHellaMQBAB ODX version: 004055 Backup name: Start System Interface Long coding: 1F20000723

Installation: Some plastic parts need to be removed. The right side panel of the central console. The rear plastic (along with the air ducts) of the central console. Looking from below you can see the plug of the front USB ports. It's the red one with the 4 wires. It must be removed to make the new wiring. It's a bit difficult because of the limited space. A small tool with a turned nose that I had helped me a lot. If someone doesn't have it, he can make something similar with a thick wire. With this tool one can press the plug button to unclip and come out. Time to wire. We need to run the new wiring through the center console and bring it to the back. A plastic fish tape wire puller helped me with this. Then we connect our new wiring to the red plug, arrange the connection (I also put some soft material) so that it does not knock and make noise. The side panel can go into place, we're done with that.

You don't work plus you are not doing my job, a delay can cause problems. Humanity is about Humans (only), i grew-up in country with cats-dogs-goats-birds etc and i know much better than others. All i said to people is that there will be a solution and i can not wait for hours for the cat to decide when it's time to leave, the cat was not among the wheels so i raised the hood and that's it. I didn't start the engine, that could drive the cat to jump left-right and hurt or die, i am not heartless and i didn't want damages plus blood in my engine.

Well, i managed to retrofit rear usb ports. As i mentioned i bought the plastic trim with the USBs holes. (5E3863618 (9B9) The USB module with 2 USBs - C ports is the 3G5035954A An cheap sourch is from a Poland site named SkodaParts (https://www.skoda-parts.com/spare-part/3g5035954a-usb-c-connector-skoda-38659.html) I did the wiring. I bought some plugs for this purpose. The black to connect the wiring to the car's (needs a little modification), the red to connect the existing contact of the front seats and the brown for the rear seats USB. The black plug (female) needs a bit of cutting to get the male red plug in. Please see the photo below: And this is the wiring Each plug has 4 pins. Connect 1 to 1, 2 to 2 and 3 to 3 to all plugs. 4 only needs to be connected from the black female to the red male. The new USBs that we will put back do not need to be connected to No.4. This is the schematic This is the result of the preparation.

Cats often use the engine bay as a shelter, drawn by warmth of the engine. A neighbour found a cat in the engine bay after driving from Prague - some 80km.

I’d reccomend checking around different sites. skoda-parts.co.uk are good, better for when you live in europe. also got kopacek.com, even just ebay, or try find a breaking monte near you to rip parts from.

Hi, nice wind deflectors, where did you get them and would you recommend them?

Have done it many a time. It goes through all the motions fine but doesn't fix it.

The look like they should be parts of the front/rear window controls, from under the switch, the square brass things sitting on the greenish circuit board and the rubber pad on top. But then it needs to go into the switch assembly. This might help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpAiCz8Ftgw

@RootedWell all I can tell you is that I currently have 13 solar panels on the roof of my house, they are 1400mm by 800mm, and they are designed to provide 3kwh on a good day, and they face due South and never get any shade on them from other houses. I was told, when they were installed, that they would produce that kind of power on a good day in the height of summer when the sun is almost overhead at about midday. In the early mornings and evenings the sun is weaker and so the output would be lower. So based on that information, I would seriously question their claim about its effectiveness in the UK. However, the further south you go the better the results would be, so around the equator I suggest that you would have a greater possibility of actually getting the claimed figure. I have lots of solar-powered lights in the garden and also many different calculators and as you will probably know, I'm into electronics and love getting broken pieces of various equipment and repairing them as a hobby to keep me occupied in my retirement and my test meters can measure as low as 1 microvolt and I have done some tests with admittedly, small panels, with a 3,000 lumen LED torch and the highest output from the panels is with the torch directly above the panel and at close quarters, the further away the torch is, even when directly above the panel, the output drops rapidly as the torch gets higher above the panel. So based on that, I seriously doubt that in the UK you would nowhere close to the figures Fiskers say it is possible to achieve.

I’ll just leave this here. Amazing vehicle, does everything I ask it for. Epic colour. And loads of scope to tune if and when you get the urge. And it bloody quick

Yes! Skoda garage conducted a system software update and all good. 👍

I’ve had this fitted by @East_Yorkshire_Retrofits a few years ago on my 17 Octavia, it’s brill even on my manual, lets you change gear and resume. Switches car back on when the car in front moves with the Stop start

Yet another post from me to say the 280 (now 320 or there abouts) is the best car I’ve owned or driven as a company car and that includes vehicles like Escort and Sierra Cosworth 2 and 4x4, Scorpio Cosworth, Fiat Turbo Coupe, Nissan 200SX. Oh, and a few Ford Luton’s and Transits! So, I won’t be selling it. Next big job with be getting it rustproofed in the Summer so I need to investigate and select the best products and supplier.

Spot on, side assist/blind spot assist uses a radar mounted on the rear 2 corners behind the bumper, very similar to the front assist radar. No cameras for this.

@PetrolDave or @ApertureS can you give a full list of the features that use data from the A5 camera - and (depending on options) how many different windscreen-mounted cameras were used on MY16 vehicles?

I have been using Barum Bravuris as summer tyres. They are owned by Continental and work well and last.

A few photos from a very chilly Clumber Park this afternoon 🥶

Just wanted to say Hello to everyone here as a new member! I've bought my fabia mc in September. my daily driver broke (not the first time!) and I was left with 3 weeks waiting for parts (clutch) so had to get rental and it was Fabia.. the story ends after one week with rental car I got new my new FABIA MC 1.0TSI 95HP 5DR Black/White

It all depends what is tyre sizes and ratings are homologated for the vehicle, often the speed or load rating is well beyond what the vehicle is rated for but you are supposed to maintain the homologated ratings as a minimum. Insurers may refute a claim and in my country you will not pass a CT test with anything other than the homologated tyres fitted.

Also have in mind that higher speed rating means better handling and cornering, but less comfort. So if you don't break the speed limits, go with the H or V speed rating. For the load index you don't need more than 91-94 as @Carlston already said.

I went for vredestein on 17 inch platin rims.... Cheap and good Platin claim that their winter tyres are performance tyres... But whi druves fast on cold roads. Anyway I don't think size is an issue. Inal happy with them after 4 years. Good year also have good tyres

+1 for what @Carlston said. And the tires are much cheaper in that size compared to 18”, so you can pick a nice brand on a good price.

The below 205/55R16 tyre and 6Jx16 ET48 rim combination allows the use of snow chains on the Octavia MK3, as shown in the owner's manual. In combination with your 4x4, they should work very well in winter conditions. Michelin winter tyres also have excellent tread life, better than most of the other big brand names. Michelin Alpin 6 205/55R16 91H (Euro label C B 69dB) https://www.mytyres.co.uk/rshop/tyre/Michelin/Alpin-6/205-55-R16-91H/R-377244 Alcar 8247 6Jx16 ET48 5/112 57.1 steel rim https://www.mytyres.co.uk/rims/details?vehicleId=185805370466243696&rimCode=ALCAR8247