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GOV.UKGovernment looks to slash red tape to make charging elect...Reforms will open up affordable home charging to thousands more households Newest government EV news, straight from horse's mouth. " The plans would make it easier for renters and leaseholders to install electric vehicle (EV) chargers by mandating chargepoints in new covered car parks and consulting on removing planning permission currently needed for those without driveways to install discreet cross pavement charging gullies, as the government bolsters its drive to make it easier than ever to plug in wherever you live. " Guess they aren't afraid of charging in covered car parks. Removing red tape on cross pavement could open up more possibilities for more people. Including those in this thread that insists they "may" get EV's.

... and if they still strongly disagree with you, you're a mile away from them - and you've got their shoes!

Sorry, but you're just not understanding what I'm on about, lets draw a line under it, its off topic anyway. I think that we all need to remember this, as it is so true.

Sorry to report no issues with apps and I have been using the EV a lot, just under 3k miles in 6 weeks. Using OVO charge* app, synced perfectly with the Elroq. It’s set to 80% and the time the car is required for and I just plug in at the end of the day. POD point charger, set to dumb mode and the car/OVO communicate and it charges. Only thing I’ve had to alter is a couple of times telling it to go to 100%. But in reality 80% is giving 180 to 200 miles range. edit : the app is “OVO Charge”

Hello all, new owner of a 2015 Octavia vrs diesel estate, long term vag owner, second skoda! Nice to have a forum/community to go to for advice, miss the days of edition38!

^^^ The UK / Westminster Government, Announcement relevant to England.

... Unless the fuel gauge and range computation errors continue until the tank is actually empty.

The problem with car insurance repairs and write offs is that thousands of skilled mechanics and painters & body repair professionals have left the trade and not enough new ones are coming in. At the same time the cars, whatever their power source, have become even more complicated. Hence relativity minor damage becomes “unrepairable” especially within a timeframe involving hire cars being provided etc.

Online comments indicate that UK-specification Fabia Mk 1, 2 and 3 cars had a glove-box light as standard, but UK-specification Fabia Mk 4s do not. This omission was mentioned here in 2023 https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/513796-colour-edition-glove-box/ On my 2024-built UK-marketed Fabia Mk 4 SE L car there's an oblong hole above the glove-box's drop-down storage compartment that (presumably) is intended to take a light. It's reasonable to assume from this that Fabias marketed in some other countries do have a light, but - on my car - there's no preparatory wiring behind the 'light hole'. 'Officially' retrofitting a light would require a Skoda kit of parts. I can't find any evidence that such a kit is available, so it's understandable (to me) if Skoda Customer Services advised that retrofitting a glove-box light to my car would not be an option. As Evolution13 says, it should be possible to fit a light (that I assume an a Mk 4 owner would want to to switch itself on and off automatically when the glove-box was opened/closed) but - while a reasonably competent DIYer should be able to carry out that task - it's not something I'd expect a Skoda dealership's workshop being prepared to attempt.

You can keep it simple with EVs if you want to, don't have to use the App that talks to the car at all. I don't bother with the Renault one. As I am on the simple Octopus Go rather than the more complex system Octopus Intelligent Octopus Go I just program the car sat out of the drive way. I set the charge time rather than Octopus and only real downside is I pay 8.5 p per kwh rather than 7p per kwh which both are so much cheaper than the 27-28 p per kwh people pay on normal day rates and I still get the Free electricity sessions which I can quickly adjust the car's programmed time slots and milk that too. I dont use the manufacture app and dont find it much of a hardship in fact still get all, or most, of the benefits of owning an EV but non of the App hassles. My reliable Octopus Energy App shows me when it is charging, how much the energy has cost, adds my UK and European EV charging on to my household billing and monitors the home charging ever 10 seconds. It was a nicety when the manufacture App was working ie with the Zoe, it seemed to struggle having 2 EVs on it but maybe when I get the Renault 5 and will try again to get in working all tickety-boo ahh go spiff but if not, no worries as still getting the mega benefits of running EVs just without yet another annoying App on the smart phone which is the curse of the modern age.

I never got more than 30 miles, and typically it was around 25. That distance is fine for pottering about, and then on longer motorway journeys I would get around 65mpg

So applies to 84% of the UK population, you are of course technically correct but new law will apply to the vast majority of the UK people.

Makes zero difference if I get one or not, that's totally irrelevant, you now know that I'm not going to get one, how do you know that? As the technology develops and the current bugs and infrastructure get ironed out, I might do that, as I said earlier, as my need/desire for longer trips to airshows etc wane and my drives are more local, to the shops and family members. All are within the range of even a mini electric, except for one, who lives on the Isle of Wight, I could visit and make it back on the single overnight home charge twice over. That statement of yours is what I expect to come from some of the closed mind set participants of this thread, not from a person with a foot in both EV and ICE camps, tsk.

@Graham Butcher Read it as you like. Make up your own story about Zero sympathy. I just said, that is how things are EV or ICE vehicle. My sympathy helps nobody, but when i can help someone here getting screwed over i do try to. Really what does it matter about EV,s and not yet where they need ro be technology wise to you? clearly are not getting one.

Oh, I see, that is not how your post read, it seemed that you had zero sympathy for the bloke and that it was another vlogger slagging off EV's, and that is honestly how it read. That is why I often go back into my posts just after posting them, trying to make it come across clearly by attempting to correct any obvious grammar, spelling mistakes or the phrasing to assist in clarifying the post. The Autotrader video (which I had already watched when it was released, I like Rory Reed), you added to your post, is what we desperately need a lot more of and is yet more proof of what I was saying earlier that the technology has a long way to go yet and needs to be sorted before there should be any legislation about all new cars have to be electric.

I, like many owners, use a thin nylon cable to push down the drain tubes to keep them clean. Front drains are visible in each corner and easily accessed, rears are not accessible as they are covered by the fixed glass panel. They are accessible from underneath, one side is more accessible than the other. I don’t think there is any sort of flap over the outlet now. I park my car so it slopes to the rear and then pour water carefully into the gutter around the open roof, it’s possible to feel the water coming out the rear drains under the rear bumper. I also discovered that the pan roof is an optional service item, if you ask for it. There is a special fluid (liquid gold by the price!) in the small bottle, that keeps the neoprene seal flexible and thus it seals better. I clean the drains, clean the seals and wiped with the fluid every 6 months.

I haven’t really noticed any difference so I guess they must be very similar. Being an auto, my left foot lives on the footrest and as I use the cruise control an awful lot, my right foot is on the flat on the floor a lot of the time. Even on the pedals, it’s normally at the ‘correct’ angle relative to my leg so you should be ok

Currently, have running PC's Macs and Linux systems. The Macs are all over 10 years old, and I can swap parts on the Pro and the Macbook pro's They are all 3rd party repairable. Much of it by me, even on the laptops. I went to PC's for Video Editing about 4 years ago because of the way Apple was heading. I don't like the M1 Macs at all for general purpose computing. Though I have designed many embedded systems with a similar sot of outlook where everything (or most of it) is on one MCU. It isn't appropriate for general purpose computers. So PC's it is running, currently Win 10 and 11 (also Win 7 and XP for legacy stuff) Anyway, seeing as Apple is accelerating its planned obsolescence, I will be moving to Samsung for phones.

I’m in full agreement with you regarding; you get sucked in with all devices fully integrating and before you know it it’s very difficult to break away especially if you’re not a techie. I very reluctantly migrated over from Microsoft to Apple in 2016 when Microsoft were, for me anyway, riddled with problems and impossible to get phone support. One big plus, again for me, is that you so easily get to speak to a tech expert even if you do not have a current paid subscription.

Yes, I’ve been watching them since the days of Fiestas and fiat 500s when Chris wouldn’t appear on camera ! When I scraped my Octavia a few years ago I went to a local bodyshop paid £750 +vat directly to them, he said if I wanted a quote for insurance it would be over £2,000

I've never had problem with IOG smart charging..... but as they say, never say never. You can also stay on IOG and only do smart charge once every other week when not mission critical, this is entirely within their T&C. Other way round is also possible, mostly smart charge with a buffer so it's okay if didn't work. Then switch to manual schedules for critical days. <- I do this, rarly go below 30%. Glad it's all sorted now. Once onboarding is done, hopefully things work smoothly for the foreseable future.

Test charge (max) worked, just did it for a few minutes. Ohme app has the car and schedule all in the right placed. Funnily enough no, I'm to leave it to the Ohme app. The Octopus app only has the charger not the car and Octopus themselves recommend using the Ohme app not their app except as a backup option.

So true. Well put. And as with all things, it is best to have experienced it to fully understand. What's that saying? "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes"

Sooo, 10min on hold and then 30min on a call with, actually a vey helpful, Octopus EV support chap. Basically, it's all Octopus fault. They pushed out a policy change and it's been screwing up lots of linking processes. Support pushed out the previous policy and the app was then able to continue. All the apps have terrible user experience choices which made the whole process a lot harder than it needs to be. And the VW app is apparently notorious for scewing things up as well in it's own special way. The ideal is that you leave the car plugged in when you are not using it, then Octopus can push energy to it whenever there is surplus which they will supply at the EV rate (7p). So although the EV rate is 23:30 - 5:30 if Octopus have surplus they can supply charge to you at 7p at any time. This is buggered up by VW software which doesn't cope with this and will put the car to sleep and not accept the power. So advised to not plug in when not in use but closer to normal schedule time.

No I was not "overfilling" the tank.

That needs to stop, makes insurance costs go up, cost insurers more in the long run per repair if they end up just writing them off. Someone, somewhere lost a load of money, I had a hire car for almost a month, got £10.5K payout, and copart sold it for around £2k, so how does that work?

I agree that a faulty or insensitive tank sensor could be an issue - recommend a few more fills of the tank to see if the apparent errors continue, running the tank well down - with the back up of spare fuel just in case.

No need to run out of fuel in the UK is there unless north of Inverness during the festive season. Which is not unusual for me(!) AFAIK, the fuel usage computations are made either from fuel pump-stroke data or sensors in the fuel delivery line - I presume range is calculated from measured tank contents (tank sensor) divided by current usage rate. I think that is the key point. If the tank sensor is faulty/inaccurate then that would explain "full" after 200 miles and an error in expected range at that point. After ~300 miles I needed 22.9l to fill up - a third of a tank - so 200 miles should be 1/4 of a tank used, which should register. Thoughts?

Are you a subscriber to that channel? I am, and it is a must-watch channel in my eyes, they have taken on all kinds of cars, even EVs. Some of the cars, like that Golf will be, are turned around with just the Chris and Rob working on them (apart from paint, which they farm out) are so often turned around and restored to as good as new again in a just few days, sometimes, the same day. I'm not so sure your theory is correct, it might be in your area, but there are loads of accident repair centres around here. When my Superb was taken to the insurers preferred body shop, the estimator said it would be about £5.5k for a new front bumper, grill, N/s, bonnet, wing and headlight and the bonnet had a slight bend on the edge where it met the grill and the wing, which could easily be straightened. They valued the car at £7k and that was their final value and fixed offer. That was the broker and I said I was not happy with that as other cars, with more miles were costing £11k so I declined. In the meantime, I went to the first body shop to remove some personal items as I felt that the car might be written, and discovered that they had done further damage to the car while it was in their care. The person who I spoke to there had said that it was a lovely car and that they were looking to buy it from the insurer. That struck me as being rather odd. After more wrangling, the broker passed it over the underwriters, who said that they would return the car to me as it should not have been taken away and left without my permission and that they would have it reassessed, which they did, but still not enough, then I found three example of similar spec, age, condition cars on Autotrader (driven over a 1,200 miles looking at other cars) and submitted the findings, and they did eventually lift their offer to £10,500 which I accepted and found another for £11.5K but a MK3. So there it is, it was purchased from Copart way under the asking price (circa £2k) and was back on the road 2 weeks later, so it would have been far cheaper to have had repaired in the first place without body shops trying to rip the insurance companies off. I think that they have made the whole process more expensive and time-consuming by relying on body shops quotes and photos, instead of inspecting the damage themselves.

There is that right enough. So best the OP does the running low when not in the far flung regions of the UK and gets that Fuel can and funnel and fills it up.

You should be able to find a double DIN Unit with a fascia adapter plate to fit. If you are anywhere near a car audio shop try there rather than Halfords. Audio Tech Direct have Skoda aftermarket Android radios on their website .

Anywhere from 22 to 40 miles, depending a lot on the circumstances. Hilly city driving with lots of speed bumps in winter for the lowest range to chill countryside in summer at speeds around 56 mph for the highest.

I admit to taking a deep breath, saying a little prayer and crossing my fingers each time I connect my iPhone after a major IOS update. Out of interest, are you on IOS 18 or 26?

ideally, u should b getting the part numbers that match ur current headlight. u need to b aware of LHD vs RHD in theory, u can use 17A/18A in place of 15A/16A. u can't mix 3V2 and 3V1. if u have version A (last letter in part number), u must get version A replacements, not version B. version B has different internals, hence different light control modules (LCM). part number meanings below. 3V2 = right hand drive (RHD) 3V1 = left hand drive (LHD) 015A = bi-xenon left head light 016A = bi-xenon right head light 015B = SLA bi-xenon left head light 016B = SLA bi-xenon right head light 017A = bi-xenon left head light 018A = bi-xenon right head light 017B = SLA bi-xenon left head light 018B = SLA bi-xenon right head light

The way around this is to challenge their offer with evidence. Find equivalent cars on autotrader to back up your claim and dig in. Once they make a write off offer your procrastination starts increasing their costs and if you have a valid case you get a lot closer to your true replacement cost. usually the mean of examples evidenced. Touch wood only twice have I had to do that.

A Manager, Service Person or a Technician can say anything. They are not the Warranty Provider. But if they are not going to report Software or Hardware not Factory Standard or Approved if there are Warranty Claims then that is good. Not likely they will put that in writing and with their name and job title next to it though.

Tesla's latest fsd (not uk)

Ah but EVs are so easy to use with no anxiety... 🤣 Apologies that was a tongue in cheek joke just in case someone takes it the wrong way... I just couldn't resist 😀

The EU puts levy's on the Chinese cars to protect it's own Car industries. There are only 8 individual models of Car assembled in the UK that would likely be helped by the UK doing the same. So the benefits of getting people into cheaper Electric vehicles may be seen as the priority

I just upgraded my OBD Eleven account from the free version to the "PRO".. I was a bit reluctant as this is €59.99 per year. But there are some things I need to do just one of which would cost me more (diagnostic scan at my local "VAGTech" (indy specialist) is £90.00....) I got to check-out and it asked "do you have a discount or promo code?" Hmm I wonder! A very brief look around the internet and came across a pointer.... Let's try this! "Enter code DRIFT for 25% store-wide discount!" And it worked! £41.97 instead of £53.00!

Sent in PM

My eight-year-old passed its M.O.T. with no advisories. This comes on the heels of a 2,646 mile tour of Portugal, Spain and France over 30 days. I had to have the water pump replaced before I went, but the car never missed a beat. Well, aside from losing some window trim on the autoroute at 85 mph. We spent nights in León, Santiago de Compostela, Vigo, Porto, Salamanca, Logroño, Bielsa, Sète, Grenoble, Colmar and Laon. I'm knackered! We had two days of rain (Santiago and Colmar) wore t-shirts and sandals in the beginning, winter coats by the end. I lost and had to replace my plug adapter, my laptop charger and my cap. I lost my phone on the second day of our trip, but ran back to the restaurant and the waiter was holding it. I lost my phone on the 26th day of our trip, but ran back and the barman was holding it. Sheesh! Santiago was a major disappointment. We were looking forward to our return after 19 years, but the town is a certifiable victim of over-tourism. Sète and Porto were the most fun.

1). 10K miles servicing will ensure engine is in good nick and turbo will last. 2). Look for good body work. Check rear arms are not too corroded. If they are not big issue they will just need replacing at some point. If they do change the shocks and springs at the same time. 3). Unless you need 4wd don't bother. 4). Unless you need an auto, stick to manual allow £700 for new clutch flywheel AND slave cylinder to be swapped at some point. 5). On manual car over 100K change gearbox oil. It will love you for it. 6). Odd ball tyre ware can be cured by wheel realignment. However to achieve this you may need some of the alignment bolts to be replaced.

Not so much today, but rather this past weekend, took my Superb on it's first international run. Went to a retro computer show in Munchengladbach, a 700-mile round trip from North West London via the Channel Tunnel, France, Belgium and Holland before getting into Germany. Did the whole trip on one tank of petrol, with 100 miles range to spare. Car reckoned I got 52MPG on the trip.

I have had a 23 Fabia DSG from new and absolutely LOVE the gearbox. Most things about this car I find to be excellent. I have a couple of minor niggles but they are my personal foibles around the infotainment system. I chose the auto because of the arthritis in my knees and have found it to be the best box I have driven. This is the 3 cylinder 999cc model and I generally get in the low 40's around town and up to 58 on a good run. Hope this helps.

^^^ I understand fully. Mr Displeased of Chelmsford. Write to the Telegraph. An attitude like you have that got you no place. Still having to buy Insurance to be road legal and going on about injustice. Not prepared to go protest outside the Mother of all Parliaments. Have you even gone to see your MP about Car Insurance in the UK?

I am not a Lloyds Name or a Hedge Fund Manager or an Insurance Broker, any more than you are. I bought and repaired damaged cars and worked in the trade. It is dafties that mump and moan yet buy the insurance, pay the tax, get ripped off ande can do nothing that is the problem. Buy your accident damaged cars back and repair them or have someone not charging vat and paying taxes and doing it on a nod and a wink do it. But they are busy doing it for themselves.

That kind of attitude is how this country has gone down hill. The whole point of what I explained, is all to do with the way that Salvage Rebuilds UK can take a crashed car and rebuild for considerably less than the official repair quote was for that lead to the car being sold as scrap and the insurance paid out far more then was actually necessary. In a few days time, the second part to the video that @classic shared will be ready and the entire costs of buying the car, the parts and their selling price will be revealed, it is an eye-opener for sure, and I think you will find, all for less than the payout was to owner. It's a shame that other companies weren't as honest as Salvage Rebuilds UK are.

@Graham Butcher I was a car sprayer and refinisher and did warranty assessments and repairs. My Journeyman became an Insurance Assessor back in the 1980,s. The trade moved on. its 45 years back and more when we went from cellulose paint. So what is going to come of all the mumping and grumping, you are decades late.

All very impressive, but you know as well as I do, that system will allow for the worst case when structural damage happens in a crash, brackets that cannot be seen by a camera, but a few minutes on a ramp will confirm if they are required or not and a whole raft of other things, like headlights, fine if they are visibly smashed beyond repair, but so often they can be repaired for a few pounds with the addition of new fixing lugs/brackets, I've seen that done so many times. Headlights on a Superb are circa £1,400 each, repair lugs £10 etc. Many times second hands parts or pattern parts will be fitted as once sprayed, nobody is going to know any different. This means that the insurance company pay out lots and the body shops make the money by not fitting OEM parts and or repair kits, not new units. It is a system that encourages fraud.