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That MkI Octavia vRS is a stunner (irrespective of where it finished) 👌

If you like it and you know it's had a good life, then why not? It's definitely not expensive. It takes the doubt out of wondering what sort of a life it's had before you got it. When I went back self-employed, I bought a van off the fleet of the company I'd been working for because I knew it'd been looked after and it's been great

That would be a bargain for a 4 and 1/2 year old car, rather than paying a small fortune for a new / newer one. And the best thing is you already know its history and you like it. If looked after it will serve - and last- well.

The DQ400-e 6 speed DSG fitted to a PHEV has a 40,000 miles service interval.

You get an adapter to plug in so that you can plug in 2 things.

Consider getting one of the little LED-display voltmeters that plug into the accessory socket and give you a continuous readout of the battery voltage whilst on the move. Then you can get a feel for what the voltage ranges between and peaks at (probably on the over-run).

Update: Rear wiper blade sourced and fitted, BOSCH A284H, £14. Bye bye wiper drag !

Mk1 Fabia for me 😎

I am not familiar with the iv, the hatchaback nor the UK market, but I think if you like the car, and it can suit your purpose, it is a clever idea. I have done this in the past in a ouple of occasions, getting your "work" car as personal (going through the proper channels of course) and it has been always a smart choice. Obviously, you are also lucky you like the car the company selected as a company car ... 😄

As your garage advises this is perfectly normal. Same with satnavs, your ETA is constantly being adjusted as you drive. Your fuel range is too.

I don't think it's that straightforward - I've seen Monroe-branded shocks on a brand new Mk7 Golf, for example. VAG have a number of OE suspension suppliers and use them interchangeably to meet production requirements.

Spotted this earlier.......

Cars use more fuel when they are cold. The consumtion information starts of being based on the cold consumtion. My Karoq only indicated ~12mpg by the time I get to the end of my road. The computer starts with a fuel range, and as you drive it is calculated and the remaining range displayed. As the engine warms up it becomes more efficient, and frequently the consumption improves sufficiently for the displayed range to increase. This can also be true if yoy have been doing a lot of urban driving, then get out onto country roads.

Hi Thanks, What did you use to pop the panel out? I'm going to need to replace the port itself, does it have a specific part number etc? or can you advise where to get one thanks again

Hello, any aftermarket ambient light that you add to your car will not be controllable from the OEM head unit 😔 Only original ambient light can be controlled from the OEM head unit

I think you need to rewrite that question in a way we can understand.......?

Hi. I'll be retiring soon and I'm considering buying my company Skoda Superb iv hatchback. It was registered in March 21 and has been regularly serviced and had done 82,000 miles. The buy price from the lease company is £10,800 which is a few £K below buying one through the trade, and I know it's not been driven hard. I would appreciate anyone's thoughts on this. I'll be 67 and so will probably just buy it to run as long as I can. Thanks in advance.

On my 2021 Superb I leave the system to its own devices and it automatically switches the main beam off once it detects street lighting........

Unless you have a habit of moving between different cars and taking the dashcam with you, I'd seriously suggest getting a hard-wire kit for it so it switches on automatically on starting the car so you never risk driving without it being activated (sods law says that will be the time when you needed it the most) and then it frees up the power socket for other things, such as the LED voltmeter.

Sorry I thought I had replied but it doesn’t seem to have posted. I’m reading that modern cars have smart alternators and alter the output based on battery SOC and also engine load. So a lower output might not be of concern as if the battery is over 75% charged and the energy demand isn’t crazy the alternator might not put out over 14 volts charge. It might also what Breezy_Pete was mentioning.

That is correct, the vacuum line was disconnected and plugged with a bolt, as I have filmed this while I was adjusting the distributor's timing.

Fixed voltage charging is a thing of the past. All sorts of factors will influence the output voltage which the alternator is commanded to produce, so it's no longer straightforward to assess whether an alternator is underperforming or not.

Is that a Skoda Dealership you called? Even with just petrol engines there is regenarative braking / recuperation to help put charge to the battery. Helps with efficiency / fuel reduction.

Apologies for the thread revival! The car started to nag with a "Inspection now!" message, so decided given its about half a year since the last oil change to just do so. As it was Black Friday last week, the usual barrage of emails arrived of discounts of various sorts, and one stood out enough that I decided why not: A 2000kg capacity tilting car lift. From SGS, although CJ Autos is the other one who normally sells this sort of thing. At £450, I thought it was worth a punt. Not going to add it to the running costs as its a more general use tool. I've had my eye on one of these for a while, although ironically the cars I would want to use them on, like the Elise, don't really work with it. Also turns out that even though its about 15cm lowered, it's still not able to clear some of the cars we have. Once the wider extensions were fitted as per the pic above, slid the thing under Skoda to see if it lines up to the sills: Normally, I'd be worried about this sort of thing for the sills, but for whatever reason decided the hell with it, and got one of my cordless drills and started: It kinda worked, and I basically lifted it up enough to get under (with a jack under some area of the subframe in case!) and start an oil change. I bought 20l (4x5l) of Mannol 504 507 oil for £78.85 so should be good for maybe 3 oil changes, maybe 4. With a couple more oil filters, my usual Mann branded ones, for £21.83 for the pair. Turns out the VCDS doesn't reset that inspection one amusingly, and it looks like you can just use the dashboard trip meter button to reset it. Looks like I've committed to twice yearly oil changes, which is probably no bad thing. As for the lift: It's a little on the large side, so I really need to tidy up the garage before I find out whether it may or may not make my life easier, but I imagine once I lift up the Skoda and tilted it forwards, it would potentially provide amazing arounds of room to work on the rear, which would be fantastic should I brave renewing all the rear suspension and bodywork area. I'm hoping with fashioning some sort of ramps or whatnot that it can lift some of the other cars and with all four wheels off the ground, would make wheel changes and brake jobs a whole lot simpler. Probably nowt more until the Spring, so Merry Christmas everyone! Maintenance: £3086.43 (+£100.68) Upgrades: £4617.27 Miscellaneous: £827.47

As an approved used car, the answer is "Not a lot" - this is true for pretty much all manufacturers now. The reputation has been built that AUCs are somehow better quality, and the dealer network is trading on that. The reality is there's no incentive for them to do anything over the bare minimum; if the buyer spots it then they'll take care of it but everything the buyer misses is money back in their pocket. One upside is that the warranty does tend to be slightly better to deal with - less faffing around and "you pay us up front for the repair and we'll reimburse you".

The issue for me, & apparently the OP, is more that it also triggers the SatNav screens to flip to night mode making them harder to see in daylight.

When you consider that everything else had about 100hp over the Mk1's and 2's, they didn't do badly. The mk1 fabia took a hell of a lot of speed off quickly under braking, I'm guessing it was on the standard brakes and got heat fade.

So you couldn't use the Areton shocks if non DCC and fit those with the issue gone, again you could have the same issue. The B4 shocks are not worth it and might as well just go to the B6's? If anything like the other day where the battery failed and it wasn't an approve Skoda battery where the car had been checked via Skoda Approved, the AA chap said thats a Banner battery, cheap and cheerful. Ended up saying I have only had the car just over a month to Skoda with then the Sales Manager using his credit card to pay AA over phone so I could have a new Yuasa battery fitted there and then and not wait 2 days for Skoda to get a battery in stock. So as you say Warranty does beg the question on what is checked.

cold or warm, there should be no difference more than 1mm on dipstick. also i calculated that i am reading it cold, it will show little more than warm. but when is cold, and dipstick is 100% clean it will be more easy to spot the line, without oil in dipstick channel or elsewhere.

Ouch - it was a long time ago. I'm not pretty sure if I remember well - but VCP has build in output programming. PQ35 BCM Programmer Or You can just read the configuration and save it as a file and send it to me. I will compare it with mine file.

As it says, 2 services, 1 air filter. This was the second service and it wasn't included.

I don't rely on the auto setting. Switch them on manually then you're in control

I checked a little, as far as I know, these red or blue arrows change color depending on whether heating or cooling is set. In automatic mode, when the temperature is reached, cooler air could be gradually blown into the car cabin. In any case, at current outside temperatures of about 5°C, when the heating is set to max, cold air should not blow and vice versa. More than that without direct access to the car and checking or testing the sensors and flaps, I don't know how else I could help.

Skoda will naturally say that - in reality the onus is on them to prove the shocks were the cause of the fault. The question is whether you want to set yourself up for that potential argument. FWIW, I went into the purchase of my Sportline in full knowledge that the stock dynamics were a steaming pile of ****, and that I'd be ripping the shocks out the moment I got it home. Within the first year I had 2 warranty claims approved (driveshaft guibo and Haldex), nobody batted an eyelid at the B6s.

Thanks, I’ll take a look.

Stolen parts... 😪😪

Thanks guys. All good Intel. I will replace both thermostats as bits need to be taken off anyway, and it will save revisiting the issue I hope. Someone on YouTube described my problem and it was the DSG one as the issue was still there after an engine thermo replacement. I will update when it's done. My old Norton Dominator 99 Cafe Racer is a lot easier to work on!

Unfortunately I don’t think it’s possible and it reverts back to normal mode every time, I’m lead to believe it’s part of the regulations that it must start in the mode in which it was certified for emissions, fuel consumption etc.

Oil should not get very dark in a petrol engine; however diesels will discolour new oil to black extremely quickly.

The range readings are calculated by the on-board computer (quite approximately) and depend on: fuel quality, instantaneous consumption, average consumption, road conditions, driving style, and...you can go on.

These numbers are not accurate, the ecu combines the amount of fuel in the tank, your average speed and the time you spent traveling and then outputs informative data, not exact measurements. If you really want to know your average consumption, you have to repeat the procedure several times: fill it to the top, drive 100km, fill it to the top again and see how much you put in the tank, and so on several times, try filling it in the same place, you will get the most accurate consumption.

Before removing panel check if you can that the window glass hasnt come out of the bottom of the regulator. There are holes in the metal panel to gain access. Its not unknown on a frosty day for the regulator to pull away from the glass if its frozen. If one side comes out then the glass is at an angle when raising and gets jammed. Alasdair

I'll second the above, the Matrix LED's on my 2021 Octavia are awesome!

I’m curious! After 67k miles I remain impressed with the standard LED headlights in my 2020 mk4 Octavia. Makes me wonder if yours has a fault in some way (a failed diode or two? Faulty beam range adjuster? 🤷‍♂️).

Purely from personal experience, I would recommend the AA Wireless dongle. Had one for several years and had no issues whatsoever. Itregularly updates and reboots without problems.

nta16 So in conclusion the Fabia Mk4's Climatronic controls, at least, are (unnecessarily) over complicated. This 2022 CARWOW article details the difference between car air-conditioning and climate control. https://www.carwow.co.uk/blog/air-conditioning-vs-climate-control-0044#gref As part of the most recent Fabia Mk4 facelift https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/skoda/fabia/362932/skoda-fabia-goes-bigger-slice-supermini-sales-2024-updates the manual controls for the Climatronic system were revised (photos in my 20 November posting above). I also notice that, on the infotainment-unit, the format of the display for the Climatronic system has been altered beneficially to take advantage of the fan-speed adjustment having been migrated from a 'slider' on the display to an extra pair of press-buttons on the manual controls. Although the revisions should make life simpler for a new Fabia owner, even the earlier system can be used effectively for heating/demisting once an owner has become familiar with its operating principles/controls (and doesn't expect miracles). Multi-zone climate-control systems are now commonplace on modern cars and I suspect that the Skoda version of Climatronic is no worse complication-wise than equivalent systems on other makes of car. Climatronic is not an intuitive system, but neither is using a mobile phone and even little children and old codgers (like me) can manage that

The biggest front brake discs on the Octavia MK4 are 340x30mm, so 17" rims will clear the front brake calipers. If 17" rims didn't clear the 340x30mm front brake discs, you wouldn't be able to use snow chains...and it wouldn't make sense for Skoda to sell such a vehicle. Technical data (from Octavia MK4 owner's manual)Permitted rim/tyre combinations for mounting of snow chains: Rim size Tyre size 6.5Jx16 ET46 205/60R16 6.5Jx17 ET46 205/55R17 Only fit snow chains with links and locks that are no larger than 9 mm. SKODA ACCESSORY CATALOGUE The Skoda accessory catalogue lists four 6.5Jx17 ET46 5/112 57.1 alloy rims for the Octavia MK4, as follows. They can be ordered from any VAG parts department by quoting the relevant OEM part number, eg. 5E3071497AC 8Z8, etc. 6.5Jx17 ET46 5/112 57.1 LYRA alloy rim 5E3071497AC 8Z8 (Silver metallic) 6.5Jx17 ET46 5/112 57.1 LYRA alloy rim 5E3071497AD FL8 (Black metallic) 6.5Jx17 ET46 5/112 57.1 NEVIS alloy rim 5E3071497AA 8Z8 (Silver metallic) 6.5Jx17 ET46 5/112 57.1 NEVIS alloy rim 5E3071497AB FL8 (Black metallic) google "skoda eshop cz" https://eshop.skoda-auto.cz/cs_CZ/alu-kola/c/alloyWheels?q=%3ApriceAsc%3ArimDiameter%3A17%2522%3AcarType%3AOctavia%2BIV%2B%25282019%252B%2529&text=# google "skoda parts com" https://www.skoda-parts.com/catalog/octavia-4/spare-parts/accessories/wheels-steel-aluminium/aluminium-wheel/17-895.html?sort=cheapest

PM sent

Indeed, this is Columbus MIB1, with DAB, without SIM. Pls share VIN in PM so I can check details of your car configuration.

I had two resistor packs fail (car under warranty) on a Jan 2019 Polo First failure: 19/1/2021 (after almost exactly 2 years on a car that only does 5,500 kms/year) Second Failure: 14/10/2021 (9 months later). I thought I had a third failure (will check again later) outside of warranty but can't find any record of it, so maybe not, so maybe 4 years now since last failure, personally I think its a fault with the resistor pack, in over 60 years of driving with at least 4 cars in the family for well over 20 years, I never once experienced "fan failure", the fan only running on speed 4 when the pack fails is a requirement for all makes of car I think, safety concern, but at least you can keep the windscreen clear. I would like to know the fan power readings when "They compared the current draw through resistor pack with two other cars and found higher reading on our car." "Relay J59 was replaced as was deemed at fault", yet a failure again 1 month later. (mag571). I took the readings off mine with VCDS after the first failure pack replacement and again after the second failure pack replacement and they were almost exactly the same, the readings, below, are corrected by subtracting 4.5A from the VCDS ones as the current draw with nothing on except the DRLs etc is 4.5A. Speed 1: 4.1A Speed 2: 6.4A Speed 3: 11.0A Speed 4: 17.2A