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I have had all of them pretty much continuously since I stepped off the ride in 2004, as I type this I can hear the Little Owl (Athene Noctua) screeching above my caravan. There are many things that I don't have but I don't miss them in the slightest, I have what is really important and nobody can take it away.

7825692-2cd9bf154e5e6a7d51ff81d8edbc2339.mp4

Edumification is good for you ...

All the candidates standing in Lancashire local elections 2024 This is the headline for an article in the Lancashire newswire where it talks up the various aspirants for the forthcoming elections. The article contains the obligatory picture - a larger-than-life sculpture, set high above the landscape, and which makes harmonious noises when the wind blows through its substantially empty structure. Quite appropriate for an article on politicians ... Original article if of interest - but watch out for the ads and popups.

I ate at my favorite Routier tonight. Tortilla (the Spanish potato and veg pattie type) and salad starter. Main course Angus steak with cauliflower purée main course. Then a haircut before dessert 😲 Dessert Panacotta with kiwi fruit coulis. Coffee. The resto patrons had put me on to their visiting hairdresser and she came to cut mine last time, she was at the resto for a meal with her family and was cutting the hair of one of the lorry drivers so I seized the opportunity. I really like her, she is a real bosseuse (hard worker) she runs a salon with 2 employees and does home visits on her days off.

Crepescular Rays were especially prominent this evening.........

Picky bits and nibbles tomorrow night at our French neighbours

I ordered some German food on an app, for delivery. The sauerkraut has arrived, but the wurst is yet to come.

Barnsley Lamb chop, mash & veg tonight.

I will be honest - if you could get the work completed at the local dealer that did the checklist I would be more inclined but the reality is they won’t agree with that. I kind of feel that the trust with the selling dealer is broken but, then again, they would be fools not to do everything required and, in that case, the car would then hopefully be very sound with new disc, brakes, tyres, software updates etc. If you reject the car, which would be totally understandable, you never know what potential issues the next prospective purchase, irrespective of brand, will bring. At least you now know the issues that need addressing on this specific car. I have an SEL First Edition, built around October 2020 and first registered January 2021. After I purchased in October 2023 it was a bit of a shaky start, all software / firmware problems, but now they have been resolved it’s a very solid and stable car which I enjoy driving.

I would call the selling dealership speak directly to the manager and read them the riot act. Say you are contacting Skoda directly whatever as clearly they haven't done the necessary checks and then see what they might offer. Obviously follow everything up with an email. I honestly feel for @sam8520 as the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in your mouth and having such a negative experience. After your home, the cost of a car is a huge financial outlay and it's dis-respectful that they are so gung-ho in their approach to selling you a vehicle.

Ah. This is a subject very close to my heart. I had a similar experience 2-3 years ago. Hit what I thought was a pothole in the dark. Turned out when I doubled back and waited for daylight to arrive a very short time afterwards (after having swapped out the offending wheel for the spare), that it was a sunken manhole cover I'd hit. I parked up and took several pictures of the street location, GPS coordinates, road layout, offending manhole etc, plus the physical damage to 1 wrecked tyre, and mangled alloy wheel... I then tracked down the council responsible for that stretch of highway. Went on their Website and filled in an on-line vehicle damage claims form, detailing my incident and the indicated cost of repairs in the form of quotes. ( In my case 1 x knackered tyre, 1 x mangled Alloy, new wishbone, suspension alignment, and labour charges. What I received back from the council was a dismissive, (default) email quoting chapter & verse, the Highways act Section xyz and how they maintain their section of the public highway. I decided to dig my heels in out of principle and submitted a freedom of information request relating to when the offending manhole was last inspected AND for details of any other pothole claims made for that same manhole cover on that particular day.... Their 2nd response? Very different.. This time they pointed out that they would agree to pay my costs in this instance, but that this was in no way and admission of negligence on their part for the upkeep of the highway.... Now there's a thing... Sometimes perseverance and bloody mindedness does pay off. Just be prepared to dig your heels in. I hope this long, and maybe boring message helps someone else 😊

I’ve been using a dashcam for 11 years and I can categorically say it has had a positive impact, on my driving style. Having a camera in your car cuts both way, because it records everything you do in terms of speed, braking and risk. Fitting the rear camera is for exactly the reason @Matchman55 points out.

Who needs one antenna when you can have eight!! And still the DAB reception can be poor. 😁

Totally disagree. I got rear-ended and my rear dashcam footage helped my insurance claim go through without any doubt as to what happened and who was at fault.

As long as you have the full 30 days to reject it from the point of them delivering the fixed car to you it certainly sounds not a bad prospect. Just get a full paperwork trail of work done and the actual parts used.

So, the sales manager and head of business have discussed this. The sales manager tried to push it on me, that you test drove it etc etc. I was adamant that I want to reject it because of mis-selling. He wants an opportunity to fix everything. They have offered to collect the car from my place, drop a courtesy car and then fix all the issues. What do you guys think? I am still leaning towards rejection, do I have valid grounds? @spcdust @Rooted @Gaz

Possibly the most 'Pythonesque' sounding creature since the 'Norwegian Blue Parrot' but today I came across a feature on the Tasmanian Mountain Shrimp! The name conjures up the weirdest imagery in my mind. The 'enigmatic' Tasmanian mountain shrimp allows researchers to look back 200 million years - ABC News

Nicola Sturgeon MSP has every right to continue as a MSP. But if she is not fully representing her constituents by attending Holyrood when they are sitting or attending to constituency surgeries she should stand down IMO. She has postponed her appearance at Westminster's Scottish Affairs committee next week. She has asked for her evidence session on intergovernmental relations since devolution to be rescheduled. 'Things are 'Incredibly difficult' she said last week since her husband was charged. Well take a break, resign, stand down, collect your pension / transition money and maybe going caravanning or hire a motorhome. Maybe just do not leave the country to the holiday home as there might be questions next week that might need answering at a Police Station closer than where the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee meet.

TFTD Tuesday (apologies for the typos):

Does not install faith in the Skoda Approved Used car scheme at all. What do you propose to do? Go back to the seller with this and allow them the opportunity to pay for the necessary work. If the car is otherwise sound that would be my inclination as then you know everything is good once work is completed but understandable if you just reject the car outright. Another option is to contact Skoda UK directly, I have the email address of the CEO, you can email him - obviously, he doesn't deal with it but you are assigned a single point of contact in the Executive Team who could address these issues. Not to put too fine a point on it the report is damning and completely undermines the Skoda Approved Used Car promise - it's potentially something a consumer rights journalist would be interested in.

@spcdust, @Gaz the result from the check. And the report they provided. Does this count as gross mis-selling ? SDKN70AZC.pdf

It was actually more like rattling or chatter. It was audible in neutral and disappeared if I pressed the clutch. Mechanic also found some grinding noise when he listened with a stethoscope. However, there were no extra noises when driving. Refurbished gearbox will be installed in 3 weeks. It has new bearings, oil and seals. It would have cost me almost 3000€ but extended warranty will cover it 100%.

definitely got a few of them round here

The Mmm was, I thought, the most appropriate response, as, to my mind, having the right isn’t always being right. But I don’t want to fall out with anyone, so I’ll just say I apologise if you took offence, and see my sig. Malcolm

I've removed the spare wheel and placed new floor. Added the Hertz MPS 250 S4 enclosure. Doorpanels is just two screws in the doorhandles and one at the bottom. Deadening doors and most important inside doorpanel. Amp will be the Audison DSP M8.14. So 2 way front active and backdoors coaxial. Disabling Canton is coding: F5/47: change byte 04 to FF and byte 11 to 05 I made a special 38 pin cable to attach to the original Canton cable loom to connect to the speaker. I've build everything so that I can easily replace back to Canton if I would sell the car. When disabling Canton there will be speaker out on the MIB. So a Quadlock cable from the unit to the driver seat where the speaker wires are located is necessary.

Just done a journey from Dorset to Oxford which is 90% dual carriageway. Managed to achieve 65.8 mpg. Well pleased. And no, I wasn't crawling along at 40 - 50 mph !! - Spent most of the time doing 60+ mph.

Very unlikely that hitting a pothole would damage the brakes on both sides but not the wheels, tyres or suspension. I think you've been lucky in a way to have the brake faults brought to your attention.

There are VW Customising Specialists turning out lovey VAG models with difference, as there are for many different manufacturers models. Lots of people do lots of mods to their vehicles, even brand new. In Scotland there are loads of very noisy Audi,s about, & slammed etc. Most annoying are the once making lots of noises, pops and bangs and bouncing off limiters and going no place fast just being heard for ages. Loads of plonkers with old Skoda,s doing exactly the same. Soot covered rear hatches.

From a trawl of the interwebs and the OED it seems "gasses" is valid but deprecated in British English but quite prevalent in American and Australian English. I've been doing a lot of proofreading for American authors so it seems I have become contaminated by immersion. Time for a stiff upper lip

I hope it all works out and ends up being a blessing in disguise as you become the owner.

Garlic butter anyone?

And odds on they spend money on mods rather than insurance and if they do pay insurance you can pretty much guarantee the mods aren’t declared

Brilliant, albeit not quite as I’d expected 😂

So a few further updates: Areaview fully coded and 'working The coding for areaview is actually really straight forward, the hard part is the hardware and wiring. Gateway - Install list - Add 6C (same as reverse camera) Parking Sensor - Coding - Change to areaview camera type '20' 5F Infotainment - Adaptation - VPS_0x0B to activated Then all the relevent coding in 6C areaview (manual/auto, bodytype, make, model and such, same as reverse camera again) Dataset needs uploading to 6C - only datasets I have are tiguan, passat pre-FL, passat FL Calibrate the camera using vas721001 calibration mats and a diagnostic tool Now I was unable to calibrate the areaview as it keeps picking up errors on the front camera, both sides and rear are perfectly fine. The red lines means its detecting part, but not all it needs (turns blue when it finds all it needs) the yellow dots in the sky are things it thinks its looking for, so that gives us the next issue to work out why and ive narrowed it down to many things: The mats need to be wrinkle free Needs to be done indoors with uniform lighting to prevent sky issues The calibration mat isnt perfect as the forward white lines SHOULD go directly to the end. not stop short. The dataset currently on there is for a tiguan which has a different camera placement, i may try a passat pre-FL which is much more similar to my setup. The camera I have fitted is too low and not in a suitable location, could try lifting the car up level on bricks 2/3 inches or may end up having to change camera mounting location, yikes. All of these need to be worked out so i can fully calibrate the system and have a seamless image. Next up, the heated washer jets were coded, real straight forward: BCM 09 - adaptation - Window heater-Waschduesenheizung to active The heated steering wheel again was real straight forward and all done through HVAC 08 - coding: Byte 11 bit 2 - 1 (Enable heated SW) Byte 11 bit 3 - 1 (Enable multi-stage heated SW) Byte 13 bit 2-3 (Decide if you want it to auto come on with the heated seat or outside temp) The phone charger with antenna base again, very straight forward on coding, all in 5F infotainment - coding: Byte 15 bit 0 - 1 (Enable baseplate) Byte 15 bit 1 - 1 (Enable antenna amplifier in baseplate) Byte 15 bit 2 - 1 (Enable wireless charger) This came with a fault code - B156401 - Antenna for telephone mount, electrical error and working out exactly what this fault code relates to will be fun, the below are the options that need further diagnosis: My coding has a possible problem and im either missing something or wasnt meant to enable bit 1 My fakra cable from charger to amplifier is faulty My amplifier is faulty Amplifier not receiving power, ground or switch on signal Faulty charger or roof antenna (but both brand new so id hope not) Faulty fakra cable between amplifier and roof antenna The USB hub was next, this added a second USB port in the centre console that is fully supportive of carplay/android auto and everything else and coding was very simple again, all in 5F infotainment: Byte 19 bit 6 - 1 Byte 19 bit 7 - 1 (Both of these will already be on if you have a carplay/android auto USB port) 5F Adaptation - Interface for external media activation - connection 1 → activated Interface for external media activation - connection 2 → activated Straight forward and no faults with this, fully working and no issues! The TV tuner was next, now this im only half way through sorting and have yet to disable component protection which means i cant currently see anything and my TV list only shows liverpool tv, so something is very very wrong here but im yet to work it out. There are no faults for any open antennas or such, which is a very good start! The coding so far is as follows: 5F infotainment - adaptation: Gateway component list: TV Tuner - enable TV_tuner_0x2C - enable TV_tuner_0x2C_msg_bus - currently not sure, possibly Terminal 15? menu_display_tv_tuner - enable Gateway - installation list - 57 TV tuner Now with this coding I have no fault codes anywhere except component protection, which is a good start! Im yet to fiddle around and see if anything works on this side so when i find time ill do this In preparation for the DCC retrofit, A custom gateway FPA dataset is required, this now gets a small bit complicated. So a lovely gent managed to decode the entire gateway dataset to allow reverse engineering. The only issue, you need to have a gateway with at least version Q, mine was C. I thought id give it a go, so first I intercepted my own dataset from ODIS for version C of gateway, when looking at it under a HEX editor you could see the differences already between a version C and Q dataset. Namely the section that holds the FPA data starts at address 0B80 on a Q dataset and is exactly 4352 bytes. On my C dataset the address with 4352 bytes started at 0320 which is NOT 0B80, this is an issue. I tried picking out the individual bits I needed but this was no good. Annoying as I would of prefered to make small changes to my current dataset instead of creating one from scratch. Next I scrapped the idea and started from scratch and began using the FPA editor to create a dataset - http://www.mqbtools.nl/fpa/ Once this dataset was done, I couldnt upload it as its only suitable for Q and onwards software. So the gateway module now needs an update! There are two paths for 19 gateway modules that are 3Q0907530 - Lear and Continental. Both have the same suffixes for hardware and software but are NOT interchangable. If you do that, youll brick the module. So as I have continental (can read through diagnostic or physical checking label) I know that my software numbers start with 5, whereas lear start with 4. So my continental software was C - 5287 (Lear C - 4287) and I needed to get to at least Q - 5344 (Lear Q - 4344) (With gateway, as long as its a valid software, you can flash forward, backward, skip some, do whatever. No risk of bricking) So I made the choice to jump to the newest version which is AC, or in full 3Q0907530AC - 5388 (Lear 4388) after this, everything worked perfectly except for loosing coding, adaptations and many fault codes..... I then used ODIS-E to reconfigure the coding and adaptations to what they were before, no issues here and now almost all the fault codes are gone and no more dash errors. The custom made dataset was then uploaded to the module (ODIS-E did not like this but still accepted it) as the checksum was incorrect, but still a valid dataset. The only additional coding to enable the DCC options to appear in profile selection was 19 - coding - FPA_Funktion_DR (DR for damper regulation) Everything is now working, but im left with a single fault code that there is no documentation on "00301 - 769 - C115531 - Analog measurement input, No signal" and although it causes no issues, This will be a seamless build with no faults left so i done some digging. I found a single other person who had the same issue and they advised I roll the software from AC to AA - 5366, I am yet to try this but I have acquired the software, so that will be my next test to see if it fixes it. The only saving grace, all datasets for anything from Q to AC are the same and can be uploaded with no issues. We currently have a working DCC slider and options displaying (but of course not doing anything until the coding for DCC and damper fitting)

Just sent in an email, I have asked to facilitate rejection of the vehicle. The rear tyres need replacing, all four discs and pads, split shock dust covers, all the modules I pointed out are throwing fault codes (SOS, climate, infotainment control units/ microcontrollers). I wonder how this car passed their MOT or the "Approved" inspection, a massive red flag. The bill from the inspection report is at £988.25 for a car that passed it's inspections and MOT in the past few weeks, even if they fix this, who is to say they would do it reliably or have not hidden other issues from me. Looks like a thoroughly ignored car landed up on their steps and they've done the same thing and moved it along. I was really excited about my first Škoda (a brand I have always admired) and this has soured my experience unbelievably. That being said, I still love the brand and would still probably go for a Škoda next (with a lot of rigorous checks before finalisation). The sales person acted all surprised when pointing this out, let's see how they respond. Should I marking anyone else in the email or forward it to someone higher up?

In the rubber boot going from the car into the door

Clocks were issued by some Scottish Local Councils for many many years even though they were not applicable in Scotland. Maybe people would head across the Border. I got a clock 2 years ago with a badge renewal. But then different Scottish Councils charge different amounts for Badge Renewal.

I am quite sure they replace everything because they leave the stuff they replace so I can check it. Accuracy is 0,2L/100 better on the computer than in real life, I tried that. I haven't checked the undertray, but it seems in place to be honest. Also I was suspecting tyre pressure first for higher consumption, but not, that was also good. Me too, I also run out of ideas. I suspect the problem is either technical of psychological in nature I checked that too, the rims are not at all warm after a longer trip, or not warmer than everything else. Good point though! Yeah, that is strange part, lower speed consumption is quite okay. Last tank was only country road driving, on average it was 5,3L/100km real consumption.

Assuming it's a little black shark fin, mine is on the roof at the back. The Superb DAB is not perfect however it's much better than our works Transit Connect van which has dreadful reception.

Not scary at all

Hi guys! 👋🏻 I just wanted to give my 2 cents to this discussion. Firstly, thank you sooo much @BillyJim for your comment here. I was on the edge of my mind and almost lost my last hope, but I've finally came across your comment and it was the missing piece I've been looking for! Thank you! 🙏🏻 Next, I'd like to combine all my knowledge and previous experiences, and leave them here for the future reference of everyone who's looking for help/guidance on updating their maps and/or infotainment system. My setup: Car: OCTAVIA III vRS 2.0 TDI (2013) Infotainment system: MIB 2 COLUMBUS Computer: MacBook Pro 16" (2019) SD card: SanDisk Extreme PRO 128 GB SDXC (non-factory card, bought from the retail store, not from the SKODA dealership) Maps: Before update: ECE 2013/2014 (as preinstalled in the factory) After update: ECE 2024 (downloaded from the official SKODA site) The steps I took to finally make it all work and to be able to update the COLUMBUS system: Format the SD card to exFAT, using the built-in Disk Utility app. Copy ONLY the following files/directories onto the SD card: metainfo2.txt (file) Mib1 (directory) Mib2 (directory) Delete the hidden files generated automatically by the macOS system. You can do it e.g. by using the CleanMyMac X app (read more here and here). Eject the SD card from the computer. It can be either safe eject or normal/brute one - it didn't make a difference in my case. ...and that's it. You should be good to go 🙂 Once again, thank you all for all your posts and tips which led me to finally being able to update my COLUMBUS system. And, of course, special thanks to you, @BillyJim ❤️

I had to replace the one on my octavia a month ago. I ordered this from amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0B1845DN9?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

I think you will find the 1.4TSI gives you more than enough power - I normally prefer manual box, but have driven a Canadian 1.4 Passat with the Aisin 8-speed and I liked it.

With the all in plan I think the cost of the breakdown and services alone might justify it. You're almost getting the warranty part for free. Of course that's based on main dealer prices. Friend of mine had his water pump done on this warranty to, although the VW counterpart.

PS: btw, proof that i'm on 330 now i also connected the car to my wifi in the garage and perfomed an online update for the maps, i'm now on 23.6 database and not on 20.11 like the photo sais).

I dont see anyone being rude or offensive here