Colin170CR

I'm with you on the 280 becoming collectable. Well I would say that wouldn't I . 280's are in demand & don't hang around very long when they do come up for sale. For me it's the fact that it is a bit of "wolf in sheep's clothing" with no obvious go faster frippery adorning it. Even the exhausts are tucked away & muted. It is a very quick car, even more so now mine has a Stg 1 Revo remap. Overtaking is effortless & it will haul huge amounts of stuff. Ideal for my camping & fishing gear & with 4WD it can handle inclement weather with ease & a bit of mild off roading when needed. My 280 will probably be the last car I own. For the money I paid for it at just over 2 years old there is nothing out there that comes close. Electric cars are stupid money for what they are - £25-30k for a supermini size electric car is nuts. I might have a look at a used one for my wife when the prices drop but TBH she doesn't do enough mileage to warrant the running cost saving. No, I'm quite happy with what I've got & barring it being nicked or an insurance right off, my 280 will be with me for quite some time to come.

Thanks for all the info / advice. Starting the sat nav update at the start of a journey would be nice but I've not been & will not be going anywhere for a long enough trip anytime soon Best I have manged recently is a couple of trips for click & collect groceries & today a flue jab at the health centre neither of which are more than 5 miles away. Hey ho its done now so I guess I have no excuse not to start the decorating. Oh look the Rugby has just started so I can postpone the painting I love procrastination.......

Interesting. I was only getting between 1.2 to 2.1mb/sec or less during the download from the Skoda website + the freezes / drop outs & restarts which is why it took 5hrs +. Just tested my line test download speed for my Vodaphone Superfast connection which is in excess of 35mb/sec - see below. So, I can only deduce that the week link in my chain is my aging laptop processor. This has now prompted me to make the switch to my new Azus laptop which I bought earlier this year but I have not yet managed to make the switch to yet. I might need to get my son involved in that as the thought of transferring all the stuff over is a bit daunting.

I seem to remember an advert recently that Direct line are offering rebates for unused annual mileage on their policies. It's probably a double edged sword for those that go over their declared mileage who have to pay extra - one pays for the other? Also, DL premiums are not the lowest either - certainly not for existing customers. As always best deals are for new customers which is why I ditched them & every other insurer who tries to increase my insurance premium when the value of the car is decreasing My MOT is due next month & I bet there's not much more than 4,000 extra miles on it since last Dec. I declared 10k annual mileage on my insurance. No refund with LV I suspect but maybe worth asking the question.

Sat Nav update. After driving "off road" due to new roads & layout changes that have caught me out on the odd occasion, I decided to update my on-board factory fitted sat nav. I did see some pre loaded Sat Nav updated SD cards on Amazon & elsewhere for around £38 but I decided to download my own copy for free from the Skoda portal - VIN number required. What a pain that was 1st I had to buy a 64GB SD card because none that I already had were big enough. A 32GB SD would have done the job but for not much more I went for the 64GB (£11) & it can be used for music etc afterwards. Then the download. OMG, even with a fast fibre connection the 26GB Zip file download took ages. The Skoda website warns of up to 8hrs download time which I managed in around 5hrs but it was like watching paint dry. Not helped by the regular connection drop outs & re-starts. Switching to a physical LAN connection instead of WiFi helped a bit but I suspect my aging Tosh Satellite C670D laptop (originally with win 7 - now with Win 10 which slows it up dramatically) is partly to blame due to its pedestrian processor speed. The the upload to the car via the SD card was equally painful (around 4 hrs) &, because the ignition has to be on, caused low battery warning messages which meant I had to run the engine to keep it going. I later switched over to a high boost battery charger to avoid running the engine - more faffing about in the pouring rain Finally after the upload was complete the whole infotainment system turns itself off for around 60mins while it sorts itself out - marvellous. I can now see the attraction of buying a pre-loaded SD card to cut out the download hassle albeit the upload is still a pain. God knows what a dealer would charge for this long winded process so for that reason alone the hassle was worth the effort. Someone please tell me that sat nav tech / update procedure has moved on from this archaic process on my 66 reg Superb. Even my 15 year old old stad alone Tom Tom & more recent Garmin sat nav were less painless to do update than this. I guess being able to plug them directly into a PC helps a lot. Thankfully this process won't need to be done again for quite a while.

Good luck with the recovery. Yes the electrical assistance is the reason I bought the bikes + the softer ride compared to our old non-suspension bikes. I think I might be close on your heels for a hip &/ or knee replacement. Both my knee's are shot from ancient football injuries which prompted a switch to an auto gearbox a few years ago. HIps are not too great either. Can't lay on either side in bed for too long before the pain sets in & bending down to tie a shoe lace is not easy either. Walking on the flat is OK-ish but I can't do hills. Cycling is an attempted to strengthen the knee cartilage & stave off an op for a while longer. Fingers crossed!

Well a few months on from my earlier posts & after much research can report I have bought a couple of foldable Ancheer E-MTB's on Amazon for me & the Mrs. Very happy with the overall quality for the price paid (£749 each). They are a tad heavy which is mainly due to their foldable design but then all e-bikes are heavier than regular bikes. As previously stated I wanted a foldable bike so I could get them in the back of the car rather than have to put them on the roof which given the extra weight would have been a real work out! Batteries on these bikes are in a bag on the front handle bars which makes it easy to remove them for charging on or off the bike. Batteries are not too heavy but their location does make the bike a bit top heavy, but you get used to it. The bikes have 21 speed Shimano gears, full suspension (adjustable at the back), disks brakes front & back, a front light (not that I'll be riding in the dark) & folding peddles. After reading a user review of the bike I have changed the saddles for more comfortable ones with an integrated rear light. I've also added a seat post mounted rack & saddle bags for the back of mine to help carry my fishing gear & other stuff from the local shops. I have also fitted the optional twist & go throttle (supplied with the bikes) so I can just coast along when my legs give up the ghost on longer rides - which they will. I've had a couple of run outs locally on them so far & all was good. The wife struggled getting the right gear selection before going up hills but the battery pedal assist / throttle helped enormously. The suspension makes them so much more comfortable. I bought some bungy cords to strap the bikes together when folded in the back of the car & I will probably take the quick release front wheels off in the future to make it easier to carry them in the boot. All in all not bad at all & not much more than it would have cost to do a front wheel conversion on our existing 35 year old Falcon Majorca's which have no suspension, but back then nothing did have suspension! The old Falcon bikes will probably go up for sale at some point as I'm running out of space in the garage. Until then I plan to ease myself slowly into electric biking & try not to over do it. I should also explain that I have not ridden any sort of bike in anger since my early teenage years so all this exercise is going to come as a bit of a shock to my aging bones.

Hi Shy. At least you managed to get some time away during this non-event of a year. I've not been anywhere in 9 months, other than a day out to Norfolk back in the summer Best I've done in the last 2 weeks is 2 x click & collect visits to Tesco for supplies! "Her in doors" is so spooked by the whole situation we will have to wait for years before we travel anywhere any time soon! She still has 1/2 a tank of fuel in her car from the last time she filled up in Feb!! Seriously though, we are all hoping that this new vaccine will do the business & we can return to some sort of normality as soon as possible before all the airlines go bust for good & we loose the means to travel anywhere other than by car TBH the thought of that is not so bad since I now have loads of time on my hands a long road trip somewhere for a few months would be much appreciated. Reminds me of of years gone by when I could get 3 weeks off work for road trip holidays in France, Spain, Germany etc. Roll on vaccine before I go stir crazy!!

I've been using this stuff for tyre shine. Works reasonably well & lasts longer than most others I've had in the past. Applied with a paint brush or small sponge. £10.50 on Amazon at the moment.

Years ago I had a re-mapped 1.9TDi Audi A6 the torque on which was insane. I can't remember what it produced but enough to easily spin the front wheels in the dry & take out the std manual clutch after only 15k miles. My current Superb will probably be my last car but I have been looking at possibly changing my wife's car (Fiat 500) for an EV of a similar size. It seems Skoda have stopped selling the Citygo IV & they have no plans for any other small EV cars or an EV version of the Fabia which would probably have been the size we would have gone for. That new Enyaq model is far too big & far too expensive which means I will have to look elsewhere. Currently I'm looking at Pug e-208 or possibly an e-2008. Another possibility is that if the wife packs in working in the new year we might look at selling both current cars & dropping down to a single EV car in which case that Enyaq or something similar could be an option. At least that would give decent performance & cost a whole lot less to run than our current two cars. No decisions until the new year as the wife is still undecided about retiring. Decisions decisions!!

363 to 150bhp will take a bit of getting used to. That said the extra economy helps. Did you trade the 363 fo9r the new one or sell it privately?

So is this a replacement for the 363 Sportline?

Which model Shy? 1.6TDi?

Hi all. For a while now I’ve been considering investing some hard earned cash in a camper van so that the Mrs & I can get away for long weekends & take some longer trips abroad, when this becomes possible again. The question is what type, size or make of van is the best bet? The van would have to double up as a daily driver as well so the base vehicle can’t really be any bigger than a short / medium wheel base van & certainly not higher than 2.1m so it can still access most height restricted car parks. It must also have an auto gearbox available so I don’t have to use my knackered left knee to change gear. My sister & brother in-law have a VW T6 Transporter camper which they’ve been all over Europe in. VW vans are the most popular vehicles to convert into a smaller size camper & there are loads of companies out there that specialise only in VW Transporter conversions. However, even 2-4 year old base vehicle VW camper van is quite expensive so I’m looking for some more cost effective alternatives to consider. I’ve seen quite a few companies online that import rust free MPV’s from Japan & convert them into campers (Toyota Alphard / Nissan Elgrand). These are less than half the price of a VW bus but are often 16+ years old with big thirsty petrol motors & 60k miles or more on the clock. I’m not too worried about the petrol motor but a 16+ year old vehicle (even a Toyota) makes me wonder about reliability. · Existing campervan owners, what made you choose what you have & what has been your experience with it? · Even though VW Transporter campers are expensive their re-sale values seem to hold up well so, all things considered are they the best financial option in the long run? This exercise is turning into a bit of mission so if anyone has any other suggestions, ideas, experience or comments on the subject I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.....