Geek42

Don't define the value of the car by what the insurance search engine robot spits out as fair value. Something's only worth what the seller is prepared to let it go for, or what the buyer is prepared to stump up for it. I bought (a few years ago now) a 1 year old 1.4TSi Elegance hatch with 14k miles on the clock and paid £14,450 for it. I'm not a good negotiator and paid the sticker price, but most similar cars at that time were being advertised for £16k. I could have bought an Avensis for slightly less, but I didn't like it. I could have bought a Fabia for a lot less, but the boot was tiny. Was my car worth £14.5k? It was to me, and 3 years on I'm still more than happy with it. After all, it's a £21k car according to list price, and a new one could be had through a broker for £17.5k, so £14.5k after 1 year seems reasonable. In the meanwhile prices went down (the mk3 became less new) and some time later my brother-in-law bought an almost identical car that was 1 year old at the time for £12.5k, when most similar vehicles were being advertised for £14k. Do I care? Do I think I wasted £2k? No, I chose from what was available at the time. Since diesel-gate the prices for these cars went up a bit again. Such is life. Regarding insurance payouts, they will pay 'market value' and that will be determined at the time of the claim. My wife once wrote off a 7yr old Clio (not worth anything, so not hard to do) and we eventually got £2.5k from the insurers after an initial offer of £1k. All we had to do was find a few examples on Autotrader, get a CAP valuation from our local friendly car dealer (or Ford's website if you want) and e-mail the evidence. Job done. And remember that the insurance payout should be for replacement cost, so franchised dealer prices for a car still in warranty would be a valid yardstick (although it will be comparable prices for the age/mileage it is at the time of the claim, not the age/mileage it was when you bought it).

Surprised that you care, given the engine choice...

I leave my AC on all year round, but it spends most of the time set to eco via the driver mode custom settings. Eco seems to be more than adequate for comfort, I only switch it up to normal for a couple of weeks each summer when it gets really warm. Whether eco mode is making any difference to mpg...no idea, sorry.

Whether that's a full history depends on what was done. On the variable (long life) regime the oil interval is 2yrs and/or 18.7k miles max (actually 30k km). Rather confusingly the 'inspection' interval, which covers everything else is specified as 2yr/18.7k miles for the first one, then 1yr/18.7k miles after that. Since the car is less than 4 yrs old this all sounds fine, next service should be 12 months from the last one, although for my money I hate they way they work this. It should have had the plugs done at the second service, but probably not the air filter, which will be due next. If it's 3 years old it should have had the brake fluid changed as well. See here: and here:

You must be made of money! Presumably some of them are 'standard' items that are optional at the factory but fixed by SUK for our particular market?

Michelin Primacy HP. I had been running Goodyear Ultragrip 8's during previous winters, but they never got out of the garage this year!

How long does it take to run in a tyre? They've done around 200 miles.

Maybe I'm just being over critical. My initial reaction was that they were OK, although not as solid as the previous tyres, hence my 'floaty' description. I started to question them after two very minor incidents, one was quite a lot of slipping around a roundabout, and the other was an inability to put much power at all down when pulling away. The second was pointing uphill and it was cold and greasy, so I won't write them off yet! I'll try different pressures and see what feels best. I'm currently at 32psi, so quite some way below TMWKA's 39.

What makes you call the sidewalls soft (other than experience)? I was going to up the pressures this weekend as I was wondering whether this was contributing to the floaty feel.

Thanks for the link PirateSyrett. I bought them because I have only seen positive reviews about them, but wheel spin is easy and cold greasy roundabouts are exactly where I noticed the lack of grip most! I've only done about 200 miles, but that should be enough to scrub off any mould grease or such like. Describing them as being like worn tyres was perhaps harsh, and one thing in their favour is that the all seem to lose traction at a similar point, where I would expect worn summers in a FWD car on a damp road to just plough straight on these are actually quite controllable, but I just expected a little more before reaching that point I suppose.

I must confess to not having searched properly so I may be covering old ground (I usually lurk in the Octy 3 section only) but I'd be interested in the opinions of anybody that has fitted CrossClimates and has direct experience of them. If there's another thread just point me at it! I have been running a separate set of wheels with winters on for several years, but this time I decided to give the CrossClimates a try as they seem like the ideal Southern UK solution. No more messing around with wheels every 6 months. My initial impression is not great. There is a lot less grip than I anticipated at 6-7°C with a damp (not soaking by any means) road, and in general they feel a bit floaty. I'm going to play with the air pressures but so far I'm wondering of this will be my first and last set! In their favour, when they do start to give it's certainly progressive, nothing sudden and I know exactly what's happening, but they feel more like worn tyres than new ones!

I second the opinion that you will have a far bigger influence than the settings. I also have a manual and generally leave the steering in sport for extra weight and the air con in eco to get any fuel saving that might be available, then leave the 'engine' (or 'throttle' as it should be labelled) at normal and implement eco and sport modes with my right boot!

Don't have that engine, but one gear lower required maybe?

I have Dezent TD wheels for my winters (although I will not be using them any more as I just opted for Michelin Cross Climates this time). They're a bit more expensive than steels, but pretty good value for money in my opinion, and they have a version type approved for the Octy that uses the OEM bolts.

No petrol SE Tech. No petrol L&K. No petrol Scout. Presumably there are options in other countries but SUK think they know best. It's the same old nanny state of affairs as always and it's about time they gave us the full choice. Not that I'm chopping mine in any time soon, but, you know, in theory...

Both of these are approved for the Octy (at least they are for my version). You can check what's type approved if you care by checking the following link, but for a spare wheel I think either will be fine, as long as the stud pattern / centre bore is correct and offset is not ridiculous. http://www.skoda-auto.de/SiteCollectionDocuments/Serienreifen_Skoda_2014_07_1.pdf

I just checked mine as I expected to find, as somebody else has described, that the tyre was a dedicated spare wheel tyre, limited to 50mph and for temporary use only despite the 'normal' 205/55/16 size (my car runs 225 wide 17's, so not quite normal for me, but very normal compared to the noddy car space saver versions). Turns out I must be thinking of my previous car, as I have a brand new (still got the coloured lines round the surface) Dunlop SP Sport. Not my first choice of main tyre, but very decent all the same and seems like a total waste considering it won't ever go fast or very far! Could have shaved £100 off the price of the car right there...

Actually, I can impart real advice here: There are too many cans of gunk around, so whatever you go for insist on a spare wheel being added if it doesn't already have one.

But you can get a 1.4TSi SEL inside this budget if you buy something 1 yr old. You could argue "don't buy a 1.0TSi SE for £15k". Regarding the scuffs and scratches, both myself and my brother-in-law bought 1yr old Octavias and there's nothing wrong with them. Mine has a small dull patch on the rear quarter where it looks like someone cleaned it with something abrasive, but it's small and quite mild and I don't really care. The Elegance (mine is now 3yrs old) is a much nicer place to sit, in my opinion, than the SE, so it all depends whether you prioritise the spec over the newness or vice versa. Out of interest, is 'newness' a real word? If it isn't it should be!

Agree with Philbes, I have a non-scout and 205/55/16 is a standard fit as are the 225/45/17 that I actually have. I'd be amazed that the extra profile used on the scout for the 17's wasn't carried over to the 16's. In fact, given the huge amounts of clearance to the arch I reckon a 205/60/16 would be OK on my car! Don't have time to work out the codes for the scout, but try this document: http://www.skoda-auto.de/SiteCollectionDocuments/Serienreifen_Skoda_2014_07_1.pdf

This is becoming compulsory by April 2018 (unless we get Brexit done in 12 months), so you may get the choice this year or VAG may just go ahead and make you have it. Soon enough we'll all have to have it, anyway. The rest of that stuff I don't really understand the desire for, but I'm a luddite I suppose! I am, of course, assuming that this is from an options list you're reading, it's not all standard stuff on the new one?

Surely a manual can drop as many gears as needed?! I quite regularly block change up as well as down due to the nature of the engine, but there's much more available in the middle of the rev band compared to older petrol engines where you really did have to rev them. I find no lack of performance in mine and there's enough torque at the bottom end, at low speeds in low gears (town driving in 2nd/3rd) it'll pick up gently from 1200rpm, but you can't expect all the beans at that point and you can't expect it to do that up hills or at speed! Up a decent gradient I'll put nearer 2000rpm on (I think), and if I am accelerating hard up bank I'll let it run to higher rpm than I would on the flat (I think), but I don't tend to watch the revs I just do it by feel, and the engine never feels screamy or like I'm thrashing it. I only owned one diesel, but I had it for almost 6 years and I had no problems adjusting to this car. I'm not saying it's a sports car (it most certainly isn't) but I'd get it looked at if you think it's slow.

What is the difference between the oil grades? Why is one capable of twice the mileage of the other? My two-penneth: If your mileage is <9.3k/yr then 'fixed' interval servicing is fine. If you are >9.3k but <18.7k then use 'variable' servicing but do it annually anyway. This keeps the oil and inspection in sync, since inspections are annual once you get past the first one. I wish I'd made sure mine was serviced on its first birthday, but I didn't work this out until after, so what I did in the end to get them back in sync was to ignore the 'inspection' demand from the OBC (I checked intervals for plugs / air filter etc and determined that nothing was imminent), but I wouldn't recommend this necessarily. If you're in a position to give it an annual one whether the oil is due or not then it's a better solution.

This 4 year cam belt thing is a myth that is either a hangover from previous incarnations or a bare-faced dealer lie. It's a 'lifetime' belt, with the service schedule mentioning nothing but inspections. See this one from when I first joined the forum (post #12): http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/317272-service-schedule/

I don't know about the 1.2TSi, but for the 1.4 they actually made it unnecessarily complicated by having different mileage intervals for the plugs and air filter. If you're on 'variable' servicing this means that at the 'inspection' they may do one and not the other, but for 'fixed' interval servicing maybe they simplify it to major and minor, which makes it easier to follow. "The price that would be charged for an update will not be clear until the vehicle is looked at by our technicians" This winds me up. I want to know the cost before I book it in. More to the point, software is not consumable in the way that oil and filters are, and if the car works then I'm happy to leave it. Every time my computer/phone updates itself something unintended happens, usually in a small but highly irritating way. Leave my car alone!