Gerrycan

Cheap option if you have newish high spec Apple or Samsung phones are the apple Airtag or Samsung Smart tag+. There is a review here https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/car-tracking-apple-airtag-v-samsung-smarttag-v-gps-comparison-review-which-is-best

I disagree but since I could only afford one pound for the 5 minute argument we will have stop now. However the bit about the 'pedal reset' does sound relevant. Are you saying that you can factory reset a DSG without having to use VCDS or similar?

When you get defensive you do come out with some irrelevant and difficult to understand twaddle. Again I ask what does any of that have to do with the OP's comments on his 'wet' 6 speed DSG?

A local (australian) national tyre distributor suggests 5 years is the point where extra vigilance is required for things like cracking from a ageing tyre Which raises the interesting issue of my now 7 year old space saver spare which has only done about 500 km (I've had a lot of punctures). I guess your decision will also be influenced by how many miles you are likely to do a year now you are out of lockdown? I'm just thankful that I don't live in climate where I have to deal with all the faff of storing and fitting summer and winter tyres. Just for your amusement my state of South Australia has just gone into an initial 7 day total lockdown because we now have 5 cases of Delta variant in our approx 2 million population and low (11.2%) fully vaccinated cover. I get my 2nd Astra Zeneca tomorrow.

I think the question you should ask yourself is how safe your existing tyres are now, or going to be when the the weather gets cooler, seeing as how they are so hard. Be a shame for them to fail their first true test in an emergency braking situation in adverse conditions and regret not fitting the new tyres in the shed. By the way I now notice all I did was paraphrase your post so I think you already know the right thing to do. Quite a few years back there was a Briskoda Octavia owner who complained about his OEM Dunlop being noisy and giving very poor ride and handling. As a road warrior he doing some amazing annual mileage and was determined to wear them out. I think he gave up at 96k miles. Obviously his tyres were defective, yours might be too.

Had similar problems with my mk2 Octavia where the OE Dunlop Sportmaxx developed a really bad serrated tread noise from a misaligned rear over a similar distance. Bit the bullet and replaced them very early with re-alignment and the subsequent serenity was bliss, hated the unnecessary expense though. To get that little wear over 12k miles suggest they are a little 'hard' and you will have to endure the noise for years to come if you retain them. I'd go for the promotion price, change the lot and see if you can sell the P7's, but not to a Briskoda member of course Damn sight cheaper than changing the car.

I'm not sure how what you are saying ties in with the point of this thread where the OP reset the gearbox adaptations (back to factory spec?) and was happy with the results?

Sounds like the 'learning to adapt to a driver' feature is a bit too smart for its own good. I had a casual pre-covid job where I drove hundreds of customer's vehicles (over relatively short distances of up to 5km) and the variation between like models could be surprisingly large. To be honest I was not that impressed with most autos I drove, even luxury brands. I always preferred the manuals (especially the Mustang V8/manual combination which just seduced me) There was one standout car, a simple brand new Mk7 Golf with 1.4tsi and 7 speed dry DSG. It was just so incredibly smooth, and changed imperceptibly at the perfect revs (for me) I could not believe how good it was relative to others I had driven. A colleague drove it and agreed it was unusually good. Funnily enough the car I drove immediately after was a Tesla S, with no gears, and I was a bit less 'wowed' than I thought I would be because the Golf made that much impact.

My previous mk2 1.9pd Octavia had a basic climate controlled aircon system with a manual rotating temperature control (temps marked around the dial) and manual fan speed selection. To be honest it was not very good and seemed to have a mind of its own as what temperature it chose to support in what conditions. The current 2014 mk3 1.4tsi just has an honest simple aircon system that does what I want and like @J.R.I find it quite efficient and effective for my needs. My consumption is set to metric L/100 and when stationary and ticking over (no stop/start) the consumption shows as 0.5L/hour with no aircon on. If the outside temperature is in the mid 20's, and sun shining (you get a lot of radiant heat from the Australian sun), then I will have the aircon on and fan set to the lowest '1' speed. When the aircon cuts in the idling consumption will increase to 0.8L/hour, it will hold that until it reduces the cooling matrix to a couple of degrees above freezing (to avoid icing up) and then cut out until the matrix warms up to a point where the aircon starts again. in those conditions I'd say it runs at the higher consumption for about 66% of time. So if I extrapolate that to travelling at 100kph in similar conditions then consumption is only affected by about 0.2L/100 when running the aircon. I reckon that is pretty good. When temps are in the 30's and aircon on with higher internal fan speed then idling consumption will rise to 1.2L/100 and drop back to 0.8L/100 which affects higher speed running consumption by about 0.5L/100. In an extreme situation where I had 4 people in the car, in the city, with 47C outside temperatures, I had the internal fan on the highest speed, the radiator fan was going full bore and idling consumption was 2.3L/hour. It was the first time I had wished the aircon had a bit more reserve, but it was still a lot better than opening the window. To be fair the water temperature gauge still did not move off 'normal'. Our other runabout is a 2003 Toyota Echo with a 1.3L engine. The aircon still has the original gas, never been serviced and still works well, however it takes a lot of the engines power and the aircon gets turned off when overtaking or wishing to get up steep long hills on hot days. I still can't believe that we did not option aircon in the first new car we bought here because we could not afford it! We must have been a lot tougher then.

In the Skoda range I have only seen the 1.4tsi with ACT mentioned in conjunction with the Superb. I have been considering the Scala as that is now available in Australia, the base model comes with a manual box and 1.5tsi with ACT without PPF, and non climate controlled aircon which I like.

Based on my experiments in my mk3 1.4tsi estate then if the OP was travelling at an accurate 70 mph on a flat stretch of motorway, ambient 20C temp, no other traffic and little to no wind then he would struggle to achieve 50mpg, and yet he is claiming 60mpg, and I believe him. Its 35 years since I lived in the UK but when I return I am appalled by how much traffic load on highways has increased and the close proximity that cars travel behind each other. On UK motorways if I left what I consider a reasonably safe 2.5 second distance to the vehicle in front then it seemed to be an open invitation for everyone to cut in which was ridiculous, so I found myself driving almost as close as everyone else does to the vehicle in front. Not surprisingly my consumption improved significantly, and all I was doing was driving like everyone else. Although I consider my car gives very good consumption it is only typical of the breed, but I am well aware of how the driving environment affects my consumption. By the way I agree with you that using the air conditioning in warmer weather is vital and when travelling at speed it has far less effect on consumption and is more comfortable than opening a window. Mark you when the temp pushes over 40C in urban conditions then consumption will worsen by 40% or more.

Excellent returns by any measure did you use cruise control a lot? What sort of cruise control do you have fitted, vanilla or ACC. Our 1.4tsi only have ordinary cruise but it manages consumption really well especially on the flat. I can really only better it when it gets a bit hilly. 60 mpg equates to 4.7L/100 and probably reflects a slightly optimistic speedo, not going quite as fast as you think although 60mph average is pretty good, and the peloton effect of driving on busy British motorways. We rented a Kia diesel on a UK visit a few years back and averaged 60mpg for one tank and over 70mpg on two other refills (actual, not computer) while touring around. Seems you only travel distances with a gearbox in the back lol. Where are based? My recently deceased brother-in-law was an enthusiastic member of the Essex TR owners club and my sister and he did a few club trips in UK and continent in their TR3A. As an ex mechanic he restored a few and helped other club members with theirs.

The mk3 Octavia below VRS or AWD versions only has a torsion beam rear suspension and so little to no adjustment. My former mk2 Octavia had independent rear and that was out of adjustment from new. The Dunlop fitted were initially very quiet but within 10k km sawtoothed badly and were really noisy. Realignment and new tyres fixed it for the rest of its tenure My current 2014 Mk3 1.4tsi came with Dunlop when new and they were quiet upto replacement at 40k km with Michelin Premacy. These have been quiet up until recently but have now at 78k km developed a noise and some sawtoothing, SO the front wheels must have got out of alignment although wear is even across the tyre and there is 3mm left all round. Being a card carrying skinflint and the noise is bearable at present we will run the tyres down to the legal minimum (probably 8k km to do that) and then replace and realign at the same time. The Nexen 16" spacesaver spare is incredibly noisy at all speeds when fitted and that appears virtually unused.

A really interesting question. The running in process is not just about the engine of course. Personally I would not like to push the handling envelope until the tyres newness has been scrubbed off over say the initial 200km, and that goes for when new tyres are fitted. The other thing is to bed in the brakes before any really heavy stuff, although even that process is going to be extended somewhat with regenerative braking. If most of your daily commute is within battery range then I'd use EV mode. Longer journeys should be the major part of the engine running in process since the engine would get a chance to actually warm up properly and do some extended and varied work. I would have thought the running in process will probably take a lot longer than 1500km but the only real inconvenience would be if you were planning to tow a trailer. Most people rarely take their 1.4/1.5tsi engines over three quarters of max revs because that is where the torque falls off and with a PHEV you usually have the boost from the EV motor in hybrid mode anyway in the lower revs. Your choice of course and the only thing likely to cause any sort of 'damage' (?) is placing an unnecessarily heavy and extended load on the engine. Like towing a heavy trailer up a steep hill at low revs in too high a gear ..... and is that even possible with a DSG?

I think you are being a little harsh on Octavia's efforts. Unless the van you are borrowing is a diesel I don't think you will get much better consumption than you got towing the brick. I have owned petrol cars that struggled to match your 9.0L/100 at 100kph without a trailer attached!

The variability of recommendations across the VW group's limited range of shared engines across different countries is almost infinite and quite often contrary to expectations. Australia is a massive island continent and the variety of climates and micro climates is extraordinary (four seasons Tasmania to the tropical North, alpine snow to desert), but as far as I know Australia gets one belt replacement policy. It all seems very random. Yes it can occasionally get quite dusty here in Australia We have taken our Octavia wagons estates (mk2 and mk3) on a number of dirt roads over the years and while the outside of the car from the front tyres back get very dusty, very quickly I am always surprised how clean the under bonnet and air filters are when I check afterwards.

I have got an early Mk3 Octavia and I find the brakes are very sensitive but like @TheUltraRunner I avoid heavy braking mostly because I drive to get good consumption and I think it is safer way to drive anyway (less reactive and more anticipatory driving). Despite its relative vast internal space the new 1.5tsi Mk4 Octavia is relatively light at 1327kg, so no it is not heavy, however the new engine is probably like my 1.4tsi and offers very little engine braking, possibly even less with active cylinder deactivation. Other threads have also suggested that the dsg model's may now coast 'out of gear' in normal mode whereas before it was only available in economy mode? Skoda make a big thing about charging the battery from regen braking, so maybe light applications only initiate the regen process and real braking only with more determined application? I don't have this feature on my 2014 Octavia.

Very nice. It is increasingly difficult to get sensible rubber on a sedan/estate over here in Australia. I accidentally upgraded from 16 inch steel to 17 inch tyres when I took a very reasonably priced option package for cruise control/rear sensors/more speakers etc. I know that goes against the usual trend but I was concerned about driving on our local dirt corrugated roads. The 17" are just ok but I would still have preferred the 16". I posted above about not having had or really seeing a need for front parking sensors. Yesterday I parked our very old and tiny Echo runabout at the back of the local shopping mall. A Qashcai pulled into an adjacent bay and the driver mistakenly tried to park level with my much smaller car and smacked her nose into a low concrete block So yeah, front sensors are a good idea

The sedan does have the best aerodynamics in its class so I am not really surprised to see owners reporting good consumption on a longer run

I'm pretty sure from many threads on this topic that the dreaded B-pillar rattle is a referred sound from fuel pipes running under the car. Apparently easy to fix with a bit of padding if you have access to a car pit or jack it up to get under it. Mine is only apparent for a couple of months of the year with winter temperatures so I have never bothered to address it.

I did laugh at this one.

My old Octavia only has rear parking sensors and I find them a really useful supplement to conventional reverse parking using mirrors and natural driver vision. Particularly at night where low to mid priced vehicle's reversing cameras are noticeably lacking. Is your new car fitted with standard cruise control or the active radar system? I have only had the standard systems fitted to my vehicles but it makes longer journeys a whole lot easier. I understand that the radar based system is probably much more useful for crowded UK roads.

That is a noticeable improvement to consumption but it is now about what I would expect for a diesel on a longer run with a high motorway component. Be interesting to see if others follow up on your tip and get similar benefits I'd agree that manuals are capable of offering better consumption than an auto around town but that might be countered by the autos longer gearing benefits on a motorway ?

When you say adapted, do you mean you changed some EGR settings or you initiated some sort of reset? I hope your daughter is ok now? I remember going through a similar traumatic event with my daughter at about that age when she got a bad infection from a really bad mosquito bite and my wife and I did shifts staying with her (24 hours) in her room for a few days. All ended well for us and I hope that you have the same sort of resolution.

No real economy benefit at all from what others have reported I'd say from your impressive results that you are already an economical driver and already light on the throttle but I guess there is no harm in trying it and finding out for yourself. just a warning that some find their display results a bit optimistic when compared to real consumption. Every vehicle is different, for instance my 2014 manual Octavia was slightly pessimistic (tank average was always 0.1L/100 or 0.2L/100 worse than distance covered against refill quantity. Over 7 years it has moved to being about 0.2L/100 optimistic. It's a simple check every time I fill. I used to use Fuelly.com but can't be bothered now. My wife drives the car now for her daily 13 km commute and is getting about 47 mpg, and when I drive it I usually get about 53 mpg on the same journey. Longer open highway distances we get somewhere between 50 and 60 mpg depending on a lot of different factors. Strong headwinds have been a killer for a couple of attempts to achieve 1000 km on tank where I have to average better than 55 mpg (5L/100). The other thing is my chickening out when realising I could possibly run out of fuel nowhere near a petrol station in some remote part of Australia. The 1.4tsi is a really good flexible and economical engine, just a pity the Octavia did not come with the ACT version that was put in the Superb.