Gerrycan

Logically you would want to use EV mode in urban areas and in congestion and Hybrid mode for the highway. At the end of the journey you would want a depleted battery where you can then recharge from a power source. I don't know how good the Skoda system is for harvesting braking energy. Toyota's hybrids are very good and even with their relatively small NMH batteries achieve 50mpg or better in town so I'd hope that Skoda's are comparable. On a flat open highway where little or no braking is involved then you are almost entirely dependent on the efficiency on the ICE unit but if you are travelling through hilly or even mountainous terrain then a Hybrid with good recuperative braking should offer considerable savings over a pure ICE vehicle.

Rough rule of thumb is that any Superb with engines rated at 250Nm or under will have the 7 speed dry clutch and engines over 250Nm will have either the older 6 speed or newer 7 speed wet clutch. So 1.4tsi/1.5tsi are dry dsg and 2.0tsi/2.0tdi are wet 6/7 speed wet dsg. Not sure what the output of the 1.6tdi is but same rule. If you dig deep enough in other manufacturers forums you will see that all dry dsg variants have had issues. The VW versions were particularly bad in hot and humid countries like Australia but this issue was related to the lubricant used and was fixed by a lubricant specification change a few years back. The UK seemed to have nowhere near the problems experienced here presumably because of a more temperate climate. Having said that the 'dry' clutch packs can wear prematurely depending on the driver and regular traffic conditions. Again a bigger problem in Australia where drivers are used to torque converter automatics and the use the constant drag they provide on hills or light use of brakes at lights and constant stop/start conditions. This would wear out a manual clutch and I presume the two individual clutches in a dsg are smaller than a manual clutch? Brits are more used to driving manuals than Aussies. It is interesting to note that a few recent variants of VW/Skoda models are being released here with torque converter boxes fitted, consumption is quoted as worse but that is not a problem here as we are 15 years behind Europe in applying consumptions and emissions controls The 'wet' clutches are far more durable and can cope with the sort of adverse aussie driving habits I mentioned. If I were buying new then I'd be happy buying a dry dsg equipped car (we get 5 year standard warranties here) but buying second hand then I think the wet dsg is a safer bet. As another generalisation you will get about 8 to 10 mpg better consumption with a 1.4tsi/1.5tsi compared to an equivalent 2.0tsi but if you are only doing low annual mileage then the extra cost per annum will be minimal. A Superb is too big for my needs but in your situation buying a second hand car I would probably plump for a 2.0tsi despite the extra costs associated with fuel, road tax and wet dsg oil changes if only because there is a bigger selection available to you and a reduced chance of inheriting someone's issues. If buying new then I'd probably go for the 1.5tsi. As recommended by another, get as many test drives as you can as there are definitely good ones and bad ones out there and in my experience the difference is noticeable

Thank you for that, I always expected there was some sort of oil separator system for the crankcase emissions but my comments were with regard to the supplementary catch can systems the OP was asking about. As an aside I have learnt something as I did not know a 3 cylinder 1.2L VAG engine was fitted to a Fabia (or even existed). I've seen images of high mileage engine internals with little or no build up so is the problem related to lots of cold starts/short journeys?

My uninformed opinion is that if these things really worked as well as some claim then at least one of the manufacturers would fit them as standard. I do not know of any case where they do but happy to be corrected.

What sort of model, mileage, transmission type and how old is the one you are looking at? IS your existing 1.4 auto or manual (I presume the latter with clutch bearing problem) and what mileage? Have you had quotes to fix the issues on your existing car to retain it? What annual mileage do you do? I'm in a similar situation running a 17 year old car that is under threat that any major expenditure will mean disposal. Also looking at a Fabia Estate as a potential replacement as I think it is quite unique and exceptional value in our Australian market place. Trouble is the current vehicle is mechanically and structurally sound, economical and drives quite well, so it is difficult to justify a new car on my current negligible mileage. I refilled the tank yesterday after only 200 km in 3 weeks with 11 litres purely because petrol prices were at the low point of our local price cycle at Australian $1 a litre. Funny thing is when I handed over my 'rewards' card to get another four cents a litre off I was told I had accrued an additional A$10 reward that I could apply. Ended up paying 56 cents. I may have some previously unknown Scottish lineage.

The concensus of a general consumption of 30 mpg for shorter urban journeys and 40 mpg on longer highway journeys with a 2.0tsi engine has remained pretty consistent for the six years I have been on Briskoda. If the engine has been mapped, and likely bypasses emission regulations, then there is potential for 50 mpg on highways with average 60mph speeds. 10k miles a year at 30 mpg at current UK petrol prices is about £1800. It all rather depends on your priorities but I don't think you buy a 2.0tsi for economy.

Hi Shy, you said you liked a challenge and I remembered this thread from the archives. You and your family have a good break.

Sedan or estate? Manual or electric boot opening?

As @flybynite says the saw toothing will most likely have been caused by incorrect rear suspension set up. I had the same problem with my then brand new mk2 with irs and incorrect setup from the factory.

It is the union contingent of the VW board that have admitted they have a problem with Skoda's 'success' since it potentially impacts on their members employment prospects. VW has the lowest ROFE of the group and the Skoda one of the best so I think your financial premise is wrong.

Don't you hate it when your thread header gets "autocorrected"

@Alex-W, I'm curious what percentage of your car's performance you would estimate you use on public roads? I would guess I use less than 40% of my 1.4tsi performance potential 99% of the time, and that is driving at whatever the speed limit is. Hell, I reckon I only drive at less than 60% of my 2003 Toyota Echo 1.3 naturally aspirated. I was stopped for speeding in it about a year ago and I had only reached 3300 rpm in 2nd gear (that's 50kph!) and somehow got off with a caution. The OP has a growing young family and has indicated the 1.4tsi option might not be as affordable as a 1.0tsi and I think that is a reasonable and responsible approach to his family's transport needs. I also think the 1.0tsi will be more than adequate on public roads but the OP should get a test drive to confirm whether it would meet his expectations.

There is an unfortunate tendency amongst the 'fuelmisers' (and I include myself) to emphasise the best attained figures so those 60+mpg figures would probably be achieved on a long run. Real life, which includes local short runs, drag down actual averages and in brettikivi's locality he gets severe adverse winter conditions and extensive use of the pre-use engine heater, which also burns fuel. I've followed brettikivi's consumption reports for years and I'd say his two 1.0tsi have been consistently 5+ mpg better than I would expect to achieve with my 1.4tsi at a given speed set speed between 100 to 120 kph. Strangely, at lower average speeds the difference is less clear, but there may be other factors involved there. Regrettably the 1.0tsi Octavia has never been available in Australia otherwise I would probably have bought one although it would also have to be a manual because I agree with you that they are generally more economical although that may not be as true on a run as the DSG box's have a longer top gear. Re-reading the OP's requirements I still think the 1.0tsi would meet his requirements although in those situations with the full family load and the top box in hilly conditions then the extra torque from the 1.4tsi could be useful. Either way the OP will not get 60 mpg in those conditions but I'd expect ~40mpg (main problem being drag from the roof box).

All my cars have been fitted with traditional incandescent (mainly halogen) headlights with standard bulbs and there have only been two vehicles where I found the optical projection performance to be inadequate for safe country driving. By 'country' I mean absolutely no road lighting and little other traffic. Where I live in South Australia there is no annual 'MOT' equivalent so it is not uncommon to be painfully aware of poor LED 'upgrade' implementations on cars and particularly on older trucks. With our sometimes long, flat and straight roads you can have one of these near blinding offenders driving towards you for 10 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I think that LED represent the greatest breakthrough in cheap efficient lighting since the introduction of electricity and from a cycling perspective when the best you get were Eveready Nightrider 6 volt glow worms, well LED's are near miraculous. However you can have too much of a good thing implemented badly so it is really refreshing to see the standard of good advice on offer in this thread.

My 1.4tsi Octavia estate carried a full load of 4 adults and luggage and lots of purchased wine around mountainous Tasmania with no problem at all. Sure the 1.0tsi is a small engine but its 200Nm is the equivalent of a good 2 litre naturally aspirated engine and available over a wide rev range. Overtaking on a single lane road while fully loaded may require some forethought and caution but that is no bad thing with your family on board. Motorways would be a doddle.

You would be more tolerant if you had driven through a locust swarm or met a B-double at speed on a dirt road. The mesh over the radiator intakes on car bra is more useful than the chip protection imo. I have flyscreen discretely attached to my intakes and my radiator fins are as new. I have driven into a swarm of bees at speed in a previous car and spent a fair amount of time cleaning them off and straightening the bent aluminium fins to get airflow through. Aesthetically I understand your concern.

IF you are going to get a car bra then do it properly. Then again we have a lot of dirt roads here and we are probably due a locust plague this year (just because it is the year for apocalypses) I still wouldn't though

You can see my comments above on replacing my plugs at 50k km and I estimated that another 20k km would have been ok. Even though your car is running ok 70k km seems a good distance to change them and they are not really a major expense in the grand scheme of things. The initial cold start jerkiness is common on the 1.4tsi and apparently something to do with warm up process and emission controls. Occasionally the cold start jerkiness does not occur (coincidentally just this morning) and the average consumption at at 1 km from home is then always about 2L/100 better than when the jerkiness is present.

I would be disappointed if I got that consumption from my 1.4tsi which is the most economical petrol car I have owned, although a loan 1.0tsi Fabia I had for a week was remarkably good. The thing is you have still not provided enough information for us to work out whether the real cause is you, your driving environment or the car. Do you turn stop/start off? If you don't turn it off then does it actually work at all? If not then you may require a new battery. Driving technique is important, my wife and I get comparable consumption on the open road, but I will usually get up around 30% better consumption than she does when driving around Adelaide outer suburbs. That is purely down to driving technique as we achieve similar average speeds. The only way you can really assess if the car is performing reasonably is when you are next on a reasonably flat highway (motorway or A road), set the cruise control to around 60 mph and look at the actual consumption display. If you are not getting around 50mpg or better then your car may have some technical issue to be addressed. As you can tell I am a bit obsessive on the subject and even though I have always driven economically I have had cars that had really bad consumption, although they did have either big engines or were AWD.

Really good results and further confirmation that diesels do love a long steady run. Although I enjoy a long drive, I could not imagine doing a daily 160 mile commute, I hope that figure is the round trip total

I have never driven around Manchester so don't know how compares with say London which I am more familiar with, but short journeys in a major city are never going to be good. I know you say you refill when the orange light comes on but that can vary from car to car, so for mine it comes on about the 45 litre remaining mark while some have commented/complained theirs (mostly diesel) prompts after 40 litres used or less. It would help us to know how much fuel you put in the tank for your 260 miles. The official tank size is 50 litres but its actual capacity is closer to 55 litres although I would not recommend testing that without a jerrycan. I have a manual but 2000 revs is a reasonable change up point for a DSG, others can offer more informed advice on that point. How does your Octavia's consumption compare with other petrol cars you have driven in the same environment?

It sounds appalling to me but without more information it is impossible to say whether it is unreasonable. 1) Not all fuel gauges are accurate, and some prompt for a relatively early fill. So when you refuel how many litres usually go in for the 260 (miles or kilometres)? 2) What town in which country, just to get an idea of likely traffic conditions. Big difference between Aberdeen and Mumbai 3) What is your long term average speed? What is your average journey distance? I have an 2014 1.4tsi Octavia and an open road run I expect to get 55+mpg A cold start short run ( < 5km) from home and I will be lucky to get better than 40mpg. My worst ever consumption was about 20mpg. It was across our city centre which has traffic lights every 100/150 metres and I caught everyone of them. I had five people in the car, the aircon on full blast due to the 45+ deg C temperatures. Funnily enough there was very little traffic but in the circumstances I consider the consumption was pretty good.

Well I have looked at the images in the online manuals for Bolero and Amundsen from 2014 and they look identical? I just have a 'Swing' radio in mine so I'm no help I'm afraid. It was just I cannot recall anyone in the UK talking about a Bolero/Canton combination in any post so I may well be wrong.

Unless you have upgraded your Octavia to a mk3 and not updated your profile then you have posted in the wrong section. I don't think the mk3 came with Bolero and Canton.

That is very sad, but I am only too aware from personal experience with a couple of (non Skoda) cars that it happens despite research and test drives. I'm contemplating getting a brand new Fabia Combi to replace my 2003 runabout Toyota Echo/Yaris and it will compliment our 2014 Octavia combi. This is the Australian market so we do not get anywhere near the variety of small car options you get in the UK but a 1.0tsi manual Fabia Combi seems to be about the best value and most versatile car available here. Fortunately I had a loan Fabia for a week in 2018 and was really impressed by it so I hope to avoid your disappointment.