Gerrycan

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.

Impressive, but the spare wheel is only the front wheel off a kid's tricycle though

Weight is important but not the only factor, my lowly 1.4tsi Octavia estate (circa 1350kg) is easily the best coasting vehicle I have driven and the small engine provides stuff all engine braking down even moderate gradients. I think your 1660kg weight is quite amazing. I would have expected close to 1800kg for such a big and powerful vehicle as are most other vehicles in that category. Out of curiosity what does your engine indicate it consumes at idle, mine is around 0.5L/hour (no ancillaries on). I'd expect the 1.5tsi in the Karoq to be similar.

Not disputing the sound noises, just the elapsed time from the original post. Reminds me of a meeting we had at work on long outstanding software change requests. We were able to knock two off the list because both requestors had died in the meantime.

Took you over 2 years to come up with that unoriginal comment?

I think you are right. Just the 19" rims fooling me. Paintwork does look very good though.

I like that colour, not seen it on our Australian roads. Has it been lowered? And congratulations to you both on your recent addition.

We are here for you mate. We all have our issues and mine is bikes. I cannot throw them away because of the good memories. Got 7 in the garage and oldest about 45 years old which I still use.

1004 kilometres and still a few litres left in the tank, brilliant. An ambition of mine with the 1.4tsi to better a 1000 km. Got close a couple of times but chickened out as I had 3 others in the car on long trips and did not want to run out of fuel somewhere remote on a 40 deg day. Maybe one day when I am by myself with a bit of tme on my hands

That will need a fair bit of effort to buff out, 🤣 You might need an electric buffer though, but I'm sure @Lee01 will have an unused one for you in his garage......and some Spak

Scandinavian ICE vehicles usually have a Webasto or an electric pre-heater fitted. So in their case, not so different?