AllanDJ

My 1.5 Octavia can be like that if you try to make a quick exit too.

That depends on whether your current lease car is directly from Skoda or indeed any other VW group company. If it is they will just extend your lease at the same price you are paying until your new car arrives. That's the position that I'm in just now, they've extended my current lease until the end of February. Hopefully my new car will turn up before then!

Most likely it will do, my 2019 car has one fitted at any rate.

To be fair with Front Assist, sometimes it can be a bit "stupid". Way over sensitive on my 63 plate Octavia from first day out of the garage, took months before I could work out what it was as the warning light wasn't in the original manual and the garage didn't know what it was either. It still comes on at odd times on current Octavia, especially on windy roads. It seems to detect cars on the other side of the road and assume that a head on crash is imminent!

Which models does this annoying "feature" appear on? Currently waiting on a new lease Octavia Estate SEL, hopefully it won't have this as standard!

On most car makes lane control can be turned off completely, this was certainly the case on my Dad's Volvo XC60. Hopefully won''t have this "feature" on mine whenever it finally arrives!

Heated seats only standard on new Mark 4 SEL cars, I added them to my SE Tech car. Heated windscreen should really be standard on more expensive versions too, I know it used to be virtually standard on every new Ford car in the past; not sure if that is still the case or not though. I was looking around for a late mark 3 SEL estate car with heated seats and couldn't find any a few months ago, don't think many people paid for that option.

Another issue you are going to face is that right now Skoda dealers are increasing prices of many used cars virtually every week, so you might get a better price for your trade in but any replacement car could be setting you back thousands more than it would have been earlier this year. I was looking at the possibility of buying a late used Octavia 3 estate with a good spec or maybe even an Octavia 4 but couldn't find anything with the spec that I wanted at a sensible price. One car that I had noticed online had its price increased by a lot more than £2000 inside of a week!

I had one before, very economical engine, not much power at lower speeds but very responsive at 50mph plus. One thing to be aware of is the five speed box has a few gaps in its gear ratios. In town driving at or below 30mph it drives better in third gear, fourth is a bit too high and is kind of equivalent to a normal fifth gear and fifth gear is nearer sixth gear in reality.

I've got a 1.5 SE Technology car, well equipped comfortable car to drive. Loads of deals out there right now on secondhand examples from the likes of Motorpoint, Arnold Clark and the Skoda dealers network.

I spoke to my dealer recently enquiring about prices for new PCH deals and was told that it was taking much longer than usual to get new cars at present and that one of the main issues was a worldwide shortage of silicon chips used in modern cars. Elsewhere I have seen reports of brand new cars fully assembled but waiting on these chips arriving before they could be finished off. I think I'll probably go for a good secondhand car this time around as the prices quoted on leasing deals were significantly higher than what I am paying just now for my 2019 mark 3 Octavia.

Folding front passenger seat was an extra cost option when new, standard seats don't fold all that much either forwards or backwards. I'm fairly sure that earlier cars that I had back in the 1980's had seats with a far greater range of movement than modern cars do.

In other words you have the variable load floor. I've got that in my car and have carried extremely heavy items in it without any problems. However, that is with a large piece of old fence post on either side of the boot underneath the folding part. This gives it some extra support and strength where it needs it most. Didn't do this with an earlier Octavia 3 and the whole thing just folded in on itself the first time I put something heavy in the boot!

My garage say that there is only one software update available for the mark 3 cars with the 1.5 engine. My car had that update around two years ago and has never been the same since and not in a good way, with the engine much flatter than it used to be and poorer fuel consumption too. It's a PCH car which I do have an option to buy but given issues with the engine that I have experienced I am nervous about actually owning it even though the car is in excellent condition and very low mileage.

Do you mean the variable load floor? If you have that in your car it isn't very strong and does need reinforcing with wood to carry anything vaguely heavy.

I've had a 2013 1.6 diesel estate Octavia and currently have a 2019 1.5 petrol estate Octavia, the diesel was by far the better of the two engines! Just be careful before rushing to buy the 1.5 engined cars as the software fix done on my car (by Henrys in Glasgow) worsened my cars fuel consumption by at least 10%, best average mpg now is in the low 40's running around locally but the 1.6 diesel never did less than mid 50's mpg when I had it and recorded up to 70 mpg on some longer trips.

Seen the same thing three or four times on my Octavia too, wasn't able to use the radio one morning because of it but it was back to normal again later on.

I've mentioned it a few times on here before, when the car was new it was definitely difficult to pull away smoothly in first gear but car itself felt good, plenty of power in the engine and decent fuel economy. Garage offered the so called fix or software update, which was a bit of a botch to be honest. Car was definitely smoother pulling away but car felt different, just not quite as powerful somehow and fuel economy dropped by 10% instantly and has stayed that way. Asked garage about it and they said its fuel consumption is within normal factory specification end of story. Car was also inclined occasionally to take a nap, maybe stopped at a roundabout or junction, go to pull away and absolutely nothing would happen; car hadn't stalled either. This still happens very occasionally, not sure if its some glitch with the stop/start system. All in all the 1.5 engine isn't as good as it should be, the earlier 1.4 engine seems to have been much more reliable and I wish that my car had that particular engine in it instead of the 1.5, or maybe one of the diesel engines would have been better.

I've got a mark 3 car with the 1.5 engine, personally I wish that I had virtually any other engine in the range other than that one! If you are thinking of going back to a Mark 3 car, maybe worth looking at the diesel engines which are pretty good all in all or even the one litre engine.

If you are always in Eco Mode then technically there is a fault with your car. Skoda changed the mode setup from the early Mark3 cars which stayed with the mode that you selected until you changed it again. The newer ones like the 2019 SE Tech cars always re-start in the Normal Driving Mode and won't stay with any other chosen mode. I asked the garage about that as it was annoying me having to keep changing it all the time, when my earlier Mark 3 Octavia just stayed with the selected mode indefinitely.

There is a button that you press near the gearstick which toggles through different driving modes but on my 2019 car it always reverts back to Normal every time I switch it off, so not really sure how yours can be stuck in Economy mode.

Mine came with it from the main dealers in Glasgow but can't say that I've ever particularly used it, phone usually in my pocket or maybe charging in USB socket with phone tucked in below sliding door bit.

It is pretty fast on my car too, sometimes too fast to stop it and too slow to restart occasionally when the car just sits there "thinking" about it! I've had problems with my car off and on ever since I got it and blamed it on the 1.5 engine, I'm kind of wondering now whether the stop/start system is partly to blame, when you try to drive away after pausing at a junction, only you can't as there isn't any power, engine lights on, car not stalled but nothing happening. This doesn't happen often, maybe once a month it will leave me like this and then just wake up again. At other times it has what I'd call micro hesitations, when you try to move and the power falls away and then comes back again. I've never had a car behave like this before. I'd honestly rather have a good old fashioned diesel engine that just works, than a complicated petrol engine that often doesn't work...

There do still seem to be issues with some cars with this engine, mine included. From new the car had great fuel economy and decent performance but was a bit rough pulling away in first gear. Garage suggested software update, car easier to drive afterwards but permanent 10% reduction in fuel economy and engine not quite as powerful feeling. Car will occasionally go to sleep for no apparent reason when stopped at junction, roundabouts etc. It did that a bit when it was new and still does it occasionally, not the best feeling in the world when your car just wants to have a nap and there is no easy way to get it moving again... It just seems to wake up again and away it goes. Even some people with the mark 4 model seem to have issues with this engine.

Had one in previous car a Yeti L & K, nice enough during the winter but no way would you want the blind open during summertime. I've seen in the past a mark 3 Octavia L & K in a showroom with the panoramic roof and couldn't believe how much headroom it took up. To get in the car I literally had to put the seat flat to the floor, which wasn't very comfortable; no such problems with the Yeti though. Some people seem to get leaks and rattles with these roofs as the cars get a bit older, which seem to be expensive to fix; not something that I would be willing to take the risk with.