inspector

i received my letter from skoda uk today telling me that my rapid 1.6tdi 105ps is one of the affected vehicles. being a complete mechanical clutz i wasn't previously concerned as i thought it was just the 2.0 litre engines that were affected! my concern now is with the fix. will it affect the 60mpg i currently get? will it affect the rather excellent perfomance i currently get out of the car? will it affect its resale value? (i personally believe that it already has affected the latter). without jumping too many guns, if any of these become reality what will the redress be? i chose my car based on a very healthy set of published figures for mpg, cleanliness (hence low road tax) and performance. i love my R and i am totally gutted that it is both an emissions cheat and at the prospect of it now being degraded in some way. perhaps i should start talking to my solicitor this week to make sure the bases are covered and i am prepared for anything nasty looming on the horizon. ----------------------------- i would also love to know when v.a.g knew there was a problem? i ask this as a few months before the whole 'defeat' shebbang hit the fan, i received various calls from the local volkswagen dealer from whom i bought a brand new 'up' a couple of years ago (which i still have). they were offering an amazing deal to trade in my car for a brand new one.... i quote the call, "you will seriously kick yourself if you miss this absolute once in a lifetime deal that we can offer confidentially for a very limited time". it sounds perhaps damning in retrospect that they were trying to generate a heap of sales before the bad news broke.

bloody hell! the pics really show how the crumple zone has worked to keep you and your family safe (thank god and skoda, not necessarily in that order!). what is it with refuse lorries and crap driving? you're absolutely right, his rubbish driving has caused anguish and now a heap of paperwork for you. i hope he gets what he deserves and you get back on the road asap.

there are some superb examples posted here, thanks everyone! as the person who started the thread i should perhaps have updated my own pic ages ago.... here's my part debadged R with assassin 18" alloys (perfect fit czech imported skoda silverline badges fitted to centre spots) all booted with low profile nexen n8000's. pics of kick plates to follow some time. one of my favourite additions has been the luminous key ignition surround sourced on ali baba. the R has just had its 20,000 mile major service and sailed through it. as we have recently moved house from cambs to northants, progress skoda northampton carried out the necessary and i booked up with them for the skoda service package. i have to say, the staff are incredibly friendly, professional and accommodating. in short i am delighted they are just a few miles down the road to look after my baby! the rapid continues to impress although i have wiped about 6 mpg off by fitting the 18 inchers. i am still hitting 57/58 so happy overall. the amundsen nav has been put through its paces for work and always comes up trumps and the climate control this summer has been better than in my last bmw. the rapid now journeys around the m25 and up and down the m1 twice a week and always does it with comfort, safety, a pinch of style and a turn of speed when needed. what more can you ask?

I have the answer... change your phone. my nokia lumia would ot play via bluetooth with my amundsen and neither would the phonebook show up on it. the reason? the bluetooth in vag cars is to the phone sim. wimdows (lumia) phones will not save to sim. if you examine your phone menus you can export all on sim to phome, but you cannot reverse this. microsoft want you to use their cloud services in order to swap phones, so sim saving is disallowed. once I realised this I bought a samsung s5 mini and ditched the lumia. I took the sim from lumia, placed it in the s5 and would you believe it, there on my amundsen was my phonebook contacts. the lumia had not erased the sim contents, just hidden them.... absolute sods! so, got a skoda or vw? don't own a lumia phone! the samsung immediately bluetoothed fine with the car.

I am planning my next rapid already, although if the hatchback is done away with in favour of the spaceback, I will have to look elsewhere. I want leather upholstery, folding wing mirrors and standard 17 or 18 inch alloys. I would like the black glass roof and the golf 2 litre diesel. keep the hard suspension please and fit more reliable washer jets.... and drill the bloody holes for the number plates in line! now that is surely not too much to ask of skoda is it?

with foot off the accelorator at certain speeds, the car maintains motion speed even if going up hill! it seems to clear itself once the brake pedal is pressed.

I have the amundsen and it is terrific. the sat nav is instant and adding way points so easy. traffic alerts are a boon as well as the traffic list regularly updated. my samsung s5 bluetooths instantly to it with my phonebook on there and multi choices available. I have a 32gb sd card plugged into it full of music and it displays every album and track name and scrolls easily and freely. the dab radio is superb to operate and has a plethora of preset spaces. it has the parking sensors, a slot to charge my phone and I absolutely find it reliable and so damned good. i have changed the standard speakers in the car which were rubbish.(when I say I, I mean I paid a pro to do it for me!)

never noticed it dimming, just notice the extra lighting with the turning fogs coming on

I have not encountered any problem that needs that

if you have the elegance model with sat nav you have rear parking sensors and dab. also climatronic and the 16 inch dione wheels. change the headlight and sidelight bulbs for decent ones, but as I found out on the diesel model they are difficult to do so use halfords to supply and fit. driven properly you will easily get 55mpg+ I have the same model and I think it's a terrific car. enjoy

easy to prise off with a plastic tool?

haven't take my other badges off yet, still deciding

the diesel compartment compared to chris's tsi above

that looks nothing like mine... and what is that black squiddly line across the white panel... or is it a hair in the gate?