Rodge

Depends on how you drive. Accelerate gently, avoid braking by anticipating the traffic and staying in a high gear should give you reasonable consumption. Alternately stepping on the accelerator and brake like a bus driver and racing up to the next block of stationary traffic will give terrible consumption.

I think the system probably just needs resetting. This happens occasionally as the tyres naturally deflate and definitely needs doing after pumping them up. You'd only assume there are further faults if the error keeps coming up after resetting it, which unfortunately you can't do because of your modified infotainment system.

You can get cheap voltmeters that plug into the cigarette lighter socket, which should give you an indication of what the alternator is doing under various conditions.

The alternator ramps up whenever I take my foot off the accelerator - pressing the brake pedal is not necessary. I have a voltmeter plugged into the cigarette lighter socket and can clearly see the effect. I use engine braking as much as possible, but the little 1.2 gives a lot less braking than the 1.6 in my 20 year old Focus. The Octavia's battery still seems to be fine after 8 years.

I think the fact that the "smart" alternator stops charging when the battery is nearly full, instead of continuing to try to charge a full battery, should be better for the battery.

Most of the discussion seems to be about the newer 1.5. Is there any news on other engines? My 1.2 TSI is still on its original belt after eight years and 45k miles (mostly longer journeys). I've been wondering how long to push it. I was thinking about 10 years or 50k.

They usually do those every time they see the car. It's an excuse to find more work to charge you for.

Manual cars don't slip the clutch while doing so.

Cars built from June 2015 onwards (model year 2016) have slightly improved Euro 6 engines an improved infotainment system than can support Android Auto and Apple Carplay, although, as has already been mentioned, you may need to pay to get this enabled. Some, but not all, SE cars had ordinary cruise control fitted as standard. I am happy with the 110 bhp 1.2 TSI engine and there have been good reports about the 115 bhp 1.0 TSI too. They are efficient and the only time you might ever need more power is overtaking on single carriageways. I can't comment on the DSG.

11.3 volts is way too low, that will result in a dead battery. As I said, it should be about 13.5 V when it's not charging and 14.5 V when it is. I get 13.3 V and 14.8 V on my car. Others may vary, but anything below 12 V is too low.

11.3 V is too low with the engine running and suggests the battery is being discharged - that's lower than the voltage you'll get with the engine stopped, after all. When the battery is not charging with the engine running the voltage should float at about 13 and a bit volts. Unfortunately I can't help you with what the fault might be.

VW keys have been known to be insecure for years. Lots of stories similar to the one below available from your favourite search engine. :-( https://www.theregister.com/2016/08/11/car_lock_hack/

Phone USB sockets fill up with dust, which eventually causes unreliable connections. They need cleaning out occasionally.

With some of the TDIs, the question was often "Should the cambelt be changed at the same time as the water pump?", because the pump often failed before the belt was due for replacement. See the sticky thread: https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/453298-the-mk3-octavia-tdi-water-pump-thread/

That's normal. They're not allowed to under read. Mine comes on after I've used 43/50 litres. On my Mk1 1.6l petrol Focus it comes on after using 45/55 litres. Both cars will do 500 miles on a tank, but I have to try harder to achieve it in the Focus.