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.

I am wary of the auto position because sometimes it doesn't bring the lights on soon enough. And yes, I have got it set to "Early".

The alternator usually runs at 14.something volts from startup until it's happy with the state of the battery, when it will drop to 13.something volts. Under engine braking it will rise back above 14 V to continue charging the battery.

I've deferred the cam belt change on my 5.5 year old 1.2 TSI which has only done about 25k. I haven't decided yet whether to get it changed this year but I probably will.

Cold air holds less moisture than warm air. The aircon dehumidifies warm wet air by cooling it down so that the moisture condenses out. It then warms it up again to give warm dry air suitable for demisting the windows. If the air is already cold then it doesn't need dehumidifying. Just warming it up will give the warm dry air that you need. If you don't have aircon and the outside air is warm and wet, then you can still demist your windows by warming the air up some more. This will make it uncomfortably hot inside the car, but it will clear the windows, and is what you had to do in the olden days or if you've bought a cheap car.

10% (1:10) is not particularly steep. Many main roads in the UK are steeper than this. Some are much steeper, for example Sutton Bank at 25% (1:4). It's clear from the quotes above that by a "common road" they mean a paved road, and the manual you've quoted says that it is suitable for driving away from paved roads. "Off-road" one might say. So not on a concrete road. Perhaps on grass, mud or gravel, at gradients of 20% or steeper. You're not going to lose traction on concrete at 10% unless it's icy.

Does it depend on the engine type too? My 1.2 TSI has a double double walled tank but it does not say “mit silikat”.

Are we talking about kangarooing or vibration due to ACT? These are two separate issues. The kangarooing is supposed to have been fixed by a software update, the vibration is just a characteristic of ACT, which apparently doesn't bother many people.

Does it make any difference which direction of gear is engaged? If so, why?

This problem of manuals describing features you don't have exists with every car manual I have ever seen. Car manufacturers only print one version of the manual for all the variants of each model. But have Skoda really stopped including a paper manual or has the previous owner just failed pass it on?

I think it's about two years since mine started complaining about the key battery. I've bought a replacement, but so far it's still running fine on the original (5 year old) battery.