Rodge

It's designed for a full size 16" wheel. Wider wheels will squeeze in, but raise the carpet slightly, as you say. I've wondered about this. There's a 17 year old unused space saver in the back of my Focus and a 5 year old full size tyre in my Octavia that's done all of 5 miles. So I've got 80 odd quid's of full size rubber ageing away. I'd considered swapping it for one of the used tyres when I buy new, but I want to switch from Energy Savers to CrossClimates. And all 5 of the 5 year old tyres passed the MOT.

That's interesting, and I see that OSRAM do quote all their H7 bulbs at the same number of lumens. It does make you wonder if there's any point in buying the fancy expensive "brighter" bulbs at all. And of course OSRAM's Allseason bulb, for "Better sight under all weather conditions", actually has a yellow filter.

SmartLink doesn't appear in the menu on older units. If SmartLink is shown then that means it is present. When it says "contact a dealer to activate SmartLink", that means a dealer can activate it. Summary: Your dealer is an idiot.

According to OSRAM, the Cool Blue Intense H15 is dimmer than the "Original Line" H15, at 200/1330 lm compared with 260/1350 lm. :-( See https://www.osram.co.uk/ecat/COOL BLUE INTENSE-Halogen headlight lamps-Car lighting-Automotive/gb/en/GPS01_1056960/PP_EUROPE_UK_eCat/ZMP_1191016/ and https://www.osram.co.uk/ecat/ORIGINAL LINE-Halogen headlight lamps-Car lighting-Automotive/gb/en/GPS01_1057023/PP_EUROPE_UK_eCat/ZMP_61174/ I don't see how they can claim "up to 20% brighter" when no member of the Cool Blue Intense product family has a greater luminous flux than Original Line product family, but they do have a significantly reduced lifespan, as listed on the PDF family data sheets. I don't think 30% brighter bulbs are noticeably brighter, but if there was a 30% brighter H15 available I'd buy it.

If only it was that easy to remove.

If it's that easy for the driver to make an error then there's something wrong with the car. If it's possible for other drivers to make a mistake then so can I. It doesn't exactly instil confidence in the car.

It was a £150 option to order with a brand new car, so anything less than that isn't too bad.

I once had a cab ride in a preserved 1960s Class 14 that appeared to have wires in the windscreen very similar to those in my Focus.

I could never understand how Ford could apparently have a patent on the technology when it's been used in railway locomotives for many decades.

It doesn't need fast data or a lot of data. My 7 year old PAYG phone doesn't even have 4G and I don't top it up very often. Unless maybe you've got satellite view enabled and you're driving around at 1000mph! Hasn't SmartLink been included as standard for several years now?

Unfortunately not. It was introduced as a £150 option on cars built from the end of May 2015. Much better value than the built in satnav. Having read here the rumours of what was coming, I delayed placing my order from March to the end of April 2015 to ensure that I got an MY16 car. SmartLink does include Apple CarPlay for talking to iPhones.

There are two sorts of extended warranties that Skoda sell: The first is specified when the car is ordered and is effectively an extension of the manufacturer's warranty. The second is obtained later, is underwritten by a third party and has lots of additional limitations. It's obviously too late in this case, but if you're ever ordering a new Skoda and want the extended warranty, do it then.

Stories like this don't exactly fill me with confidence for the unnecessary cambelt change my low mileage 5yo car is due this summer.

It's awkward to measure the true resting voltage because so much load is put on it as soon as the doors are opened. I routinely measure less than 12 V on the cigarette lighter before turning the ignition on. While battery probably is on the way out it does seem to be operating perfectly for now.

Are they both equally vulnerable to deep discharge? Did you reprogram the serial number too, so that the car knew you had fitted a new battery? Mine has also lasted five years so far, despite frequently sitting on the drive for weeks at a time, even before the current situation.

Is there any difference between the life expectancy of the AGM and EFB?

Bit late now, but this might help for people searching in future: According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_standards_for_trailer_connectors the 2002 version ISO 11446 specified that pin 12 was to be used for trailer detection, by linking it to ground on pin 3. This function was apparently removed from the standard in 2004, which reserved pin 12 for future allocation. If the Octavia is designed according to the superseded version of the standard, it might be trying to use pin 12 for detection, while a modern adaptor would not connect it. Therefore looping pin12 to pin 3 might help and shouldn't cause any harm.