Rodge

No one else has mentioned this, so I assume I'm wrong, but are those photos not showing oil far too high up the dipstick?

The water pump isn't supposed to need changing, however they have proved to be very unreliable on the early diesels, so if the pump hasn't failed by the time the belt needs changing you may as well replace it then anyway, for the reasons described above. See the sticky thread at the top of the forum for more details.

I have auto wipers usually set to the least sensitivity. They rarely operate continuously which means they hardly ever trigger the automatic rear wipe. As a result I constantly have to turn the rear wiper on and off when there is lots of spray because the standard intermittent setting is too frequent and there is no other way to get a single rear wipe. :-( The 30 second interval mentioned above would be nice to have.

The way high colour temperature bulbs usually work is by putting a blue filter on the bulb which just removes some of the yellow light, so they are actually less bright than they were to start with. You're better off just buying ordinary ultra-bright bulbs (eg Night Breaker or similar).

Lots of people change their cars about every three years even if they've not done many miles. I've only done 22000 miles in four years, but I'm planning to keep mine.

I test drove a hatch 4 years ago, because it was the only car the dealer had with the engine we wanted. I thought the rear visibility out of the hatch was terrible, and there were pointy sticky out bits three quarters of the way up the rear doors which looked just right to hit a child's head.

It's a bit worrying that two people have reported turbocharger failures on 1.2 TSI Octavias in the last week. The other is at https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/470938-5f-control-unit-failure-bolero-%C2%A31115#comment-5286193 I suppose I should take some comfort from the fact that my car was manufactured after 2014...

I forgot to add that the battery warning came on after about three years of light usage. I don't remember changing the key battery on my 16 year old Focus, but I guess I must have at some point.

My key continued working for at least 11 months after the warning appeared. The car was then serviced at a main dealer and the warning has gone away, although they haven't recorded or charged me for changing the battery. However the car is only used once or twice a week on average, so a key in daily use might not last so long after the warning appears.

Do the headlights still automatically come on when it gets dark?

I forgot to account for absolute versus relative pressures. I worked from 10 °C is about a 3% change in temperature, which will give a 3% change in pressure, which based on 32 psi relative pressure (WRONG!) would give a change of about 1 psi. Using absolute pressure instead gives about 1.5 psi per 10 °C, starting from 32 psi. Starting from 40 psi gives your 0.19 psi per °C. (32 psi chosen as having been mentioned previously in the thread.) The only time I've had a TPMS warning was when there was a screw in the tyre, although the tyre had not gone down.

Does that mean you wasted £500 on a new slip ring / clock spring unit that you didn't need?

I have to do that every time an announcement comes on, and still get briefly deafened each time.

Isn't it the wrong way around for a RHD car, which is presumably what Mee has in Gloucestershire? The description sounds correct for a LHD car.

The TPMS doesn't really care what the pressures are when you reset it. All it looks for is changes in tyre pressures relative to each other. And very roughly, every 10 °C change in temperature will change the tyre pressures by about 1 psi. The data plate in the OP says that anything between 32 and 36 psi is fine for the front tyres and 32 to 46 psi at the back, depending on loading. As far as I remember, mine also recommends 36 psi as being more economical. I always set mine a bit high anyway to allow for deflation over time. If you set the pressures exactly then a week later they will be slightly low and need pumping up again.

I doubt it. 40° is about an 84% gradient or 1:1.2. You'd never get the car up there, let alone a trailer!

I presume when you said you were "fed up with being constantly flashed", what you actually meant was that you were "fed up with constantly dazzling oncoming drivers with your dangerous headlights"?

That's good to hear. It's been stated here in the past that the DSG will slip the clutch to give the creep of an old auto box. It's also previously been said that when stationary with your foot lightly on the brake that it will slightly engage the clutch. More brake pressure would disengage the clutch and enable the stop-start.

That sounds like a good idea in very slow traffic, as it should save clutch wear. With a manual in slow traffic I routinely put it in gear and let it trundle along on idle revs with no feet on the pedals. I gather that if you do that with a DSG it will continuously slip the clutch as it pretends to be an old-fashioned auto.

My car's going in for its 4 year service next week. It's only done about 21k and is still inside the extended warranty. Fortunately no one's suggested that the belt might need changing, as I guess I'd have to do it to keep the warranty.

I was disappointed at the 9k standard service intervals of the Octavia compared with the 12.5k intervals on my 2003 Focus. Fortunately my annual mileage has dropped, so it's not a problem.

The model year is determined by when the car is built, not when it was ordered. It wouldn't make any difference if it was ordered in 2018 if they don't get around to building it until the end of 2019! Waiting times for a car to be built vary, and can't be guaranteed when a car is ordered. And they don't convert cars from one model year to another.

It is a shame. I was very happy with the price (20% off list at the time, now about 25%), service and car that I received from them four years ago. The car was supplied on a trailer from Simpons in Preston. I would have used them again.

The configurator always lags behind and is often inaccurate.

I don't take too much notice of the gauge and never look at the miles remaining. I concentrate on the trip counter which I reset when I refuel as I know that I can get about 500 miles out of a tank. I make a mental note of the mileage when the warning light comes on at about 7 litres remaining which will get me another 70 miles. I've still never got near putting 50 litres in.