MTK

Drove it all the way to the repairers - about 40 miles ! - without problem. Apparently the bit on the alternator that the pulley connects to had broken so it needed new alternator, new pulley and tensioner. Grand total of

Last thing I drove without power steering was my 1990 VW Golf GTI - and I think that weighed about half what the Octavia does !

Thanks for that. AA man confirmed that the belt's come off - he thinks that the lower pully has broken. I'll drive it to a (reasonably) local VW specialist later and they'll fix it on Monday, hope my arms are up to it!

Car is a 52 plate 1.9TDi 110bhp Octavia. 85000 miles. Cambelt replaced @ 80,000 miles service. Was driving to work this morning when, having braked reasonably sharply I discovered upon moving off again that I had lost power steering and the battery light on the dashboard was illuminated. A quick check under the bonnet didn't reveal anything obvious and as I was only half a mile from work I thought that I'd drive the rest of the way, which I did without steering assistance. Upon looking under the bonnet again I discovered that the belt which is visible on the left hand side of the engine bay (I hadn't taken the engine cover off) was no longer on its rollers at each end. Is this connected to the power steering pump / alternator? Is it serious? Thanks

My inlaws got their MK2 Octavia from Winners (via a broker I believe) and have recently bought another from the Skoda dealers in Bristol. The reason they gave for not buying from Winners again was that they weren't happy with how Winners dealt with their problematic door seals and a couple of other things. This thread would seem to confirm my opinion that my father in law could start an argument in an empty room!

Well, I bought a set for my Octavia because my passenger side wiper (an expensive Bosch one) has been largely a waste of space - leaves streaks and makes an annoying noise when lying flat and you're going over about 50mph. I fitted the passenger side one last night - first thing to notice is that in the set of 1 x 19" and 1 x 21" only the latter has a spoiler! Even so, the new one left fewer streaks after a few squirts of screenwash and doesn't make the annoying noise.

I emailed Skoda UK the other week to get the 'official' line on when to replace the cam belt on my MK1 TDI Elegance. They said 150,000km (just over 93,000 miles) or 4 years, whichever comes first.

I tend to agree with much of the substance of your sentiments William but don't share the same level of unhappiness about what's going on (yet - we all have a threshold, mine's just not been reached yet). Last night's BBC 10 o'clock news reported on the plight of local children in Thailand and Indonesia who had been orphaned by the disaster. What was really terrible was that not only had their parents died, many were the only survivors from an entire extended family. These children had literally no one to look after them. My wife was in floods (sorry) of tears, I'm a stony hearted git but even I was close. I'm really looking forward to my in-laws coming this weekend because I bet a pound to penny that they will say "Charity begins at home" at some point - they'll be leaving shortly afterwards.

Thomas Reuben - Thomas we just liked the name but also it was either the first name or middle name of my & my wife's grandfathers. Reuben happens to be the name of my wife's dog when she was little but it also means eldest son and we just liked it. Makes me think of jazz musician Reuben Wilson, which is no bad thing. No. 2 is on the way - if it's a girl Martha, we had that one ready for Thomas. We both like the name but I like the fact it makes me think of Martha Reeves & the Vandellas ! If no. 2 is a boy we're stumped. We're considering Daniel, but my aunts two boys are called Thomas & Daniel so that seems a bit silly but we might persist. With my name being Matthew Kelly we don't want anything that's shared with someone famous, doubly so since my wife's initial is R, so she became R Kelly upon marrying me. Also we want to avoid a first name that either ends in an 'ee' sound or can be shortened to something that ends in that sound (although we run the risk of Tommy Kelly). It's a minefield.

I have no idea what the factory fill is. Just because one spec is called 506.01 rather than 505.01 doesn't necessarily mean that it's a higher spec oil, rather it's a different spec oil and it's the next one in the series. The higher number doesn't necessarily indicate higher spec does it ? Given that 506.01 is used in only a very specific set of circumstances it makes sense that it won't necessarily be suitable for other sets of circumstances. You should consider whether SLX Longlife II matches 505.01, which is the spec for your car. It would appear not & so using it wouldn't be a great idea. I'm hardly one to talk about using over specced oil as I top up my Octavia 110 bhp estate with Millers PD oil (use it in the SEAT) but it DOES say that it meets the spec for the Octavia so I know I'm OK.

Airplane Grosse Pointe Blank Blues Brothers Lock Stock Monty Python & the holy grail (thank you George Harrison, for this reason alone you're the best Beatle) Play Misty for Me Midnight Cowboy Shawshank Redemption Usual Suspects Trading Places Coming to America - "Joe Louis - 137 years old" Blazing Saddles Toy Story Toy Story 2

1. Groove is in the heart - Deee Lite - as Gary Mulholland says in his book 'This is Uncool' - If I had to play a DJ version of Russian Roulette where you only had one chance to get people on the dancefloor or you die, this is the record I'd trust with my life. 2. Teenage Kicks - The Undertones 3. She Sells sanctuary - The Cult 4. I Believe in Miracles - The Jackson Sisters 5. Theme from Starsky & Hutch - James Taylor Quartet Bubbling under Just can't get enough - Depeche Mode Cigarettes & Alcohol - Oasis That's the way love is - Ten City Smells like teen spirit - Nirvana Step On - Happy Mondays Fools Gold - Stone Roses Oblivious - Aztec Camera

I too can big up the Miele washing machine. Had one for about 18 months, been very good. It seems to be the VW Golf MKII of washing machines, heavy, German, over-engineered and therefore reliable. The only slight problem we had was that the fabric conditioner was not emptying from its reservoir, however I phoned Miele customer services to get an engineer out, they told me what to do myself and it worked a treat. I like my Dyson vacuum cleaner though and it brought up the carpets in my old house a treat before we sold, but then we had been using a rubbish hoover bought for about

"i use Castrol GTD Magnatec which also meets the requirements and comes in 1 gallon cans, which akso happens to be the oil capacity. (I can get it cheap if you ever need any Ivan)" Does it really ? I thought that the only Castrol stuff which met VW 505.01 spec is the SLX longlife II Good news if it does 'cos it's widely available and reasonably priced. Otherwise you're stuck with dealer stuff (don't forget Ford must sell an oil that it used in their PD engined Galaxy), Castrol as above and the stuff from Millers. Does it state on the packaging that it meets the standard ?

I think that it's incredibly important to remember them. Personally I think that the defeat of fascism is one of this country's greatest achievements, if not the greatest. Plus there are the victims of other conflicts, which whatever your view on their rights & wrongs it generally wasn't those who took the bullets that decided on whether or not the country should be involved in them. I went to Normandy on holiday this year, it was the first time that we'd been on holiday as a family, my wife, me and our 15 month old little boy. As I sat in the car park by what had been Omaha beach, my little boy asleep in his car seat in the back and my wife in the passenger seat I had tears in my eyes thinking about all the people who had fought and died there. And it was just the Americans at that beach ! What I found odd while driving around the D-Day beaches was that there was a massive memorial to the American forces on Omaha beach but no big single memorial to the British forces. It was like each regiment had to do their own, leading to quite a few small ones but no single focal point like the Americans had. Still, you could say that's a British thing. We also spent a few hours at the war cemetry in Bayeux - incredibly moving, as was an afternoon when I went to France for the day with my grandmother the week we'd starting the bombing campign against Milosevic's forces in the old Yugoslavia. We happened upon a WWII cemetry that day and it just seemed an insult to those buried there that it was happening again. Over the last few years I've become more determined to make a point of attending Remembrance Day events, could just be that I'm getting older (34) or just a reaction to some of the things I see around me and although I've just moved to a new area I'll try and find out what's happening near me and go along.

Does anyone know whether I can take RAM out of a Mac and put it in a PC that could do with an upgrade ? I know RAM's dead cheap at the moment but if I don't have to spend it, I won't !! Thanks

The reason we got the Britax Duo is that it's so easy to fit you don't need to worry about whether you've done it correctly with the seat belt. Also we knew that one set of grandparents would be getting an Octavia as well so it would go straight into their car and as it's a while since they had a child seat in the back of their car we wanted one that they'd find easy to fit. What the seat and the boy will do to the beige leather interior is another matter !

As my son is now nearly a year old and onto the second stage of car seats we have a Britax Duo which is Isofix compatible. It fits on the Isofix points in the Octavia and in the Seat Ibiza which is our other car. There's a list on the Britax website of the cars that they've tested it in and deemed it suitable for. Some cars have to use a restraining strap as well to affix it but not VAG cars in general according to the list. It will also attach with the seat belt in cars without Isofix points or where they haven't tested it and you don't want your child to be the guinea pig. Neither Britax nor the individual car manufacturers were much use when I enquired about cars not on their list. If you shop around on the web you can get it for about

Having thought things through I think there could be two reasons for it. First I got the car on 3rd Jan 2003, however I know that it was delivered to the dealer in early December so perhaps someone was driving around in it for a couple of weeks before I got it. When it was delivered to me the dealer may have zeroed the odometer so the car knows that it's done a few hundred miles more than it actually says on the odometer. When I first started driving it, the MFA showed that more miles had been driven than the odomoeter showed. Secondly I did top up the oil with some Millers XFE PD a few weeks back as it was all I had available at the time (it's for our other car, a PD engined SEAT Ibiza). This does meet VAG 500 00, 505 00 & 505.01 specs but not the 506 00. Anyway I'm not overly bothered as it's a company car but it just seemed a bit odd.

My 110 bhp TDi Octavia delivered in Dec. 2002 has got QG1 on the spec sticker, indicating variable servicing. I