jsgreen89

Hi all. A while ago (2015) I bought an Octavia but had awful problems with the notorious cabin booming and air pressure issues that made being inside pretty unbearable for me and my wife. In the end I handed it back. However I'm interested in a large estate that isn't too pricey and the Superb fits the bill. However before I investigate are there any problems associated with this model in that area? Thanks!

Well my Octavia has now gone back to Skoda with a full refund. So have now paid a little extra to switch to a mk7 Golf Estate. Much happier that we an drive around without any headaches, ear pressure problems or feeling sick now! It was a shame as apart from this problem, it was a very good car for the money! So if anyone doesn't have this problem then count yourself blessed!

Just to keep people updated on my case.. Car went back to Skoda again for more tests, they tried swapping out the wheels (i.e. to smaller alloys so should be softer ride), changing boot seal, and even taping the boot closed.. All made little-no difference. They've now said that Skoda Technical have escalated it further, but the dealership has agreed that things are unlikely to move further, and they accept that this is not acceptable for us. So things are now moving towards me handing the car back. Hopefully I'll have this settled by the end of the week. Luckily despite all the troubles my dealer have been very good at least, so I'm confident they'll do the right thing. So not a good outcome for people still suffering I'm afraid. I'm convinced it's such a significant design flaw that it can't be corrected without some radical action..

Car is going back in this week for further investigation.. I'm still hoping that the boot fix in conjunction with extra tweeks will somehow do the trick. But my conclusion so far is that the new spring boot stoppers plus latch have helped, but not fixed the problem to a level that makes it tolerable. Also as a side note I tried experimenting with driving without parcel shelf and back seats up/down but no improvement :(

I think you and me are having an almost identical situation! Update on my fix: So my car went in with Skoda for a total of almost 2 weeks while they looked at the problem. The good news (if you can call it that) was that when one of the technical guys was taking it for a test drive, he had to return shortly after due to feeling sick from the pressure / booming in the cabin, so this went some way to making them take it quite seriously! After looking at it for a few days they spoke to Skoda Technical for quite a while and got the spring-loaded stoppers delivered and fitted, along with the new boot latch. They initially only fitted the sprung stoppers, but found they didn't make a huge difference without the boot latch too. Now that I have the car back I can safely say that the obvious booming at lower speeds (30-40mph-ish) is improved quite nicely. However... on my commute of around 50 minutes (mainly motorway) I still get the pressure sensation in the ears, which I think is a cumulative result of lots of little pressure changes from the boot still moving. You can still hear the booming, but it's less noticeable, and shifted to a slightly higher frequency, but the effect is still apparent after a longer journey. The technical department promised to keep looking at it if it wasn't fixed, so I suspect they'll have to go back to Skoda Technical and see what can be done next..

Extra update, car now dropped off with Skoda to see what they can find. Filled them in with all the info I had, so we'll see what happens.. I told them some details about what the general consensus is on the cause, and possible solutions, but I'm always aware that professionals can get a bit wary when faced with the person who's looked stuff up on the internet, therefore knows everything..

This is EXACTLY what i have found on my first few days of ownership. The booming at 40mph-ish was just about tolerable, but the pressure build up / decrease (not sure which!) is really irritating. And to answer the question, swallowing only partially helped to clear my ears. Plus after my 50 min drive home (mostly motorway at 70) I still could feel weirdness in my ears for 20-30 mins, so not great.. I'll persue Skoda tomorrow regarding the new spring-loaded buffers.

Update regarding my car (1.4 TSI Elegance Hatchback). Booming is totally fine, but what I do notice is my ears popping during my motorway drive. I keep trying to clear my ears, but no luck. It seems to be an issue more so at speed. So I'm wondering if this is more to do with the poor boot seal sucking out air? And even now, 15 mins later, my ears are still kind of ringing. It's not unbearable, but it is a bit of an issue. I'll try playing with the boot settings again, but this is so frustrating. Just when I think the booming is solved, the general pressure problem is worse!

Are there better tires to get that might reduce the road noise more? Or anything that can easily be done in terms of sound proofing?

Quick note regarding a test drive I had yesterday with the 1.4 TSI Elegance hatchback that I mentioned a couple of posts back. The dealer let me adjust the boot stops on the side, and I moved them right up to the top to see if it would help, but sadly no such luck.. The car was still bad, especially between 40-50 Mph which was the real sweet spot for resonance. Interestingly the dealer agreed with me much more this time, and also said that another couple a few days before had said it was a problem, and ending up getting an estate instead. I really need to get a car in the next 2-3 weeks so looks like I'll be having to get the 1.4 TSI Manual even though I'd rather have DSG, but at least it's quiet!

I'm looking to get an Octavia Hatchback 1.4 TSI (2nd hand ~ 14 or 64 plate), and have test driven two so far. The 1st (Elegance TSI DSG) had quite prominent issues with the air pressure. As other people have said it felt like a rear window was open a crack, and my ears kept popping. Worse between 30-50 Mph and over bumpy roads. The 2nd (Elegance TSI Manual) at a separate dealer seemed almost totally fine, could barely feel anything, even when listening out for it. Unfortunately I prefer the DSG, so I'll be going back soon to see if we can tweak the boot a bit as other people have tried. They seemed happy to do this. Any other advice? Because I don't want to lay out £15k for a car that makes me uncomfortable when I drive..

Looking to buy my first Skoda (Octavia 1.4 TSI DSG Elegance), after having to give up a company car. Found a couple of cars I like, with a price of around £15k. The question I have is, what sort of discount can I expect for a cash purchase at a Skoda dealer? As usual they keep pushing me towards Contract hire of a brand new Skoda, but I'm determined to just buy my car outright, especially as we may keep it for 3-4 years. I was hoping to maybe get £500 knocked off, or is this ambitious? Do they often try and push for free servicing instead? Thanks in advance!