dilly

Can't you just swap the wheels round? I did and they quietened down. Dill

Golf R Estate, Focus ST Estate? Dill

I had saw toothing on my Mk 2FL rears but the tracking could be changed on that car. I got the same problem on the rears of my Mk 3 at about 40k but it has the fixed back axle. I just swapped the wheels round. Cured the problem immediately. Lovely silence again. Dill

So. After a month of trying to get some sense out of Fish Bros, Swindon and then Skoda UK (with absolutely no result other than to ask me for my "experience" - grrrrrrr) as to what to do about my "negative" front assist, I book it into a Skoda garage which also has a VW franchise which has the facility to "recalibrate" my front assist. They lent me a car which was nice of them (on 16" wheels - it seemed to ride and handle better than mine on 17" wheels which is interesting). Very good service anyway. "All done and dusted" they told me last night so I pick it up this morning. "Can you tell me what the problem was exactly?" I ask. I'm genuinely interested; I haven't hit anything and I'd like to know if it was just a computer malfunction for instance. "Ah well, they've checked it out, recalibrated it, checked the computer and road tested it". (Me) "Really? How did they road test it? Drive it at a wall?!" (Ho ho) (Service chap - discombobulated) "well, our technicians are very experienced". (Me) "So we don't know exactly what the problem is then?" (Service chappie) "it seems to be alright now". (Me) "Let's hope so". Tonight: "Front assist not available". I'm not sure I have the will to get it fixed. Shame really. Dill

Dr Zoidberg - interesting idea. Do you mean that you set up a DD and stop/start it according to how often you need to tax the vehicle? For instance, if you wanted to use the bike in January (God forbid...) you'd re-start the DD on 1 January and stop it on 31 Jan? In other words, you pay as and when you need the vehicle? Dill

Now that tax has gone paperless - well, discless anyway - why are we constrained by the old system of 6 months or 12 months? I've just taxed my motorbike (which I only use on fine days) and I should have liked to have taxed it for seven months, rather than six. Come to think of it, I should like to tax my car until the end of its PCP (it was originally 36 months). Given that DVLA make it proportionately more to tax for six months, why not offer an incentive to tax for 36? HMG might say that DVLA would then be unable to claim the extra revenue foregone as a result of changes at Budget time. To which I would counter that HMG is getting the money up-front and should lump it. What does anyone else think? Dill

Apparently my car needs this but my Skoda dealer doesn't have the wherewithal to carry it out. What does it mean? Dill

Thanks. The first thing I did was clean the sensor. It was clean. Dealer beckons. What a fag. Dill

Appeared this morning. Tried the usual things like switching ignition on and off, checking set-up check boxes. No luck. Anyone had this fault and found a fix? Or do I book the car in? Dill

I don't know why, but I've always assumed that we get a space saver (with a prominent yellow sticker telling us not to do more than 50 mph) because there is insufficient room in the wheel well for a full size one. I understand that manufacturers want to wean us off spares because they are heavy and spoil the car's mpg (only the minutest bit surely?) but they offer them as a cost option. I had a puncture the other day and changed onto my spare which turned out to be a 16" steel rim with a 205/55 rather than the 225/45/17 on the car. But of course it's got that yellow sticker which shouts at the old bill "stop me for going more than 50" on it. Why? It's a perfectly sensible tyre. It's not one of those tiny narrow tyres. Its nearly the same width and it must surely have the same diameter.... So I checked 205/55/16 Diameter 632mm 225/45/17 Diameter 634mm A tiny difference. A tyre retailer tells me that they recommend not more than a +/- 2.5% (presumably as the tread wears, so does the diameter). So it's well within tolerance. Better check the circumference (I'm not very busy...). 78.156" for the 16 inch wheel. 78.452" for the 17. A massive difference of about a quarter of an inch or 0.377% difference. So will my full size 225/45/17 wheel go in the wheel well? I took it off the car. Of course it does. It fits perfectly. So why have I got a space saver? I expect (and apologise if) someone's already asked this question. But I'm a bit cross. I don't care if it's on a steel wheel rather than an ally one. It'll go just as fast as the other ones. Dilly

I think my 2.0l Diesel DSG Mk 3 rides worse than my 1.4 petrol DSG Mk2 FL estate. I think it's pretty choppy, only slightly improved by my tall profile winter tyres. However, I went in a colleague's 2013 A4 Quattro estate the other day and it had an even more choppy ride than my car. The Bluetooth was good though. I actually rather miss my 2010 estate. It was better built than the Mk 3. With the Bolero replaced by a good quality 2 DIN satnav with Bluetooth, DAB etc, it would have been a cheap ride. I like their looks much more than the Mk 3 and the leather interior and plastics were all superior to those in the current car. But I sold it for £2000 more than I paid for it from the finance company when the PCP came to an end. And I got an extra three months' driving before it went. I'm not really complaining! Will we all be buying petrol cars next time round? The Dill

Mine fell off (the plastic panel not anything nasty) this weekend. took me a few minutes to find this post to remind me where it's supposed to go. The other piece of plastic that keeps getting dislodged is the overhead light switch panel. Bit worrying. Are Skodas being made by French car workers now? Le Dill

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. My car is a 2.0l diesel Elegance with DSG. The point of my post was to express my amazement at the apparent accuracy of the computer although I suspect if I did it again it might not be as accurate. After all, how do you know when you've brimmed the tank? Just a bit of fun really and a very ironic dig at Skoda in the title of the post. By the way, if you haven't seen The Imitation Game (Alan Turing, Bletchley story), see it. It's marvellous. Dill

Today I went to Cornwall for an hour and a half or so. I filled up at Tesco, drove 390miles and filled up again at the same petrol station. The average fuel consumption was reading 53.9 mpg at an average speed of 61 mph (it wasn't all motorway). I calculated the actual brim to brim fuel consumption. 53.89 mpg. Good grief... Dill

...and bang goes your warranty. Dill