SuperbTWM

Looking at their position, if I was doing the timing belt I would probably be tempted to unclip them and move them out of the way

I don't really see how a smart thermostat could save you a noticeable amount of money over a normal programmable thermostat other than if you always forgot to turn it down or off whenever you went out and plus the eather is different from one year to the next and so are the gas/electric prices so its hard to even tell. Its a bit like the smart meter con, if you are reasonably well educated you know that your tumble drier uses a lot of electric, so if you choose to use it anyway then seeing the useage on a smart meter isn't going to make you turn it off to save money. I have turned off the auto scheduling and the motion sensors and 'auto away' features on my Nest as I really don't like the idea of the thermostat trying to guess how warm I want the house etc. I just want it to do what I tell it or stick to the schedule that I set. The main reason I bought my Nest is because it learns how fast the house heats up. Because our living room radiators are a bit over size it does warm up quick, especially with the door closed to the hallway. Tried a few thermostats and with the overshoot in temperature plus the in built deadband it just went from a bit too warm to a bit too cold but the Nest does really well at guessing the residual heat given out and turns the heating off earlier. Plus, as mentioned above it looks a lot nicer than the Hive

The battery on the nest is purely for back up reasons, it does work for a while, maybe an hour or 2 but pretty much instantly you lose remote access via the app and just get a warning message telling you it’s lost power.

Ok but the point I’m making is you can put the Hive anywhere with no consideration. The Nest needs to be powered so you have to put a lot more time, effort and/or money into having it where you desire.

I've set up 2 Hive systems for friends, the set-up did not go smoothly both times, i think the issue was that I was trying to follow the set-up instructions but in reality I think if you power it all up they seem to connect and sync up on their own eventually. The main downside for me is that you have a box to connect to the modem, and the reciever and the thermostat whereas nest just has a thermostat and a reciever so thats one less box to have powered up near your router. I have a Nest and I'm happy with it, it did die recently though (along with many other Nests that have a common issue where the wifi chip dies) and I have to say the service from google was brilliant to say it was well out of warranty. As soon as I found the issue I went to the website, chatted live and within 10 minutes a new one was on its way, the next day a new thermostat and heatlink was at my door (now I have a spare heatlink also). One downside of the nest though is its power requirement, for it to look neat and tidy on the wall you either have to chase the wall out or in my case, drill through from a cupboard on the other side of the wall. Otherwise you have an unsightly cable running up the wall unless you have a table to sit it on with the stand. The Hive being battery powered does not have this issue.

What tow bars are people using on their superbs? I didn't have any intention of letting Skoda fit one but I asked for a price today out of curiosity and I'm gad I was sitting down. £750???????? I can remember shopping around for ages when I was looking for one for the golf and managed to get a Westfalia one that didn't require any bumper cuts but looking at the Superb bumper it seems this won't be possible but I would like to keep the cutting to a minimum. Also regarding the electrics, can you get a plug and play kit that will integrate with can bus or is it a case of splicing into wiring and using a bypass relay? (I have VCDS if any coding is required)