GainfulShrimp

As I said, if I found it to be a useful experiment, I'd probably hard-wire the power from the fuse box area like I did for my dashcam a while back. Also, it's a few moments less faff every time you get in and out of the car, as @roo pointed out.

Agreed, but my iPhone 6+ is getting to that age now (3 years/generations old) where it's starting to feel slower and more clunky with every new iOS version that's released. And if I'm honest, it's just too big - yet I love the big screen - thus I've been wishing for an iPhone with a screen as big as the '+' variants, in a physically smaller handset. Unfortunately for my bank account, Apple have gone and made just such a phone, at a time when I was thinking of upgrading mine anyway... damn them. It looks to be a different shape to that one, to me? Good idea though, if there was a similar kit for the Octavia, it would be the neatest solution. It's no biggie tbh. There seem to be quite a few options on Amazon for cheap and cheerful non-slip 'ultra slim' Qi charging pads with micro-USB inputs. They're sufficiently cheap that I wouldn't mind buying one to test temporarily with a 12v socket adapter for power. If it worked, the phone didn't slip around too much and the signal-boosting function still worked OK, I could then think about 'hard wiring' a suitable 5V PSU into the fuse box area in a similar fashion to my dashcam.

Thanks @match14. Mine looks like this though (pic borrowed from someone else, found on Google Images): ... but I think I might have answered my own question anyway. Further Googling revealed a Skoda press release about a new option for "Phonebox with wireless charging" becoming available for new cars from Spring 2016. I'm pretty sure mine was registered around that time, so I doubt it could have been spec'ed with that option if it wasn't available to order until then. :(

My 16-reg car has the Phonebox option, meaning there's a rubber mat in the little sliding-lid cubby hole under the air con controls, featuring a symbol of a mobile phone. I have a silly-big phone (the iPhone 6+) so it doesn't fit in there very well tbh, but I'm tempted to upgrade to a newer, smaller iPhone (either the 8 or the X) in a few weeks time, and these new phones are not only smaller but are compatible with Qi-standard wireless chargers. I understand that some Phonebox cubby holes feature such Qi wireless chargers, but as I bought the car used, I've got no idea how to tell if mine features it (without trying a Qi-compatible phone in there, of course... but I don't have one to test). Does anyone know if/how I can tell if I've got wireless charging in my Phonebox cubby hole please - perhaps from the sticker of hieroglyphic option codes under the boot lining?

Thanks chaps. I was a rather unimpressed with the cluelessness of the lass that I spoke to, but I think it was a central call centre type arrangement. I *did* specifically ask that it remain on long life servicing when I first took it to them in April though, so will be reminding them of that. Unfortunately though, there doesn't seem to be any way of me (as a regular owner/driver/customer with no special cables/software) determining whether they serviced and reset it properly: i.e. with long life oil and reset via the proper computer interface thingey rather than just via the dash. I've booked it in, explaining strongly that it should be on long-life servicing and that it needs a long life service, which I think hope she added to the notes for the booking. When I drop it off, I'll be sure to talk to a technician or manager from their service dept, explain the whole sorry tale and try to make sure that the message gets through!

Thanks @Awayoffski! That's helpful and the link you posted gives a bit more info on the differences. I certainly tick the boxes/bullets it gave for variable servicing: That's me lol!

My 16-reg Greenline 1.6 CR Estate is asking for an oil service in 100 miles time. It's on the variable service interval scheme. I quite like the idea of this, as I do relatively high mileage (about 30k per year), and taking it in 3 times a year seems a bit of a drag tbh. Its last service (first since I owned it) was done - at a main dealer - in mid-April this year, when it had done 18.8k miles. It's now done 28k miles, which means it's only covered 9.2k miles and five-ish months since the last service was done. (The app tells me it had some sort of check at around 4k miles, i.e. shortly before I bought it.) Anyway, I called the same dealer to book it in and the lady I spoke to said it should be done "every 10k miles or every year". When I explained that it was on the variable scheme and thus that wasn't (necessarily) the case, she seemed confused and just repeated that Skodas should be serviced every 10k miles or every year, whichever is sooner. I explained that even if that were the case for my car - which I don't believe is correct - then it's only done 9.2k miles, so shouldn't be prompting me to service it quite yet. The lady said that was "probably because it wasn't reset properly when it was last serviced" and I should drop by the dealer for them to cancel the prompt. She also asked if the last service was minor or major but I wasn't sure (the digital service record thingey doesn't say), and she wasn't sure either from what their records said. Hmm... I'm not convinced that cancelling the prompt is the right thing to do - the whole conversation didn't give much confidence tbh - but I plan to pop by the dealer in person and attempt to talk to someone who's a bit more knowledgeable before I either ask them to cancel the reminder or service it. Could somebody with any experience of variable interval servicing on these cars please advise how I should proceed? Is it reasonable for the car to be asking to be serviced <10k miles (and < 5 months) since the previous service, and if not, should I trust the same dealer who "didn't reset it properly" to do the next service?

It's probably just bad luck with the call centre rep that you talked to. Some of them aren't sure or haven't dealt with similar queries before, and they are no doubt trained that "if in doubt, try to charge the customer extra". Interestingly, the Co-op are signed up to the ABI's 'Winter Tyre Motor Insurance Commitment', so they've publicly said that they won't charge extra. See the following page for details (and the PDF under 'supporting documents' has the Co-op listed as an insurer who's signed up): https://www.abi.org.uk/Insurance-and-savings/Products/Motor-insurance/Winter-tyres Give them another call and if you get the same response, politely ask to talk to a manager or supervisor and discuss the above ABI document and Co-op Insurance's position on it.

It may not help the OP if he's getting the same trouble with Android devices, but just in case it helps anybody else finding this, my iPhone bluetooth crackling/buzzing/distortion issues seem to have been resolved by disabling the SoundCheck feature (Settings > Music > SoundCheck - deselect it). I'm sure that I'd previously disabled this setting, so I can only assume that a subsequently update to iOS quietly enabled it again... Apparently the feature attempts to dynamically adjust the volume of tracks in your music collection, so that they all sound roughly the same volume. Nice in theory, I suppose - so you don't suddenly get deafened by a very loud track on shuffle if you've turned up the volume to listen to a quiet recording - but the implementation seems to be badly flawed. In my case it caused many of my favourite tracks to distort very badly. Oddly though, the same tracks worked OK on the same headphones, when connected through the headphone socket on the phone... it was only Bluetooth connections which suffered. Bit odd and feels like an iOS bug to me.

I completely agree re: glovebox... a royal pain to get it back in. Did you route the wire along the top of the a-pillar and down the rubber door seal though? I did that myself a few weeks ago based on the advice in this thread, then someone pointed out to me that there's an airbag extending down inside the top of the a-pillar, so routing a wire over there is a bad idea. Your car might not be the same as mine, of course, but it's worth checking. On pages 18-19 of the Octavia A7 manual, it explains that if you've got an 'AIRBAG' badge at the top of the b-pillar, it indicates that you have the 'head airbag system' fitted, which extends all along the top of the windows, from a-pillar to c-pillar. Or just peek inside the a-pillar trim and you'll see the white concertina-folded airbag in situ. Hence I changed my wire routing today, so it now goes along the roof lining, down the side of the windscreen and then between the bottom of the a-pillar and the side of the dash, exiting into the same area to the side of the glovebox. Same difference in terms of a neat install, but doesn't compromise the air bag in the same way.

My Leons both had this feature but it's only with my Octavia that I've done it accidentally (twice now) from inside the house. I can only presume they different key design means the unlock button is easier to activate as it presses against other stuff in my pocket. Either that or the range is better on it, or both. Think I'm going to disable the feature as it's pure luck that my daughter has noticed my car windows all down and asked me about it.

My iPhone (6+, running iOS 10.1.1 I think) has started to misbehave with my Bose headphones again the other day: crackling/scratching almost like a blown speaker sound, especially during certain bass-mid freqs. :( It's bloody annoying, but I know it's a Bluetooth thing because it sounds great when I use a cable. And I know it's the iPhone/iOS not the headphones at fault, because when I first bought them and the phone was running a previous OS, they worked fine. That's the trouble with Apple: it's fantastic when it "just works" but absolutely infuriating when it "just doesn't work"... Just thought I'd mention it as there's no point blaming the car if you haven't replicated the fault with another Bluetooth audio source first.

That's weird. My AFS (i.e. moving with steering) bi-xenons do their thing whether the switch is on Auto or On... But they don't move at all if the Driving Mode is set on Eco. Perhaps that's what's preventing yours from moving? (If you set the AFS lights to Sport - in the Driving Mode settings on your infotainment - they move loads, so it's easier to check that they're working that way.) I have my Driving Mode set to Individual, so I can still have moving AFS lights while using 'eco' air-con etc.

I'm a big convert to winter tyres, living in the middle of nowhere and doing a 35ish mile commute with plenty of untreated B roads along the way. I only barely made it home without a long walk a few times when I had my Golf TDI a few years back. And wrestling with snow chains with an 18 month old crying in the back of the car is not one of my favourite memories. But apart from snow and sub-zero performance, winter tyres perform quite a lot better than summers on the wet, chilly (0-6 degC) mornings that are more common to British winters. I switched to my winter steel wheels (and rather fetching faux-Skoda wheel trims from fleabay) last weekend. I'm using Goodyear Ultragrip 9 (205/55 R16, standard size on my car). It's worth noting that many insurers want to be told when you switch to winter tyres and/or wheels. Some of them used to like to try to charge "admin fees" or similar just for the use of winter tyres a few years ago, but that seems to have improved since the ABI dealt with a lot of negative publicity about the practice. (This year, Direct Line wanted me to tell them when I changed over, but it didn't cost me anything extra.)

Smug alert: my tree-hugging Greenline III Estate got 77.1mpg avg for my commute to work the other day, according to the maxi-dot. I'm getting around 65mpg over a tankful according to Fuelly/Road Trip. But I need a *lot* of road to overtake anything but the slowest tractors on the country roads... so there's a downside to frugality. In my view you shouldn't worry too much about mpg if you've bought a high performance car. And 42mpg isn't that bad for normal driving and a new car, especially if you're not doing many long journeys. My old Leon FR 2.0 TFSI DSG would struggle to get high 30s and I only ever reached >40mpg by hypermiling and taking all the fun out of the car. Most of the time if I hit any traffic it would get low-20s mpg and it was costing me >£450/month in fuel!