brettikivi

24k hit on Friday outside the office. Long term average according to Spritmonitor is now 5.97. If I do the office run and nothing else, I hit around 5.0 on the actual run, and the Webasto brings me up to 5.3 or so. That is with ambients at around 0C, moist or wet roads and 100/80km/h limits - this should be close to optimal for consumption with my driving profile. 5.0l/100 is around 12 miles per liter so 56mpg. I note with interest the rear wiper working automatically occasionally when the fronts are on.

... the transition in 2016 with the head units also made a difference. My previous late-2016 and present 2020 octavias are a world away from the 2014 I drove at that time in terms of sound quality. It's not *that* good; too much screech over a certain volume level, limited deep bass and not that much clarity or seperation, but it's not complete junk. (it has been well used, now, though, with probably 200+ hours on it). I still want a sub and will install some DSP at some point simply because I really don't like the treble and miss some air. I also happen to have a Mini-DSP C6x8 in the garage, which makes decisions easier....

so I don't use one. I do use the Webasto an awful lot and 10 minutes of pre-heating makes a big difference. Oil temps will hit 50 and then dip back down again; hitting over 60C on the motorway at 60mph then leads to a significant drop before it warms up again to head towards 80. I don't think it goes much above 80 at 0-5C ambient. That's with cruise clicked in at 100km/h and driving for 45 mins like that. To be honest, I don't see the value of just the upper section like that. I would prefer the lower to be covered. It appears I can get something like this at motonet: https://www.motonet.fi/fi/tuote/401300/Maskisuoja-Skoda-Octavia-09- -- you can see the price, but the comment is to be careful about using this when it's "too warm", i.e. above zero. Another here, cheaper: https://www.motormarket.fi/maskisuoja-skoda-octavia-2019-ts760-5.html - Bret

I had HBA on the old car and it was pretty good most of the time - until it had its windscreen changed. Then it would be stupidly late and wierdly wrong. Is this the case on yours? I was under the impression there was a way to calibrate it, too... - Bret

there are instructions online as to how to take them apart, I remember reading them. Won't be trivial to paint in a way that it will stick to the chrome, though.

Doesn't Superskoda have custom ones?

had LEDs on two of three trailers I've rented recently, worked without issue. Dealer-fitted towbar. - Bret

I'm admitting nothing, but yes - I used to work for a customer of theirs and so back in 2006 or so I would be up there regularly. I went back a few summers ago with the family and we stopped for a couple of days. Drove through to Älgfjällen, was very pleasant. Also went through Landvetter earlier this year to visit a customer of my present employer and that brought back a few memories

Ha, seeing Dalsland brings back memories of Ed Should ping @Jaco2k and then go look at the video I should have finished already last month... - Bret

the octy is a 1.0TSI. no AWD needed on the motorway but if you want fun then AWD helps enormously! Our SX4 S-Cross needs testing properly this winter.... that runs Hakka 8s, as does the A2. - Bret

205/55R16 Hakka 9s here been on for at least a month... +3 today, snow was lying this morning and more due tomorrow....

You have Halogen or Xenon / LED lights? If it's the latter, then there's fun involved - the easiest (!) method involves reprogramming the BCM to get one output to work as the trigger. @Petunet can probably help, too.

Flashing brakelights / hazards are as of 7m/s^2 deceleration if I remember correctly. You might not be able to achieve this with winter tyres. Dry, cold road? maybe. Damp, cold? I doubt it very much. To be honest, I'd take an inflatable something-or-other out and try to brake from 30mph to stop as close to the object as possible. It's good practice and harder than it seems. Teddy might also work. That would give you a good feel for just how hard you need to / can push the brake pedal to get ABS to kick in. Remember the rubber is a lot softer on the winters and so it may well squidge more before triggering ABS. - Bret

no. This is about putting the top of the driver basket close to but not necessarily touching the door card. Depth-wise, there's a hole behind so most stuff should work; Axton ATC165s are around 75mm deep, as are the Ground Zero ALs I have here. Should work without issue. - Bret

I drove a 1.4TSI ACT Leon in Germany, and the only thing was a mildly perceptible bump in power delivery. Really minor, that was it. Nothing else. 2 cylinders at 120km/h was nice to see. - Bret

coming home lights are directly connected to auto lights, I believe, so they won't come on if it's light out. The rest should be in the coding thread, it's on the oneNote notebook. - Bret

my understanding is that the adapters need to be 36mm deep. This post from fanatic audio should tell you most of the rest of what you want to know: https://www.fanaticaudio.com/posts/skoda-octavia-3-kaiutinten-vaihto/ - Bret

I drive a lot at night at this time of year. And the screen can be annoying. The 10s off feature is nice, but the tick isn't persistent. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks! - Bret

here's your English version: https://www.osram.com/ecat/NIGHT BREAKER H7-LED-LED high and low beam lamps-Car lighting-Automotive/com/en/GPS01_3401765/PP_EUROPE_DE_eCat/ the full list is here: https://media.osram.info/media/img/osram-dam-16134446//LEDriving_LED_NL_Fahrzeugliste_mit.pdf and it states clearly 5E through end of production. I also suspect Octy 2 FL is included - from December 2010 through EOP. But not RHD cars.

I'm impressed. The "failure" will be corrected in Germany by carrying the paperwork (and no, I'm not kidding). Nice step forwards here. There's a homologation process to go through, there's hope that Philips will do the same. I suspect I'll be able to switch at some point here, they trust TÜV. - Bret

I love apps that don't give you full information. Not. That screenshot says clearly that headlamp wash is not activated. Or there's no adaptation active, it's not clear from the interface language. I don't think you can resolve this without either going into long coding or switching to VCP / VCDS. - Bret

water repellent doesn't help on the rear screen IME, there's not enough air flow to push the rain off. I have rain-x on all the side windows on all the cars and it's very good when the glass is clean.

what does byte 13 bit 3 say in STG 9? If that's set to 0 then VCDS probably believes you have no SWRA (Scheinwerferreinigungsanlage) (this is from the original OneNote notebook which contains pretty much everything). For me it's every third or so spray of the screen and it's supposed to be changeable as above. - Bret

Bluetooth and Spotify is spectacularly buggy for me. I have two phones: Nokia 8.1 (fully updated, Android 10), Nokia 7 plus (fully updated, Android 10). Nokia 8.1: when getting into the car it's a crapshoot as to whether the phone will connect and start playing again. If it was less than 30 minutes outside the car, chances are it won't, until I unlock the phone again (and yes, the car is a trusted agent to keep the phone unlocked). If it's the next day, chances are it will actually work without issue. But then the first track may or may not be the only one it plays and occasionally, I'll see the same track title on the screen, even though the track changes. No consistency as to how. A hard reset helped the other day when the BT connection locked up so much I couldn't listen to a Teams call via the car. The phone is reset on an irregular basis and my B&W PX work fine, as does my Jabra 25 and the Sony BT speakers. This is on the car's implementation. The 7 plus - that's better. It will frequently actually start Spotify - the 8.1 won't - and tends to restart again after a pause. But the quality off of the 8.1 is audibly better... this crappiness is one of the reasons the 256GB SD is full of music. Oh, and Spotify, if you're reading: stop setting my files to "no longer downloaded". it's annoying as hell and makes me want to drop the whole thing. I downloaded it once, I don't expect to have to do it every week or two, because you "feel like it" or because the DRM "died". It's stupid and there's zero technical reason for you doing this without telling me. Nearly cost me a fortune last time I was travelling outside the EU, too, but that's another story. Was lucky to get away with €25 of costs...

Do you have the hardware for it? What does the camera behind the mirror look like?