makman

10 miles of driving on the new tyres and a sidewall split as I had to try and get past a wide SUV parked on our road and clipped a kerb. BANG. Replacement tyre sorted today and KwikFit knocked a bit off the price, which is good of them.

Saturday will see the car having Michelin CrossClimate 2 Fitted all round. They are all mismatched tyres and with winter weather now arriving and a drive to France next weekend, I want decent rubber. Kwikfit had a deal on, so £349 all fitted/balanced etc... A good tyre for the car and hopefully better than the Continental EcoSport 6's I had on the Octavia.

@Carl248do you have a link to the seller on Ebay as i am looking to upgrade my Swing radio to a Bolero or better.

I have a 2013 S level Estate and this has appealed to me as well. Lovely car, just the seats could be more comfortable. Being 6ft5 I love the space afforded by having the longer chassis. So I shall be watching this thread with interest. Pity there are now helpful answers yet.

Check fuses. Removing battery, terminals could have touched something and popped a fuse.

I bought one of these. It is a good fit and has a decent lip on it. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303574082700 It does arrive rolled up and needs a bit of time to settle, but I'm pleased with the fit, quality and finish.

Door Sills fitted!

Full Rubber boot liner has arrived. That will keep boot carpet nice and clean. Especially since we now have a dog as well...

I've used ACF50 for a while on motorcycles for keeping exposed areas of metal corrosion free and at the time my 10 year old Triumph would be cleaned each spring and look brand new, except for a couple of bolt heads that had started rusting under a previous owners care.

Both sides were rather full of leaves, dirt and road dust. Cleared them out. Both sides had rubber plugs on the sills which were in good condition and holding up. I sprayed it out with ACF50 for now. Will use some Owatrol etc when I get some in or a bitumen spray.

Thanks that is extremely helpful and I am hands on for that sort of work. I will get around to doing that sooner rather than later. I've got Kurust gel in the garage and some Hammerite paint in silver to seal any bare metal as well.

Mine is not the stop start version nor does it have cruise control. Basic S Model on a 13 reg. I tend to get the car serviced annually regardless of mileage, so it will see fresh oil at either 7k or 10k if I have driven across Europe and back. Thanks for the tyre recommendation, I was looking at those Michelins, I put Michelin bike tyres on my motorcycles as a preference as well. Well made, good grip and decent enough mileage as well.

Picked up some door sill protectors, chromed NOS for £27 delivered. Should be a nice look and protect the sills from the dog as well.

First fuel fill up after a nice drive, some motorways and lots of urban driving. 37mgp. Good enough for what I do. I did fill up with Shell and then topped up with BP. Costs the same as supermarket stuff, so may as well treat the car to good cleaning agents. Replaced fuse for the 12V sockets and all is well. Fitted a "Black Box Fitted" sticker so I can drive quietly without bumper crawlers. Enjoying the space and comfort of this version of Skoda. My family love the space and how much quieter the car is on the motorway, huge estate boot is a real boon as I'm moving son back to his digs in September, so will be an easy job this time around. The only thing I need to do is change all the tyres to one type. They are all different and although with decent enough tread on them, they don't track as well as they should. It does annoy me when people have a nice car and do not bother keeping things properly with good tyres and so on.

My Skoda ownership has taking this route over the last 25 years. Felicia 1.3 Hatch Fabia 1.4 Estate Octavia 1.4 Hatch Superb 1.4 Estate I've bought a new to me estate! Why, well the Octavia hatchback was killed by a Hungarian driver two weeks ago. He decided that yellow lights at a junction does not mean proceed with caution and check junction for cars that are turning. It is a 2013 model, basic edition, no frills, less to go wrong. Has had a waterpump replaced, FSH and 83K on the clocks. Clean exterior and interior. All in good condition. Only things I've seen that are an issue is the sticking fuel cap solenoid mechanism, will lube that and replace fuse for the 12V sockets in the car. Jet washed it at the local Morrisons, gave it a good hose down and it looks great. Looking forward to reading about any fixes, solutions, upgrades etc.

A brief update. Car was returning 48mpg on the longer run home, aircon on flat out, including 50 miles through London with heavy traffic. The tyres performed brilliantly on the motorway during a very heavy thunderstorm and were tracking well with good grip and feel. Decent enough feel and grip on dirt roads as well in the Forest of Dean, not like my days of going far to fast on dirt roads in Africa, but I've matured now.... Happy to recommend these.

I got these fitted via Asda Tyres. Managed to get a local tyre place, 0.4 miles away the next working day and fitted straight off first thing in the morning. So now I have an excellent spare tyre and two new front tyres. The tyres are quieter, feel excellent on the road (yes, all new tyres do) and will hopefully prove their A rated fuel rating when I do my longer trip from London to Gloucestershire tomorrow morning.

Gizmo did a fantastic job of sorting the VCDS programming and even managed to get it to do some extra tricks! I guess that is what happens if you get someone who knows what the systems can do and is able to tweak things so they work! Very pleased and I do appreaciate the effort. Enjoy the beer and nice to chat about the cars of the future!

First thing they admitted was the need for VCDS tuning. They were upfront and said that was something they could not do. Fair enough. Not all places do all things. I guess that is just how it sometimes pans out. I tend not to stress about things like that but rather come to places like this and ask questions from people who do know the answers. In my years of owning Fabia's Felicias I've had answers for simple stuff. First time I've got a fancy car! Loving the Octavia, it is the basic model, but it is fun to drive and does everything my family needs.

Cheers. That is very kind of you. What is your preferred tipple and I can supply something accordingly. Are you available during the day or evenings only? I have literally just moved into a new post, so have a bit of flexibility after the weekend. I can leave London at around 8.30 as I take my wife to work or after 4.30pm as I fetch her from work.

Folkstone is not impossible to be honest. I've not had the chance to give the car a run yet. No, pressing twice does nothing. The alarm installer said that it could probably be set to unlock all doors on once press. There is also a boot button, but that does not work. They did not have the software and were not willing to mess about with it any further to avoid making errors. Do you have a charge for the work? happy to pay what is needed. I've looked for other places and the only one I can see is VCDS Diagnostics over in Hemel Hempstead which would take me longer to get to than Folkstone!

Please have a look at this thread:

hello all. I have bought a Skoda Octavia 2011 1.4TSI Classic. First thing I've done is to have the car upgraded with a good alarm fitted professionally. However they mentioned that it would require VCDS programming to allow the fobs to unlock all the doors. At the moment it only unlocks the drivers door and locks all doors on the lock button. Is there someone in SE London area who can do this? And what would the cost be? I used to use Tune-ECU on my Triumph, but have not really dug into VCDS for the Skoda and am reluctant to mess about with the car programming. Wife just says NO. Any help appreciated.

That sounds great. I did look at the Superb, but ended up with an Octavia as one came up local to me and was in the right price range. Low mileage at 29k. Used to have a 1.4 Fabia years ago, so this is a step up!

Car collected. I fit in it! Yay! Smooth and full tank of fuel. Credit to the dealer for filling this up. Now in the garage as it is going to sit until I have time for a longer drive.