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One for @Graham Butcher. D E P R E C I A T I O N. The prospect of EU fines is forcing EV pre-registration and causing massive EV depreciation.

Ah! @J.R., sometimes your delightful espiègle does not find a welcome, non? It is fortunate (and sometimes unfortunate) that those we speak to are often not all who hear us.

Have you driven much in a car with lane assist? I am quite cautious about lane assist.

How long do you expect your DPF to last before it needs replacing?

Yeah this sounds like a warped disk or contamination of part of the brake disk. Clean the brakes and check the disks for being true.

Hello. Have a look at the power & torque curves of the two engines and see if that sways you either way. Also, are you looking at manual or DSG gearboxes?

I think you have a preference, not a problem. But as @Ootohere said, changing to sport mode should be preferable to drive mode for you.

It sounds like it's stressing you out @somean49, so just pay the man to sort it out and throw that dead cat in his garden, as it were.

Far better to use an adaptor IMO, as you will lose the 12v socket if you convert it. So no 12v tyre inflators, no 12v solar power battery trickle chargers, etc., etc. I have one like this. Not the same, but works fine. https://www.amazon.co.uk/AINOPE-Charger-Adapter-Smallest-Cigarette-Black/dp/B0B1JCPXQC

Respectfully, IMO it's time to stop faffing around with it yourself. Take your car to a garage you trust and ask them to drain all the oil out, and put the correct oil in to the correct level. Then ask them to see if there is a problem with your oil warning system and go on from there.

I have a DQ381 DSG, and in "manual" mode it does retain a fair bit of autonomy. It stops me shifting up a gear before it decides the RPM are high enough for it to shift up, despite it being perfectly happy to shift up at a lower RPM itself. I've found it useful for pseudo-locking the car in a gear, but that's about it.

No EV needed for purchase. Please form an orderly queue, ladies. 😄

Yes, I've noticed this. There was a 10ppl difference for some time. This was Saturday at Sainsbury's.

Thank you again, @bigade1. 👍

I want to say you should be able to claim on the third party's insurance, and claim any excess you need to pay back off them as part of the claim. However it's been so long since I made an insurance claim, I'm not sure whether that's still the case. I've had "legal cover" attached to my insurance for many years and IIRC, the last time I had a claim, Privilege Insurance was claiming against Privilege insurance, with both parties having legal cover. It was all sorted out in my favour eventually (as the incident was not my fault), but the whole process seemed ridiculously bureaucratic and wasteful. But I got my excess back.

There's definitely something fishy going on, Graham. It seems insurers want to have their cake and eat it, when it comes to assessing risk and premiums. The will use averaged demographic information to adjust your premium, such as what sort of job you have, where you live, whether you are married or not. This can mean that adding your wife to your insurance may actually reduce your premium, even if she's had several crashes herself. Just the fact that you are a married man somehow makes you a safer driver, in their eyes. However they only ever seem to apply personal data as an excuse to increase a premium, not reduce it. If you haven't made a claim for 20 years, are involved in what they determine to be an accident where no fault can be attributed to you, they use that as an excuse to increase your insurance premium. This has to be them clawing back costs of paying a claim from the innocent party. Even if you make a claim, rather than just shrugging and accepting that all and any damage to your car should be paid for by yourself, why don't insurance companies add the cost of increased risk of insuring the innocent party to the third party? That is to say, the increased cost of your insurance should have been put as part of the original claim against the third party, and your insurance should not be affected. (I also have to wonder how much the "crash for cash" scammers have impacted insurance premiums.)

I assume your car hasn't had a remap? Are your tyre pressures correct, you're not running on very low PSI? Do you drive around with very heavy load in the car, a lot of tools or whatever in the boot? Do you usually have a car full of passengers? Have you got some sort of aerodynamic issues, like something attached to the roof causing wind resistance? Beyond that, unless you drive with your accelerator full to the floor, I would say you should be looking for higher MPG than that. https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/skoda/octavia-vrs-2013/20-tdi-184-estate (For comparison, my long term average 45mpg, and I drive a remapped 2.0 TSI. Max single journey MPG was 59mpg, but that was a particularly economical run.)

Can you tell me more about polymer sealant and name some products? I've never heard of it. Thanks for clearing up the difference between the "ceramic" products. 👍

Depending on the camera, you'll need a permanent 12v supply as well as an ignition-switched 12v supply, as well as ground. It's easy enough to do, and it's very nice to have a dash-cam you can just fit and forget about. Incidentally, I have a Viofo A129 Pro which started playing up after about 18 months. I contacted Viofo customer and between us, we traced the problem to the GPS unit, which they sent a new one out to me for the cost of postage (around £6), I plugged it in and all is now well. I was quite impressed with their customer support, but not impressed that the unit started playing up after 18 months.

Have you considered an Octavia Scout as an alternative? You'll get the 4x4 drive, it's a bit higher than a standard Octavia so will be easier for the elderly to get in and out of, and it's a very practical car. But the Kodiaq would seem to me to be the better of the two on your shortlist, given the info provided. The Superb might be a bit big for your wife, if she's nervous about driving big cars.

I would take it back and insist one of the Skoda team take it out for a drive with you as a passenger in the front seat. Let them see the problem for themselves in your presence, and then ask them to put it right. I think if you return it for them to sort out without them having experienced the problem in your presence, the RAC man might be right about them fobbing you off.

Mine does the same. It's not something I worry about and given the cost of the camera, it's an acceptable compromise IMO.

Can anyone recommended a disinfectant for cabin filter housing?

This might be worth a watch, as it sheds some light on the impact of engine oil on the GPF. Nice animations, too.

This is a point which merits investigation. Being able to retrofit button blocks with additional buttons and their associated functions could be useful.