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Yeah, it does draw down power from the battery and tire it out a bit. You can (on my system at least) set a voltage to inhibit the dashcam operation if the battery level drops below that voltage, though.

Hi @Deepa, I'm glad your son was unhurt by the accident. Am I right in thinking your main problem is that you do not have insurance cover for the accident, as that seems to be what you are saying in your post?

Depending on the system, some have a constant 12v AND a switched 12v input, so the dashcam has power all the time, and knows when to switch from driving mode to parking mode by the loss of 12v from the switched 12v supply. The rear wiper fuse is a great fuse to piggyback the switched 12v supply off.

So long! I wish you a long and happy retirement.

There are a lot of variations of the 2.0L EA888 engine. There are several "generations" of engine, using different compression ratios, different variable valve timing (some on inlet, some on exhaust), different piston design, different turbos, with or without GPF, and a load of other different design changes. Oh yeah, and versions with direct & port injection vs those with just direct injection. Sometimes more than a remap is needed to reliably achieve high power outputs, even if the engines appear to be fairly similar. This video might be worth a watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spmOpP-1sQE

Hi Johnny! You're 2016 FL Octavia must be one of very few sold in 2016. I thought they weren't available until 2017, so your dad must have got one of the very first.

There's a company that uses some sort of sheep fat to undercoat cars (yes I know it sounds weird) and there was a guy who's just bought a particularly fine example of an early Fabia vRS who's going to get his car done there, but I can't fidn the thread on it and I don't find search facility on Brisky particularly helpful. It usually seems to find everything I don't want and nothing I do want. Other companies are available, have a Google. There really ought to be a section in "Maintenance" on rustproofing and enhancing vehicle longevity. Paying someone to rustproof your car seems a bit of a lazy luxury to me, and I think I'll go the DIY route. (When I can be bothered.) 😄

What about a rust prevention undersealing?

Check the gearbox has been serviced properly at the correct time and you should be fine. The chart I've attached is a mileage chart, but assume 10,000 miles/12 months. So if you need servicing at 40K miles, I'd get it done at 4 years, even if you haven't done 40K miles. (I think there's a service chart that reflects this.) There have been problems with DSG gearboxes in the past, but they seemed to have been sorted more recently, and certainly a 2023 vehicle should be DSG gremlin-free. Look out for jerky gear changes from cold, which can indicate problems, as it should change gear well in all temperatures. My Octavia is my first DSG car, and the DQ381 box it uses has been fine. I do drive it sympathetically, and I'm aware that the Mechatronic unit may fail at some point, but day to day living with a DSG car has been a delight. Be aware that different implementations of DSG cars have different characteristics. For example, my car needs to be put into neutral when stationary, or it "pulls" with the clutch at the biting point, not fully disengaged. I've noticed that if I put it in neutral then back in gear when stationary, I can let it sit in "Drive" mode without it pulling. It promptly engages the clutch without allowing the car to roll back when I release the brake to move off. (I have an old-fashioned lever type handbrake.) Other vehicles have no issue with sitting on the brake at junctions, so be aware of how the gearbox works when you drive it, so you can reduce the risk of premature wear. For all the hassle-free driving benefits of DSG, there is a learning curve to getting the best from them, especially as changing gearbox mode can also change other characteristics of your car. Good luck!

I found this video interesting, as it explored the issues of charger availability in the US. It resonated with me, as I the video makers manage to demonstrate the problems with day-to-day living with an EV for people who don't have either loads of free time or their own charger.

Happy to disagree with you here, without prejudice. But I will remind you of the "Law of unintended consequences" and get my "I told you so!" in now. 😊

Just when I think I couldn't like you any more than I do already @J.R., you go and pull this out of your hat. 👌😄

I disagree, but I'm happy to simply disagree and as Rooted says, "Just say no.". I get somewhat frustrated by what I see is a lack of empathy for the people in the UK who don't want change, but have it foist upon them by people who claim to know better. Re-framing change as "progress" just so you can force people into the change you want won't wash. When the "progress" turns out to be worse than what was originally deemed to need change, those who pushed for change always hide behind their good intentions, as if good intentions always trumps the caution of opposition to their change. I'm lucky enough to be able to accommodate the penalties for not buying into the green utopian dream, but many aren't. It is nice to be able to live in some sort of Pleasantville, where the high cost of living prices out the Plebs. Certainly that's where I choose to live, and I suspect you do too. (I bet you don't live anywhere near the sort of people who rattle around all day in a smokey 20 year-old Transit, looking for scrap they can sell.) People can put up with living in a world where there are "haves" and "have-nots", only when the "haves" enjoy what they've got without bullying the "have-nots" into living like the "haves", and punishing them if they resist. I think the problem is one of ignorance, used in the true sense of the word. There seems to be a lack of comprehension of how many people live in the UK. Example: There are an estimated 1.5 million uninsured vehicles on UK roads. Do you think those uninsured drivers give a toss about "getting to net zero" to save the planet? Talk of using the stick if the carrot doesn't work isn't encouraging. You can only enforce laws people don't consent to with the use of draconian force. (So much for our "Liberal Democracy", if it comes to that.) If you are willing to use a stick on people, don't complain if they find a stick of their own to use on you.

"Let them eat cake" eh? 😄

If give people a choice to say 'No', but then punish them with punitive ULEZ charges and increased ICE taxes, then you're going to have to deal with their reaction to your punishment for making the "wrong" choice. The so-called ULEZ "Bladerunners" are one example of a reaction to people being punished for having the gall to "Just say 'No' ". Other reactions are available.

Inflation is high, demand is high, but the price of lithium has dropped sharply. Does anyone know why? Normally inflation plus high demand leads to price rises.

I just deleted a long reply to Wyx about this issue, because I just lost the will to try and explain it. When I sold my Mondeo, I offered it to a couple I know who desperately needed a car. I was asking £500, which four years ago was crazy-cheap for a 2006 Mondeo Ghia TDCI, well-maintained on 4 newish tyres, with 120K miles. They asked if they could pay me on instalments. Frankly, I'd have just given them the car if I'd been closer friends with them, but another friend wanted the car and could rustle-up £500 (like most of us on here, I suspect), without a second's thought, so I let him buy it and he's still very happily motoring around in it. EVs are an expensive novelty for large numbers of people in the UK.

Having read on Brisky the issues people were having with sunroof drain holes blocking, it put me right off them.

I think your personal wealth is possibly obscuring your view of the reason why people in the cheap seats are "resisting" these magical devices.

It doesn't sound unreasonable to me, given that a lot of the things needing doing are not DIY.

There's no such thing in this day and age.

An awful lot of people are quite sensitive to criticism, so can be hesitant to respond to what they think might be a contentious issue. Doesn't mean they aren't listening. Do not feel bad towards the people who ignore you or disagree with you, your real enemies are the people who try and silence you.

Not sure that is relevant to my point. England can't sustain itself in ICE fuel, gas or electricity for that matter. I think we're okay for coal though.

They can do it when it suits them, as in AdBlue.

This triggered a train of thought. There's an assumption that "fossil fuels" are indeed made from dinosaur fossils, and as the dinosaurs are all gone, use of fossil fuels is causing a finite resource to be depleted, lost forever. I'm not sure this is correct. But beyond that, there are quite a few ways of making sustainable "fossil" fuels, that don't depend of "fossils". If we put some effort into it, I'm confident we could find more ways, and make the process more efficient. Rolls-Royce, for one, has renewable diesel, and is quite invested into environmentally-friendly sustainable fuels. https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/clean-fuels/28102022/neste-and-rolls-royce-to-accelerate-the-shift-from-fossil-to-renewable-fuels/ I also notice things have gone oddly quiet on bio-diesel lately, though I can't imagine why. I remember when "Power your car from cooking oil!" videos were popular. Being able to use waste cooking oil as fuel was a great idea. There's not enough of it to be used to power all diesel vehicles, but I reckon about 20% of current diesel vehicles used could be run on it. Likewise growing crops that can be used as diesel fuel doesn't seem such a silly idea to me, either, though there are doubtless downsides to it, certainly for heavy commercial vehicles, bio-diesel seems to make more sense than EVs. Then again, for the endless stop/start of Amazon delivery vehicles in urban areas, EVs seem to be perfect. It's frustrating that a group of people seem to have got together and determined that EVs are the only way to go, when there are environmentally sustainable alternatives which for some applications, make way more sense. Those alternatives now getting less development and research than they merit, especially with the infrastructure for distributing them already in place. It just seems somewhat perverse to me, especially as the public would be reasonably happy to use environmentally-friendly fuels in their existing vehicles. They did it with unleaded petrol, low-sulphur diesel, adding ethanol to petrol, LPG etc. But back to the original thought, I'll pose a question: When do you think "fossil fuels" stopped forming naturally?