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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?

Genius! 👌

A bit off-topic, but talking of tanks, Skoda did actually make tanks at one time, a fact that I only recently discovered.

Hello and welcome!

I think there's an awful lot of smoke and not much fire over the benefits and problems of EVs. As someone who wants to be left to his own devices, when I feel like I'm being coerced into a change I'm not interested in making, in this instance having to get an EV, I'm inclined to dig my heels in and put up a fight. But right now, we don't have to get an EV. Make the EVs better and more people will want them. Force people into them and there will be resistance. It's never a good thing to force things by law, as laws can be changed. IMO the increasingly frail straws that are being clutched at now, like "tyre particulate emissions", are pretty weak arguments against EVs. Few really care about "tyre emissions". A less densely populated country would solve more environment problems in the UK than EVs ever will, and yet the population keeps growing year on year. NOTE: Skip the video to the 5:00 minute mark and thereafter you'll see a lot of the particulate emission from the tyres.

That sounds to like a resonating vibration. Someone like @Crasher or @Warrior193 would probably be able to give you a more knowledgeable opinion on the noise, but if I had to come up with an explanation for it, I'd be looking at some sort of heat shield (or other "thing") that's not secured properly and is vibrating with engine RPM to cause the noise.

Oh Lord! If this is reverse psychology, it's starting to work. I'm getting the urge to get myself an enormously heavy E-SUV. 😄 The EV evangelists were annoying, but the anti-EV folk are now worse than them It's like vegans outdoing vegetarians in annoying nagging about how much better everything would be if you just did what they want you to do. And all these grifters like Geoff are raking it in while stirring the pot that really doesn't need stirring. Buy an EV or don't. That's it.

Looks great!

Thanks for the link! 👍 Did you remove the wheel arch liner before treatment, @bigjohn?

Hello and welcome, Fred! Do tell us about your engine, as it's an engine I dismissed when buying my Octavia without giving it a moment's thought, so I'm interested to hear how you get on with it. 👍

That's good to hear. I'm still planning to do my DQ381 at 8 years, but that will be under 40K miles. It's 4.5 years now and hasn't even cracked 20K miles yet.

Does this 4 year 40K interval now apply to the DQ381, @Rooted?

God help me, but I find like that wrap! 😄

There are a few issues with the oil-burners, but they are great engines overall. How many miles has it done? This might be a useful thread for you, not for your specific problem, but because there is some expert advice given on VAG TDI fault-finding and remedial action in the thread.

Is it diesel?

Hello and welcome! As I also migrated for Skoda from Ford, I know what you mean about moving out of your comfort zone. In my experience, Skodas require a slightly different approach to maintenance than Fords do. My Mondeos were just "service, repair, run" cars. (As is my current Fiesta). My Octavia seems to need a more thoughtful approach to servicing, and seems to need what I would called "fettling". You need to anticipate problems and administer preventative maintenance before a small problem turns into a big one. The good news is that most of the issues are known, and can be headed off easily by early intervention. Some are silly things, like the silica pack in the coolant. https://www.briskoda.net/forums/search/?&q=silica&page=3&quick=1&search_and_or=or&sortby=relevancy But there are other problems you just need to know about and look out for them starting. Water pump, timing chain guides, and a load of other stuff I've forgotten. But all in all, it's a good ownership experience. Enjoy! 😊

In that case, I'd give yourself 12 months to familiarise yourself with the vehicle and ensure it's running right before you add the variable of a remap. That way, if something fails in the first 12 months of ownership, you'll know it wasn't caused by the remap. It'll also give you a chance to investigate the different maps, get a good baseline of your MPG, and perhaps get an initial rolling road run to see what power you've got to start with.

Hello and welcome! 😊

I don't know, but if you phone Skoda up and ask them, I think they will tell you.

A couple of insurers are represented on here, so give them a shout and see what the difference is. https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/247-insurance-legal-issues/ There is also a chance that some insurers will decline to insure a modified vehicle.

Oof! Have they got an up-to-date sheet with all the recommended service requirements on? Skoda used to produce one and it was pretty handy. (Hat-tip to @Rooted who I think provided the copy shown here.)

Hello and welcome! 🙂