EnterName

I know nowt about this issue, but given the age of your vehicle, I'd be inclined to give it a gearbox service (see chart at 40K miles) as a starting point, and while it's in for the service, get the fault codes checked out. Some DSGs (DQ381 for example) say they don't need a service until 80K, but I won't be leaving it that long on my car. I'd also be inclined to go to a VAG independent rather than a main dealer, but that's a personal preference.

There's a lot to unpack here. In those statements, you declare that "expert consensus" may or may not reflect reality, and is simply the currently agreed narrative on any given issue by the people who are accepted to be the experts on that issue. What you don't say, but is also true, is that "expert consensus" may also deliberately not reflect reality, because reality does not serve the greater good. Experts are happy to agree upon a narrative that, while not an accurate representation of reality, is more useful to society and in their opinion causes less harm than reality. My son works for the West Midlands police, and when completing their security checks, one of the questions he had to respond to was "gender". My son's gender is "Man", however this was not an option. My son was obliged to describe his gender as "Male". "Male" is not a gender, yet we went along with the falsehood simply because "the experts" had made it impossible to align his response with reality. My son's sex is male, his gender is man. Gender is not the same as sex, as the NHS now seem to understand, and are now offering prostate cancer screening to women, and cervical cancer screening to men. My point is, just because experts publicly agree on something, that doesn't make it so, and sometimes the experts know it isn't so, but they say it anyway. I'm not sure how much that would work out a month for people with more than one car. I also think that given the problems we already have with limited parking kerbside in the UK, I can foresee greater problems when people arrive home with next to no charge in their car and find some random car using "their" charger outside their home. Such problems will require some adjustment and a whole lot of infrastructure, but are not insurmountable. The cost is always going to be a barrier for some, though. At the moment, EVs are large a luxury enjoyed by affluent middle-class people. These people often have their cars on a lease scheme, and they are well-maintained. I have to wonder how long it will be before a significant number of EVs have aged and become less roadworthy. "Old banger" is probably not an appropriate term for an EV, but I expect there will be a few EV death-traps on the road as the vehicles pass out of the hands of the affluent and into the hands of those on a tight budget.

I don't know how you wrote those two sentences without catching yourself and thinking, "Ooh! Hang on a minute...". At least we can agree on a shared concern for people who can't have their own home charger for their EV. 🤝

The disagreement isn't political, the silencing of dissent is most certainly political. The science was settled as to what defines a man and a woman until very recently. Now the "science" has been changed, and any dissent from the new "science" is silenced.

This is clearly inaccurate, albeit through ambiguity, and I'm surprised I'm the only person to point this out. While it's true that the majority of older PETROL cars are ULEZ compliant, because they only have to meet Euro 4 emission standards, diesel cars have to meet Euro 6 emission standards. The majority of diesel cars on the road were not ULEZ compliant when ULEZ in London was introduced, which is why taxis were exempted from the charge.(Until 2025, afaik.) I respectfully disagree. However it has been made clear to me by the powers that be, that Briskoda is not a place for me to explain why I disagree. So unfortunately I cannot do more than disagree. Hopefully I am actually allowed to disagree, though that remains to be seen.

What evidence do you have to support your claim that "In 2040, there will still be a lot of choices for cheap fossil fuel cars that are 5 years or older. "? The deadline was introduced arbitrarily and can be brought forward or pushed back on the whim of whoever is in power. If the government decides to apply draconian taxes in the form of some "green levy" to fossil fuels, which results in fuel dramatically rising in price, it's perfectly possible to price out those "slow followers" simply by making it beyond their means to fuel their car. Your counter point is "I have affluent parents who could afford to buy a replacement car if they needed to, anyway they don't need to as their present car is ULEZ compliant." Well that's lovely for your parents and comforting for you, I'm sure. No worries for your family, no wonder you can't see what all the fuss is about. Fuel prices managed to nearly double in a couple of years not so long ago. (Source https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time ) Just because you and your family are alright, that doesn't mean everyone else can accommodate a sudden hike in fuel prices. The science is always "settled" right up until it isn't. Of course it's a lot easier to have a scientific consensus if you don't allow any counter-points.

This is what I'm talking about. I think some of the affluent folks with EVs have absolutely no idea what it's like to be hard-up, and find yourself being forced to fall in line with someone else's green agenda. They're always banging on about how they want to do something about "poverty", but they don't seem to actually have any experience of it themselves. I have married friends with five kids living in rented accommodation. At the moment they get by with two cheapo cars which allows them to squeeze everyone in when they all go somewhere, but they don't all travel together most of the time. They can't afford one EV, far less two. Even if they could afford an EV (they can't), what if their landlord doesn't want an EV charger fitted to their property, for whatever reason? The government has imposed artificial deadlines that are going to cause a lot of people a lot of bother. Another example: My lovely elderly neighbour stopped driving fairly recently. She had a 16 year-old automatic Vauxhal Corsa that did her quite nicely until driving was beyond her. I suspect there are quite a few elderly people who bought a car a few years ago and intend for it to see them out. They're perfectly fine to be driving, but it would be impossible for them to afford to buy a replacement vehicle. It can't be nice to be elderly and find yourself priced off the road because your older vehicle no longer complies with the ULEZ zone that you suddenly find yourself living in.

I feel your angst. Take your time and the right car will show up. As for the emissions scandal, I was very much on team VAG for that. If they managed to find away of giving the customer the performance and economy they wanted, while also allowing their cars to pass the emissions tests, I don't have a problem with that. I would be surprised if some (if not most?) remaps of TDI engines don't do exactly the same thing, and have a "test" mode to allow remapped cars to pass the MOT emissions test. But maybe that's just me being cynical.

My stop/start is very fussy, and even after a 50min drive the stop/start doesn't always feel inclined to kick in for some reason or another. Sometimes I can drive two 30-mile journeys (taking about 50 minutes each way) separated by a couple of hours, and only on the return leg is the stop/start inclined to do anything. When it does, it comes as a slightly unexpected intrusion, so once I know it's woken up, I tend to switch it off. I initially assumed it was linked to battery condition and engine temp, but there really does seem to be quite a bit more to it than that. I'd be interested to see a full list of all the conditions that are taken into consideration to enable/inhibit the stop/start function on my car.

This is a problem I encountered when buying my Octavia. Buying in 2020, I didn't even know GPFs existed, so I was surprised to learn my car had one. I've not seen many reports of GPF issues, though this may be an interesting read for you. https://www.hypermiler.co.uk/gasoline-particulate-filter/how-to-fix-exhaust-filter-limit-reached-drive-to-clean-now-ford-gpf-filter But generally, I've not really seen any issues with GPF until I went looking for them. DPF issues are a bit more likely, but still hit and miss. Some people report no issues, and others having no end of bother with their DPF. I have a friend with a remapped 2013 BMW 330D with 80+k miles on it and he hasn't had any DPF bother at all. That said, he does seem to race around like the police are chasing him, which I understand DPFs are agreeable to, if not other road users.

How do you prep a fuel filler cap, @toot?

Hello!

TDI 190

Does anyone know which cars have Active Cylinder Management?

I did not know this, and I'm not sure I particularly like it. 🤔 Yeah, it's a fun challenge. I like going downhill with engine braking and then trying to perfectly time a little dab of throttle to start coasting so I don't gain excess speed, but I do get the benefit of the downhill energy to make progress before I have to use throttle to sustain my speed.

Hello and welcome!

Be sure to let VAG know they've got it wrong, Ken.

Agreed, if I'm at a junction where I need to make a sharp exit, I knock it into sport and then back into eco. I'm not even sure it's much more economical, as driving off throttle in drive mode should use less fuel than coasting with the engine idling. I find the coasting function most useful in 40mph zones. I suppose having been a keen cyclist for years, throttle/freewheel feels very natural to me. Yeah, freewheeling in manual cars is suboptimal bad driving technique, IMO. Huh! That's odd. Not heard of that before. Then again, I don't have paddles, sadly.

Interesting to see that there's quite a big improvement between the MK3 and MK4 Octavia Scout, so if you need the off-road ability, the MK4 is definitely the one to go for.

As always I'm late to the thread, but I remember seeing this a while ago. It's quite interesting seeing how the different wheels get traction when two or more wheels spin freely. It's not as quick a transfer of grip as I'd been led to believe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jginpofm2ng EDIT: Just noticed Langers beat me to it with the MK4 test. Bah!

I'm not talking about steep hills, just inclines on motorway driving. I like to drive on motorways with minimal use of the brake, so I have to judge things carefully. Coasting makes things a little more challenging as I don't get engine braking unless I activate it with a dab on the brakes. Cruise control makes things even more difficult as I don't have ACC, with my challenge being not to disengage the CC. (Obviously I have to accommodate other traffic and not inconvenience other drivers while I'm doing this.) I'm not saying it's an optimal way to drive, but I enjoy it and it forces me to anticipate what's going to happen a good few seconds ahead and mitigate for it.

No, I meant for engine braking. For example, if I'm coasting downhill and the car picks up too much speed, I dab the brake, and the car goes to E7 and with no throttle applied, the car will slow with engine braking, Then when it's slowed enough, a tap of the throttle lifts the clutch and I coast again. It's not exciting driving, I'll grant you that.

That doesn't disengage coasting though, does it?

The one downside to ECO mode I can foresee, is that as I switch it off and on with the pedals (a slight tap of the brake pedal engages the clutch, and a dab of throttle disengages it) someone behind me may interpret the dab of brakes as a signal to them that they are too close, or may even assume I'm brake-testing them. I've not had any aggro, but it's something I've thought about. Before I had an automatic, I was always puzzled as to why cars stationary at traffic lights would dab their brakes prior to moving off, which was purely down to my ignorance of how autos work. So I can imagine someone with no experience of the coasting feature on VW DSGs misinterpreting my tiny dab of brakes as some sort or reprimand to them.

Thanks Toot. Which gearboxes "don't like" (for want of a better phrase) ECO mode?