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Hi Sherrif! I too am a Ford refugee. (Though we still own a Fiesta.) I've had 3 Mondeos (a Mk1 and two Mk3s, not to mention a F-reg Orion what seems about a million years ago) and when it came time to swap the last Mk3, I just didn't click with the Mk5 and, probably much like you, went through a long process of trying to work out what to replace it with and came up with the Octavia. Personally I don't find Skoda engineering any more impressive than Ford's, and there are some lingering issues which really should have been sorted out. But the Octavia is a very satisfying car to drive. Look after your DSG gearbox, and I think you'll grow to love it.

For a diesel, I'd say yes, use a good additive, but petrol, not so much. As Cheezemonkhai said, there are sensors which can be damaged, but there's also the GPF, which I'm sure your 2020 car has, and the effects on fuel additives on GPFs are not yet known. Buying good quality fuel seems to be a better option than using fuel additives.

That's good to know. I always felt a bit left out when people were telling folk to "Check on the boot sticker." and I couldn't find mine.

Hello. Basic thing is to check the service history is up to date and all the required work has been done, especially the DSG oil change if it's a DSG equipped vehicle. Often you find that the service has been done, but some of the expensive maintenance has been skipped.

Are you sure that's what I said?

How so? Please clarify.

BMW have a very elegant electrically actuated towbar, but unfortunately you have to be stationary for it to work. I always liked the idea of being able to deploy a hidden towbar while driving to deter tailgaters.

I'm doing my best. 😇

Hello and welcome to Briskoda. That's quite a beefy car you have there.

You're right, it never is. My Mondeo went rusty in one place, where it had been repaired on the rear N/S door. Took about 6 years to start rusting, but rust it did. Rest of the car was perfect. Hence my concern for this car being repaired. I'd drop it if it had been repaired and resprayed, because I'm planning to keep this one for at least a decade.

For one reason or another, Ive been driving my car more in the last couple of months, and it's really grown on me. Today I had reason to go round a bend faster than I normally would, and on a less than ideal line. As I went round I thought "I know full well the tyres on my Mondeo would have been chirping a bit at this speed, maybe even with a bit of understeer." but though the Octavia leant quite a bit during the turn, it went round cleanly, didn't slip or require any steering correction, and without so much as a hint of drama. (I really wasn't going round at a crazy speed though, to be fair.) If I didn't know better, I'd take credit for my expert driving, but it's really just the difference between driving a 2006 car with no driving aids (bar ABS), and a 2019 car with a whole load of clever and effective driving assistance. It's taken about a year to really bond with my Octavia, due to lockdown and not driving it much, but I've finally got to the stage where it feels natural to trust it, and to feel confident about taking the odd liberty chucking it about. I realise this might sound a bit strange, but when you drive one car for a decade and then swap to another very different car as your main car, there is a fair bit of adjustment to make. Feels good now, and I don't miss my old car as I did previously. Oddly enough, I had a text recently from the guy I'd sold my car to (an old friend from work), just to mark the one year anniversary of his buying the car. He'd driven up to Scotland in it, and is clearly enjoying it. That gave me a happy feeling too. Much better than part-ex'ing it to Listers and them bunging it straight into auction.

That all looks fine, as far as I can tell. I'm probably just over-thinking it. I realise I do over-think car related things, once I get a bee in my bonnet. I got paranoid about the silica bag in my coolant splitting. After I removed it, I started to worry about corrosion protection. I am a natural worrywart.

Ooh, no! That doesn't sound right at all. I think I'd want a second opinion from another dealer on that.

I've noticed this too. I think it's a weird air pressure that builds and has nowhere to go. Opening the rear windows a bit seems to solve the problem. That was the best thing about having a sunroof (about 20-odd years ago). I could pop it open on tilt, and it would draw air through the car really well, without much buffeting or weird pressure build-up.

Call me paranoid, (and I'll put my hands up to that) but I'm starting to suspect my car has had some rear-end crash damage prior to purchase. All the panel gaps are perfect at the rear, but my spidey-sense is tingling. Reasons for tingling. The missing boot sticker detailing the various codes bugged me, but I shrugged it off. The OEM air compressor was damaged when I checked the car before collection, and was replaced with a new one at purchase. (The tyres are all OEM and apparently undamaged, and the car only had 7.6K miles at purchase, so I figured someone had cheekily swapped it out for their old one, and hoped I wouldn't notice. But thinking about it, it could have been damaged in a rear-end shunt.) There was a mystery "non-warranty" repair on the car history too, when I checked with another dealer, but no details were available on the system. Then there's this in the boot (see pic), which looks good, but doesn't look OEM to me. That said, I have no exact idea of what OEM should look like, so I might just be paranoid. Does anyone have a reliable "Ah! You can always tell by this!" way of checking to see if a car has been repaired? I was also hoping I could get a special light source to check for new paint blended in with old. I've tried red light and UV, but no joy. (The old sodium street-lamps used to be very handy for spotting paint jobs, but we're all LED these days.) What do you reckon: Am I paranoid or am I onto something?

Hello! I have a real soft spot for Yeti's and seriously considered getting one.

The winter pack is pretty good value IMO, and would be a must-have option for me if I was spec'ing a new car. That said, if you're on a tight budget, heated front seats for £255 sounds like a bargain.

I don't think they have a very joined-up service program. I had my car serviced at Listers, then 2 days later they contacted me about getting my air conditioning serviced. It was a "long" service I had too, with the long-life oil. Quite vexing, but I'll get it done next year at the inspection service, and get my coolant changed from G13 (now sans silikat) to G12evo.

My car is ex-Listers too. The salesman who helped me was exceptional, very helpful and patient. I'm pretty happy with them, all things considered.

Certainly engine oils have additives that age and reduce in their effectiveness. Pulling a guess out of thin air, I'd assume the DSG oil is similar, though I'd expect there to be a safety margin. As I understand it, the recommendation is 4 years or 40k, whichever comes first. At 5 years, I'd definitely be changing my DSG oil, and will almost certainly be changing it at 4 years, even though it's unlikely to have reached 20K miles by that time. If anyone has some evidence to suggest that 4 year DSG oil change is unnecessary, I'd love to hear it, as I would rather not waste money on servicing that is really not required.

I'd get my money put of the service plan and get done whatever they will do that is covered by it. The decision to go outside the the dealer network is normally driven by the cost of work being done by the dealer, disproportionate to the quality of the work done at the dealer. So for me, the drivers are higher quality at the same or less cost, or the same quality at substantively less cost, bearing in mind the loss of the claim to "Full Skoda Service History". Right now, the FSSH is still a driver for me, and also I've been happy with the cost/quality balance of the work I've had at Listers Coventry. So far.

Hi Dan! I love the look of the MK3 Superb. Now and then I wonder whether I should have got a MK3 Superb instead of my Octavia. (But don't tell my Octavia that. )

That's pretty impressive, given the state of your aerodynamics on that trip. I'm just glad some people in the UK are resistant to the litres/km economy figures, which makes no sense to me at all.

No worries, it's just a chat thread really as I was genuinely surprised my heated seats weren't standard equipment on the SE L. But to answer your question, no idea. I can't even hazard a sensible guess. You might do better starting a new thread with your question, as it might not get noticed in this thread.

Agreed! Shame I just have a warm backside to go with my cold hands and frozen windscreen.