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£750 sounds way over the odds to me too. I'd have thought £500 would be at the top end of cost for fitting. More out of the box thinking (albeit a bit psychopatic): if your Mrs (or another family member) has an old car, surprise her with a set of Dolphin front parking sensors and fit them for her. That way you get top practice on a vehicle that doesn't have a huge cost risk associated with a botched job, and you get to see how well they actually work on a vehicle.

Thoughts? Well, I too like the idea of front parking sensors. But, unlike with a rear reversing camera, the front parking sensors involve drilling holes, which makes me a bit twitchy. Especially, as in the example you show, you're going to need to drill holes in your front bumper for sensors of unknown accuracy and reliability. That really makes me pause on the idea. (Are the holes drilled are larger than those needed for OEM sensors? I'd want to be checking this.) I'd also be having plans for what I'm going to do if the sensors are hopelessly inaccurate (giving false readings that are too sensitive, or not sensitive enough), and what I'm going to do if they just plain stop working after a few months. Personally, I'd be looking to get some OEM front sensors, and I'd probably get a retrofitting expert to fit them, TBH. But if you like them, and you just want to go for it, I just had a search online and noticed this, which might be worth a look. The standard kit doesn't seem to come with it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dolphin-Display-Upgrade-Converts-Parking/dp/B06XRKF1LG The kit itself is also £10 cheaper on Amazon, and I dare say even cheaper elsewhere, so shop around. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dolphin-DPS400-Reverse-Parking-Ultrasonic-Gloss-Black/dp/B06XH5TCD7 One more thing: Thinking out of the box a little, why not consider something like this, but mounted on the front of your car? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boscam-Reversing-Reverse-Monitor-Waterproof-RVS-K3/dp/B0797SYRGR

Thanks for linking to Weyland's excellent guide. I love the plug and play aspect of that kit.

That is an amazing guide @weyland, thanks for posting.

If buying privately, you can pay to check the vehicle hasn't been written off and rebuilt, which happens more than you'd think. The 1.4TSI seems to be a much loved engine by Skoda owners and the motoring media, so it seems like a good choice if you like it. Obviously check for a complete service history. My own personal buying tips: Drive as many examples of the car you're interested in as you can. Get a feel for how it's supposed to drive and sound like. Make sure it does everything you want it to do. (Mine doesn't have a CD player, for instance. I just assumed it had a CD player. I only discovered this after I'd bought it, but it does bother me a little bit.) Also, if you're viewing several vehicles, check you know what the spec is supposed to be. So that you don't assume an extra on one car is actually standard equipment. I found I got cars confused if I looked at several in one day, so make decent notes if you're going to spend a day car shopping. Once you find a vehicle you would consider buying, take a friend or two, and get them to look for issues you might have missed on the car you want. Have a look at the tyres: Are they a good quality brand, or are they some cheapo brand you've never heard of? Skimping on tyres is a good indicator of skimping on repairs and servicing, IMO. Compare the panel gaps on the car with the panel gaps on several other Octavias to check that they all match. If your car has different panel gaps, there's a fair chance that it has had some repair work done. Does the car give you the vibe it has been looked after, or is it unduly worn, and has the odd nick & tear here and there? (I once saw a Superb at a Skoda dealer that appeared to have a stab/slash hole in the dashboard. Yeah, no thanks.) Judge the car by its owner to some extent, if buying privately. Dodgy people sell dodgy cars. If there's anything that bothers you about the car or the deal, walk. Tell your partner/friend beforehand to tell you to walk if you seem unsure/doubtful about the car. Finally, always sleep on the final decision, don't rush buying it there and then. (Leave a refundable deposit with a dealer if you have to.) Good luck!

Why have you decided to change from diesel to petrol? (I changed to petrol mainly due to reliability concerns with DPF on the many short runs I do.)

Do you by chance have before and after power curves for your remap, @shyVRS245? Incidentally, I do wish power curves were standard features in the information provided by manufacturers, like the "good old days". The motoring media were much more into telling people about the technical aspects of cars, too.

Yeah, shut up!

I'd have to have a play with the various cars to have an opinion, TBH. The only Octavias I drove were the 184 TDI, the 150 TDI and my 190 TSI. (Oh, and a MK2 vRS TDI, whatever power that was. Very nice it was too!) I've not driven the 150 TSI. (I'm actually quite curious about the 115 TSI, it's supposed to be a very nice engine.)

Here's a closer alternative for the 2.0 TDI 150PS (red), the 190PS TSI (blue). Where the 190PS TSI seems like it's going to be way faster than the 150 TDI, for general tatting about, they are actually quite similar in power characteristics, until you get up into the revs where the petrol TSI can do its thing. There are going to be a load of other factors, such as the pick-up of revs in response to the throttle, the gearing and probably a shed load of other things I'm too lazy to cover and likely don't have the expertise to know about, but purely comparing power at given RPM, in the lower rev range, the TDI has the edge at any given RPM for these two engines.

Hi Shy! I was just responding to @musaka's original post about the 1.5 TSI feeling a lot slower than the 2.0 TDI, and showing why it is. There's a whole host of different factors that go into choosing your engine, and if you're happy with the engine in your car, then you made the right choice. But an informed choice is the best choice, unless you're really lucky. (I was just about to do comparison graphs for other Octavia engines for my own amusement.)

It's an old thread but I was bit bored and it piqued my interest again. Trying to compare a diesel and petrol engine with similar peak power outputs is rarely going to make the petrol look good. People talk about how diesel engines have more "torque", which is true, but it's a bit of a red herring. Power output at given RPM is what matters, and generally diesel cars have more power at low revs than petrol cars do. (Especially if the petrol engine is a smaller capacity). You can convert ft/lbs torque to bhp and vice versa easily enough, but I've used an online tool here. (https://getcalc.com/electrical-torque-hp-conversion-calculator.htm) Anyway, here are the power characteristics of the two engines, and the same data in graphical form. For the calculation, I used BHP, not PS, for which there's a conversion tool here. (https://www.convertunits.com/from/ps/to/horsepower+[international]) You can see that at 2000rpm, the diesel is providing about 95 BHP, but the petrol is only providing about 70 BHP. At 3000 rpm, the diesel is already nearly at peak power at about 143 BHP, while at the same rpm, the petrol is at about 108 BHP (give or take a bit). In the case of these two engines, the diesel is always more powerful than the petrol at the same RPM, until the diesel runs out of puff as it goes over 3500 and power drops off (not that the manufacturer provides that data), just as the petrol is really getting into its stride. And that is why this 2.0 150PS diesel "feels" quicker at lower revs than the 1.5TSI 150PS, because it is quite a bit more powerful throughout the rev range of the diesel, until it reaches max RPM.

I spent 2 years faffing about trying to decide which car to buy, and in the end I settled on a car I liked, but I realise it's a trade-off compromise car and doesn't quite tick all the boxes I wanted a car to tick for me. Anything wrong with a car can be fixed. Test drive a few examples of the car and see if you like it. If you do, then base your decision on that. The VAG 2.0 TDI engine is excellent and is nice to drive in a vRS. There can be issues with the DPF if you don't give the car a good run regularly, as well as other potential faults, but that can be said for any vehicle. My advice is to do your due diligence, but don't over-think it. As for the whole emissions/power-loss fiasco, a remap can sort all that out. Find an nice example with a solid service history at a sensible price, buy, drive and enjoy. (My own tip is to look at the tyres: People who buy budget tyres normally skimp on servicing too.)

Hello! I too am very much into "under-the-radar" cars that don't draw undue attention from miscreants. I like a car to go better than it looks like it will. I always think of the Rapid as "Rapide", which is an old Skoda that looked like this. I'm not sure why Skoda dropped the "e". (Maybe they're party animals. )

I think the traction control was the majority of the problem, and switching it off will probably be enough for me. It's still early days with the car yet, and I've barely put a couple of hundred miles on the car since I bought it during lockdown. I'll see how I get on with it. I think it'll be okay, but if it's not, I'll have to bite the bullet and swap it for something different. Or just put up with it.

Thanks for that, I'll have a bit more of a play driving with the car and see how it goes. Turning the traction control off certainly seemed to improve my driving experience going round islands. If the stability control remains in operation but doesn't get in the way, I can live with that.

I used a couple of tuning boxes on my old Ibiza TDi. The first tuning box used a hose to detect airflow amongst other connections, and was quite on/off in power delivery. It was a pain when trying to cruise on the motorway so I complained and they sent a replacement that was all electric connections, and that worked a treat on my 90BHP TDI. I also had a remap from Angel Tuning on my Mondeo TDCI. That was very good from my perspective, but it was an off the shelf map, not a custom map. I think people are a bit confused between remaps, and custom maps. A remap where a car is tuned, then those tuning settings are recorded and programmed into other similar vehicles, is an off-the-shelf remap. A custom map is going to be unique to a particular vehicle, and to do that is likely to be expensive and take a few hours setting up and tuning. I'm happy to concede that a custom map may use an off the shelf map which is then tweaked after installation to suit the a specific car and the customer's preference. But a straight remap and then a "Ta-dah!" rolling road confirmation of power gains is not a custom remap, IMO. For the record, I was happy with both the tuning box and the remap in the different vehicles. They did the job I wanted and didn't cause any problems, however simple the tuning box was internally. The benefit of the tuning box is that it has a resale value after use.

This is what the car says. I was not in sport mode.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. I actually had a little play with the car yesterday, and just turning the ESP off via the menu seemed to improve things WRT chucking the car around without the nanny stuff kicking in. I think the electronic diff is still working with ESP switched off, though that actually seemed to be a good thing. (Or it was my imagination and the Octavia actually handles pretty well with all the electronic stuff turned off.) Anyway, turning the ESP off solved my "I don't like this!" problem. I suppose I'm still getting used to it.

Hi @uttanutta12 Do you have instructions for switching the ESP off on MK3 Octavias? (I have a MY19 non-vRS) I have found it to be very intrusive when trying to chuck my Octavia around. It feels very much like a spoilsport taking control of the car when it thinks I'm doing something it doesn't approve of. Ideally I'd like to be able to adjust the criteria when it kicks in, but I'd settle for being able to turn it off.

I'm in a similar position with a Philips dashcam and even an old Blueseasky G1W. I don't want to hard mount my Aukey just now, so I'm going to use a dashcam with a sucker mount to the windscreen.

I dunno. I bought the GPS add-on for my Dashcam, and I think it was a waste of money. The cameras are more than you need to verify your account, IMO. I'm also unsure of how the law regards Dashcam GPS recorded speed. It's a personal choice, I guess.

It's a double-edged sword: GPS data can be used in your defence, but if the GPS data shows you were speeding, it could be a positive liability.

My wife did the same on her Fabia, which surprised me as we've never had the issue on another car.

I tried raising the seat, but I didn't like it higher. I expect I'll get used to it, sooner or later. I took the car for a drive on Sunday to get the rust off the brakes, and it didn't seem quite so bad getting out. I might raise the car seat for journeys when my wife's sat behind me.