Kenai

I think you only need diagnostics to reset the 'basic settings' position of the automatic levelling adjustment. They still have hex screws that will allow you to adjust the unit manually but you're best off doing this somewhere with the proper equipment, otherwise you risk adjusting this too far and blinding people. Image in this thread of how to do it.

I think they appeared on order books April/May 2017, first deliveries in July but the bulk of the early deliveries were happening Aug/Sept I think. My car was registered July 26th.

That really depends how far you want to take things. If you're happy with the car and just want a bit more poke from a remap and a set of wheels you like, it's fine. If you're planning for it to be the base of a 'modified car' and something to throw money at with intakes, exhausts, suspension etc. as well, then you'd probably be better off starting with something more performance oriented - if nothing else you start on a better footing in terms of general setup, looks and accessories. It's all relative though - there are plenty of people out there who would question why someone bothers throwing money at a vRS when they could go and buy an S4. There would be someone who would question those people as to why they threw money at an S4 when they could buy an RS6 etc. etc. - You get the picture. For some people the enjoyment is in the modification and personalisation, rather than the end result which may or may not be cost effective compared to buying a better car to start with.

Is it really that low? Looking at what Revo offer (as it's easy to get prices on their website), £400 for a 40 to 50bhp increase is hardly bad value. You'd certainly notice an increase to 180/190bhp from 140bhp. Sure it's not quite on par with getting 300+ from a 220/230/245 vRS for £600 but it's not far off from a £ per bhp perspective. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

It's definitely worth looking at, even in the £15k to £17k realm, there is a good chance a dealer will be offering a few goodies to convince you to sign up to a high APR PCP deal that gets him a wedge of commission, so whilst maybe not as dramatic as a £3,000 deposit contribution as outlined above, you may be able to land yourself with things like service packs. Second hand PCP is generally a fools game IMO, the APR is usually so high you'd be paying thousands in interest if you were intending to see it to full term but what that does mean is that there is still margin for them to try and convince you it's a great idea.

Many places, especially on new cars, offer big PCP incentives vs a cash buyer. Imagine a pretend car that you've negotiated to £20,000 - they may offer you PCP that means you get a 'manufacturer deposit contribution' of £2,000, thus making the car effectively £18,000 headline price to you compared to the £20,000 they'd ask for cash. Other inducements can include service packs, extra warranty etc. specific to each deal & dealer involved. If you then withdraw from the finance within 14 days (the terminology here is relatively important) and settle up with your competitive rate loan / big bank balance / mattress full of dodgy notes, you can usually retain these inducements and 'contributions' and thus get your car cheaper than if you just tried for a straight cash purchase. You can also just settle after a few months instead but that way you have to check where you'd stand on any early settlement fees and you would of course have been paying some interest off in the mean time. I'm sure there are threads on moneysavingexpert or the like discussing the process in detail, it's quite common for 'cash buyers' to do this now i think, now that dealers are more interested in selling you a finance deal than they are a car. Edit - as an example, take the Superb Sportline on carwow (ignoring the Octavia as there are no manufacturer inducements on the runout stock) Superb 2.0 TSI 190 DSG 2 litres Automatic Petrol 5 doors RRP £35,300 Cash £31,057 PCP Finance £28,209 With finance deposit contribution of £3,000 Representative APR 4.1% That's near enough a £3,000 saving just by taking the finance deal and then withdrawing or settling early, because Skoda will contribute a nominal £3,000 to the finances. The even more remarkable thing about stuff like carwow and other brokers these days is you're looking at nearly £7,000 off list with virtually no haggling effort involved. I bet most of the 'approved used' stock at a year old is up for more than £28,209.

Yep, I think Columbus can be done via USB too, possibly even directly via WiFi if you have a suitable connection?

Colombus is different, that'll work with any card, the maps are read from hard drive, SD card is just to transfer new data. I suspect part of the reason only Skoda cards work on Amundsen is because they read the maps directly from SD and VW Group want to ensure a minimum performance standard is met (read speed and longevity) to avoid people using cheap SD cards and then slating the Nav system as being slow or unreliable.

What I would say, if you're not desperate, is expect to see more 245s arrive on the market in the coming months. Mine is a July 2017 car and one of the earliest deliveries of 245s (was originally a dealer manager car supposedly). What that means is that now is when you'll start to see more of the 36 month PCP and lease cars coming back onto the market. The early 245 cars have a good few extras compared to the facelift 230s and personally I'd rather the extras than low miles - mine is over 40k now and wearing the mileage very well - bar a few stone chips you'd easily believe it had half the miles on it. The seats and steering wheel still look virtually brand new. As for the extras you'd get going for the early spec 245 vs a 230, that includes the following and probably more that I've forgotten... 19" gloss black wheels Black pack inc black exhausts, black mirrors VAQ electromechanical limited slip diff newer 7sp DSG Electric memory alcantara seats, heated with 4way lumbar adjustment 310mm vented rear brakes Front and rear park sensors 'quicker' steering rack (I think, sure I've seen @shyVRS245 mention it before) Performance dials on infotainment, lap timer on maxidot Some of these things were removed later in production (2018) when the 230 was discontinued and the 245 became the new normal vRS rather than a 'special'. All that said, I don't honestly think you'd be disappointed in any petrol vRS.

Wasn't a popular 'opinion' when I first mentioned it, though I think people are starting to accept that VW/Skoda do actually schedule these boxes at 80k.

I did mine at 40k (well shortly before when it was in anyway), still far too many people parroting "if the DSG wasn't done at 40k, don't buy the car", figured it would be an easier sell later down the line.

I got mine done at 2 years, the service desk didn't even know what it was, nevermind what the schedule was. I've read around online that it should be 3yrs or 30k. It was cheap enough though, so I got it done when getting everything else done on the second service.

You can, they're identical files (though VW often get the new files first) That won't help with your current problem of being unable to copy to the SD card now that you've downloaded from Skoda though, using VW would only bypass the crap Skoda downloader which it appeared you had issues with in your first post.

Go to the VW portal and download maps for a GOLF with Discover Media, they have a better instruction PDF too. Skoda portal and download tool is crap IMO. I would say to download to your PC and unpack the 7zip file there, then copy it to SD but someone Mac oriented may have a better suggestion, as Kenny R says, there is something extra you'll need to do anyway when using a Mac to remove some hidden files it'll add to the SD card.

Some people mod with VCDS so you need to hold the washers on for a few seconds to get it to do it too

Nor is the 1.5TSI Estate in the second video.

Different 7 speed, the dry clutch one in his car has no schedule, though as he discovered, it is possible to do.

If Amundsen it needs to be Skoda SD card as this system reads directly from the memory card and checks hidden data on the card to ensure it's genuine. If Colombus then you can use any SD card, as it's simply used to transfer update files from your PC to the Colombus hard drive.

The whole panel around the lights pops out if I remember correctly, rather than the individual lights themselves https://youtu.be/QZ-RjB4imPQ