J.R.

I brought back my Octavia from the UK earlier where it has languished since the lockdown. I was bored on the journey and did something silly which I have a vague recollection I did once before. I wanted to change the clock to CET while I was driving, I pressed & held the lower part of the rocker switch on the wiper stalk and got the menu display, tried settings or parameters and it said vehicle needed to be at standstill (I had forgotten) instead of selecting MFD again I selected "radio" and now the thing is locked on that blank screen showing only the time (still wrong!) and the mileage and trip, cant get the MFD back for fuel consumption, fuel remaining, temperature etc. If I open a door the vehicle graphic shows so the thing is not frozen as such its just I cannot get back to the menu. I think the reason may be because I have removed the OE radio and fitted a Chinese head unit, when I do a VCDS scan it shows no communication with radio. I have a feeling I may have made this mistake before but cant recall how I resolved it, possibly by disconnecting the vehicle battery, I dont really want to because I lost all the MPG data when the battery was disconnected for the confinement and the trip from the UK to France will have given a good average MPG, the vehicle is to be sold and it always looks dodgy if there is no trip data. So any ideas how to get back to the menu, I have tried pressing and holding all the controls that I can think of, holding on the lower trip reset button does cause the head unit to reboot so something is going on. If all else fails I will have to try refitting the original radio.

Camtiming needs to be checked set using VCDS, the parameter is called torsion value or something equally random. Be very carefull if it shows 0° as that is the default figure shown when it is so far out that it cannot be measured. 0° is indeed the target figurebut you need real patience to get there, when the engine is revved it should show one or two degrees negative (probably +ve knowing VCDS!) if it really is set to true zero.

10.9 grade is standard for proper branded socket head cap screws used in toolmaking, Unbrako used to be the reference make when I was a tool designer but we are talking 40 years ago. If you can find a supplier of fixings to toolmakers, proper engineers etc, even race engine builders then what you are looking for is a standard size, you just have to have the faith in the manufacturer & that its not a generic fastener made of cheese. I have a mixed box of assorted cap screws which will definitely have the size you want but it came from somewhere like Toolstation & was made in China, I have more chance of looking like George Clooney than they have of being 10.9 grade.

I certainly would not remove them, that would be like going back to the bad old days of rusty wings, inner wings, strut top mounts, sill closing panels etc etc. All those became a bad memory with my first vehicles fitted with plastic wheel arch liners (Sierras for me) and the fibre ones to me are an improvement on the plastc, they dont crack or split with a minor shunt or from debris thrown up from the road by the tyres.

And it decreases (or increases) exponentially under that speed as well, its not a cut off point. And its the same for aircraft or cars built like aircraft, they are subject to the same laws of physics. I agree that 60mph is a reasonable compromise between speed and fuel economy, more to be lost by going faster than to be gained slowing down but that is true at all speeds.

I thought it was a great and novel recycled material avoiding or at least minimising the use of plastics. Mine dont seem to retain moisture for any length of time, they are more tolerant of impact damage and absorb sound well. The only chance you would have for finding plastic replacements is if they changed from plastic to the fibre ones during the production run of your vehicle. On HB Vivas there was a cardboard sheild at the rear of the front wheel arch which soaked up water like a sponge, rotted and allowed mud to accumulate behind rotting the wing, the ones on my Octavia & Yeti dont do any of that.

For my part I had not appreciated that you were another contributor to the thread and not the OP, I have eye problems and I also read too fast. So my response should have been to the OP and not yourself had I realised. Sorry about that!

The door loop connectors on the A or B post have the cable cores exposed where they go in, the twisted pair canbus ones should be easy to find and splice into at that position without removing the loom covering.

Better to have learned the lesson putting diesel in a petrol engine and not the other way around especially on a common rail diesel.

The other side of the coin, you inform your insurers of the undisputed claim against a 3rd party (who has left a note admitting liability) they know that they will get every penny back from the other insurer, they dont quibble about the hire vehicle, will give you something much better than if they were footing the bill, they allow their "partner repairer to take much longer prioritising other "urgent" repairs (the ones that the insurer would pay for) the repairer can fit all the new bits he wants as long and wont have to cut any corners, their "partner car hire company" gets to rent the vehicle for a much longer time making more money, they encourage you to see their "partner specialist" for whiplash injuries or whatever and pursue a claim for compensation. A big share out with all their "partners" happy in the knowledge that the 3rd party insurer will have to stump up all of it. Which is why the 3rd party insurer contacts you offering bribes........................................... Of course at the end of the day it all evens out, for each overinflated claim one insurer loses the other gains, in the long run we all pay through increased premiums.

They are not doing you any favours, they are protecting their back, they know its an undisputed fault claim and that they will be liable, they have unlawfully contacted you and bribed you to accept using their claims handling procedure instead of your own insurers that you have paid for. They are doing this pro-actively to minimise their losses, tell them that you have suffered whiplash and say I think that I should go to A&E dont you agree? and see how quickly they try to cover that base as well, they will immediately organise a free of charge consultation with the consultant who is in their pocket. In many ways the insurance companies are as bad as the ambulance chasers. No doubt they will have already taken away your sons car to their repairer before he has the chance to reflect. Sorry for mixing up you and your son in the above, I hope it still makes sense.

I did some searching for the luggage space dimensions of both cars and also the front seat height because I like the driving position in the Yeti, a comparison site for wheelchair users had the best dimensions. At the rear, styling aside the two vehicles are almost identical in terms of the carrying capacity and dimensions, only a few mms between them. At the front the seat base height & hence driving positions were almost the same, the big difference is the Yeti has a much higher dimension from seat base to the top of the door opening which is obvious when you look at the vehicles side on. I am not tall so no problem with the lower height for getting in and out, I would say the driving positions are similar but in the roomster you would be peering forward through the windscreen of a saloon car like I do in the Octavia but in the Yeti you feel like you are sitting upright and can look up at the sky, I dont think the Roomster seating position is any less upright but the view forward is not so airy and the headlining lower, you are sitting in a small saloon compared to a small SUV. Its been interesting but the Roomster offers me no advantages over the Yeti that I can see, I'm sure if I had known about them before and owned one I would have stuck with it, they had been off my radar for years and I followed one somemonths back simply to work out what it was!

Is it the centre of the rim width or the tyre tread contact point?

The internal trim panel can be removed from inside & the boot released from the remote actuator. You would probably need to remove it to make the repair anyway.

I am back in the Octavia 2 for a couple of weeks while in the UK and can better appreciate the good points of each. I miss the boot length of the Octavia, the flat loading floor when front seats removed and the spare wheel under the boot floor. I like the driving position and dynamics of the Yeti, its nice being shorter when parking but it will be the lack of load space that will cause me problems in the long term although I really like the variflex rear seating The more I read about the Roomster the more I wonder whether it could be the best of both worlds for me? My useage is quite binary, just myself and never any rear seat passengers or all the load space being used, I think the lack of length in the Roomster will be compensated for by the extra height which will also be good for sleeping & camping. But how would a Roomster compare to both an Octavia and a Yeti in those use patterns? I prefer the Yeti for everyday driving and its shorter length, the seating height etc, will the Roomster be more like driving a small hatchback (I have never driven a Fabia) and not as comfortable or airy? Does it drive like a bigger vehicle? All comments welcomed especially areas that I wont have considered.

There is the correct method and then there is my world. Educated persuasion, a skill that all toolmakers will have acquired, the real skill is knowing when it can and where it should not be used. Agreed that we are talking about brakes here so unless you understand my meaning (& in which case you wont have drilled & tapped misaligned) dont do it! BTW Keith, I was not speaking of "hammering in" but of gentle persuasion into alignment during the final tightening. There is quite a bit of tolerance in the guide bushings. A good engineer/toolmaker will also know how to persuade a misaligned tap back into alignment before its too late & without breaking the tap (easy to break)

Absolutely not, its a safety device. If your vehicle has the hard plastic battery box with removable cover then the lower front half can be removed with the battery in place which gives much better access to remove and especially to refit the battery clamp.

He is probably imagining that the misfire described is one or more cylinders not combusting the mixture due to non working glowplugs, I was being polite when I used the word "rubbish", were it a petrol engine it would be a reasonable hypothesis but I think they dont understand the significance of the first word in "compression ignition". The misfire will be caused by a lack of fuel (injector loom etc) or a lack of compression (valve/seat damage). I love the simplicity of diesel engines in their basic operation, all the complexity is the rubbish bolted on around them for emissions etc.

The pins have a shoulder behind the thread so unless the thread is very misaligned if they are tightened hard they will pull into alignment, otherwise they can be persuaded with a few hammer blows.

Whilst I agree with the second part the first is rubbish, they only operate on cold starting and for a very short time post combustion, any unburnt fuel would only be during cranking. PD's start in 1/4 turn in freezing conditions without any of the glowplugs working, VCDS said all mine were gone but I could not believe it, wiser folk than me on here disabused me and I changed them because they are cheap as chips but it has made no difference to starting. To the OP Charlotte. I am currently in West Sussex (near Gatwick) for 2 weeks and brought my VCDS with me if you want a free scan and a look over, PM me if that would help you decide what to do.

No not hard. No link, I just buy what is the cheapest on Ali-express at the time. The head unit recognises that it is recieving a video input and displays it when the canbus tells it that reverse gear is engaged, it also displays the dynamic trajectory lines recieved via canbus from the steering angle sensor. All plug n play, no settings to alter on a Chinese head unit, I dont know about the factory fitted one.

Check the pollen filter, the ventilator fan for free movement/obstruction and also the resistor pack if fitted; - I dont think the Octavia with Climatronic has one of them.

Insist on a compression test because that £1300 spent on the "most likely" might be swiftly followed by the next expensive "most likely"

Does the engine normally wear its top cover & it has just been removed for the photos or is it missing? If the latter then the oil residue is simply from where an inexperienced person has topped up the oil from a full 5l can without using a funnel or have overflowed the rocker cover while filling, possibly the cover is missing its sealing ring that goes around the oil filler.