pingpongpete1

Cheers Gaz. I was fearing the worst, too. I was bit shocked to find you couldn't just check the dipstick and top fluid up! I'm way behind the tech times. But I'm pleased to say it may be alright after all, at least enough to get me the 300 or so miles to the ferry and home. I left it overnight to cool down totally, and then started it and drove gently on as level roads as I could find in A Coruna. The transmission was a bit clunky at the very beginning, then started behaving normally, including getting into fifth smoothly. I think it was a combination of some ultra-steep underground car park slopes in hot weather, the after effects of a fair bit of mountain driving, and (classic me....) the fact that for the first time in 50k miles with me the transmission had somehow been knocked into sporty mode. So fingers crossed we should be able to get home and get any fault code/s analysed. After the water leak last month (which turned out to be a leak in the pump, not just the thermostat housing), I was convinced I'd held onto this car too long - but I'm hoping it will go for another good few thousand miles yet.

Smell of hot clutch fluid getting out of an underground car park, and then car not going above fourth gear....... anything I can do myself to check transmission fluid or anything else? In Spain, and seemingly in trouble. We've been over a month away, so any breakdown cover no longer valid? Does it have to go to a VAG dealer?

Just a naive question on this general issue....... why does the analogue temperature gauge on my Octavia always come up to 90 and stay there religiously, when the digital temperature readout is going anywhere from (roughly) 85 to 105?

Well, being pretty useless at DIY, I was grateful for the help I've had so far from the garage guy - The Garage, 2 Petit Confolens, between Droux and Bellac, if anyone is in the Haute Vienne region and needs help. He is pretty sure it's a leak from the thermostat housing - he showed me where there was evidence of that. He's ordered the part and we're booked in to have it fitted on Tuesday afternoon. Fingers crossed it works - it's such a good car. First issue I've had with it in 7 or 8 years.

Amazingly I've found a fairly local English-speaking garage who have agreed to look at it. I'll take it tomorrow morning and hope they can do a pressure test there and then. As I was on my way this morning to check the garage out I had a call from a recovery vehicle saying they were on their way to collect the car..... This after I had explained the situation to the AA yesterday and said what I would be doing. The guy at the garage said he definitely didn't recommend sealant except as a get-you-home last resort. He seems good. The oil seems clean, so hoping it's something fairly simple like a split pipe or a hose connector come loose. It's a great old car so I hope I can keep it going for many more miles. Much much nicer than the new (17km) Mazda MX30 hire car I had via the AA.

Me too. 2014 1.2 Octavia, 120K miles. Long drive through France in very hot weather. Red light came on. Added coolant. Red light came on again 100 miles later, added water. Same again 50 miles later. Just been checking and adding water. It does 50 miles with only maybe 200ml loss. AA say they couldn't find any one to fix it after a week of trying (!) and want to repatriate the car (!!). As we're planning on carrying on through France into Spain to meet with family, then taking the Santander ferry back, that's not an option. I'm going to try a fairly local garage. I also bought some Metal5 radiator sealant. Worth a try? Before or after going to the garage to see if they can do anything?

I have to take it in where they have the gear to do that.

Well, being a tech idiot, I got our lovely local garage to order a battery and come out the 150 metres & fit it. Good job they did, because I was just about to wreck the nearside front door handle trying to get to a non-existent real lock. Turns out that (against what I had been told) the real lock is where it ought to be - in the driver's side under the little clip-on cover. Then of course we still couldn't open the passenger door to undo the bonnet lever... but it's just about possible to open it with the door shut. Just. New battery installed, and everything sprang back to life. Phew.

Thanks for the experiences - useful.

I knew I shouldn't have been smug about my Octavia's battery. It had been completely reliable in all conditions, including stop/start at times. Drove it yesterday, fine. Then this morning, parked outside the house, the alarm goes off, can't be stopped, and the keys won't function. The flashers were a dim orange. (It was confusing because there was a road maintenance lorry parked in front of it with its orange flashers on... I thought I was seeing a reflection until it pulled away and the weak orange flashing carried on.) I'm presuming the battery just suddenly died. I think it might have been the original, which (11 years, 11000 miles) is pretty good going. I'm hoping I can get in with the key in the passenger door. Local garage have ordered a new battery. Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.

Hi. Yes, amazingly. So I paid Arnold Clark 23.4K for the car, delivered from the north of Scotland to Devon, then I sold it four months later to the Skoda main dealer in Exeter for 22.2K, with a couple of small cosmetic faults mentioned. Given how much you normally lose as soon as you buy from a dealer, and then again if you sell to a dealer....... I got very lucky indeed.

Good idea. I'm not sure how much of a contract a bid accepted on Motorway is...

Maybe they have a customer who has been asking for one like this.... I'm a bit worried they haven't got further in organising collection so far.

This looks like it is now sold via Motorway to the local main dealer - amazingly for a considerably higher price than I was asking here. If they don't beat me down by much when they see the car, it will be a surprisingly good deal.

If you have breakdown cover elsewhere I'd use that.