MidfieldGeneral

Thanks Ocotohere, Showing my ignorance here. A previous poster had mentioned fuel and differences with EU fuel as opposed to Uk fuel as a possible cause so I made assumptions about the degree to which bio ethanol is added as being the difference they were referring to. Lets say that the fuel I bought in Europe was completely not the problem (as its quite possible). My thinking now though (given the problem has gone away, for now at least and the car is running on a set of near enough brand new spark plugs) is that the circumstances of that trip were causing the issues. I think then the heavy load the car was pulling might have more to do with the issues seen. So trying to look at all the things that were different that day> Mainly thats: The temperature (quite a warm day) The distance (relatively long) The load in weight (very high by normal standards, 4 passengers plus camping gear in boot and roof box) Aerodynamics (compromised due to camping chairs strapped to roof bars in addition to roof box) Speed (higher than normal as French speed limits higher) Lets rule out fuel based on the very helpful info provided above. There were definitely (what I would call) misfires so the system did not log them (for whatever reason). Would you agree that since the problem has gone away since getting back to England a sensible pre caution now would be to use more expensive petrol for a while or indeed a fuel additive as someone else has suggested on here? I am thinking for the next fully loaded long run with camping gear (down from Essex borders to the south west) it might be a good precaution to fuel up with higher grade petrol. Would that make sense to you? Thanks again for your post. Super informative. I had heard that all the major supermarkets and filling stations were essentially tended from the same refineries and fuel depots so the differences between higher and lower grade fuels that they advertise were more to do with marketing than real chemical differences.

Hello everyone. Firstly thank you to everyone for all the posts, suggestions and info. Apoloigies for the delayed reply. Work got really busy then we had a short break away (by plane). I have been using the car though since getting back and it has now completed a couple of hour long commutes, all well under 50MPH it has to be said but its seems to be absolutely fine now (of course). I am going to give it a longer run on Sunday with motorway speed and 4 passengers so that will be a good test. I was able to borrow an RAC OBD compatible Fault code reader. Interestingly the reader showed NO Codes (See pictures attached). Do the codes have a shelf life? Does it delete codes if not viewed in a certain period? My understanding is codes sit on the EMU until forcibly erased by a user with a tool (such as the one I was using). So if anything happened on the way back from France that the system noted it should be on there... Based on a few of the posts my theory right now is drifting to fuelling. its perhaps no co-incidence that the car is much better since I fuelled it in the UK (admittedly with 95 RON, but good wholesome UK 95 RON, perhaps with no bio etheanol). I am wondering if when I tanked up at the hypermarche using the automatic machine it may have been the 10% bio ethanol stuff. Add that to a long run, on a hot day, with a full load and lousy aerodynamics and high speeds and I was probably asking my poor 100,000 mile plus Octavia to go above and beyond the call of duty. I am going to see how we run this weekend on a shortish trip to the south coast with two passengers and a few bags and then make sure the next couple of tanks (especially ahead of the next camping trip) are 98RON and see how that works out. Oh for the record at the last service at Underwood's on 25th of April 2025 they actually did replace the spark plugs. So I think if we get this again hopefully we'll get an error code or two but for the moment I'm thinking maybe just misfiring as a result of the convergence of all those variables (a perfect storm perhaps). Will post back here if I get the fault again or the EPC light comes on again. Not ruling out a coil pack but based on one of the posts above if it was that then theoretically we ought to see some codes...

To be honest I always have used 95 RON both home and abroad. Perhaps it’s worth using the expensive stuff for long runs like this with a heavy load?

Thanks everyone for all this info. Will find out if my colleagues Error code reader is an ODBEleven. It should be said that to date the car has always been serviced by Underwood's Skoda in Sudbury Suffolk. It was last serviced on the 25th of April if IO can find the paper work I can see which of the lists of tasks above have been done but I'd assume any routine maintenance, filter changes and fluid changes would be part of their regime. Spark plugs does sound like a smoking gun though so I'll try and check them out!

HI, I wonder if this rings any bells for anyone with a similar age car. I have a wonderful Octavia estate which has given just over 100,000 miles of trouble free motoring. Recently we were coming back from another camping trip in Normandy. We were heavily laden with camping gear, roof box (including camping chairs strapped to the outside of the box which would have significantly reduced the aerodynamics) and 2 adults and two teen passengers. AKA a good heavy load and a good workout on fast French auto-routes. As we were getting closer to Calais I noticed the car occasionally "stutter" by which I mean it felt like an mis fire and a very brief (less than a second) complete loss of power. This occurred most when I was trying to maintain full speed as the road began to rise (and the engine was doing more work). I backed off and got into the slow lane for any hills but noticed it happening increasingly as the journey wore on (sometimes even on the flat if I was overtaking at higher speeds). We were on the clock to get to Calais for our ferry and had had a warning from P and IO. that the port was busy and they were advising to arrive early. So we didn't want to stop and let the car cool down but I backed off as much I as I could. Despite this as we got closer to calais I noticed the power dropping further and I found my self having to drop down the gears for even relatively small inclines. We got across the channel but the problems persisted, even after a 90 minute cool off on the ferry. We had about another 90 mins driving to get home in the UK but the problem didn't feel worthy of calling out green flag so we limped back home. At some point on the auto route the EPC warning light came on and stayed on until we got back to UK. The next day I tested the car (unladen with just myself in it). it was much better and the power was back up. The EPC light had gone off but interestingly when I first turned the ignition it gave a message about a fault with the auto start system. As I say the power was back up but I found if I tested the car by accelerating up a relatively steep hill I could still make it stutter/misfire. I tried turning off the auto start system but found I could still get the stutter with this off (it is on by default on the car until you manually switch it off). Since then I have down one or two short trips in the car. It seems fine again now on short trips... This morning I did a short test (admittedly slower speeds) but on short hills accelerating hard it wasn't possible to make the car stutter at all (wither with auto start on or off). Also the auto start fault message has not been seen since (either on ignition or at any other time). A friend at work has a Volkswagen error code reader (hopefully compatible with my Skoda) which I'm hoping may give me some more info to work off and can hopefully pick up next week. We have another camping trip down to the south west so 3-4 hours drive at the end of the month. I'm keen to get to the bottom of this. I work in electronics so know what a buG£er trouble shooting intermittent faults can be so happy to hear anyone's tales of similar woes. I am reluctant to take the car to a garage until I have more of an understanding on what the problem is or could be based on some horror stories on this forum of folk taking cars to garages and being quoted silly money to replace things like turbos when the fault was actually much simpler... It feels like a fault with the engine management of some description though either the unit itself or something elsewhere on the car which is causing the system to drop power to protect itself etc... Grateful for any advice!

So we are 6 months into ownership on our 64 plate Octavia Estate 1.4 TSI SE. Its a lovely car and we are well pleased with it. Just recently I noticed a very slight and occasional judder when the car is idling. It was intermittent and irregular (ie. it happened maybe every few seconds sometimes in rapid succession but not at a regular period (say every 5 or 10 seconds say). I have since noticed that the problem is not present when I first turn on the car (at which point the engine is still as smooth as silk) and doesn't begin to happen until its been running/driving for about 5 or 10 minutes. Its hard to describe the judder. It feels a little like a tiny misfire and you feel it through the seat of the car so it does create a reasonable vibration (though not a really discernible difference in noise). Its not really a major problem to fair but I'm worried it may be symptomatic of something else and it does if anything seem to have got a little worse over the course of the month or so I've been aware of it. One thing I've noticed is that if I am on a long run and stop at lights say with the clutch down and the engine idling it can be very noticeable. If I then put the car in neutral so the auto cut out kicks in and then depress the clutch so the engine fires up again its often a bit smoother (though the judder is still present). Not sure if this tells us anything. Attached is some video shot after the car had been on a drive of about 30 mins. you can see and hear the effect quite well at the 1 second mark and also at 17s and 19s second mark. Any thoughts or theories gratefully received. The car still has another 5 months of Skoda approved used warranty so hopefully if its anything major it will be covered (and better to find out now). However I do wonder if its just something silly like a spark plug which is faulty when it warms up a bit or if maybe putting some injector cleaner through the system might help (haven't tried that yet). Or if the tick over just needs adjustment. Our nearest dealer has sounded sympathetic on the phone but it will still be an upfront chart of at least £110 for diagnosing the fault so I'm keen to try and do as much detective work as I can before then! skoda judder.mov