Bassthang

This behaviour started following a routine service it had a few years ago. Stop/start suddenly stopped working altogether after the service. At the time I thought the garage had just found some way to disable the stop/start, maybe for testing and had forgotten to turn it back on again. As I didn't like the stop/start anyway, I didn't ask the garage what they'd done. After a few months it started working again intermittently. It seemed to be obeying "Sod's Law": sometimes turning the engine off when I was stopped at traffic lights for a few seconds but not turning it off when I was stuck in gridlock traffic or major roadworks for several minutes. I think I had a new battery fitted at about that time (by another garage), so the current battery is not that old. I need to find my old receipts and check this. . .

I probably do have some electrical faults with this car. The stop/start has a mind of its own, for example. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. No idea about what the oil level was like before. It has got low before though, so there's a slow leak. Last year I took it to a garage to find and fix it, but they couldn't find the leak. So I suppose this means there's no way to clear the warning light.

The low oil level warning came on today. I stopped the car, checked the oil level with the dipstick. yes, definitely low. I added oil. Now about halfway up the dipstick check area. However, I don't know how to turn the warning condition off. There are no options to reset it (as there are for low tyre pressure). The manual says that the warning goes out when the bonnet is opened for more than 30s, and comes on again after another 100km if the oil is still too low, but this is clearly incorrect - like much that I find in the manual! I had the bonnet open for several minutes while I topped up the oil and re-checked it. Is there a way to reset the warning that doesn't involve paying a garage to do it with diagnostic gear? The car is due for its oil change anyway in a couple of weeks, so maybe I should just live with it until that's done. . .

T07, Doh! I should have realised that it was specifically referring to the oil service, and that the inspection service was a different thing (I was never quite sure about the terminology). But there were no clues anywhere I looked that it would cycle through different options. Your advice worked a treat (although for some reason the first time I tried it it offered no reset options. It took three goes before the reset options came up). Thank you so much for the quick solution!

I have deferred the next annual service after discussing it with the garage I use, as the oil was changed very recently due to a leak, and the service is basically an oil and filter change. The service inspection counter is counting down with 2 days to go. So I wanted to reset it. I found a video on the web which shows that all you need to do is press and hold the long button whilst turning on the ignition, then pressing it again when asked to confirm reset. This worked, as it gave me the "reset" confirmation. But then it immediately reverted to "inspection in 2 days", and still says that on the next start-up. I've tried the process three or four times. No luck. What am I doing wrong? Skoda Octavia MkIII, 2015.

I know this is an old topic, but I can't yet find anything newer. I have deferred the next service after discussing it with the garage I use, as the oil was changed very recently due to a leak. The service inspection counter is counting down with 2 days to go. So I wanted to reset it. I found a video on the web which shows that all you need to do is press and hold the long button whilst turning on the ignition, then pressing it again when asked to confirm reset. This worked, as it gave me the "reset" confirmation. But then it immediately reverted to "inspection in 2 days", and still says that on the next start-up. I've tried the process three or four times. No luck. What am I doing wrong? Skoda Octavia MkIII, 2015.

This little snippet on Euro car parts site may answer my question: "Most heater motors are powered by a basic electrical circuit that utilizes a multi resistor or a solid state resistor to control different fan speeds (low, medium & high). If the resistor malfunctions then only circuit remaining is the high speed setting." But then, this is the same site that reckons my 2015-registered car was built in 2016!

I need to replace the blower in my 2015 Octavia estate. I found a great video that showed how to get at it, so no problem there. I can buy what looks like a brand new exact replacement (same make and number) for about £100 online, but it comes without the the regulator board. That costs another £100! Does anyone know if there's a way of testing which is faulty? I'd expect that it might be a case of putting a voltmeter across the wires going from the regulator to the motor and seeing if there's a voltage, but modern electrical gear never seems to be that simple! That is, I can imagine the regulator board being able to detect a short in the motor winding and shutting down to protect itself. It may be that I have to just bite the bullet and buy both. . .

Thanks, I'll look into this! "pay a garage just to fit a new battery and probably do it wrong." - that's something else I'm worried about! What are the repercussions of a botched battery fit or coding? Just a failure of stop/start, or a reduced battery life?

I've just been looking into this tonight, as my battery is apparently on the way out. I wondered why the stop/start was only sometimes working (although this behaviour suddenly began after it came back from a service a year ago, which originally led me to think the mechanic knew a way to turn it off). It was erratic for most of last year. I could never guess when it was going to work or not. As time went on, it seemed to work less and less and it's now been several weeks since it last did a stop/start. I didn't mind too much as I always manually turned it off anyway. But when I took it to another garage last week to have some work done, I was told that the battery is probably on the way out. It starts OK manually, even in the cold. It takes a couple of turnovers to get going though, and I suppose with stop/start that's just too long a delay, which may be why the stop/start seems to be disabled permanently now. I was shocked when they reckoned on £200+ for a new stop/start battery! I've found various articles that seem to be saying a stop/start battery is best left to a garage to fit, as it's not as straightforward as in the old days. Cirkey! Here we go again. . . Soon we'll have cars that you have to take to a main dealer to top up the screenwash or get air in the tyres. . . So I'm interested in hearing how people have got on, DIY installing stop/start batteries. At the very least, it may need some re-coding. Is this something that an owner can do easily, or is it hidden away in the system where only a knowledgeable mechanic or enthusiast can find it? I've also read that the battery has to be fully charged before fitting it. If I bought a battery from (say) Halfords, would it be ready-charged? (Sorry to ask such an obvious question, but I haven't had to install a new battery for years!) I might just take it to a garage to get done, but if I can save a few quid by doing it myself, then I'd like to have a go. I haven't yet checked whether I've got an EFB or AGM in my 2015 Octavia 1.6 diesel, but I imagine that the procedure will be the same for both.

Hi all. I've just found this thread after doing a little searching. I have a 2015 Octavia diesel estate 4x4, and the aircon was fine until just a month or so ago. Then it started to smell like the inside of a 1970s vacuum cleaner bag. 'Oribble! The strange thing is, the car had just had its first service of my ownership (I bought it in September) when the smell started to occur, so the timing makes me suspect that something was not done right when it was serviced, but I'm trying to make certain before I go back to the garage about it. It may be just an unlucky coincidence. After all, it should have had the pollen filter replaced during that service (it's one of the items I was billed for). I've never had the aircon on any previous car do this, even when I haven't used it for a long time. The aircon in this car is always active (the dealer recommended this, as a way of staving prolonging the life of the aircon - I'm not sure exactly what his reasoning was, but he seemed knowledgeable on a great many car issues, so I'm inclined to believe him). One more possibility: I always park the car on my sloping front drive, which is quite steep. The car is always backed onto the drive so is left pointing downhill. After it rains, when I open the front doors, water pours out of the sills (although it never seems to get inside the cab - carpet is dry). It may be that there is some water ingress somewhere due to this. I might try parking it facing uphill for a while. Having said that, this "vacuum cleaner bag" smell doesn't resemble any damp smell I've encountered, so I'm more inclined to think it's bacterial.

I've just found this thread. Very interesting! I've just upgraded from a 2005 Octavia 1.6 FSI to a 2015 Octavia 4x4 1.6 diesel. I was hoping for better MPG from this than I got with the old petrol version, but it's not much better. I miss my old 2003 VW Passat (2.0 TDI) that seemed to run on the sniff of fuel! I was wondering if I'd made a mistake getting a 4x4 (not by choice - there are very few affordable diesel, CAZ-compliant, pre-2017 Octavias with real handbrakes out there right now and time was running out). The salesman reckoned there wasn't much between the MPG of the 4x4 and the normal diesel, but then he would say that if he thought I was wavering! It's still a nice, comfy car to drive (as was the old petrol one), although it still feels a little "reluctant" to move, compared to the old 2.0 Passat, which could pull away in almost any gear with no effort.

Thanks for putting me right on the "breather". That just shows the depth of my technical know-how - doh!

I'm pretty sure that I'd pushed it in as far as it would go, and it would go no further, so I don't think it was failing to push past any valve or other mechanism in the pipe. But I could have been wrong. I'd also tried withdrawing it back from that position slightly, to see if that would make a difference. I'll give it another go, though. . .

Finbar Saunders would love this thread. . . :¬)