Bassthang

I need to replace the sidelight bulb in my 2005 Octavia. The manual says I need to remove the entire headlight assembly, which seems easy enough (just three steps in the manual). However, it then says that the headlight should be checked by a specialist after it has been replaced. So, we'd be talking upwards of £50 garage fees to replace a £2 bulb! I've had a poke around and it may be possible to replace the bulb by carefully feeling around in the back of the headlight assembly, but of course it could be fiddly, not seeing what I'm doing. So I'm interested in how everyone else does it. Is it OK to extract the whole assembly, without having to take it to a garage to have the alignment checked? Or is it easy enough to do it in situ? I had a similar problem with a Passat, but that was even worse: the manual said that to change a bulb you had to first remove the front bumper, then pull out the headlight! This is crazy coming from a German manufacturer, given that in Germany it's a legal requirement to be able to change bulbs at the side of the road. I took it to a VW dealer, where one of the mechanics simply swapped the bulb from behind. It took about 2 minutes! I'm hoping it will be just as easy with the Octavia.

Thanks Paulski. This sounds like my sort of car!

Not sure, but I've set my AutoTrader saved search to filter out anything not ULEZ (which isn't always the same as CAZ, but close enough). That is currently just giving me 2litre models (which I'd prefer, as my old Passat was that size). I'm getting a bit confused with it all now. . .

Thanks for the detailed reply, Phil. So, basically you're saying that the newer petrol engines are better (for the same size engine) than the older petrol engines? That's good news, as it opens up more possibilities to consider. I admit that I really like diesels: the ability to pull away in almost any gear is very handy (although perhaps it encourages sloppy driving!), but at the end of the day, it's reliability, economy and ease of driving that are top of my list, so I should look into all the options. Regarding the journeys: I tend to do shopping trips of about 35-40 miles round trip on quiet, country roads, but we also make one or more longer journeys (often on motorways) in a week, so that should give the DPF chance to regenerate at high revs (sorry if my terminology or understanding of DPFs is incorrect, but this is new to me). I avoid driving into the city as much as possible - I hate it! - but I need a CAZ vehicle as I do at least one trip into the Brum CAZ each week for rehearsal/recording. If it weren't for the CAZ requirement, I would have a much larger selection of cheaper vehicles to choose from. As it is, it's a bit of a balancing act!

I currently drive an 05 Octavia Elegance estate, 1.6 litre, petrol engine, 5 gear manual. My previous car was a 2 litre TDI 6-speed diesel Passat. Compared to the Passat, this Octavia is very underpowered. I have to rev it a lot more, and it's hopeless going up hills. The fuel economy is also nowhere near as good, with 35-45 mpg on most journeys, and not much better on long motorway trips. But during the pandemic it's been fine for my uses. However, when we start travelling around again (usually to hilly places like mid-Wales), I'd like something that can cope with the hills and that I don't have to rev up too much to pull away at lights. What I don't know is whether the poor performance is because it's (a) petrol-engined (b) only 1.6 litre or (c) because this example is not running right and needs some attention. I'm looking at replacing it this year, and the obvious thing to do is to find a 2litre, 6-speed diesel version, as that should deal with (a) and (b) straight away. These are somewhat harder to find than the petrol and 1.6 versions though - and more expensive. So my question is for those who drive Octavias: is a 1.6 litre diesel better than a 1.6 petrol? Or is it the better gear ratios of the 6-speed models that improve the pulling-away performance? Or should a 1.6 petrol be performing better than I'm seeing, and maybe I've just got a bad one? I'm looking at other makes of estate car too (Mazda6, for instance), but I've started to like the Octavia, and I have heard that Skoda's reputation for reliability is good (whereas VW's has plummeted recently). I'm also limited by a distrust of electric parking brakes (another reason to spurn VWs which have gone over to electric parking brakes with many reports of serious problems - there are recent Octavias that still have a proper manual handbrake on them).

I think the problem that the original garage staff were worried about was the amount of rust. They reckoned that fitting the new shocks would be a problem because the mounting points were so rusty, meaning extra work (maybe welding) to complete the job. I must admit that this vehicle is VERY rusty! Having driven VW Passats for the last few years, I was surprised at how much rust was present all over this car. I knew VWs were good from that point of view, but I thought that over the years the other manufacturers had caught up. Maybe that was one of the cost-saving measures of earlier Skodas. I'll ask around and see if I can get some better estimates. I'm thinking of moving on (and another, newer, Octavia is on my shortlist), but if I can get this one fixed up for not too much money (it also needs work on the handbrake), it will buy me more time to find a better successor. It's CAZ-compliant, so still potentially sellable.

My 2005 Octavia had an horrendous chuck-chuck noise coming from the back as I drove home last night. When I got home I found that the back plate / shield had rusted and torn off and become caught inside the wheel. I was able to extract the piece this morning, but of course I now have a car with no shield on one wheel. I've been reading these comments and see that fitting a new one is probably not something I could safely attempt myself, as it involves the removal of the discs. I'm in the process of finding a new car anyway, so I don't want to spend lots of money having a garage fit a new shield (or, more likely, four shields, as you can bet the others are similarly rusted and falling apart). I approached a garage a few months ago about replacing the rear shocks and they advised me to just get rid of the car, as the work would cost much more than the car is worth. Is it OK to drive a car with one of these shields missing? Hopefully it'll only be for a week or two until I can find a replacement.

I feel a right twit! When I started the car the other day, I happened to notice a tiny spanner appear in the information display while it made the beeping sound. It was probably there all along, but I hadn't spotted it before. So mystery solved: it's a service interval reminder, exactly as TheClient said. In my defence, I have to say that it's a very small symbol, nestled in among the other figures, and it disappears after a second or two. Maybe they did it that way so the driver wouldn't be distracted once the car was going. I think the display on the old Passat was much clearer, though.

Thanks for the manual link, pikpilot. I got printed manuals (for car and Stream) when I bought the car, but due to their layouts and organisation they are a bit tricky to find things in. So having a PDF might make it much easier to find things by keyword.

TheClient: A bit less than one year, as I was getting the same noise when I first bought the car, on 26th September. But you're probably right. (I'm sure the real-time clocks in the cars are about as accurate as those in PCs - that is, not very!) pikPilot: I agree. For peace of mind, an oil service would be a good idea.

Ah - true! I've had to reset the interval a few times on my old Passat because the mechanic didn't know how / couldn't be bothered to do it.

I've just contacted the pevious owner to ask her if she knew when it was last serviced. As the car belonged to her late father, this was a long-shot, but she replied that the last service was October 2019, and it had only done 500 miles between that time and when I bought it a couple of weeks ago. So the beeping can't be a service reminder, unless it's working on time rather than miles driven.

Thanks all! Yes, it's an FSI. I'm starting to get to grips with it, now: today I managed quite a few starts from rest without revving like a lunatic! I'm fairly certain now that the beeping is some service reminder. The manual says this would be explicitly shown on the information panel, but the manual seems to be incorrect on so many issues that I'm inclined to disbelieve it on this one. I've just remembered that there was a small diagnostic device in the boot when I bought it, along with a lot of other stuff, which all got stored in the garage, pending a good sort-through. I'd better dig it out and see if it works.

Thanks for the reply Pikpilot. Wow - I knew there was a difference, but didn't think it would be that much! I'd love to get another diesel - so much easier to drive - but with the Clean Air Zone coming to Brum soon and me with not much money to buy a diesel new enough to meet the requirements, I think I'll just have to learn to get along with this petrol vehicle for the time being. I've got to get some practice in!

This may seem like an elementary question to ask, but I've been a diesel driver (two Passat TDIs) for the last 20 years. I now have a petrol-engined 05 Octavia Elegance, and I'm finding it a lot harder to come to terms with. It may be that I'm simply having problems because I need to re-learn how to drive a petrol-engined car, or (more likely, I think) there are problems with the engine on this one. Hopefully it might be something as simple as needing a basic service. When I put the key in, the "engine" and EPC lights in the rev counter both come on and stay on until the key is turned. The somewhat vague user manual seems to be saying that these should go out after a few seconds, but other Octavia users I've spoken to reckon that this is normal behaviour. The car also beeps six times when the key goes in, but I can't find anything in the manual that tells me what this means. There are no errors appearing in the central information display. It may be that this is just a service interval reminder. I have no idea when it was last serviced - the last one recorded in the book was 2013! The car is quite underpowered. We have a lot of hills where we live, and whereas the old diesel just flew up the hills in almost any gear, this one really struggles unless in a very low gear. When I pull away, the revs take a sudden nose-dive when the clutch bites, no matter how careful I am with the clutch and accelerator. Again, this was never a problem with the diesel, and this may be just a matter of me re-acquainting myself with some basic driving techniques that I've not had to use for a while. It's been fine driving around our local (semi-rural) area, but last night I was on an urban journey which involved sticking to 30 on a long, straight road, due to traffic management, and I noticed for the first time that the vehicle felt like it was faltering every now and then, instead of running smoothly at a constant speed. Fuel economy is nowhere near as good as I'd hoped. The onboard system reports 40mpg average on the journeys I normally do (slow and urban at the start, then long stretches of rural roads at higher speeds with few junctions), but I have noticed that I'm putting fuel in more frequently than I did with the old diesel, which reported similar mpg. The fuel gauge needle seems to waver up and down (possibly due to the angle of the vehicle), whereas that on the old diesel was steady and consistent, so this may be colouring my perceptions of how much fuel it's using. My guess is that it simply needs a good service with changes of air and fuel filters, and maybe new spark plugs, but there may be something else going on. Before I take it in to a garage, I'd appreciate any opinions of other users (especially anyone who has experience moving from a diesel to a petrol vehicle).

While I appreciate that this is an old thread, thanks to everyone who posted. I'm a new Octavia (2005) estate owner, and I've noticed some spots of water on the luggage cover. At first I thought it was the window glass seal, not the rubber boot seal - as that looked in excellent condition. But after reading this, I'm going to check the welding and the seal.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I had a look at the unit this morning, and it is a Stream, not a Stream MP3. There's no AUX socket in the centre console. I'm not too bothered, as I spent some ten years driving my last car with no working audio system at all. Just being able to listen to the radio or play a CD is a real luxury to me! About the finalising - there's a bit of confusion here. I used to work in an IT dept. and I used to deal with CDRs all the time. However, that was 10 years ago now, so I've forgotten quite a bit! My recollection is that it's possible to part-write a CD or DVD in a session, leaving space for more data to be written in another session. However, for more data to be added, the CD/DVD must not be finalised. If it is, either more data cannot be written, or any data written after finalising will be ignored by a player (can't remember which). So the idea was that you leave it unfinalised until it's pretty much filled up or are sure you won't want to write any more to it. But some older players (and some modern ones, apparently!) would not cope with non-finalised discs, and these days CDRs are cheap, so there's rarely any need to leave a disc unfinalised. A RW disc works exactly like a normal write-once disc, and can be finalised at any time in the same way. The main difference is that once a write-once disc has been written to, that data cannot be erased from the disc (I think there is a way to mark a session as "deleted", though that part of the disc cannot be used again). But a CD-RW can be completely erased, leaving it clean and ready to be written to again. Even a finalised CD-RW can be erased and used again. I used to use Nero Burning ROM and Roxio software for writing to CDs, but both these products have been dumbed-down in newer versions, and are just not as good. These days I use Imgburn - which is free, and (I believe) British! The only downside of Imgburn is that it's not as easy to use until you learn its foibles. It's worth learning to use it though, as it seems to do just about everything you might need. This software (apparently - although it's a bit ambiguous) is set to finalise all discs by default. I used to burn CDs all the time for listening to my own groups' work-in-progress at home or in the car, but these days it's often easier to just pop the tracks on a phone (hence the original query about the AUX socket).

I think it's a Stream MP3, because the manual supplied refers to playing discs of MP3 content. BUT when I tried to insert a disc with some MP3 files the display just said "CD-ROM" and it spat it out. However then I tried the same disc in a home system that's supposed to play MP3s, and that wouldn't play it either. While it's off-topic a bit, here's what I happened next. . . I'd made the disc using a CD-RW medium (and the home hifi is supposed to take these), but a second test with it set as a standard audio CD also failed on the home hifi - bringing up the message "not finalized". My software is set to finalise discs, so I started to suspect the discs themselves (they're quite old, and CD-RWs are reputed to have a limited lifespan). So I tried the same audio CD content on a write-once disc. That worked in both home and car player. So we can at least burn some CDs of our favourites (or rather, our son's favourites!) to keep us entertained on the journeys.

Thanks for the pics. I thought it should be there (great place to tuck away a player safely), but I don't recall seeing anything there on mine. Perhaps it was an option. I'll check again tomorrow. . .

Thanks MicMac. I used to have one of those. It didn't work very reliably and I gave up with it. Maybe they're a bit better these days. . .

This may sound really stupid, but although my new (to me) 2005 Octavia Elegance's manual says there's an AUX input for the Skoda Stream radio, I can't find it. It says it's on the seat armrest, but the seats don't seem to have armrests! It's not on the centre console either. Can anyone tell me where to find it? It's not a big problem - my old car's audio unit died many years ago and I just got used to driving without music rather than buy a new one. But now I've got a car with sounds again, it would be nice to be able to plug in an MP3 player or phone.

I bought my first Skoda on Saturday: a 2005 Octavia Elegance estate. I've been a VW Passat driver for most of this century. (Putting it that way makes it sound like a long time!) Prior to that, I've owned a Polo (back when it was a good shape, like a miniature estate - I loved that car), a Montego (the most comfortable car to drive!) and two Morris Minors (well, I was young and stupid, and they were fun). I've jumped ship from VW for a few reasons: * My old Passat was a B5, and had reached the end of its days. The more I looked into the B6 and above, the more I read about design problems (e.g. electric handbrake, problems even changing headlight bulbs). * I'd heard that the Octavia was basically the Passat with different trim, so it should seem familiar to drive and maintain (boy, was I wrong on that score!). * Lots of people have recommended (from experience) Skodas in general and Octavias in particular. I ended up with this particular car because it was quite inexpensive, much lower mileage than my old one (despite being about the same age), was being sold due to bereavement (so a genuine reason for sale) by someone who I got on with, and - and this was a huge plus point - it had ULEZ compliance, being petrol-engined. I need to drive into Birmingham most weeks, and that city's Clean Air Zone is about to come into force early next year. My old car (a diesel) was obviously not compliant! Finally, the car has a nasty scrape on one door-sill. This is cosmetic only - it's apparently passed two MOTs with it - and it means that I won't be so worried when it inevitably gains more scratches and dings as I drive it. My last car was immaculate when I bought it, and it was painful when it got its first key- and hedge-sctratches *not to mention when I opened the door too wide and a nearby skip hook went into it. . .). I was initially disappointed that the simplicity and roominess of the Passat's cabin was not reproduced in the Octavia. The windows were smaller too. So I nearly didn't buy it. I'd heard that the Octavia's luggage bay was one of the largest around, but to me it looked smaller. I also noted that - unlike in the Passat - there was no gap between the tops of the wheel arches and the compartment's cover, which is where I normally stow my bass's flight case (secure, stable and out of sight). But it was a cheap car, and I reckoned that I could put up with it for a while until I sorted out something better. However, after spending the weekend cleaning it out and working out how the luggage bay components work (that removable false floor looks useful), I've started to appreciate the layout. We've had a couple of very pleasant drives in it too. I can't quite get the hang of the petrol engine and different gear ratios, but I'm sure that will come in time. The other members of the family warmed to it even sooner, so I think I'll be keeping it for as long as it runs. I joined Briskoda after a few Internet searches led me here, and also because the previous owner had left post-it notes about fuses in the glove compartment (I hope that's not a bad sign. . .) which mentioned the site. I'm sure to be popping up asking lots of stupid questions over the next few weeks!