WildGoose

And? How many miles do you have to run with that to compensate for an approx £300/year more insurance and £1000/year more devaluation? Believe me, I've been there, went through all the relevant figures. EV is no free lunch. Good if you run 10k+ miles mostly on home charging, otherwise just taking money from an other pocket. Pain in the ..ss on the occasional long trip.

The best EV tariff offers I found was from Octopus and EON: both charge about 10% more on gas and daytime electricity than the normal variable rate and 20% over my current fixed rate tariff. As we use loads of gas (large house, kids need heating), EV tariff simply makes no sense. What I'd win on charging vs normal tariff rates I'd loose on gas. My fixed rate for electricity is 25p/kWh, add 20% charging losses and 3.8miles/kWh efficiency that's about 12miles/£. Petrol @50mpg gives about 10miles/£. Same s.t with Kia, Hyundai. The only easy one I know is Tesla but that's an other price class. No EV here, period, I've run those circles about half a year ago with all the charger installation sh.t, researching garden digging needs, etc.

The caveat here is the warranty, even battery warranty. To keep that properly alive, i.e. no lawyers and guns necessary to convince the manufacturer that's your battery, engine, etc are covered, is to service the EV at a dealership. Now a Nissan dealership charges as much for a Leaf servicing as my trusted garage for a DIESEL!

I've run all the numbers, EV is not practical for such mileage (about 6k/year).

Absolutely with you on this, petrol all the way. Killed my beloved Octavia 1.6TDi with short trips over approx 5 years... DPF can be blasted but the egr eventually cokes, near uneconomical repair for a 15yo car. TSi is a different animal, trying to figure where it stands between the MPI and TDI in terms of cold-run degradation. Modern petrol has EGR but AFAIK much less prone to coking than TDI. I know, MPI would be the safest bet but there are so many trade-offs going that route: car that has it (Fabia mk4 1.0MPI) is smallish for a family, not to mention with luggage, power/torque is way less than a TSi - still, the market is pricing it as expensive as a Kamiq, a car that's worth almost 4k more when new!

Thank you, sounds interesting. Quick AI search says the mk3 and mk4 manual gearboxes are not identical/interchangeable - ofc that carries no information about any issues inherited from the previous model. However, if I end up one that needs replacement, that'll present a challenge to find a reasonably priced part.

The Fabia mk4 1.0 MPI is on my shortlist, because I do lots of really short errands (like <5miles). Besides the engine, I can imagine the loads of shifts may be taxing for the gearbox. In another thread I found the mk3's may suffer early gearbox wear. How is it with the mk4? Is the manual gearbox more robust than the earlier version? Can the issues be alleviated by more frequent gearbox oil change?

I am on the market for a newish car again, as our main workhorse, an Octavia 1.6TDi gave up the soul (RIP, @15 years). Sizing down, I wonder how bad are short - seriously short - errands for the 1.0TSi engine in the Kamiq (mk3 facelift)? I am running gazillions of <5miles trips, about one every day and 2-3times a year a long, 300mile mission critical venue where breakdown is not an option (airport runs with family, etc)... I was going all the way down to the MPI but realized, second hand pricing of the Fabia 1.0 MPI is just ridiculous, as high as same age same mileage Kamiq's which appears to be a more comfortable & safer car. How bad is coking and turbo degradation with this engine if tormented with e.g. 3-5miles trips every day, i.e. running cold 80% of the time? How soon does it come up as a problem and is it an economical repair, knowing you'll be back with the same issue after the same period?

I am worse, gazillions of even less than 5miles trips: narrow timing in the schedule, nearby but still far to walk workplace, non-existent public transport and cr.p weather. I'll post this in the Kamiq section, because I see the second hand fabia MPI is priced almost as high as the Kamiq 116 TSi🫨

That's a good point. Since 2021 it's mk4, anyone knows if the gearbox have been improved in the new version? Eyeing at 2024, maybe even 2025 makes.

That's the conclusion eventually I came to. The simpler the better... That was me in the past 3 years, killed a perfectly operational TDi to the state of uneconomical repair. As I understand, TSI is not THAT bad, still, I am wary touching anything with turbo in it. Electric is still literally miles away to be a practical choice imho in the countryside/expensive move if you run limited miles.

Have you also sat in a Fabia, for size comparison?

I am downsizing from a 1.6TDi octavia that developed an EGR fault "thanks" to the mostly but not exclusively short grocery/school runs (5-8 miles). I wonder do modern petrol engines with turbo suffer the same depositing issues with overwhelming load of short errands? Occasionally we go on longer trips, hence an EV is not ideal. Considering a Fabia 1.0 MPI too, as that might be the most resilient car re short errands, although a bit small for a family of 4.

Moved house, changed lives and driving habits completely. I the new life we do LOADS of short errands, like 5-6miles with the rare 500miles trip. Run an Octavia mkII 1.6Tdi until the EGR died and became uneconomical to patch up. I am not a racer by far and the Octavia's EGR peril stands as a strong warning sign for me for engine choice. Shall I go all the way down in simplicity to an MPI engine and pick a 1.0 MPI Fabia? Or the 1.0 TSi can survive the myriads of short trips reasonably on the long term and could go a size bigger with the 1.0 TSi Scala? Also negotiating legroom for the rear seats, never sat in either car. So far we're all shorter than 6'/180cm in the family but some comfort would be appreciated for the occasional twice a year several hundred miles long trip.

Thank you for your thoughts! I'll keep looking a bit further.

I am on the market for a new clutch kit, found these seriously cheap. Any experience with them?

I have left hand drive Octy, mkII facelift 1.6tdi estate and the clutch thinks it's time to retire. I was wondering, do the EU models need a different clutch kit, or I can just order by giving the engine code, year and model to any UK supplier? My garagist had difficulties to make his supplier sing, thought I can give a hand searching for the right piece - actually found several candidates on ebay.

Forgot to add, couldn't find the "Ambiente" designation anywhere but on my previous, German reg.

Type: 1z5224, variant: ACCAYCX01, Version: NFM5FM5A40510, VIN: TMBHT61ZXC21xxxxxx, engine: 1598cc TDI, Manufacturer: Skoda Auto a.s. Mlada Boleslav, Built in 12.2011 (CoC is dated January 2012), Left hand drive. Don't know where it was first registered. It is Ambiente, suspect to be identical to UK SE, not Elegance.

Very hard to find info, I suspect the change was with the Facelift in 2008.

UK trim in the EU?

Just checked, the Ambiente/TDI is called SE/TDI in the UK. Can I just select the SE TDI which is broadly available? It would look odd that the logbook and the insurance use different nomenclature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Škoda_Octavia?fbclid=IwAR2K5LsXkHXtj0pQAQJ7z0eTvljwz24lohq-Gv0j72tPCF0buggC9ykvuiI#Trim_levels

The first 4 didn't/couldn't, I'll keep trying...

I need cover for my EU import Octavia II but no insurers seem to have my trim in their database, it is an AMBIENTE TDI, 1598cc, diesel, manual transmission estate. Any idea how to get her insured?

Yes, replaced the metric dials.