DaveFromSydney

I thought it was matching the color of my car - Moon White - and that it similarly matched the colors of other cars.

Although they may disclaim any liability I think you have a good case here. Our VW Golf Alltrack wagon, which is a very similar VAG car, took 68,000kms over 4 years to go through its first set of front pads and required the disks to be changed with them. Total cost to us was $AUD 743. To go through the pads and rotors in under 14,000 kms indicates either very hard driving or some sort of failure in the parts. We had a similar situation to yours with the battery in the Alltrack. It failed after 23 months. Although batteries are a maintenance item the VW dealer replaced it under warranty since it should not have failed that early.

I do not see why it should be a wear and tear item. My headrest on the back seat has broken after 13 months and Skoda have agreed to replace it under warranty.

Same here in Sydney, Australia. Different faults in my case but the time to have them looked at was 6 weeks.

I do usually use Google Maps via Android Auto but mainly because that is much better at inputting destinations. It also often suggests a destination that I had just been researching online. The Skoda satnav has these advantages: Can display on virtual cockpit as well as infotainment screen Displays speed limits for many roads Can return to its display with single button press (on "Home") Unaffected by availability of mobile data signal Disadvantages include: Inability to recognize certain destinations, spoken or using keyboard Database is frozen in time whereas Google's is updated continually Very occasionally gets it's own position wrong.

I have also had the satnav position a few times indicate something different to where I actually was. It caught up after a while - perhaps 15 minutes? Or on next restart. But no effects on the ACC.

I tried the round button out at last. It worked, controlling the position and extent of the lumbar support. And my seat massage function works too but I do not find it very helpful.

Today there are 82 Octavias in stock in the UK from 66 dealers. https://cars.skoda-auto.com/210/en-GB/carSearch?CarType=N&Model=BIAR&Model=BIAD&Sort=DATE_OFFER&SortDirection=DESC But the majority of those are SE estates. There are only 2 vRSs.

Thanks. That would have been good to know a couple of days ago. But now I have spent the money and have two T005s fitted and a new wheel alignment. The total cost ended up being $825. Then the tyre folk, while balancing my wheel, said they think the rim is slightly buckled but they thought I might not notice it. So I am waiting to take it for a long high-speed drive to see about that. I suppose a matching new wheel from Skoda, if needed, will be at least $400 like 3rd party ones, but probably much more since this is Skoda. I wonder if this would have happened if the car had been fitted with 17 or 18 inch rims. I don't appreciate the look of the 19 inch ones enough to pay for it but the car comes with them. I can see the 40-series tyres seem to cost $100 or more than the regular ones.

Here it is, for the curious.

I feel that the chances of success are slim. The tyres did not explode or deflate. It just has a lump in the sidewall the size of an egg which I and the tyre shop consider dangerous. It is my choice to replace the opposite tyre to retain a matching pair. It is my choice to get a wheel alignment. They might also discount for wear on the tyre although it is like new after 12 months and only 5500kms. So in reality I would probably be lucky to get $350. And by now I am not sure which precise section of the highway it is. And whether it is a council thing or a main roads thing. Anyway the new tyres come with free accidental damage insurance which might cover me if the same happens again. Although, like all insurance, the fine print will probably mean it is worthless.

I am not going to back searching for the pothole on a busy highway 15kms away. But I don't think things work that way here in Australia. And after the last 3 months of heavy rain the east coast of Australia (did you hear about our record floods) and Sydney in particular is covered in potholes. Imagine what it would cost the government if everyone could get reimbursed for the damage. I think the expectation here is that it is up to the driver to see the pothole (or any other road defect or obstruction) and take appropriate avoidance action. Difficult to do, of course, when there is heavy traffic and you are just following the car in front of you. For a local explanation see here: https://www.warrantyandinsurance.com.au/who-pays-for-my-tyre-and-rim-damage-after-hitting-a-pot-hole They agree with you, but point out that it is a difficult process.

But I just hit a pothole on our main highway and one is damaged so now I need to replace it and the one on the other side to match. But S005's take one month (!) to arrive so I have to go with with what is available today, which turns out to be T005 (Turanza). Total cost either way is around $870 AUD with a wheel alignment. Thank you Department of Main Roads.

Isn't this a bit like the situation we used to have making a timed long-distance or international call from someone's home phone. You would estimate the cost and then round up a bit. In other words you would be generous and they would be appreciative. It was not necessary to be 100% accurate.

I have a petrol VRS wagon. For highway drives where there is no congestion and I can use the ACC to drive at 90-110km/h I can easily get get 40mpg (7.0 l/100km) and have on occasions got 50mpg (5.5 l/100km). The ACC Is the key for me to economical driving. I do not do any driving in heavy traffic but in my local driving the figure is more like 9-10l/100km, or around 30mpg.

I must try that. I never thought that if it said Sync is off it could still be (sort of) in effect.

The situation here is Australia has changed a little since I bought my RS Wagon one year ago. There are 66 RS Wagons available for immediate delivery in Australia. The price for a fully equipped one like mine is 10% higher than I paid 12 months ago. A few are demonstrator models but they sell at the same price as new. Many, selling a few thousand cheaper, and sometimes described as "semiconductor-optimised" have a list of missing items: Park Assist, Canton Sound System, Electric Child Lock, Auto Boot Cover. I could certainly live without those.

In our 2015 VW Golf Alltrack (a Golf 7.5 and very similar to the Octavia Mk3 wagon) you have physical buttons/knobs for all of these that are missing on these Octavias Mk4s: Auto Stop/start Drive Mode A/C On/OFF A/C Temperature A/C Sync (hardly needed since it defaults to on, unlike the Octavia) A/C Fan speed A/C Auto mode Phone: Ready to press a big button to call one of your favourite contacts Radio: Ready to press a big button to switch to one of your favourite stations Sat/Nav Trip meter Steering wheel navigation through all info displays in front of driver that is so simple you can do it from muscle memory. Consistency of design and navigation of all screens With the Octavia I expected to get all of that plus a few extra features and I would not have minded if those extra features were buried a bit deeper.

And it is worse than it sounds there since when I say "Infotainment system" it is not just about entertainment. When it fails it removes your ability to: Turn off auto-stop/start Change driving mode: comfort/normal/sport etc Make phone calls Use SatNav Change aircon settings, fan, temperature etc. Change radio station/media/track etc and many other things. And when it doesn't outright fail - which luckily is most of the time for me - the reliance on accessing a touchscreen, and with one's left hand, and navigating through multiple levels, makes it a danger to use while driving. I often do without a desired change unless I have a passenger to delegate that to. And then you have UI features that don't really work, like swipe gestures to move from screen to screen. And there is the noticeable lag on many functions, so it is necessary to keep watching the screen instead of the road to ensure that your action has been performed. And the voice control which could have saved you from all of that is so laggy and inaccurate that I just give up on it.

I felt the same way looking at the price of, for example, a low KMs Golf R 7.5 one year ago. Maybe, if those are the previous generation Skodas, they are worth paying for because they do not some with the unreliable and unergonomic infotainment system.

Mine came with Bridgestone S005.

From what I could see my car's matrix light dimming was working ok, dimming the side that faced the oncoming traffic. However that did not stop many drivers from flashing their lights at me since they obviously felt that I had not dimmed my lights. So the feature is useless if does not stop me from irritating other drivers.

I will give that I try the next time it happens. Still it is not very practical if I am driving on a highway or in busy traffic. I wish someone could explain the different degrees of reset that can occur and what factors influence them. On turning on the ignition, sometimes the infotainment starts quickly. Other times it goes through something longer. Sometimes resetting it on the go fixes things. Sometimes you need to open a door etc. Ideally, if they cannot make the software more reliable, and a reboot is necessary like on a PC to get it operational, I wish they would implement a physical button that could do it with one momentary press.

After having various infotainment issues over the 10 months I have owned the car the latest one is the worst. The drive yesterday commenced normally but at some time during the first 20 minutes I found that everything was displaying but the touchscreen was totally unresponsive. You could change screens with the physical buttons, e.g. Set or Clima, but that was all. While still driving I performed a full reset by holding down the power button for 10 seconds or so. After it came back again a few things but not all were working but soon it got unresponsive again. I performed another reset with no success. I pulled over and turned off the engine and did a reset. After that not only was the touchscreen not responsive but now the settings were back to start-up settings so auto-stop was enabled, drive mode was Normal etc. No way to change any settings, radio, media, aircon etc. It had to stay that way for the rest of the drive. Only when I got home, turned off everything, got out and closed the doors, then a bit later got back in the car did the screen return to working normally. Obviously this is a big deal. Who knows when this might strike again. I could be on a longer drive. Do I have to find somewhere to pull over, get out of the car, perhaps wait 30 minutes, etc, before continuing with my drive. So I contacted my Skoda dealer - Alto Skoda, in Pennant Hills, Sydney. First available slot is 1st June - 6 weeks away!!. Serious issue - does not matter - same for everyone. No offer to contact another dealer that might have an earlier slot - not that they are particularly close to my location. Last warranty issue - aircon failure back in the middle of the 40 degree summer - I had to wait less than a week, which was still too long. Really starting to regret my choice of vehicle.

That sounds worth trying. Much faster than a full reset, although a distraction from driving to find the X and press it. Perhaps I could just wait out the timeout while it waits for me to say something. I will give it a go the next time this happens to me.