MiniNinjaRob

I have the same wheels. They look really good and miles better than the standard ones which in my opinion look 15 years out of date style wise! I know they aren’t any bigger but I didn’t want that (I like comfort) and the dark colour looks good on my darker car too. I got an SEL as they had so much more kit that the SE Tech model - I got mine before the waiting times went mental though - only waited 8 months!!

I wouldn’t be using them unless they were rock solid. Any looseness by hand at standstill will be amplified with wind hitting the roofbox at motorway speeds. It doesn’t sound like they are working properly. FYI I got some Yakima flush aero bars which are rock solid and look great and are silent if you need to buy some more. I was not impressed with the Skoda bars. They look cheap and clunky.

The outlander should not be used to judge PHEVs, it’s a terrible one. I had a MHEV Auris and got more MPG out of it than my previous 2 diesel vehicles, and I kept detailed records over 4 years for each one. Sounds like some driver training was needed as I did have to drive slightly differently with the Auris but not massive changes.

The VAT thing makes no difference to the company driver though. Banning PHEVs wholesale sounds like a fleet manager who doesn’t know what they are doing.

Firstly I have had diesels (very “eco” ones brand new) and I never got more than 55mpg average round where I live. I think you are missing the point though. Emissions used to be taxed on CO2 only and while they still are to some degree the advantages now in the BIK system have been handed to electric cars as the biggest issues are particulates in built up areas which diesels are the main cause of. I wouldn’t have a diesel again and hated having one anyway, horrible engines, horrible emissions. if you would care to read what I wrote before you can see that I said that the EVs available to me were more expensive than the iV mostly - the only cheaper ones were tiny cars which were no good for carrying bikes and kit for days out. Mind you the bigger EVs were all hateful SUVs. I would also imagine renting an ICE car big enough for all our gear for the 5 or 6 weeks we are away on holidays plus weekends away would run into thousands of pounds a year. Not practical, even without factoring the bike rack I need to fit to the car!!

Well if you don’t charge them you’re an idiot. But that depends on the vehicle. I remember the Mitsubishi Highlander IIRC was a plug in but the battery did nearly nothing but company car buyers bought them in droves as it was a cheap BIK way of getting a big 4x4 but off electric the mpg was terrible. No idea what your company is talking about as I posted the BIK rates above as you can see. They aren’t as low as 2% as that’s electric only but still very low compared to diesel (yuck) or petrol.

I never look at the miles per KWH, I just look at the amount of miles I have when I get in the car and try to maximise that - most I ever got was 38 miles ish. I think it’s 42 max and it’s a 13kwh battery.

Yes you just have been misinformed as the low BIK is still there till at least 2025. I have mine for 4 years so will be swapping for a new car in 2026. I know the extra initial cost of the iV over the standard petrol is a lot of money but overall to me it’s cheaper per month. If I didn’t have a company car I would not be getting a hybrid. I really wanted to get a full EV but they would all have been a lot more expensive than the iV per month as the contribution I have to pay would be more. A base model Enyaq would have been around £45 a month more and would not have worked for holidays and we can’t stand SUVs anyway as they just don’t work for us at all. I could have had a Q4 Etronic but that would have been even more but they have been popular with colleagues. I have been looking at charging options in the sorts of places where we go on holiday and they are very sparse at best. I was in NW wales last year and met a guy who was desperate to get a charge on his EV but the only charger anywhere near where he was staying was broken (in a NT car park) and he was getting quite panicked about it. The infrastructure is just not quite there for us to get an EV yet. On the flip side a colleague only ever goes abroad on holiday so all he has to do is park at the airport so never needs to do long journeys.

The iV is worth it if you are a) a company car driver and b) do a lot of short journeys and occasional long ones. I have one. Most of my journeys are sub 30 miles including my work mileage. My my current electric tariff i average about 6.5p per mile on the electric. I can get to local towns and Leeds on electric and most if not all the way back as well. I get 14p a mile back on business miles so it works out ok but I don’t do many business miles. It doesn’t charge very fast but I’ve had no issues using only a 3 pin plug and charge it up every time I use it. We occasionally do trips to the coast (200mikes) or UK holidays (maybe 7-800 miles) in remote places where we need to petrol engine. I have found worse case is about 45mpg on petrol only. The shorter the trip the more the battery helps to reduce consumption but it still acts as a MHEV when fully discharged so that’s pretty good. I’ve never charged it away from home personally. If you were buying it with your own money I wouldn’t bother as it’s a costly car and you could get similar mpg from a petrol - the extra cost of the iV would make up and less MPG for many years!! It suits my journeys very well but I did think long and hard about it. I really wanted a Focus estate but a MHEV one was still going to be over £100 a month in BIK tax plus contribution of £130 for the spec I wanted whereas the Octavia is £15 tax plus £145 contribution ish. So I pay about £160 a month for it but the comparable focus would have been £230 at least. I went for an SEL model with a couple of options so I have a really luxurious car for a bargain price compared to some of my other options. Also it has 205bhp combined so it’s also easily the fastest option for the money I was willing to spend. You’ve just got to be honest about how you use a car and do the numbers for your own situation. My car would not work well for someone who commuted 60 miles a day, had nowhere to charge at work and paid for the car themselves - a diesel or petrol may be better.

Not sure if I’ve put this on yet but I’ve now fitted a roof rack and bike holders (Yakima flush bars in black and Thule ProRide mounts) My 1.4 iV SEL estate in petrol blue with optional wheels (still 17 as I wanted comfort but the standard wheels are awful).

Friend is buying a Mk3 Octy 1.0l turbo petrol and has checked the engine bay and found something loose. Any idea what it is? The dealer said they would fix this and I was just wondering what it is and if they should be concerned about it. Also is there anything they should check on it with regards to reliability and future work needed to keep it running well? I can’t remember how many miles it has done but IIRC it’s maybe 5 years old and 80k miles. I don’t have any expertise with this engine, looks like maybe something coming from the turbo?

No major issues with my SEL. Couple of minor software glitches but otherwise perfect. They aren’t all bad despite the moaning on here.

I drove quite a few new cars before my Octavia was delivered and all of them had pretty naff sat navs compared to Google Maps. I haven’t used the Skoda sat nav yet as Google maps on my phone works brilliantly and has excellent mapping. All the inbuilt ones I’ve tried are like some sort of computer programme from the 1990’s. 😂😂

You can’t beat a diesel for long motorway trips economically. I was quite pleased with the 49mpg but got from my turbo petrol iV once the electric had run out. 😃

I had a Focus and the gear change on that way amazing. Better than any other car I’ve driven. Not sure how much they still share components with Volvo but I know mine had similar bits to the V50/S50 I think?

I did see those but wasn’t keen on the attachment or the extending bars - didn’t look too strong. Probably ok for a roof box but I could be having £8k worth of bikes on my bars so £210 on the Yakima bars didn’t seem much!! 😃

I’m not a fan of fixed points as it’s less adaptable. I always make sure the mating surface is clean and dry first which can help. I’d always expect things to loosen over time though it’s pretty normal.

Some proper wheel chocks are very cheap and work amazingly well - I once forgot to remove mine and wondered why the car wouldn’t move when I tried to set off!!

I’m always a bit paranoid about things like this so I would always check them regularly, but thanks for the reminder!!

Finally got the Yakima flush bars and installed them. Impressed with the quality and would recommend following the Yakima video online to fit them rather than the crazy instructions. Went on a motorway journey and I couldn’t hear them at all and I’m really fussy about noises. Glad I chose them over the Thule version as the Thule is £100 more in black and sits higher than the Yakima on my car. Got a pair of Thule 598 mounts for the bikes which I will fit later.

Someone may know more than me about that product but I’d rather have a quality trolley jack.

You could leave it on the scissor jack or trolley jack but better get some wheel chocks to stop it rolling off the jack. It’s ok like that if you aren’t going under the car.

And people insist that the manual box is better. 😂😂😂

If you drive round town a lot then you’ll get more condensation inside the exhaust. As you said a fast road jaunt will clear it out. Back in the past when all exhausts were mild steel it was the city driven cars that went through exhausts fast as the condensation would sit in the back boxes or other low points and rot them away pretty fast.

As with most in built sat navs, it’s fairly useless compared to the major apps that run on your phone and can be displayed on Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. I simply wouldn’t bother with it - I don’t. I have seen some reviews of smaller cars that aren’t being fitted with sat navs as most people use their phones on the car screen. I reckon inbuilt navs are still installed as a selling point or because everyone else includes them or the bigger cars might get sold to older people who aren’t as phone savvy.