Hilly81

I went with the Pro springs. Looks great and the ride is still really nice.

It’s seriously worth shopping around the specialist insurers. Greenlight wanted nearly £800 for me with all mods declared (Map, springs, Intake hose, Turbo Elbow, Hardwired Dashcam, Debadged). I ended up paying less than £600 with Chris Knott which included Legal cover and the wife as a named driver. They were really helpful. Greenlight were even more if I wanted to add the wife.

I had Eibach Pro springs fitted on my 2019 245 estate on Wednesday. 4 wheel alignment done on Thursday. 2 hour drive fully loaded to the west coast of Wales on Friday. 2 adults, 2 kids, dog and a boot load of stuff. Low but not in any danger of touching the wheel arches. Went over a few speed bumps with no drama. Also recently fitted 4 Asymmetric 6 tyres. Had an ECU/TCU map, turbo elbow and induction hose fitted last Tuesday. Car drives fantastic and looks great . Extremely happy with it.

Smashed my 10k PB running 35:40 at the Wilmslow Summer 10k a couple of weeks ago. Rolled the dice going through 5k in 17:33 (slightly downhill 1st 5k) and then just dug in for the 2nd half of the race. Extremely happy to go sub 36 at 42 years old and the time ranks me 389th over 10k in my age group in all of Great Britain.

Fantastic! Well done.

Broke my Parkrun PB yesterday running 16:56 at Widnes (previous PB 17:55 at Ellesmere Port). Also ran a track mile a week ago and finished in 6th place with 5:02.2. Should have broke 5 minutes really. Next time.

Cazoo you cant..... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjq55333xg9o

80:28 and 38th place from around 5200 starters. Couldn’t quite manage sub 80 but it’s a 1 minute and 45 second PB so very happy. Conditions were absolutely brutal. It was very warm and not a cloud in the sky. The sun just kept beating down. I’m completely cooked now. Can’t recommend the Chester half enough though. Fantastic race with amazing support on the course. Great morning out.

Find yourself a good local Indy. I had my DSG (DQ381) serviced last week with genuine oil and filter and it cost £184 including VAT. Can you do the pollen filter and plugs yourself?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/KASturbo-5E0959857-Control-Octavia-5E095985/dp/B08MPPVD2B

I agree it would be very person specific in a future sale. Personally, if I was looking at a car that had a load of receipts for stuff done by the owner then it would lead me to think it had been better looked after than one with dealer history. My car had dealer history when I bought it and the pollen filter had never been changed and was an absolute disgrace. My maintenance for all my recent cars has been done by a friend who is a VW tech. He does a great job and charged me very fairly. Going forward, I have learned that things like basic servicing is just easy so I’ll be doing it myself on both of our cars as we intend on keeping them both for a while anyway. Anything more difficult that I don’t feel confident doing or don’t have the tools for will go to my mate or to one of a couple of local very good VAG specialists.

I started running a little over 5 years ago and it has pretty much taken over my life. At 42 I now average between 45 and 50 miles a week usually running 6 days a week with a rest day on Saturday depending on my race schedule. I absolutely love it. I love the process of putting in the hard work and hopefully seeing the results come. I’ve also made so many great friends through running. It really has changed my life. My current PB’s are: 5k - 17:02 (achieved last Friday at the Mid Cheshire 5k) 5 Mile - 29:05 10k - 36:17 HM - 82:13 Marathon - 3:17 I’m currently working towards a sub 80 half marathon attempt at the Chester half in 2 weeks. Got a nice 14 mile long run with 5 miles at half marathon pace lined up for tomorrow morning.

Fair. I also considered the Golf R estate for exactly that reason. Ultimately, it was that bit smaller than the Octavia and I would have been much more worried about it getting nicked as well as significantly higher insurance premiums!

I was having this exact same debate 12 months ago. I might have gone for a Superb but I really wanted an estate and could only find hatches within budget at the time. I ended up with a 2019 Octavia VRS 245 estate and couldn’t be happier. Huge amounts of space, really nice to drive, quick but not blisteringly so (remap pending this summer), 45 MPG on a steady run (I have averaged 36 in 12 months) and a great looking car. Certainly worth considering.

**Adds Dogbone Mount to list of future mods...