Hedgehurst

Merci! That's interesting to know. Regrettably other things now mean we'll have to postpone travelling far just for now, but we'll hope to visit France next year, and by then will definitely have a Crit'Air sticker!

Thanks. We last travelled to France in 2023 with our 04 reg diesel Volvo, now replaced by the petrol Skoda. It qualified for a black Crit'Air 4 sticker, so rather than going through Rouen we had to go round, which took quite some time! We found that the Waze app provided not only information about which cities needed us to avoid them, but also gave alternative routes to avoid the clean air zones, which helped a lot. I don't know how far they've progressed since '23, but during that holiday we also stayed with a French friend who commented that the whole thing was still very confused and confusing even for native inhabitants, with some places having active ANPR and some not, and she reckoned it wasn't always clear which was which, so the safest thing was to avoid all clean air zones with our black sticker, though she also said that friends of hers tended to give a Gallic shrug and carry on anyway hoping they'd get away with it! I'm guessing it'll be more active by now. Bonnes vacences to you likewise! Brittany and the Loire should be lovely in May, that's the time we're thinking of going.

That is to say, on re-reading, Crit'Air 1. Sorry, I was getting confused between Euro 6 and Crit'Air 1.... but still good, we're in a decent category!!

Thanks, that's as I thought, then. Good.

We're thinking of heading to France later this Spring, where of course we'll need a Crit'Air sticker. The French Gov't site nicely has an English translation, which helps a lot. It asks what the car's Euro rating is, and my V5 document doesn't show this as such, though it does show emission figures. Online information points to it being Euro 1, being petrol fuelled and registered in 2018. There's an RAC site which gives "Euro 1 emissions standards (petrol) CO: 2.72g/km HC + NOx: 0.97g/km" My V5 shows CO at 0.213, HC at 0.021 and NOx at 0.048 which seems to put me clearly in Euro 1 if I'm reading it right. But I'd hate to be the wrong side of French Bureaucracy if I've misunderstood! Am I right, please? Thanks

Thank you. If the work they've already done doesn't prove to have solved the problem I'll take a print out of this to the garage next time.

Update, in case the information's useful to anyone else. I collected the car this afternoon. After much sitting in the boot while spraying it with water outside they spotted a trickle from the grommet at the top right near the hinge, presumably where wires would go if it were a LH drive. They sealed this, drenched the car again and found no trickle. So hopefully that's it. They've carefully explained this is a temporary repair, and if it works they'll get the proper part and seal it in neatly. And they're happy for me to continue monitoring next time it rains. So we're hopeful we get a dry car, and end up writing a nice review for the Bristol St Honda dealers here who sold it to us. Thanks again for all the suggestions made along the way.

Hi, I posted a while ago about water ingress into our 2018 Octavia petrol 1.5, bought last July, forming a puddle round the spare tyre. The dealer who sold it to us - not a Skoda specialist - is currently honouring their 6 month warranty and trying to sort it out. Clearly it's not fit for purpose if it leaks. They've refitted the tailgate seal, having found & removed a piece of metal that was distorting it around the area of the catch, and certainly it closes better now. (See my earlier thread, linked below) It seems to leak when just sitting there in heavy rain, judging from a recent torrential weekend when I didn't use it. They're having it back on Thursday this week to try again. Any more useful suggestions for things they might try would be gratefully received, please, as I think they're short on ideas, though they've not yet tried the replacement vents suggestion made in that earlier thread. (Would this be an issue when the car was just standing still rather than getting splashed from the road?) In almost all other ways we very much like this car, but this water ingress really ain't good enough. With thanks.

Thanks very much "EnterName" (Do I detect a Pratchett Sam Vimes fan at work here? 😀 ) I'll investigate - though as I said, since it's still under warranty I'm going to let them do any adjusting so they can't claim I've messed things up. And forgive my commenting, but I do thoroughly approve your use of the technical term "sproing". Spot on resonance here.

Thanks again for the warning - I tried using the phone as satnav via the USB port near the air con controls for a couple of 25 mile trips out & back yesterday evening, and throughout, the phone stayed at a fairly ambient temperature, it also steadily charged up along the way. Maybe it's fortuitously a good cable I have, or just a lucky combination of car/cable/phone?

Thanks again. Because it's been pretty well dry weather since the dealer re-fitted the seals, it's still dry in that compartment, but I'll keep checking; I'm contacting the service manager there tomorrow so will pass on the info about the vents. A leaking boot is seriously not something we want, between sometimes carrying musical instruments and sometimes using it as a storage space while on holiday with our seriously small caravan.

Thank you, that is worth knowing, and worth suggesting to the dealer for investigation next time I take it for the follow-up.

Thanks for the warning - and that's interesting. The phone seemed to be charging up at the same time as providing navigation, so I assumed there was sufficient charge. I'll check again next time I use it that way, and have a cigarette lighter cable ready in case.

I'm torn between doing that myself and not adjusting anything until I'm sure it's watertight, since it's under warranty - just - and I don't want them to be able to claim I've messed up their attempts at rectification. As you say, most people do slam everything - though I noticed when I collected it that even they hadn't got it properly closed on their forecourt, so the diagram on the dashboard warned it was open. I did inform them. I was really wondering, since it's my first Octavia, if one should expect to have to slam it hard, or if as a rule it can be managed quietly.

I know, it's a "how long is a piece of string?" question, but... I found just before Christmas that there was a small pond in the spare wheel well of my Octavia estate, 2018, bought last July at c.50K miles with 6 month warranty. I reported it to the dealer, (not a Skoda specialist, but our local Honda Listers, who seem mostly willing and helpful enough), and 10 days ago they had it back for a check. No immediate leak found, though they agreed it needs sorting. They took all the seals off the tailgate and replaced them for a start, and I'm seeing how it goes. (And it's not rained properly since!) The trouble is that now I have to really slam the tailgate down with both hands to get it to lock, for the dashboard display to agree it's closed. I can't think it's meant to be that way, hence my question at the top. Was I spoilt with our ancient Volvo V70? Never any water ingress there, and I could rest my backside on the boot and quietly shove, which was a whole lot less noisy when coming in late after an event and not wanting to to disturb our quiet neighbours! I'm worried that with the force needed to close this I'll rattle something loose too. And are Octavias known for water getting into the back end at all? Thanks as ever for any comments.

A late reply to my own thread - sorry, a bug interrupted things! - to thank you all again for helpful information. While I still haven't found how to access apps which are on my phone through the infotainment screen, other than a selected few it offers, I can now happily play music and get better satnav than our rather elderly satnav device offers, and drove happily through the streets of London with it.

Brilliant - I duly connected up, discovered it seems to like both cable and bluetooth, and found I can use it as SatNav - and of course it keep the phone charged too. Excellent. Tomorrow I hope to get more time to play, and will see if I can also use the AppyPark app with it, though don't yet know how to address setting it to do so.

Thank you both, that's a very good start. And I prefer using a cable to Bluetooth anyway, as that seems to eat up battery in no time. I've no idea yet if my firmware's upgraded, or needs to be, but hope to get time later today to plug in and try it out. To be continued.... Thanks again.

Happy New Year 🙂 I have a 2018 Octavia (since last Summer) and the infotainment screen appears to be the Bolero system. I am indeed a tech dinosaur, wary of starting things which might complicate what's already working, and I have no idea which version of Bolero it's running, but I would like to connect my Samsung Android phone to use things like Google Maps and AppyParking on the screen. The manual book doesn't appear to include navigation as an option for Bolero. i could simply link the Bluetooth - and I imagine plug a USB lead between phone and car to keep the phone battery going - and see what happens, but as I said, don't want to complicate things which I can't then sort out! So before I start, is it likely to work, or just to drop me in deep water? With thanks. ... maybe I should have adopted the username "Brontosaurus" or similar here....

That's worth knowing, though it'll not be me looking so much as suggesting to the back street garage I'll be taking it to, where we've been for around 30 years!

Thanks for the comments. It's prompted me to realise that due to some health issues I didn't chase up the service history, and have prodded them firmly. The car's now on c.52 K miles, so around 2K since we bought it. This is truly a helpful forum, thanks all!

We bought our Octavia 1.5 petrol Estate on 24 July of this year, with a 6 month warranty. With the warranty in mind I've had it checked by our local friendly regular garage just recently who gave it a very clean bill of health. I've had a text message from the dealer selling it to us, our local Listers, telling me their records show it's due a service. Meanwhile the infotainment screen (see attached pic) reckons that's not due for ages yet. I'm wondering which information to trust - if the supplying dealer is just hoping to have me pay for a service it doesn't actually need, or whether it's possible the last service didn't re-set the details. Somehow they failed to supply full paper service history, despite reckoning they would ( which reminds me to prod them, that's long overdue!) Thanks for any advice.

Thanks @PetrolDave and @Stonekeeper you've answered my next intended questions about format and file type even before I asked 😄

Thanks, that's useful to know. And then it's straightforward to use via the infotainment screen, is it? ( Self-confessed dinosaur who's never tried loading music from SD cards before, writing here!)

I too have a Bolero in a 2018 Octavia. Please forgive an idiot question from a non-techie here, but... what does the SD card allow me to do if I get one? Can I load my personal music tracks onto it and play them through the system?