OccyVRS

Don’t worry too much about the tyres - I’ve yet to see a used dealer car under 400bhp that comes with nice tyres.

Current ones are OE. I used NGK… I want to say R7438-8 or R7438-9. They weren’t R7437-9, I know they much.

Awesome GTIRacingLine / Garrett Powermax Emissions Compliant Stage 3...Specialist in performance parts for the VW Audi Seat Skoda Group cars. Interest free finance available on all car tuning parts and we have our fully equipped specialist workshop in Manchester. This is the only real link I can find, developed between Awesome and RL. All the people I’ve spoken to say the same, as I was exploring the options without removing the GPF. Do the downpipe/take away the GPF and you should be seeing over 460bhp. The injectors were overkill - mine wanted replacing, along with the plugs, so I decided to put beefier ones in. I did also put in colder plugs. As of this year though, it’s back to stock.

The lower output EA888 is the same as the higher output, with the exception of a few minor internals, the turbo and lack of DSG/aux cooler. You should be able to hit 350bhp with just the intake and injectors - mine did (nearly). Going for an IS38 or equivalent is totally overkill to hit 350bhp - that’s almost remap only numbers. If you’re doing the intercooler and turbo, you should be seeing around 430bhp. With something like an HJS downpipe and Golf R injectors, you should be able to comfortably hit 470/480bhp. Do88 is a good intercooler, but as is Direnza and Wagner. If you’re going to be having fun fun, it’s probably also worth doing the DSG cooler. Racingline do one. I’d do a custom ECU tune, and then TVS for the box. At mid-400bhp you’ll also need to take a look at the brakes, suspension and platform bits like the lower dogbone mount.

+1 There’s plenty of these cars out there. If you have a bad feeling, or lots of issues, that’s enough. It sounds like it hasn’t been looked after very well, and it hasn’t been prepped for sale. I would get your money back and give it to another Skoda garage. If it’s the right car for you then don’t be dissuaded - my 245 quite literally hasn’t put a foot wrong! Some cars are just lemons.

If you search on this forum you might find the story of my car. I was sold a Leon FR by a SEAT/Skoda/Cupra dealer, that turned out to have been in a smash, and had welding and all sorts. After nearly two years of ownership they, luckily, had liability (that I could prove), so took the car back. They offered me several thousand over what I initially paid for the car, and then gave me any car I wanted for cost. All in all I was rather lucky to have been sold a lemon, and to have dealt with the sales manager (horrendous service department, great sales team and amazing parts department), as something like an Octavia vRS wasn’t even on my radar as attainable. Main dealers don’t mean anything these days - it just gives you someone to shout out. You best believe when buying it, I checked every last inch.

Never use TFR unless it is actually needed on the back of a lorry. You can, will and have burned the clear coat with it. You will be able to sort it with a mini DA or, at a push, by hand - but I expect it will need quite a substantial cut. It also looks to have dried a bit on the rubber window seals/trim. Cirtus prewash is a much safer alternative. Not the right stuff. This video was on rough, textured plastic. The Mk3 Octavia has gloss black pillar trims - the only fix is to polish them. I polished mine, and then ceramic coated them. Sorted.

Yeah... that's not right. No heat from the blowers also isn't a minor issue - sounds like that could be a blocked matrix, which will need replacing!

The A95 is alright - when they clear it. A few years ago, I went up the Ben in the snow in an AWD car on all seasons... big mistake! I had to leave the car in Glenrinnes for a few days😂

My point about the headlights is that UK legalisation and regulation sucks. Wattage is relevant for halogen headlights, but not for LEDs. Most other countries seem to have worked this out, while we haven’t. In two years, the only wrong steps my vRS has taken are to pull me into the middle of the road once. It was on the M27, and the lanes were hilariously narrow for road works. The lanes then turned into contraflow, and the car got confused by the white markings, and the poorly painted over markings. Aside from that, I’ve had no false activations and no noises. I did have an incident in the first week of ownership, where the car decided to adjust the ACC speed to match the 20mph services, rather than the middle lane of the motorway I was on - hence my deactivation of TSR. The safety features have their flaws, but I think the horrific standard of driving far outweighs this. Frankly, the only new car I’ve had an issue with was a courtesy Mk8 Golf. That braked for me, hard, several times without reason - one of them resulting in the car behind almost going into the back of me. Other than that, I’ve done tens of thousands of miles throughout the UK, Europe and the US, incident free.

You should have seen the response to a post last year on “acceptable levels of cracking in tyres” or something. One person hasn’t been back since 😂

It sounds like you’ve got a problem with safety systems in general, rather than ACC in particular. They aren’t perfect, but I believe the roads are safer with them. I don’t like lane assist because my car isn’t smart enough. It’s not a Tesla, and I don’t like how it pulls me over a line when the road merges into one lane, for example. I also wouldn’t dream of using it on a country road, for example. That’s why I bought my 2020 Mk3.5. I can have all the safety things I want, but I can also turn them all off and they stay off. The only thing I’ve disabled is TSR. It was always wrong, and as it worked in conjunction with ACC, it was an absolute menace. I wasn’t suggesting cars have feelings - I was suggesting that different models, and different types of cars, are programmed slightly differently. It makes sense that a performanceish car like the vRS would react different to hard braking than a 1.0 Ibiza. The reason none of this is regulated by law (beyond the implementation of it) is the same reason US headlights are limited by lumen output, and our headlights are limited by wattage. Useless!

How can the car fight with me over lane positioning, or slam on the brakes? Are you suggesting everyone with a car built after 2019 needs to disable every single safety feature every time they get in the car? That sounds like the only way to be in “full control”. Whenever I have fun with the car, both TC and the ESP are turned “off”, meaning front assist and the like are unavailable. I don’t find myself suddenly unable to drive. Like I said, it’s about making life easier. If I have to stand I will, but if there’s a chair, why wouldn’t I sit down? You possibly speak for yourself on that point - I don’t need to practice staring at my speedo keeping the car at the limit. I can drive under it, I can drive over it, but why wouldn’t I just let the car do it for me? As I’ve said many times, it leaves me free to focus on more important things. I’m still able to intervene - closing a gap, opening a gap, etc. I hate to break it to you, but just because you’re not using adaptive cruise control, the car will still brake for you. Most newer cars will swerve for you, and in recent years they’ll pull over to the side of the road and call for help. ACC is a simple system. It allows the car to go up to a predetermined speed, keeping a set distance to the object in front. It’s not witchcraft, and it’s not taking over driving. I’m still sat in the seat, steering and with my feet on the pedals. As I’ve said before, the car will react far more quickly than I, or anyone else on this forum. Yes, front assist does sometimes have false triggers, but that’s nothing to do with ACC. I don’t use lane assist except when on the motorway. It annoys me. I don’t have BSA, but I’m assuming that also means the driver is lazy and can’t practice turning their head? That isn’t the point. It is an additional layer of safety, designed to enhance the spatial awareness of the driver. There will be a time in the future when people can’t believe that humans were once allowed to control two tons of metal moving at 70mph. The average UK driver is a complete moron with no spatial awareness, common sense or understanding of how to drive. If these safety features mean one extra life is saved, I’m all for them. One last thing - there is definitely a difference in braking assist between different cars. My vRS has only braked for me once (I was already hard on the brakes), whereas the little Ibiza does it once every few months. It’s not the sensitivity or anything - the system just seems to care less. If I sit on the brakes in the Ibiza, the hazards come on. If I sit on the brakes in my vRS, they don’t!

I have, but that was after an hour on track in a manual GT4. Lots of reactions to my above post! For a bit of background, I’ve done quite a bit with IAM and ARDS, so I’d like to think I know how to drive. The whole point of these systems is to make your life easier, safer and more efficient. It’s easier because I’m able to not stare at my speedometer. It’s safer because I can look ahead, behind and be far more aware of my surroundings. It’s more efficient because, as I said, I’m able to channel more energy into doing tasks the car can’t do - such as monitoring vehicles hundreds of meters ahead, and being more focused on the road and not my speedometer. I don’t use lane keep. I use lane assist as a safety feature, in case anything happens. One of my favourite uses of ACC and lane assist is changing my glasses to sunglasses. I am a reasonable prescription, and I’m not able to drive without my glasses. If it suddenly gets dark, I need to change my sunglasses out, or I can’t see! Having the car “drive itself” means that in the second I’m without my prescription something happens, I won’t instantly veer into a bridge support. These safety features also allow me to check my map, or directions, safe in the knowledge that if a car suddenly pulls out in front of me, I stand a reasonable chance of not having a smash. For all those that say “oh, you should stop and change glasses, you’re distracted on your maps, etc” - get real. If people had to stop every time a cloud meant they needed to change their eyewear, nobody would get anywhere. I am in full control of the car at all times. I use the systems to better myself as a driver. Do you think airline pilots sit all day with their hands on the sidestick and throttles? As I said, if using ACC, etc means that you have a collision, then you were going too fast, too close, or whatever, to begin with.

Not easily, I don't think - I did look into it. My Octavia is a 2020 build and all of the car icons (entering, exiting, ACC, etc) feature a Mk4 - it's a system from the future.

I don't think so. Maybe not in the UK? It looks similar to the Superb 280 - AWD detuned EA888.4

Handling? Not really. You'll do a better 0-60 time than a non-AWD TDI, but that's about it - I'll take my LSD any day of the week. AWD does help cars put the power down better, but unless you're 'handling' at 25mph, or in snow, the TDI doesn't have enough power for this to make much of a difference. I wanted a Cupra ST, but that's because I like doing 0-60 and wanted to take it over 400bhp. Even with 350bhp, my Octavia did very well, except for launch (which was hilarious). AWD does have handling advantages, but on a track, or on the edge of grip - not something I imagine you'll be doing in a TDI on a potholed B road. So yes, having AWD does give an improvement over FWD, but on a 350bhp+ car on a track - you won't be able to notice it in a sub-200bhp Octavia. For handling, RWD>FWD>AWD. AWD is boring.

I disagree. I use ACC heavily - especially in traffic or poor weather. It allows me to focus on other drivers and such things that I might normally take an extra second to notice, was I to be looking at my speedo, etc. One such example is in heavy motorway traffic. I don't care what the car in front is doing - I'm looking ten cars behind or ahead. If there is a situation where having ACC on affects the outcome of an event, then you were going too quickly to begin with. I am always supervising what Occy is doing, and ready to step in, or take action, should it be required. I believe the car will brake or swerve faster than I can react (probably, anyway) and I feel I'm far more useful monitoring other cars, the road ahead and things the car can't do.

It doesn't make a difference. Regardless of his actions, his reverse lights were on and you did have time to see him and stop. There were nearly three seconds between his wheels moving and the collision. As I said, while in reality it wasn't your fault at all, I will be extremely suprised if the insurers don't put it down to a 50/50. I may or may not have seen him move, depending on where I was looking. That said, I would have seen his reverse lights and stopped, or at least slowed down. However, it's easy to sit here and comment on footage captured by a dashcam - I can't see how OP could have not seen the SLK begin to move, but I wasn't there. If I was tired, in a rush, or just thinking about other things, I would imagine a similar mistake would have been made. Yes, I always slow down in car parks and check reverse lights, but if someone had just pulled out on me during all the times I haven't been going slow and looking, this would have been the result. As I said before, while I sympathise strongly with OP and believe that the outcome would have been the same with 99% of forum users here, the accident is, IMO, a 50/50.

Oh 100%. Like I said, OP was busy looking for a space and the reverse light was pretty poor. In the eyes of the insurers, though, it was on - no matter how visible.

Purely circumstantial re the birds. The car isn't quiet compared to a hybrid or EV, and none of the safety systems would have an impact on birds. The car doesn't have LiDAR, and the radar used in cars is hilariously low-powered compared to anything in aviation, let alone military. There are plenty of birds flying around Portsmouth with no issue, despite there being one or two SAMPSON radars nearby. Regarding everything else, it's just a new car. I test drove a Mk4 and then bought my 2020 Mk3.5. The TSR was disabled within the first week of ownership! I don't use any of the lane keep/assist, except when on the motorway. I've had no emergency braking activations in two years, but that said, I did get a warning last week out of the blue. I use the ACC system all the time.

If there's no answer from OP, I may be able to help. I've got the 2022 issue Octavia Mk3 manual.

AGM is better than EFB (or EFB+ as a lot of VW's use) but you will pay for it. I wouldn't bother sticking it one in a 1.5 - they're generally only needed for beefy engines, or hybrids.

The oil specification matters more than it being genuine or 5W-30. Leaving it 15,000 miles isn't brilliant, but the 1.6 TDI is bombproof and it's not exactly a performance engine. Send a photo of the oil condition here, but given that it's been 11 months, I'd be suprised if anything even slightly unusual has happended. Most people just drive their cars and do an annual service.

My honest advice would be to leave the car as it is, and wait until you have something more capable. Have you done a track day?