whippersnapper

If you have it you push the light stalk away from you one time and a white light icon with an A will appear in the dash if you have it and go blue when it engages the high beam.

It’s hardly a big deal I’m losing sleep over but repeating what I said, given the infotainment differences alone, a new sub section would be valuable. It would have a sticky for those who don’t know what car they are driving to help them work it out.

It’s a pity because with the infotainment hardware and software change it’s practically a whole new model. It has been quite confusing when people post especially when they don’t even know what model they have.

I think you just need to hold your finger near it from memory

The phantom front assist issues is about the only thing that really annoys me about my car. Okay they aren’t exactly phantom but a massive unnecessary overreaction.

For clarity when you say new mark 4 you mean the facelifted car or the pre facelift one?

There are two buttons. The right hand one changes the style of layout and the l ft hand one cycles through the level of detail from full, medium to low. My guess is you are on medium or low which means the traditional rev counter and Speedo won’t display until you cycle to it with the left hand of the two buttons

DCC is great I use it a lot. Great to be able to soften it off just burbling around town and then tighten it up when having a fang. Best of both worlds.

Not while it's under warranty (5 years here) and then more likely just to buy another car. The prospect of some more torque and hp is attractive but the reality is there is only so much you can put through the front wheels and the car is quick anyway. How often do you run at full throttle? Me not very often and when I take the car for a backroads blast it's still mostly using the stout midrange through twisty turns rather than max throttle acceleration in a straight line. I've come from a 4WD car so still getting used to the wheel scrabble and the wait, wait ,wait to apply maximum power on corner exit. And just in case you think I'm some old plodder, I'm an ex motorcycle racer who still rides powerful street bikes and doesn't hang about in the turns but how quick something accelerates 0-60 doesn't really mean much to me as long as its brisk enough. The Octavia is case in point as although its slower 0-60 than the Superb its quicker once the wheels are turning (less driveline drag, less weight). There does seem to be a lad culture in the UK though that favours chipping everything innit.

Happy new year and best wishes for your wife’s mobility. Something I forgot to mention earlier was whether your wife would find it easier getting into an SUV than a car because they are taller?

Here’s the deal. You do very low mileage (45,000 in 14 years). That in of itself is likely to insulate you from any issue. Dry clutches are used because they have less drag and better fuel economy but the clutches will wear faster and the shifts are not as smooth etc.. If, as it seems, you are the type of person to worry about all this I’d suggest you take your own advice and buy a Japanese car that will almost certainly be more ‘reliable’. VAG and European cars in general are simply not as reliable as Japanese ones. However you are far more likely to suffer from plastic water pump leaks, EGR piping and things like that than a gearbox issue. I bought a new Octavia RS about a year ago. It has a DQ381 and shifts and operates beautifully far better than my wife’s DQ200 in her 2012 Polo GTI. I plan to change my car shortly after the standard 5 year warranty expires. It’s already been to the dealer twice. Once for a new battery and once for a detached wire on the DCC system. The Polo has been terrible but she loves it. The twin charger engine was plagued with issues but so far the gearbox has been fine. Over the same time period I had a turbocharged Subaru which had a gearbox sensor fail at 60,000 miles but was otherwise faultless. If you are not choosing a car for an enthusiast reason, you can’t go wrong with a Toyota for mainstream or Lexus for more upmarket.

I think you’re worried about something not worth worrying about. Buy a new Octavia and enjoy it.

Interesting. Here in NZ for about the same spec the RS and GTI are essentially the same price

The EA888 isn't a very sonorous engine in any spec but the Octavia RS sports exhaust is pretty good. It has a decent bass but noise regs mean nothing is that great anymore. The GTI won't be any better instead it has artificial sound piped into the cabin like the old Mark 4 Octavia. I prefer the natural sound. There are some pops in the engine map in Sport mode. As for size, it is built on a lengthened platform with a longer wheelbase. I find it fine but if you don't need the size then maybe a Cupra Leon hatch would be a better choice.

How did you manage that isn’t that 25% off in the UK?

Petrolped on YouTube reviewed an RS in this colour some time ago

Yes I don’t know how you are supposed to clean the wheels with the covers still on

Nice, thanks for sharing. Colours is one of the ways that Skoda is showing up the other VAG brands.

My car was delivered with the covers off so I can’t say for sure but I doubt it would make much difference. Most noise is from the tyres and the covers are just used to eek a tiny bit of extra mpg..

Great problem to have! I love that Skoda offers colours. Before I got my race blue RS I was looking at Cupra and just couldn’t stomach the various shades of depression they offered. I’d say velvet red if you like red, I’ve never seen the purple but that would also likely be a marmite choice affecting future resale if you care about that. Originally I wanted a pan roof just for the extra light and a heads up display and the quieter thicker glass in the front doors. In the end i took a car from stock that had majority of what I wanted. I don’t miss the pan roof even though my last car had a sunroof and I’m not sure I’d choose one if I did it again because of the extra weight up high and all the nightmares you hear about blocked drains and leaking issues. The heads up display is like to try but not a deal breaker. I got the Canton stereo and the suedia seats that look great and really lift the cabin ambience but they don’t seem to be a common choice in the UK (I’m in New Zealand). I love the DCC and use it all the time. Fuel economy. It’s going to depend on how you drive a your mix of city traffic vs motorway. I can get 40mpg plus on a motorway cruise but more like 28-30 if it’s no motorway work. I drive mostly in normal mode, comfort on bumpy roads and sport or the custom option with ESC Sport when I’m having a play down a twisty road. Enjoy your new car when you get it. They are great.

Well if it has a 13" infotainment screen it's a 4.5. Pretty sure all the 4's have the smaller 10" screen with a home button etc down one side. If its an RS then a dead give away is no seperate front foglights on the 4.5

I find using foam so satisfying.

Correct it is easy on the 4.5 to have the stop start button permanently on the infotainment screen.

looks great although the lighting and photos look far higher quality than the first ones!

New Zealand. There are no features like the app or driver profiles or ota updates