IJWS15

Left an I-pod connected for three years with no battery issues and, apart from lockdown when the car only moved once a week, the Ipod always started up with the car (it is an old one).

Scrapyard? Surprised that they are not on the parts lists. I have seen similar on Passats.

Changing lights depends on which model you have. The Mk2? Octavia could be switched by moving a lever on the back of the lights (mine was a 2008), the later model couldn't and I reverted to stickers. Xenons can normally be done from the infotainment if it doesn't do it automatically. AIUI the law for breathalysers is in place but there is no penalty for not carrying them, I buy them in the supermarkets for about a euro (motoring sections). If you are stopped it will be because that particular policeman/gendarme is bored and pedantic and will, accordingly check everything. It is easier to be complaint and not give him the opportunity to delay you. I have been stopped once for a breathalyser (6am on a Sunday) and almost stopped for a vehicle check but when they saw the UK plates they waved us through.

Simple test to assess dampers is to bounce each corner of the car, if the damper has failed that corner will continue bouncing for longer. Not had a car yet that bounced more than a cycle. We always get the first MOT done just before the warranty expires so anything they find should be covered.

Can't you take your car to a stockist and ask them to try it?

We have just bought second hand for the wife, it has just under 2 years guarantee left but if anything had been broken/paint damage then we would have been pointing it out before the deal was concluded and asking for it to be done in the price. Too late after the deal is done.

Son has a 330e rather than the 530 and it is a rocket ship, even just on battery. With battery and motor it has over 300 bhp and instant response from the motor. I think PHEVs only make sense if you have a company car, even with the miles I (used to ) drive I only spend a couple of grand on fuel a year and the cost of a hybrid doesn't balance out the cost of the fuel.

I agree, that is a choice we make for the car that must get me to work and that takes us all over Europe when we are on holiday. The wife doesn't work and is never more than 20 miles from home in her car, we have just replaced it with a one year old car so missed the worst of the depreciation. The point of the thread wasn't to compare leasing with bangernomics but to compare leasing with purchasing new and changing at 3 years.

The prices I was being quoted to replace it in April 2019 were because there was a new car coming six months later - the lease companies factor in the reduced residuals because there will be newer models on the market. Mine had a few extras and an unusual interior colour - the interior made no difference to the price and you accept that you are paying full price for the options - regardless of how desirable they make the car at end of lease. Note the lease values and the second had price ARE the same car so extra's are factored in. Leases are nothing like PCP - at the end of the period you can give the car back or extend the period as I did. You can even give the car back and go out and buy a banger and run it for a year until the numbers improve. If the numbers to replace don't look good you are not committed to changing at the planned end of the lease. The key is plan ahead, even with mileage, during the last lease I changed jobs and the commute when from a 2 mile walk to a 30 mile drive, changing the allowance on the lease upped the charge £150 a month but it was cheaper doing this than paying the excess mileage (about 2p a mile cheaper). With PCP they have you by the balls. I was tempted by a new Octavia as it was announced just before I ordered but, back in January, they couldn't give me a price. At one stage I was even tempted by the prices on Fiat convertibles (the MX5 copy), almost worth having a second car for £190 a month and taking 10k a year off the Superb lease - not close enough to cost neutral to do it!

I was expecting the price difference to be negligible, I did a similar calculation three years ago and based on what i could see as used prices at 3 years old then a lease was about break even to buying and selling on but took the worries away. 14k for three years motoring does look a lot but there are a lot of people buy new and change regularly. The thinking around new was: I drive (used to) high mileages of approx 24k a year so keeping for 4-5 years effectively means an almost worthless car at the end - who wants a four year old car with 100k miles, just coming up to needing the suspension bushes renewing and the drivers seat has sagged. ( I once put 128k miles on a company car in 4 years, the excess mileage was expensive). Buying almost new - do you really know why it is on the market? Is it a lemon? Doesn't sit well with needing to get to work and high mileages 3 years ago I was a contractor so the company would not provide me with a car for travel to other sites as a contractor I was expected to get to the office or didn't get paid - moved to perm 2 years ago. I can spec the options I want (heated screen, interior colour) that are almost impossible to add after market - I spend a minimum of 2 hours in the car on a working day. I don't have any hassle if it breaks, even out of warranty, and this car was out of warranty before it was 3 years old. I don't need to take time out of work to deal with selling - important when I didn't get paid holiday. A lot of the miles in the first year and a bit were paid as mileage by my Ltd company, at 45p a mile, so no cost to me directly. I can afford it and if no-one does where are you all going to get your pre-owned cars from, there will be a shortage due to the 3 month stoppage in production we have ahd this year. Just surprised that, having found the car on autotrader, I had actually come out better than if I had bought it and changed after three years. As an aside my son works for one of the big UK leasing companies and they are seeing an increase of £1000 plus on average in the sale price of end of lease cars over what they expected so it could have been much better. It could also have been worse, the initial lease was 2 years and I looked at changing last April but the lease would have gone up by about £150 a month so I extended this one for a third year. There is a lot in the timing. Now if the one that is due for delivery shortly doesn't have any problems I may buy it at the end of lease as it looks as if I will only be an occasional visitor to the office and it may see me through to retirement, the lease on the new one, before I dropped the mileage by 8k a year, was about £30 more than this one (three years inflation and a car worth 3-4k more), reducing the mileage makes it about £50 a month less.

Regenerative brakes have been around for a long time in trains and earth movers. They used resistors to burn off the electricity generated so easy to address. Regen is fine at higher speeds but doesn't work well at low speeds. Worked on a mine in SA where they had coal haulers with all up weight of 360 tons, the friction brake could only be used below 5 kph or they burned out. While I was there the regen brake failed on a loaded coal hauler, it took a couple of miles for it to stop. Not something you want to happen in a car.

My superb was a 3 year personal lease (VWFS) and was collected in May a little after the lease ended. Can't find the actual price of the car new but the P11d value was £27,710. The car is currently for sale for £12,999 (in Sheffield having been collected for auction by BCA in Birmingham) The price of £12,999 isn't what I would have got for it so lets say £11k trade-in giving £15 K depreciation (assuming £2k discount off list at new). In that time servicing (4) would be approx £1k and tyres £350 all covered by the lease so if it had been mine it would have cost me approx £17350 over 3 years for 72k miles. Due to covid it didn't reach 72k miles so the lease could have been a little cheaper. I think it had rear brake pads and discs - lease company cost. The lease charges in the period were just over £14k leaving me £3.5k up on buying new and changing at three years, I am sure VWFS made some money on it as well. To match the lease I would have had to get 20-25% discount off the new price! No hassle selling, it was rear ended on the M6 but not my problem as it was repaired. The car in question https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202007101099959?postcode=ws151gb&year-from=2017&make=SKODA&model=SUPERB&onesearchad=New&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=Used&sort=relevance&body-type=Hatchback&year-to=2017&advertising-location=at_cars&radius=1500&aggregatedTrim=SE L Executive&transmission=Manual&fuel-type=Diesel&page=1 All they need to do now is deliver the replacement - last time I spoke to them it was in Germany!

Father use to have (may still use as he still tows a caravan at 91) Auto ball-ans which was a rubber inflatable sphere that sat inside the spring. Pump it up when you need it, deflate it when you don't. A quick google just brought these up so not sure if they are still available. https://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=20&TopicID=229501&ThreadPage=1 https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/media/1022766/rear-suspension-aids-mo.pdf Try loading the caravan so there is less nose weight - you really lift 85kg when hitching it up?

Have had standard cruise since 2004 and ACC for three years, I don't want to go back to standard CC. No - the ACC doesn't see stationary objects but in traffic you can just set the speed and gap and relax. If you object to how soon it slows you down then you should be indicating and pulling out to overtake. If you indicate it doesn't slow you. Had hire cars with standard cruise in the last three years and you forget that it won't react to the car in front slowing.

And it is a pig of a job to clean it up. Lack of coolant so may need an engine - walk

A tape measure? One is 1 1/2 times the size of the other.🙂

Can't check with mine as I am between cars but if you have the functionality you will be able to access it through the setup menus on the infotainment screen.

We've had a petrol and a diesel for 16 years now, touch wood not done it either way.

Me too, a 2.0 TDI superb arriving soon but looked at the new octavia and as above, you can't have the 2.0 TDi 150 with a manual. They do have a gearbox/clutch that can handle the torque as I am about to get one delivered in the Superb. I am also surprised that the smaller engines have gone.

All the rear wheel drive cars I have had were supposed to be slightly toe in, never toe out.

The Superb is still a Skoda, built to the same standards as a Fabia, not that the Fabia isn't built to a reasonable standard. The Superb is a bigger car than the Fabia which explains the higher price, it isn't a higher quality car. If you want Rolls Royce level of quality (I believe that around 65% of all the cars they have built since 1906 are still running) then go and pay Rolls Royce price. Three years for dampers is still poor, looks like they are adopting the Henry Ford policy where he employed people going round scrap yards looking at scrap cars to see which components had not failed - those were the components he could then re-engineer to save cost. The principle he aimed for was that all the bits wore out at the same time!

Adaptive means more functionality, not better quality. Like everything else KISS applies, more functionality (complexity) means more chance of failure.

The rim size you have will be cast into the back of one of the spokes of the rim.

I presume you mean the engine cooling fan, it runs after the ignition is turned off if the engine is hot. Mine does (did) when I parked at work at the top of a hill. Check the sensors that control the fan, don't ask me where they are - mine was leased.

Did you put petrol in it?