PH68

My wife had a similar problem on her 53 plate L&K. Turned out to be the drivers door seal.

Recently had the headgasket, cam belt, etc done at my Skoda dealer. All seemed fine at first. Then... A few days later I was getting a faint smell of fuel through the air vents. The smell went after a day or to. Then after a week it came back. The car then started spluttering, became sluggish and struggled to get anywhere when changing gear. When idling there was smoke coming from under the bonnet, and fuel leaking onto the road. Oh dear. Took it to my dealer. Instant diagnosis... The injection hose had split. Left it with them for a day and they sorted it out and steam cleaned the engine. Cost... nothing. Next day, the car still got a fuel smell, and some faint smoke from under the bonnet. Rang them up, took it in to them straight away. They replaced another hose and cleaned the engine again. Cost... nothing. Although the fuel leak issue cost me nothing, they thanked me for being a regular customer (the car has FSH with them for all its 190K miles). Another reason to stay with Skoda.

I have a 2001 TDi. It sits on the road outside the house all year round. We live in a rural village, and our cars get a good battering from the elements. It's only on odd occasions in the last 5 years when I've had to turn the key again and nudge the throttle a bit. Otherwise it starts first time, even when the temperature has been lower than -15C.

My wife sold her 53 plate L&K diesel earlier this year with 170K on the clock. When we bought it, it had a patchy service history but, it never let us down. I still have my 51 plate Elegance TDi, now with almost 190K on the clock. Had it for nearly 5 years now, and I'm only the second owner. When I bought it I also got all the paperwork & receipts from the previous owner (he always took it to his Skoda dealer). It still has a full Skoda Service History. Apart from new tyres and a new exhaust any other work has always been done at Skoda. So 90K on the clock is not much really. I'd be more interested in it's service history and paperwork. Basically... look after them and they'll probably last a long time.

Got car back from the Skoda dealer yesterday. They've replaced the headgasket, along with the cambelt &water pump (as they needed doing soon anyway). My final bill was just over £700. The Skoda mechanic reckons the engine "sounds as sweet as nut"... whatever that means. Had a bit of a drive out & about today. Everything seems fine. I'm still hoping to get over 200K on the clock!

For Headgasket & new Cambelt they are asking just over £600.

Had problems with the coolant light coming on and coolant disappearing after a few days normal driving. The car (TDi Elegance with 190K on the clock) was due for a service & stuff anyway, so it went into Skoda today. The headgasket has gone. :'( Simple question... Is this normal? It's also not a cheap job either! But they'll sort it while doing the cam belt to keep some of the costs down.

My TDi does the same thing every now and again, so did my wife's L&K TDi, so did the TDi she had before that. Skoda dealer say the same thing every time... sticky turbo.

Cam belts are due every 80K. So if it's been done at 140K it should last a while. Is the history all Skoda? My wife had an X-Reg Ambient TDi (it was her company car at the time) and it didn't make it to 80K... turbo power became non-existant. The history was full but not Skoda. She got a 53 plate L&K TDi as a replacement. This time she made sure it had virtually all the history at Skoda. It had about 170K on the clock when she sold it earlier this year.... to a taxi driver as he reckoned he could get about another 40-50K out of it!! I have a 51 plate Elegance TDi with over 180K on the clock and a ful Skoda history (I bought it with 130K on the clock from the Skoda dealer that had sold & fully serviced it)... no major problems since. I'm the 2nd owner. I reckon it'll make it beyond 200K. Personally I'd go for the Elegance (or L&K) over the Ambient any time, you get full climate control, centre armrest, sunroof, etc. etc..

Red.

My wife had an X-Reg Ambient TDi that did exactly that. My 51 plate Elegance TDi (now done over 180K) , or my wifes replacemant (53 plate L&K TDi) did not have the problem.

It's done with just a Fuji Finepix E900 digital camera. It was just plonked on the dashboard up against the windscreen, I then lightly held the camera to stop it sliding around while my wife drove. All of it was filmed in one take and then later edited it using Windows Movie Maker. The whole route around the Applecross coast back up to Sheildaig in Torridon is fun too. In fact there's a lot of nice roads in NW Scotland. We're off up there again this summer, albliet further North to Assynt & Sutherland... as we've not been up that far for about 10 years.

Took the Octavia Estate up to NW Scotland a couple of years ago. We had rather good weather as we took the car over Bealach Na Ba in the Applecross mountains. Here is the video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oUxwEg8pBU To find it just turn off the A896 near Torridon & take the mountain route to Applecross.

How will you access the stuff in your boot with a bike rack on it? Some racksallow you to open with the rack still fixed on, but the weight/forces on the boot struts may be too much. Watch something like the Tour de France. Skoda have sponsored it for quite a few years now. Pretty much every team has a fleet of Octavia Estates with a fair few bikes on the roof. I've yet to see them use a rear door/boot mounted carrier.

80K on a diesel is nowt... it's just getting warmed up. If it's well looked after & fully Skoda serviced it'll be fine. My 51 plate Octavia Elegance TDi had about 120K when I bought it over 4 years ago. I bought it from a main Skoda dealer (they'd sold it & serviced it, so gave me it's full history). It had just one owner. I still have all services and stuff done at my Skoda dealer... it's now got over 180K and still doing fine. I want to see it get beyond 200K. My wife had an Octavia L&K with 130K when she bought it... it was ex-fleet. Again we kept it fully Skoda serviced. She sold it a after 3 years with 190K on the clock to a taxi company!!! They told us they use Octavia diesels and easily get 220-250K from them.