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rcgliderpilot

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    Octavia Scout 181PS
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    2018

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  1. In response to your message, I have just added an update following the 3-year/23k service - thanks for your interest!
  2. Update... I've just had the annual service performed on my vehicle (only done about 2k miles since last year for obvious reasons - now at 23k) and this included a DSG and Haldex oil change. Intriguingly, since that service, the car is now noticeably less "eager" off the line when using no throttle and just letting the vehicle move forward of its own accord. It is now what I consider to be "within bounds of acceptability" - and certainly much closer to the characteristics of my DSG-equipped Audi A3 V6. I hadn't mentioned it to the Service Dept this time, as I'd already mentioned it to the Service Dept of two different Skoda garages - both of which treated me with disdain when I mentioned the issue at both the 10k and 20k services. I'd love to know what it is that has effected this change on my Octavia Scout: it's now a much more enjoyable car to drive, particularly when manoeuvring or coming to a smooth halt, and subjectively also feels more lively than before on the open road - even my wife commented on that, as she took and collected the car to/from its service, and it's not the sort of thing she usually notices... Curiouser and curiouser...
  3. Thanks, all, for your responses - appreciate the feedback. This is the first DSG-equipped diesel I've had - other three over 100k miles have been/are petrol. To answer the points raised: General re idle speed: OK, perhaps I'm wrong - but the high idle speed seems to be the root of the problem... This problem never occurred on the other three DSG-equipped cars I've owned - including a 60-plate Fabia vRS estate. Is it to do with what VAG Group had to do to their diesel engines once the cheat software had been removed?? EnterName: Re your point, "I had the opposite problem, I found it very difficult to stop perfectly smoothly, as I can no longer feather off the brake just as I come to a halt to avoid jerking, because the DSG re-engages the clutch." - that's EXACTLY what I experience when stopping... In ownership of 25+ cars over 900k miles, not one of them has ever stopped me from coming to a halt really smoothly. Ecomatt: "It is best to let of the brake pedal and allow the car to move forward then apply the accelerator." That's exactly what I do, and because it accelerates so smartly, it makes it hard to move away gently and smoothly, and, more to the point, manoeuvre smoothly in confined spaces. Varaderoguy: nothing to do with regens... I run the car on Shell V-Power or BP Ultimate exclusively (always done that since I had DPF issues 15 years ago with a Citroen C5 HDi), and try not to use the car for short journeys. I also give it a blast in 3rd/4th on the dual carriageway every now and then, just to make sure. By the way, it's a 6-speed DSG, not 7-speed: is that unusual for a 68-plate Scout 184bhp??? Mileage currently 23k - was 21k prior to pandemic, so I haven't done many miles in 18 months, but the problem has existed since I took over the car at 1800 miles. Thanks again, everyone. It's a long while since I've posted here, and I appreciate the input
  4. Thanks for your interest. I wouldn't say it "lurches"... It's just that with every other DSG-equipped car I've had/driven, they move off gently with the "creep" (as I think it used to be called in the old days with torque-converter autos) - i.e. with no application of the throttle - nicely controlled. On my Scout, the "off-throttle creep" is significantly more aggressive, which makes it very hard to move off/stop smoothly - I do pride myself on being as smooth a driver as possible... I don't think I'm being too finicky: it's enough of a problem to detract from my ownership of the car.
  5. 550/600?? Don't think I've ever owned a car that idles at 750rpm - petrol or diesel - but perhaps I'm mistaken??
  6. Just realised my profile says I have a 2012 CT Scout... My son now has that!! Whoops...
  7. I've got a 68-reg Octavia Scout bought nearly-new, and I absolutely love it. However, ever since I've had it, its engine idle speed has seemed too high. It idles at 750rpm, which seems too fast to me... When you put the DSG box in gear, the car moves forward quite smartly, and with sharp brakes, it's hard to manouevre smoothly if you're eg manoeuvring in a tight space. When coming to a halt, it's also very difficult to feather the brakes for a smooth stop as you come to a halt. I'm extremely used to DSG boxes (have done c. 100k miles in DSG-equipped cars), and currently also own an Audi A3 3.2 with DSG box, and that behaves exactly as I would expect it to. I've queried the idle speed with two different Skoda dealers, and both have assured me nothing is amiss: one of them took my query vaguely seriously but said nothing was wrong and told me it couldn't be adjusted, while the other treated me with near-disdain even when I pointed out I had owned around 25 cars, driven around 900k miles and owned four DSG-equipped cars in my driving lifetime - so I have a reasonable idea about cars... Is 750rpm a "normal" idle speed for the 181PS Scout, and if not, what should it be? Any input much appreciated.
  8. Ah, thank you... I've returned to this forum after around a four-year gap, and hadn't picked up the Scout was now completely discontinued in the UK. Appreciate the input.
  9. I've done a search on the site, so apologies if I've missed it... What Car? mag data pages are listing an Octavia Scout 190 TSI petrol , but with no detailed data... As the current owner of a 2012 Scout TDi CR, I'm really interested in the vehicle (if it exists!), as I want to go petrol this time around and my current Scout is an amazingly capable and secure all-round vehicle - I can't see any direct equivalent from any other manufacturer within the same price range... Problem is, no Skoda dealer seems to know anything about it, or even when the car might be available... Given the apparent shortage of engines due to WLTP testing, is the forum view that I could be waiting till Christmas 19 or beyond for a 190 TSi Scout to become available - or are What Car? even completely wrong?? Thanks for any help. Stephen
  10. Sorry Jabozuma... Accidentally called you "Freedom"... It's a long while since I've had time to post anything on this site, and I don't remember seeing 'Freedom' members before... Thanks for pointing out the error of my ways - I understand what's going on now. And by the way, I'm still very surprised that tyres could make 7% or more difference to my fuel consumption...
  11. Thanks for the reply - not sure I explained myself properly though... The pitch of the noise rises and falls with acceleration/deceleration and is commensurate with road speed (I think...). It's nothing to do with braking (having driven 800k miles in my time, I'm used to brake-y sort of noises...) Re the service: it was a 30k on a 2.5 year old car, and they just changed the oil as far as I'm aware - I just asked them to perform that 30k service, and nothing was said about tyre pressures, handbrake cables, discs/pads, pollen filters or spark plugs... Should the plugs be changed at 30k then? (sorry - handbook is in the car, and I'm not going out to look at it with the storm we've got raging at the moment!) Fully understand what you said about the possibility of ECU upgrades, etc., but again, nothing like that was mentioned... I'm just concerned in case it's a noise all you experts know about, and you might say, "Ah, that's gearbox whine and a sign your DSG box is on its way out," or whatever... Thanks for the interest
  12. Absolutely, Freedom! Just wasn't expecting 7%+ increase in fuel consumption - especially as performance doesn't seem to have suffered at all, let alone 7%'s worth... (and the grip is definitely significantly greater in all conditions, by the way, particularly round fast bends :-) )
  13. I've recently had the 30k service done on my Fabia II vRS, and it came back with a strange distant 'whirring' noise that you can only hear at lower road speeds, and which sounds a bit like a quiet version of one of those old tin spinning tops you used to have as a child (if you're as old as I am)... It's not very loud, but I'm very susceptible to 'weird' or 'new' noises on my cars, and I'm sure it wasn't there before the service... It's not the supercharger or the turbo (I know exactly what those sound like :-) )... I thought at first the noise was related to road speed, but over the weekend when I down-changed with the paddles at a lower speed, I suddenly thought the pitch of the whirring changed as I went into the lower gear. However, I've done mostly fast running since then on very noisy roads, so haven't had a chance to do any more experiments... I've had a look on the forum for something similar but can't see it (apologies if I've missed it). If anyone has any ideas, that would be really useful. Thanks Stephen
  14. Something else to add to the mix... Had my Fabia II vRS for 22 months now and still love it overall, but the fuel consumption has become an issue... Got the car at 3300 miles/6 mths, and for the first 20k after that it was relatively easy to get over 40mpg on a fast run with a mix of motorway/fast A/B-roads (see my review in the correct place on this forum...). Coming back from Switzerland to Calais at a sustained 75-80mph, I even got 45mpg indicated on the trip. A regular back-road trip of 35 miles gave a reproducible 38-39 on almost every run, while a standard UK motorway cruise at 75-ish gave 41-42. My daily 7-mile trip to the station would give 34mpg on the way, and 32 on the way back (uphill :-) ). This was on the original fit Dunlop SP Sport Maxxs. However, 8k ago when the fronts were getting down to 2mm, I swapped all four tyres to Pirelli P-Zero Neros, which has turned out to be a mixed blessing. Subjectively, grip in the wet on the P-Zeroes is noticeably better than the Maxxs, and I've had almost no aquaplaning, but there are definitely some downsides... Most noticeable is the fuel consumption, which has increased by at least 7% across all driving conditions. At first, I wondered whether I'd accidentally had the wrong size tyres fitted, but I've checked the milo/speedo against my wife's car and both are almost identical, so no problems there (subjectively, the car's performance seems unaffected too, which is what made me think it could be a changed tyre size to blame). It didn't occur to me that tyres could make such difference to mpg - I thought it would be 2-3% at worst... I even took the car into the dealer to have it checked, but they assured me all was well, and simply gave me a leaflet advising me that "different driving styles can affect your fuel consumption" - or something equally patronising, as if I had no clue about this sort of thing... On a motorway journey, I now can't get more than 39mpg indicated, even going fairly carefully, so I can only conclude the tyres have made a big difference. Checking my [obsessive] fuel records, tank range has definitely reduced by 30-50 miles too, so consumption has obviously increased in reality. If anyone has any other input/suggestions, I'd be grateful. (Incidentally, the P-Zeroes have worn nearly twice as fast as the Maxxs too...) Sorry if this looks as if it has turned into a 'tyre thread', but I thought it was relevant in the circumstances. Cheers Stephen
  15. Well, as a newbie on this site a couple of weeks ago, I promised to post my thoughts on the Fabia II vRS compared with the Fabia I vRS for those who might be agonising over whether to go for the Mk II (or just for general interest), and here we are... First a bit of background (sorry for the waffle...). I bought an 04 Mk I vRS with 48k in June 09 because a new job gave me a 120-mile return daily commute, and ran it for 35,000 miles with few problems (just the usual ones, such as pipe to rear wash/wipe coming adrift, leaking doors giving wet rear carpets, one-off sudden unexplained drop in coolant level, door sender failing through moisture ingress so electric windows wound themselves down one day in the station car park, etc etc). Through a change of job, I no longer needed the 50-55mpg as a priority, and decided to go for something different - even considering going back to petrol-driven cars after 250,000 miles in diesel cars over 18 years... Needing more boot space (and worried about the recurrent DPF issues I'd had on my 2001 Citroen C5 over 110k miles), I test-drove an Octavia 1.4 TSi; it was a perfectly worthy vehicle and impressive for a 1.4, but even though I'm in my early-50s I reckon there's a lot of 'youngster' still left in me and I struggled with the stock Octavia's rather staid image and feel (apologies to all of you who have one of these - just my opinion) - I couldn't fault it for what it was, but the car just felt (and looked) so terminally dull... Returning to the showroom after the test-drive, I spotted the sales manager's Fabia II vRS hatch in bright yellow, and asked him what he thought of it (I'm a car nut, so knew about the super/turbocharger, standard 7spd DSG box etc, but had never driven a DSG-equipped car.). Long and short of it was that the sales manager let me take the vehicle out for a blast on roads I knew well around Winchester... Once I'd mastered the DSG in both auto and manual modes, I came back from the test drive with a huge grin on my face (as did my wife when we swapped over and she drove it , so I didn't even need to 'sell' the idea to her). A few days later, I had a new vRS estate on order in racing blue with no options. I experienced the common several months' delivery delay, but the sales manager rang me after four months to offer me the director's wife's 6-month-old car - in the same colour as I wanted, but with heated seats, sat nav and black wheels, and only 3.3k - and I bit his hand off after we 'spoke' about price. 15,000 miles on, here are my thoughts in no particular order... I still can't decide whether the estate vRS is pig-ugly or a stunner... Not only does it depend on which angle you look at it from, but also the mood you're in!! Sometimes it looks gawky and poorly proportioned, and other times it looks really classy. I reckon the best angle is the front three-quarters, and the worst is the rear three-quarters, but I guess it's all subjective. One thing's for sure, much as I loved the Mk I vRS, that vehicle now looks pretty old-fashioned to me. The car is actually quite narrow compared with other smaller estates - it's definitely a four-seater not a five. I think this might be what makes it look ungainly. With the black wheels, the tyres look even thinner than they are, and I feared for the ride quality... - the ride is definitely on the firm side, and crashes over even medium-sized potholes, but if you think the the vRS is hard, try a Fiat Panda 1.4 100hp (which we also own) - that completely redefines 'hard'!!! I didn't like the black wheels to start with, but several random people have commented on them favourably at various times in car parks etc, and I quite like them now. The driving position is notably better than the Mk I's, and for me the seats are a hell of a lot more comfortable. I'm fairly broad of backside, and the Mk I vRS has hard metal bars in the seat bolsters that were horrendous after an hour or so at the wheel (on the Mk I, I even resorted to the dreaded beaded seat cover just to make longer journeys do-able...). You can still feel them in the Mk II's, but they're much less pronounced. I've seen complaints about the "dull" interior on the Mk II vRS, but personally I think it's much better and harder-wearing than the light-grey inserts of the Mk I. The estate vRS is a real Tardis in terms of carrying ability. The boot is huge (bigger than my old C5's) and well-shaped, and for a relatively small car the interior space is incredible - four adults can definitely travel long distances in this car - we've been to Switzerland twice now with 3/4 people + luggage aboard After almost 20k miles, the front tyres have still got around 3mm on them, but in the recent wet spell I've noticed notably more wheelspin so I'll be swapping them soon. The rears look only about a quarter worn. I don't drive like a lunatic, but I certainly use the available performance fairly frequently, so I'm not arguing with 20k on a powerful front-wheel drive car; I happen to be fairly light on tyres, so maybe I've got more out of them than some other drivers might. The car is not the quietest I've owned, but it's by no means unbearable. Even at a steady 100-110mph on the autobahn (when it feels rock steady, by the way), it's OK - keep an eye on the fuel gauge though I thought there was meant to be a 'washer water low' warning on this vRS as there was on the Mk I, but there doesn't appear to be. I've got two 'random buttons' on my car that the manual doesn't seem to cover, and which it took a while to figure out - there's one on the driver's door and one by the handbrake (the tyre pressure sensor one). It would have been useful to have known how to reset the sensor without having to look at a forum... My car has the Amundsen/sat nav audio system, which seems to work well (pairs easily via Bluetooth with Blackberry/Sony Ericsson/HTC). I particularly like the digital compass, as bizarrely I do navigate by compass points from time to time if I'm in an unfamiliar area. The sat nav/compass/AM radio stopped working a few weeks ago bit by bit, which turned out to be a faulty aerial (replaced under warranty) Oil consumption: IF YOU'R BUYING A MK II vRS, WATCH THE OIL LIKE A HAWK! I know it's been said elsewhere in this forum, but it really does seem to drink a lot of oil in the first few thousand miles - after about 8000-10,000 it suddenly stopped using it, and I think I've only added about a litre in the last 10,000 Fuel consumption varies widely depending on how you drive - it's a real Jekyll and Hyde car, and much more so than any of the other 20+ cars I've owned over 750,000+ miles. If you're really going for it, low-30s and even high-20s is the best you'll get out of it, and if you're in town from a cold start you'll be in the teens until you get on the open road. However, cruise at a sready speed on A-roads and motorways for long periods, and the low-40s (and even high-40s on clear A-roads) is possible (according to the computer - I haven't done a really accurate calibration, but I reckon my speedo is around 5% fast, the milo reasonably accurate, and the mpg about 5% optimistic). I use super-unleaded almost exclusively, and v-Power where possible, but to be honest I haven't noticed much difference in economy/performance between it and ordinary unleaded. One bizarre situation with the fuel is that on the continent, on several occasions I have managed to get 45+ litres into the tank without the low-fuel warning light even being on. In the UK, the most I've ever got in the tank was 41 litres (with only about 20 miles range left, according to the computer)... Now I'm no scientist, but surely volume is volume??? It can't matter that much whether the ambient temperature is hot or cold, or what octane the fuel is, or even if the fuel is frothing, surely? That's nearly a gallon more I've managed to get in when on the continent... I even drove from the Bernese Oberland to an hour short of Calais at motorway speeds on one tank a fortnight ago: 451 miles!!! - and the light was nowhere near on... The 7-spd DSG box took some getting used to after 750k miles exclusively on manual boxes, but you really can have your cake and eat it with this box. It takes a while to get consistently smooth starts when moving away from rest as it's very sensitive, and for some reason I find this easier in manual mode rather than D. There is certainly the dreaded 'hesitation' when braking into a roundabout or whatever, but this seems worse in D rather than manual - I've found the best way to drive round this is to select the gear you want to be in in manual mode a second before you need it and anticipate the traffic flow; it rarely causes a problem for me. It took me a while to realise that you can still select a gear manually when in D (e.g. to overtake) and it will then revert to D after a few seconds, and that when in manual mode the gearbox will still change down automatically whatever you do when the revs drop too low. When I fancy pottering around rather than having a blast, D is perfectly adequate - and actually very relaxing. I never thought I'd say it, but the DSG box really does give you almost the best of both worlds, and I like it. I've left the best till last: Performance. Quite simply, I rate it as sensational. Of course there are faster cars, but personally I reckon that when in 3rd/4th in manual mode and booting it, this car is fantastic - and I even like the engine noise too. For a 1.4, it's amazing. Apologies for the protracted post, but I thought my experience of both breeds of vRS might be of use to forum-readers. To sum up, the Mk II is a totally different beast from the Mk I other than its size and market segment it occupies. If you're wanting a car that's simply an updated version of the Mk I, then go and buy a diesel Ibiza FR otherwise you'll be disappointed. But if you want a real dual-personality car that's a hoot when you want it and relaxing when you don't, go for it! Cheers
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