Phil_P

I have an Octy estate in Cappucino and it's a great colour - way better choice than silver. For me, the VAG silver just looks dull. Mind you, I would only have Cappucino on an estate, not a hatch. Like others, I would stick to darker coloured leathers for the contrast and if it's OEM that means black. To get a feel, there are lots of silver or Cappucino Octy L&K estates around with light leather interiors and they all look washed out due to the lack of contrast IMHO.

Nope, but I do have a brand new 2.0CR TDI Passat estate - the entry level 110bhp model, which although a 2L is comparable in power and torque., and I've come from a 1.9TDI Octy estate. What I can tell you is that there is definitely a period of getting used to driving a CR engine having come from a PD TDI. As we all know, the CR engine is smoother and more linear in it's power/torque delivery. As a consequence that makes it "feel" slower as it's missing that kick in the pants sensation you get from the non-linear power surge in a PD TDI. Also, a CR needs to be driven/revved harder, more like a petrol engine, and that also makes it "feel" under-powered. It's just a characteristic of the engine - and that's pretty much what the OP described IMHO. In contrast, in my 1.9TDI Octy I can potter around slowly at 1200rpm, tickling the throttle in a very relaxed manner and still make good progress. They are just very different engines to drive despite being near identical on paper. At the end of the day, ~100-110bhp is what it is. To me, having recently been driving 10-15 year old cars with 60-70bhp these engines are more than fast enough - I can drive up a steep hill without feeling like I'm going to come to a stop half way up. If I put my foot down I can still accelerate! However, if your point of reference is a 170bhp 2.0CR then of course these engines are going to feel slow in comparison. At the end of the day I believe these engines are primarily intended for the company car/fleet market where emissions and economy is everything. FWIW, people have said the same about the 1.6L engines in the latest Volvo V50 and V70 eDrive models.

Should be easy enough for the dealer to fit some parking sensors.

Sounds like a result Enjoy your new car.

It's a legal requirement - the car must be able to display the speed in both mph and km/h to comply with European regulations. The speedo only has mph markings hence why the digital readout MUST display km/h. Hope that helps.

Ouch! My 1.9TDI does 600-650 miles to the tank, and SWMBO's new Passat does 800 miles on it's 70L tank.

I bought a set of OEM mats from my local Skoda dealer for my Octy and they came with a set of poppers for the rears (probably 4 actually). I never used them as the rear mats don't really move in the foot wells so no need.

Ain't that the truth. I paid £13K for my car new, and a couple months after I ordered, the 6 month old demonstrator was up for £15K with 3000 miles on it - list price was £16.5K. I would hope anyone could negotiate £1500 off the price of a new car! I guess the only advantages to buying a demonstrator is that you can have it almost immediately and they are often fitted with loads of optional extras. Personally, I'd rather have a new car.

I have autohold on my Passat which works all the time when turned on - ie, on any slope and permanently engages until you pull away. It's the best feature ever, is really smooth and I'm really impressed with it. I'd love to see it on all cars, not just those with electronic button style hand brakes - no more awkward hill starts juggling the handbrake/clutch/accelerator.

Thanks, that's useful to know

The DPF catches soot and converts it to ash. Theory goes that the latest engines are cleaner so produce less soot for the DPF to handle, thus they are less likely to block.

Those wheels look great

I would have thought a £299 deal should cover 3 years of servicing. VW currently do a deal for £250 for 3 years servicing, so £299 is already expensive, and even more so if it only covers 2 services.

Nope, it was built to order.

No, I didn't order until Sept and I think that deal must have ended by then. I just got £3500 off list price on scrappage.

Hi all, I have a 2009 1.9TDI Octavia that is fast approaching 1 year old so I need to think about servicing. I'm on fixed 1 year/10K servicing and do less than 10K miles per year so it's annual servicing for me. My dealer offers a number of 2/3/4 years plans for fixed cost servicing although I have no idea what they cost (must look into that) I just wondered if anyone knew of any good deals for servicing or how much one should expect to pay for the first 3 fixed services. It's difficult to evaluate the value of a 3 year deal if you don't know what the 3 services would reasonably cost individually. When searching for information, I did find the following in Autoexpress: http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/usedcartests/222591/skoda_octavia.html which equates to £288 for the first 3 services.

That was my thought too.

The following has been posted before, but I thought I'd repost it as I certainly found it useful:

I also have the July 2009 brochure if you need an earlier copy. I assume they came out every 3 months (Jan, Apr, Jul & Oct).

Absolutely agree 100% - none of these cases will ever go to court as they won't want to risk setting a legal precedent given the endemic nature of the problem. So long as they can charge £1500 a go, or offer a good will payment and still break even they are losing nothing, and if anything profiting from a widespread fault. Slap them with a SCC summons and they'll be fixing the car free of charge in a flash.

Yes, I believe the break even point is around 20-30mph - any faster and the drag of having windows open makes using air-con more efficient. I normally open the windows as I set off to initially (quickly) cool the car down, and then close them and crank up the air-con as soon as I'm up to speed.

The biggest difference I see is the boot space, if that is a factor for you. The Seat is based on the old Audi A4 Avant, whereas the Octavia is based on the old Golf mkV.

That's a joke as my renewals always go up by at least 50% over what I was paying. What they need to do is beat any quote by 10%, not the renewal quote that's always hugely inflated. As others have said, there's no reward for loyalty - once they have you as a customer they try to sting you in subsequent years as presumably some are just too lazy to shop around every year. They're all just money grabbing bar stewards

I'm still trying to figure out what that could possibly be

I agree - looks small too compared to a Scout. Get a Scout and a remap - simples