PetrolDave

You seem to be asking for a black/white answer which is impossible since the vehicle usage and maintenance patterns vary enormously from country to country and driver to driver. It's all about acceptable level of risk for both the company and the individual: - the company (VAG) only care about two things, costs of a failure during the warranty period and reputation damage of a failure outside of the warranty period from following the 'lifetime' advice. BTW ask any engineer what 'lifetime' means and they will tell you 'until it breaks', so in reality 'lifetime' means nothing. - however owners care about the potential for a big bill for an engine rebuild/replacement in the event of a cambelt failure that will not be covered, or partly paid for, by VAG for not following their advice on replacement. Those lead to completely different levels of risk assessment. Personally I chose to follow the guidance of Skoda UK to change the cambelt at 5 years because I simply do not have the finances to cover the costs of a cambelt failure and I am risk averse, so I wanted to shift the risk to VAG by following their servicing advice. Other people will take a different view of the risk based on their finances and/or their attitude to risk.

Features have been going on and off the options list seemingly at random, but likely down to the ongoing difficult parts supply situation.

The Mk3 Octy was released in 2013 and AFAIK does not have an SOS module - at least my 2015 and 2016 models don't have one!

If you want support make sure it's a GENUINE one from Ross-Tech - which one on AliExpress is very UNLIKELY to be, as they tend to sell Chinese clones. If it comes with a CD with the English version of VCDS then 99.99% it's a clone.

I'm going back to the 1980's here... When the throttle cable on my MG Metro Turbo broke I was able to get home using careful clutch control and the small amount of fast tickover possible with the choke and could even get it into 3rd gear on flat roads.

If you have Canton the there is an external amplifier which has a digital (optical IIRC) connection to the head unit in the glovebox. Without Canton the speakers connect directly to the glovebox unit.

Some, especially early designs of direct injection gasoline engines, had problems with carbon build up in the inlet manifold due to the lack of the 'washing' effect that you get from indirect injection gasoline systems. This has been greatly reduced or eliminated by better design especially with changes to valve timing to reduce the likelihood of burnt gasses being sucked back into the inlet manifold. Some engines, like the 2.0L used in the Octavia III also have a combination of direct and indirect injection to also provide some inlet 'washing' effect. The 4.2L V8 direct injection engine in my previous RS4 was supposed to suffer badly from carbon build up in the inlet manifold but many owners, including myself, saw no significant issues even after over 80,000 miles so in my experience the problem is exaggerated.

You would be better asking on the Mk2 Octavia forum than the Mk3 forum😉

Definitely sounds like a row of dead pixels. at least the screen is only a screen so you can replace that without having to change the main unit in the glovebox and with no Component Protection issues.

Reading @Superted post it seems the actual electric range is much less than suggested which makes the electric cost per mile, given the current high charging cost per kWh, expensive. Plus the extra weight of a PHEV hybrid because of the batteries etc. makes the mpg on petrol worse - so the economics don't add up.

You didn't say high beams just matrix headlights It's obvious that high beams shouldn't be used on ANY road when there are vehicles in front or coming the other way - but matrix headlights are not just high beam because of their adjustable beam pattern they can be either dipped beam, high beam or something in-between.

When matrix headlights are fitted the only other options are sidelights or DRL which are not safe for nighttime driving where there are no street lamps - so I don't understand why you say matrix headlights should not be used on multi-lane roads?

Many engineers say that "life time" means until it fails, i.e. it says nothing about the actual length of time the item will work for.

First house built 2021, last ones still being built now in 2023, mine build in 2022.

As with so many things selling them isn't illegal but using/fitting them is.

So not all builds will have EV charger points...only those with recent planning permission. So we're both right and both wrong 😇

My last order from Kopacek was handed to the courier on 15th November 2022, tracking at one stage suggested it was in Israel, emailing Kopacek produced a useless generic response but Royal Mail finally delivered it (a Jiffy bag) on 29th Deceber.

I live on an estate of new builds and there is only one house that has an EV charge point - which the owners fitted after moving in because they have an EV. So it is most definitely NOT compulsory for new build homes to have EV chargers.

I know, that's why I replied only about HBA.

IIRC the production change happened in May 2015, my 2015 was 29th April 2015 build date.

Ross-Tech Distributor List

That's the idea and most of the time my experience with HBA is that it's pretty good BUT when I was behind a Kia with some rear lights that were not a solid red block but two rows of dots it didn't detect that there was a car in front so I had to manually dip the headlights.

That's outrageous, Barnstaple Marshalls Skoda only charged me just over £500 for timing belt, service and MOT on my 1.4TSI.

Early 2015 models have MIB1 (like my previous Elegance) as the MIB2 came in in mid-2015 - so @matt_jcould have either MIB1 or MIB2 since he says he has a 2015 model.

So just a repeat of the Skoda UK recommendation - which is inconsistent with VW techical documentation and all (AFAIK) other countries.