PetrolDave

You say you have a 2020 model and have done 35k miles, are you sure you have an Octavia 4 as I suspect you may have an Octavia 3 (if you have then you've posted in the wrong forum). Would help if could post a picture of your Octavia estate so we can identify it correctly.

The screen in the centre console is just that, a screen. The main unit is in the glove box, if you're going to change to a Columbus then there's no point paying to have Smartlink added to the Amundsen because you'll be swapping that out!

According to this article on carwow Gatso and REDFLEX cameras use radar, as do some of the van mounted mobile vans.

You have the same problem with your "googleusercontent" images as on the Ross-Tech forum - they are not visible. Is there is a permissions problem at your end?

The ABS light indicates a fault (and is tested on key on) so not coming on when ABS operates is correct.

Yes front heated seats were standard on the L&K.

The internals can't be seen through the boots so it's still possible to have some damage or wear that you can't see. Might be worth trying holding the driveshaft and trying to turn the road wheel while listening and feeling for any noise or play?

I've just learnt to unplug the USB adapter whenever I'm leaving the car for more than a few minutes.

For a decent charge rate, especially with a wireless charger (which is less efficient than a wired connection) you will almost certainly need to use a USB adapter (preferably a USB-C one) plugged into the 12V socket.

It's very rare for the problem to be the driveshaft, usually it's the CV joints.

I had an 8L S3 mapped to 285bhp and found the most efficient standing start technique was to just get it rolling and then floor the right pedal - less clutch slip and less intervention by the traction control.

When trying to calculate wireless coverage the rule of thumb used by mobile operators is that range reduces by distance cubed, so since 5GHz is approx twice the frequency of 2.4GHz the range at the same power will be 1/8th! My Netgear router has a 60GHz option, the range with that is about 50cm - yes that is centimetres not metres...

There's something about back to basics vehicles that means if you're a true petrolhead you really love driving them, the smiles per mile factor is really high!

Not sure if this applies to the Octavia but early builds of the B7 RS4 were notorious for a slipping clutch on enthusiastic starts, the cure was to fit a larger diameter pipe to the slave cylinder as the original one wasn't allowing the fluid to return quickly enough to get full clutch clamping force quickly enough.

When I was looking at L&Ks a couple of months ago they ranged from £12k with 60k miles to £14k with 40k miles - the classic tradeoff of miles vs pounds.

I used to own an Audi RS4 which has a suspension setup optimised for handling so very little body roll, my L&K is I think a better compromise as it's much more comfortable over speed bumps and the body roll is minimal - certainly the small bolsters on the front seats are more than sufficient. I'm not aware of the L&K suspension setup being different to non-vRS trims. Sounds like you need to drive an Octavia to compare against your Focus - time to blag a test drive from a local dealer?

That fault code says there is a problem with the cylinder 4 glow plug not all of them. Before buying a new glow plug(s) it's worth checking the wiring to that glow plug for continuity and the connector(s) for any signs of corrosion - if it's one of those then it will be a much cheaper fix.

Looks like one of the wheel speed sensors had a 'bad hair moment' . Worth doing a fault code scan, I reckon any related faults will be shown as intermittent.

The FIA are supposed to announce their investigations into breaches of the 2021 cost cap on 5th October. It's widely rumoured that there has been a minor breach (Aston Martin?) and a major breach (Red Bull?) - minor breach means less than 5% over the cap. Penalties can range from a fine or points deduction to exclusion.

The Octavia has a very configurable lighting system which includes information on the type of bulb fitted in each place, currently that expects an incandescent bulb for the reversing lights but can easily be changed to expect an LED. Most 'CAN ready' (or similarly named) LED bulbs fall foul of either the cold monitoring (bulb off) or hot monitoring (bulb energised) , so rather than a search for an LED bulb that passes both these tests it would be much easier to modify the bulb type setting using a diagnostic tool such as VCDS or OBDeleven or similar.

That's certainly how the rear seats folded on a 2005 Fabia that we used to own. Can't comment on the situation after 2015, but the comment "they never made them in the first place" is incorrect.

Sounds like a thermostat stuck open could well be the problem, being a purely mechanical device there will be no diagnostics covering it and hence no fault codes.

Since they both use the EA888 engine that's extremely unlikely 🙃

Has the 1.8TSI Octavia 3 got a timing belt? I was under the impression that it's an EA888 engine which has a timing chain?

The Octavia 3 from 2013 -2020 switched to the same solid axle on lower powered models and IRS only on more powerful ones, I think the tipping point was 150PS.