PetrolDave

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.

My previous 1.4TSI Octavia hated E10, within 10 miles of filling with E10 the wideband lambda sensor would throw a fault code but not go into limp mode. Every time I cleared the code and it would stay cleared until the next time I filled up with E10. Not my problem now as it went to the ex...

Similar here, I used to swap between summer and winter tyres when the clocks change.

First thought is that losing the settings after turning the ignition off MAY be because of the loss of non-switched power to the BCM, possibly a blown fuse?

Timing chain or belt? On the Octavia engines with a timing belt Skoda UK 'recommend' changing it after 5 years but no other importer recommends this and some VW study documents suggest its for lifetime. Other VAG engines I've owned with a timing chain owners have reported some stretch becoming significant after more than 100,000 miles (the 4.2L 20V B6 S4 was particularly affected).

The only time I've experienced a dump valve whoosh is when I had an Audi 8L S3 chip tuned which increased the boost substantially, seems to me that your comment "running *very* well" suggests something has happened to the boost control?

Of course, I didn't go to my local Skoda dealer as they would charge almost 50% more and couldn't do it for several weeks (I wanted CarPlay working ASAP so I could use Google maps) so I went to a company I found in Redditch (Google is your friend...).

I had to have Smartlink activated on my 2016 model with a MIB2 when I bought it last month, seems the (only) previous owner never bothered.