grumpiestt

I also thought of all the things that might go wrong, but in the event none of them did: no broken glass to grind into the carpet, no globs of surplus sealant hanging around, no broken parts, no leaks. The fitter was quick and courteous, and even rescued my tax disk and parking permit and fixed them back exactly where they had been previously. He'd definitely done it all before! The only slight irritant was that it took them three days to get the replacement screen - it had to be the right tint and had an embedded aerial. I've no idea if it came from Skoda or not, but I wouldn't dream of trying to replace it. As far as I'm concerned it's identical to the original. (By the way, I'd take note of Hertsnminds' point about the aerial in the screen. Mine has that fine black line down the middle of the screen even though there's a roof aerial too. Have a careful check before Friday. It would be a shame to get a new screen fitted and then discover you'd further undermined radio reception.)

I had a similar experience about 6 months ago - driving on M11 when a rock about the size of my fist was thrown up by truck in front and smashed into the windscreen. Very scary, as I saw it coming for the last 20 feet or so! Made a huge impressive star-shaped crack in the middle of the screen. I called my insurer (also Admiral) and they put me on to National Windscreens. I had to pay the excess of £75, but no forms to fill in or anything.

I couldn't agree more. Skoda should be selling thousands of Roomsters in the UK on the basis of economy, reliability, load-carrying capacity, looks (well, perhaps not looks). But people just don't know about it. Skoda seem to be advertising other models, but never the Roomy. Why? I've just been in Madrid for a few days and most of the taxis there seem to be Skodas, mainly Octavias. Gave me a nice warm glow to see fleets of them rushing around the streets.

An iPod IS an mp3 player. I play mine happily through the Aux socket on my facelift Roomster 1.2 SE. As already pointed out, you are simply taking the output from the iPod through the car radio instead of through headphones. (You need a cable with a mini-jack - like a headphone plug - on each end.) You have to select tracks on the iPod, but you can control volume either from the iPod or with the radio's volume control. As previously pointed out, iTunes lets you save your music in mp3 format and burn it to a CD in mp3 format, giving you 3 hours music on one CD. You can also play commercially produced CDs in the Roomy radio, of course, but they typically give you a maximum of about an hour per disc. I keep a handful of home-burned CDs in the glovebox and they give me enough choice of music for the longest journey.

Have a look here:

That's spot on. I've had mine for nearly three months and I'm still staggered at the amount of stuff you can heap into the back. At first I was a bit apprehensive that I'd have trouble doing the 12 times a year university run (twins at different universities, one of them 300 miles away) with the car loaded to the gunwales. I was comparing it with my previous car (a 2-litre Laguna Estate) and feared it wouldn't have the capacity for all the clothes, books, bedding, pots and pans, etc. I worried that even if it would carry all their stuff, it would only go downhill! I needn't have worried. The Roomster seems to hold more stuff than the Laguna (whose back seat didn't come out and didn't even fold completely flat). It zooms along without complaint with no more noise and stress than the 2-litre Renault. And it uses about 25-30% less fuel. I don't know if that's the definition of a classic, but it's certainly a very practical tool.

No.

Don't know about the Scout but my new Roomster SE 1.2 TSI (referred to in another thread) appears to have rear disc brakes: even though the brochure says it comes with rear drums. Maybe the whole range now has discs.

Sorry, I don't understand either. Five bolts per wheel, perhaps? Yes, definitely. Their spacing? No idea how that is measured! Sorry.

There isn't a temperature gauge on my Roomster (the SE 1.2 TSI). Other trim levels or other country versions may vary, I suppose. I actually have two temperature warning lights - a red one to show if it's overheating, and a blue one that comes on when the engine is cold but goes off after a few minutes once the engine has warmed up. Though I'm not sure what you are supposed to do about having a cold engine, other than keep driving!

Thanks for the further explanation, Calomax. And the display sequence. I'll have to sit and work out if mine is the same (preferably when not driving up the A1). My door button doesn't have a boot-lid icon but one that could well indicate a motion sensor! But it's easy to see how they could get confused on the assembly line, producing a wide range of variants. My owner's manual includes on page 39 a section on a boot-lid release in that position on the driver's door. It's also wrong - even if the button DID open the boot - in that it repeatedly refers to "vehicles with central locking" instead of referring (in at least some places) to "vehicles WITHOUT central locking". I suppose it's because I'm a sub-editor and spend my days sorting out just such mistakes in other people's publications that I notice these things and grieve over them! Most people would just dump the manual and drive the car.

lemonvrs: Thanks for the explanation. It makes sense. Since I don't have a dog (or any other wildlife) I'll have to think of a novel application for the motion detection suppressor! OctaviaT81: I've put a few pix here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49631258@N00/?saved=1 I must admit I can't easily see the difference between the previous version and the facelifted Roomster. But then, I'm a beginner at this game. I'm sure you're right about the new engine compared with the old 1.6. It sounds very smooth - reminds me of the Honda Accord I had 20-odd years ago, which I used to compare to a sewing machine!

Collected my new Roomster SE 1.2 TSI last week and drove from London to North Yorkshire and back at the weekend. So far very favourably impressed. I was a bit apprehensive about the small engine (I'd ordered the 1.6 back in February and was given the facelifted 1.2 version without any option!) but I think I needn't have worried. The engine pulls smoothly and cruises at motorway speeds without undue fuss or noise. It averaged 46mpg over the whole trip (including some local ferrying of family around the country lanes). A few things in the manual still puzzle me, presumably because of the creaky translation from the Czech. It's not immediately obvious to me what a "safe securing system" is - in spite of the manual explaining that "locking the vehicle from the outside causes the door locks to be automatically blocked". Am I being dim? Then there's the function of the button in the middle of the driver's door. When I collected the car they told me you had to push it to suspend operation of the alarm system if you remove the key and leave the car unlocked (e.g. if you stop for fuel and leave the family in the unlocked car). Can't immediately find an explanation in the manual. So far I haven't touched the button and no alarms have gone off. When I have half an hour to spare I'll do some tests to find out what (if anything) it does! Unless someone here can tell me. I find the LCD display on the instrument panel a bit baffling and again the manual isn't very helpful: it could do with a clearer explanation of the sequence of information sets displayed after successive presses of the button on the end of the wiper switch. I suppose I'll get used to it in time. (In which connection, something odd happened on the way back from Yorkshire: I stopped for fuel and a few minutes after I restarted the fuel gauge part of the display simply disappeared; all the figures were still displayed, but the fuel gauge graphic was missing. Just blank space. After I got home and unloaded the car, I restarted the engine and the fuel gauge was back. I hope this isn't a foretaste of electronic weirdness to come.)