Jock

I've been using DM Keith since before they were DM Keith (previously Royce Roberts) in Hull. I've had two Yetis and now an Octavia Scout. I've had experience of various main dealers (not just Skoda) in the past and I have to give this particular branch top marks. On several occasions they have gone above and beyond what I'd expect from the average dealer as far as any work required - especially on the matter of the silicate in the cooling system, where they took it upon themselves to reduce the costs to myself. I can't vouch for any of the other branches of DM Keith, but certainly the Hull branch gets top marks from me!

I use an app called iSyncer on my iMac to keep my SD cards up-to-date (http://iSyncer.de) and I have an AppleScript to manage album art. What I usually do is after importing an album into iTunes, I run the script to make sure the artwork is square (200x200, 300x300, 400x400, it doesn't seem to matter all that much, I even have some 500x500 artwork), then I use iSyncer to export to the card - I find that the only album artwork I have a problem with are the compilations (usually I've made up myself) from different albums and forgotten to run the script, so perhaps there's something in your last statement that rings true.

There is some sort of hibernation mode, but as to when it kicks in, to be honest I've not tried to figure it out yet. As for album art, it seems to have to be square - i.e. for example 400 x 400. Stray too far from these parameters and it just displays the default icon - well, that's what I've found so far anyway.

For many years, I've changed (usually around end of October) from summer to winter tyres and then back again in March. The winter tyres really do make a difference, even in the mild Yorkshire climate, on ice. This year, I've replaced summer tyres with All Seasons, my reasoning being we see so little snow here that it's really not worth swapping tyres (especially at my age - I usually ache for about a week afterwards!) I've fitted Lassa (Turkish Bridgestone) to my Octavia Scout - it'll be interesting to see what they're like on mild off-road conditions as well as in the ice - not done a great mileage so far, but they seem to be quite sure-footed so far.

Normally, I'd fit my winter tyres about now, but as I was needing to replace my Continentals, so I decided to fit Lassa All Season (Turkish Bridgestone, I believe) tyres after some recommendations from friends. Just fitted fronts for the moment as the rears still have about 6mm of tread left. It'll be interesting to see how the Lassas work out - knowing my luck, this will be the first winter for years we actually get heavy snow!

Part of the £1957 includes a new header tank - I'm sure @oldgroaner has had a word in the earholes of ŠKODA UK regarding this, I have also whinged, but via the dealer.

I don't want to be a harbinger of doom, but I suspect it's a wee bit too late for that. You might want to have a look at this thread: https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/468317-skoda-octavia-low-coolant-warning-and-large-repair-bill/

Sadly this is a known problem. I was originally quoted around the same price when mine burst. With a lot of whinging I managed to get the dealer to drop the price to less than £1K, but even at that, it was a bit much, considering the car had only been serviced at the dealers all its life. I'd go back to the dealer and see if you can work some sort of deal with them - you want at least 50% off the bill.

Good luck! Push the warranty for all it's worth!

The car went in for a scheduled service and one of the comments was "contaminated coolant". I'd mentioned the driver's side heater was inefficient and the windscreen seemed to take a lot longer to delist on the drivers side. I'd had some issues with coolant during the winter and had had to top up with water only at a motorway service station, but with hindsight, I think all that was part of the problem. They were going to charge me a lot more, but as the car has been regularly serviced at that particular dealer and it's not the first car I bought from them I did manage to get a significant reduction in what was a very significant price! To cut a long story short, the dealer noticed the problem after I reported the symptoms.

As someone who noted the same symptoms as the OP and finally had to have the heater matrix replaced due to the silicon filter in the header tank having split, prepare yourself for a rather expensive repair bill. As has been outlined in previous threads and as far as I understand it, there is a bag in the header tank on some models (don't ask me which - it seems to be random!) containing silicon crystals. This bag splits and the crystals get into the cooling system, then seem to congregate in the heater matrix resulting in that getting blocked - drivers side (in the UK) windscreen starts to steam up and doesn't blow as hot as the passengers side. You can't leave it like that as sooner or later you'll get a blockage in the cooling system and that means engine problems. It cost me around £800 to have the engine flushed and the heater matrix replaced.

Recently, my Scout went in for a service. One of the notes I had for the dealer was stop/start wasn't working as well as I thought it ought to. They found two dead cells in the battery so replaced it. Afterwards, I noticed that from around two to three DPF regens per week, it's now down to one a fortnight. (I cover around 500 miles a week.) Logically I can think of no reason for this - perhaps it was the service, but it does seem to be a bit of a coincidence that, since the battery has been changed, regens have become significantly less.

I have a BlackVue DR650GW-2 - nice, discrete, easy to self install and does the trick. It does seem to be quite fussy about what micro SD card you use in it though. I've had it for about 5 years now.

By the way, just in case anyone is wondering, "Mit silikat" in German basically means "with silicate". If the header tank says "Mit silikat", it means you ought to have the bag in there somewhere.!

What are you replacing the battery with? Although a CR2016 will fit in an emergency, it'll only last a few weeks - if you use a CR2032 they last much longer. If you have two keys, it's also recommended you replace both batteries at the same time.