Paul Ekins

On the subject of winter tyres that do not have the same rating as original fit i.e. lower and insurance issues, I spent a long time trying to get a sensible answer from all sorts of people. In the end I spoke to my local Skoda dealer, who was also a tyre dealer and was told by the person "I have just been on a course which covered this very question" and as long as the tyre has the winter logo on it, it is perfectly legal in the UK to use without infringng your insurance, even if the speed rating is lower than the original fit tyres. Winter tyres simply don't have a high speed rating, I guess because they are designed for bad weather / snow, having said that they are still higher than the maximum speed of a lot of vehicles! So the combined winter / summer tyres like the Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons that I fitted to my Scout, have both the summer and winter logo on the tyre, and as long as the winter logo is included it makes it perfectly legal to use without any insurance issues even with a lower speed rating I talked to a great many tyre dealers and insurance companies and none of them actually knew, so just took the safe answer that if the speed rating is lower than the one specified for the car it could be an insurance issue, which if it was true mean't a huge number of people could not fit winter tyres! So as long as your tyres have the winter logo on them, they are perfectly legal with a lower speed rating, regardless of whether it is summer or winter. i also noticed on my latest Octavia that there is a winter tyre speed limit warning that can be set, not that has anything to do with insurance issues. Paul

My 2015 Octavia 2.0 diesel takes up to 9 miles to hit 90 DegC, it is particularly bad with low ambient temperatures. Is mine unusual and potentially has a dodgy thermostat or do they all take this sort of miles to reach the operating temperature? Paul

My gearbox is an absolute disgrace, my previous two Octavias were always bad going from 1st to 2nd when cold, but this one takes it to a new level, it is also terrible going from 3rd to 4th and basically clatters / crashes into 4th the majority of the time even when hot. When I complained at the first service, as usual the tester couldn't find anything wrong! They did supposedly make an adjustment and 3rd to 4th does not crash all of the time now but some of the time. I am convinced that properly set up selectors would cure all this but it is difficult to make anyone care unless you actually have a broken bit in your hand! Paul

I have a two week old octavia estate and the rear washer just seems to pour water onto the window at the top and doesn't produce a good jet or spray across the window. The jet seems to be aimed directly at the inside of the curved plastic cover section, which I would have thought should create a spray pattern but doesn't. There seems no way to angle the jet down towards the rear window so I am mystified as to how to get a nice spray pattern! I am trying to avoid going back to the dealer as it seems such a simple issue (or not as the case may be) so does any one else have a solution? My last octavia estate didn't have this problem. Paul

I have just discovered the seals on my 1.8TSi Scout turbo are leaking and I guess this may be the main reason for the high oil consumption I am getting (1L per 500 miles at the moment). Paul

Visited the dealer yesterday and it seems the turbo seals are leaking oil into the intercooler / engine.. They have started the standard check for oil consumption, however, it looks like until the turbo is replaced (I am told you cant simply replace the seals) it it will not give any meaningful results. Will have to ask about the rocker cover comments, Paul

I have an 11 plate Octavia Scout 1.8Tsi, 55,000 miles driven and in the last 3 months the oil consumption is running at 1L per 500 to 600 miles and seems to have kicked in very quickly. Before this I probably used a litre every 5000 miles. I do a combination of very short runs where the engine hardly gets warm and also long runs of 100+ miles, so it is varied and always have done since new.. I do not seem to have blue smoke pouring out of the exhaust (have been followed by someone checking over a 10 mile run), it doesn't seem to be losing it as the undertray seems absolutely dry and at this rate I would expect it to be sloshing about if it was a leak or all over the engine bay. Engine runs nice and smoothly, but has always been what I call noisy (rather like a tappet noise or the noise from the very old single injector engines), which the local garage have always said is normal. I am waiting for a call back from the dealer, but past experience suggests that even if there were 100's of reports on the internet, with a common solution, I would still have that "never seen this before" response. Has anyone else experienced this high level of oil consumption and what was the solution? Paul

Forte have a DPF cleaner and regenerator that may help clear some of the DPF problems, I don't have a diesel but Forte seem to have a good reputation within the trade! Paul

Screen fitted today at the Autoglass depot, they had both screen types ordered so they would have the correct one available. Paul

My screen is cracked on my Octavia Scout and the car is booked in for a new one with Autoglass, however, I asked for confirmation that it will be a like for like replacement and they said yes but then went on to ask if it had rain sensing wipers etc. In ,the end they said it should have a tint on the top of the screen, which it doesn't have, but I am not sure if the whole screen is tinted or not, it certainly looks like there is a slight tint but trying to find out on the Skoda site is impossible. Does anyone know if the Scout has a tinted front screen or plain glass, it is a 2011 car with "sunset" glass" which I guess is another name for privacy glass at the rear. I just want to make sure I end up with the same specification as the car started out with. Paul

Worked perfectly thank you. Paul

I have an Octavia Scout, which is approximately 5 months old and I would like to know how to check the remaining mileage to the next service. On my old VRs it ws a case of holding in the trip reset and switching the ignition on and off and removing the key (or something along those lines), however, this new Octavia doesn't respond to that procedure. Can anyone give me a definitive answer to this? Paul