johnny cabbage head

Basically you have not grasped the mechanisms of data harvesting, by giving your DOB you open yourself up to all kinds of targeted unsolicited sales pitches and most importantly Identity fraud. I spoke to FCA about this ,they agreed with me and wanted more information about the company to keep a watch on them. One loophole is to use an umbrella company to " process your data" and what does that " process" entail ? They never tell you it's just a purosely vague statement. The industry of Data being used as a comoddity is truly upon us and it is facilitated by guile to dupe the naieve Into giving up their privacy. Each to their own of course, but the big brother totalitarian state is being constructed all around us and most people are simply sleep walking into it. Thanks for All the interesting comments

Plus once someone tells me a porky, I have to wonder if there is any credibility in them about everything else they say.

It's a used car, and I guess you might call me " curious " when I suspect someone is blowing smoke up my bum. I despise Deception in any form , Just the way I Roll.

Just for the record, I telephoned the FCA this morning and spoke with a compliance officer for about 20 minutes regarding the garage saying they required my Date of Birth to process the order for the car I am attempting to buy from them. this is the response I gave to the Garage after speaking with FCA Directly. "With regard to me being required to give you my date of birth as part of compliance by the FCA, I contacted the FCA this morning with regard to this and they told me that there is no requirement for me to impart my date of birth to you and they advised that your company is not fully regulated but that you offer your finance products under the umbrella of ITC Compliance LTD, so you do not need my date of birth or personal details to record and pass on to ITC Compliance to process this sale as there is no finance or brokering taking place , its a simple cash transaction for a car without any other products being sought , rather I Just pay the difference and take the car (FCA ,s words not mine) " I know ITC take over the financial brokering compliance for many retailers in the motor trade, but FCA advise there is no requirement by me to give my details for you to pass on to a third party (ITC) as I am not buying any financial products from you or them, so This transaction does not come under the umbrella of FCA compliance . I am well aware this is common practise to sell peoples data onward and I have already been the victim of my details ending up in the hands of cold callers and spammers hence my reluctance to give personal details that are not required, but often sought to sell on by other parties. I am awaiting a reply which as of yet is not forthcoming. The FCA Officer was rather interested in the enquirey and he didnt seem happy that they wanted my Date of birth quoting "FCA Compliance" as he said it had nothing to do with my transaction.

strangely enough when they asked for my Date of Birth ,It rang alarm bells, and when, I queried why they needed it, I told them I was bringing my Passport and paper driving license with me , and they said I didnt need to bring them with me, which again I found strange as I will obviously be taking a test drive in the vehicle. The salesman said " we need your date of birth for our compliance system which is run by the FCA , we have to complete this to show that we treat all customers fairly, he said the information does not get shared with anyone else. (I have this in writing from them) I find this all very suspicious, given what happened to me after a new car purchase a few years ago , when within weeks I was bombarded with spam emails and unsolicited calls after giving information to a car salesman. I understand the compliance where they have to offer insurance and other services to a customer to "protect their asset" but I have had £5700 worth of "offers" presented to me on top of the cars price which I have already declined in writing , so they have a record of their "compliance offerings" being presented to me and also me declining to take them up. I read on the society of motor manufacturers site about the needs of compliance to make these offers to customers, but the garage have complied by offering me these ridiculous "extras" I suspect because they have not gleaned any commission from me declining the extras ,they are looking to sell my data on to some other third party. Interestingly enough there is a company that babysits the motor trade compliance for garages, and I suspect it may be them who are after my Date of birth to "process" my data (sell on the details). Date of birth is something that is used for precision identification , by the likes of NHS for instance . I suspect they are trying it on and intend to contact FCA this morning because this sounds like a data harvesting excercise. I

I think I will give the FCA a call tomorrow , as I understand about money laundering rules etc but money is coming from my bank via transfer so a legitimate source, I understand they have to offer me finance etc , but If I decline any products at all I cannot see a logical reason why I have to give my DOB to a car salesman , it stinks of Data harvesting to me.

looking to buy another skoda I told them I dont want finance, I dont want any extra car Gap insurance, Diamond brite treatments , Just want the car and pay the difference in cash. Salesman said he needs my Date of birth to get the order form completed ?? Sounds well dodgy to me - more likely they are using a company called Automotive compliance who babysit the garages FCA compliance and I suspect will sell my data onwards. I had this once before where a garage sold my details on and I was hounded by unsolicited calls and emails. I have not agreed to give it to them as Im suspicious this is a data selling scam. Anyone else had this experience buying from a main agents??

YEAH SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST A BIT SLOW CATCHING ON TO WHAT LOOKS THE BUSINESS:)

I started a post in 2019 about the same type of noise. I had the cambelt changed , but the "rotatating noise" from bottom of engine stayed ...long story short it was the oil /vac pump situated in the sump , nothing to worry about kept the car a few years and never missed a beat. Here is the original post thread I started. hope this helps

sorry to hear of your troubles, I am interested and concerned as I have the same model and year. How many miles has your car done? Are the Garage repairing your car under warranty ?

sorry I dont understand your Logic , I know about car dealers putting bread on the table -I owned my own Garage for 20 years, but the prices some Garages are offering PX wise are really low, and the definition of "unrealistic" has a broad meaning. By the way the Merc I was looking at was not £55k it was 55k mileage maybe a bit of confusion there The seller wanted £20 k for it with the mileage of 55 thousand miles on the clock I sold my car to another dealer and got £1500 more PX for it and he sold it on for £3k more all water under the bridge now anyway.

Interesting story regarding the BMW 5 series, I eventually went for another sportline Plus estate DSG 22 plate and got a better PX plus the Sportline was a demonstrator with a price tag of £1500 cheaper than anywhere else, Been very happy with the DSG some 10 months into ownership, and it tows like a Dream, My caravan is 1500kg. I am tempted by a new Caravan but according to the "Towing Bible" on caravan forums I need a heavier car as the one I fancy is an 8ft wide one and max weight loaded of 1662 kg. My V5 DOCUMENT STATES MASS IN SERVICE OF 1693 kg which is almost 100% but not quite, though over the 85% figure all the caravanners like to quote. The guy at caravan dealers did a check and its legal to tow but would like some feed back from other superb diesel estate owners, (mines a 150BHP 2 WD) I looked at a 5 series BMW estate with a 3.0 Diesel engine, simply due to its higher kerb weight but the PX price was £8k less than I paid for the car 10 months ago and I have only done 3k in the sportline plus so thats not going to happen.. I recall a member on here quoting he towed a 1900kg with a 4x4 Superb estate 190bhp with no problems 1 would love to hear any other owner experiences regarding towing at 100% of the kerbweight including driver which is usually 78kg . Oh and Happy New Year everyone

You can register and pay 7 euros for an hours worth of searching via your VIN Number on this site, it will give you all the build codes on your car. Maybe you have already found this site/ or bought the car, but for future refererance this is the place for all the intel on any skoda , including Technical Product Information/ repair information etc. https://erwin.skoda-auto.cz/erwin/showHome.do

thank you for the replies, I found a VAG Retrofitting company down the midlands that states it fits OEM cameras and can supply a calibration certificate with the Job as well as coding via Odis , so surely they would have access to the "Tokens" with Odis to enable a legitimate MIB 3 coding change to the car ?? I will send them an email enquirey quoting my Vin Number for full clarification .

Thanks for taking the time to reply, so even a skoda OEM rear view camera fiteed and coded to display correctly will still harbour a hidden fault code ?? WOW so in other words my warranty will be possibly voided if I get one fitted ? Sounds like a can of worms better avoided in that case. I managed without one on my last sportline estate but thought I would get one fitted on my new 22 plate sportline plus estate. maybe I would be better just buying a removeable blue tooth type camera that is not connected to the cars canbus system? Can anyone advise whether the hidden fault code would invalidate warranty ?? My gut feeling is that it would be seen as incompatible by the manufacturer and invalidate my remaining 2 years warranty. i think I will seek out another type of removeable camera in the interim, I have until easter when the towing begins in earnest again. Thank you for your reply, much appreciated