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Solved: It was a sensor on the cam shaft which had gone. The garage fixed it with a new one (£26) and charged me £90 labour (+VAT). The xenon they couldn't find any problem with - there was an error in the log, but couldn't find out what caused it. I've just driven it home and both power and light seem fine.

Arg! I took it to a nice friendly (non-skoda) garage today and they couldn't tell me what it was, but it wasn't the coils - they didn't charge me for the diagnostic, but did replace my sparks which were looking a touch on the grubby side. Now I've got to take it to a dealer garage and pay at least £25 just for the diagnostic!

Help all; I've a VRs and recently the driver's side xenon started flickering t low revs or going over bumps and it actually went out a couple of times - turning the lights off and on brought it back on but it has the same problem. In addition to that, the power if fluctuating wildly (kangarooing between acceleration and sudden loss of power - on cruise control it handles it ok, but the revs are unstable and fuel economy is shot) and it feels very much like it did when my coil pack went before (which was covered under warranty then, sadly not now). 1) Do we think the two are related? 2) Do we think its coil(s) again (and how do I find out which one)? 2a) If its coils, is it cheap/easy (ie could I do it) to fix? Your help is much appreciated

Yeah, but Firefox has more security holes than a siv! and besides, because its not MS, it means that it'll never work as well with all the extra bits and pieces that are available. I've been using IE7 since it came beta 1 and it has the functionality of firefox with the integrationability (if there is such a word) of a proper MS product.

Ok, Thanks for all the advice everyone. In the end I bought a Specialized rockhopper. I was trying out loads of others at about 6 shops across the south, but the rockhopper was by far and away the best frame and the Rock Shox Judy J3 fork on the front is ok, but it has a lockout switch which is useful if I decide to ride the 10 miles to work... It has the V brakes rather than disks, so I can ask for then for xmas/birthdays Also, I found a blue one which is the best colour bike I've seen in ages: its not blue and shiney, but a kind of brushed blue. mmm Also got 10% worth of accessories to go with Me happy.

My fiancee siad that she'd buy me a mountain bike as her "engagement ring" to me after I popped the question up in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago. Now I doubt she's going to buy me a bike of the same value as the ring :eek: but around £4-500 would be about right. I'm going to be using it for some road stuff around the village and some offroad stuff in the woods and lanes around, but nothing like scaling Ben Nevis. Lightness and comfort are key although I'm not interested in disk brakes, so I should be able to get a better frame/gears/fork for her money So far I have looked at a Gary Fisher Wahoo which is pretty good and cheep (£330) which would mean I could get a helmet, speedo, gloves etc. I rather liked the review of the Trek 4500 (£450), but does anyone here have any other advice?

Part used? which part ? sounds like a bargain!:P

I have to say that I didn't like the plastic grill on the new VRs and the bonnet is a bit BMW for my liking. But I'll still probably buy one when the time comes

I had the same problem with a BMW 320 (52 reg) (before i part ex'd it for my octy ) I had it checked by an AA garage and the BMW garage. Both said that there was nothing wrong :( Then I took it to a specialist performance garage in Graves End (near the football ground) and described the problem. He said "Oh, yeah, it'll be a faulty sensor in the engine/gearbox that is in need of replacement" he explained that when it fails, the ECU does it as a saftely feature to stop damage to the gearbox and engine. He said that it would be a quick matter of replacing the sensor(s). Of course I didn't tell the garage that when I part ex'd it

I started thinking that maybe he'd been having a bad day or perhaps Southampton had lost...again... but he's clearly just an old nutter.

Should have thinking about it now, but then I've not been chased by an old fogey before! I bet you nearly everyone of the people at the traffic lights were looking in their mirrors and thinking "Typical! bloody young people in their fast cars upsetting older folks! I hope he gets what he deserves!" not fair

It was just a plain old metro which probably does 0-60 down hill

The other w/e I was driving out of Southampton up to the M3 At Charlotte place rdbt, an old chap in a metro was in front of me and indicated right and went left. Fair enough, so I let him go and headed up the right lane (not overly fast or agressive) towards the avenue. He then starts driving into my lane (without indicating) and I'm obviously in his blind spot, so I toot my horn to let him know. He pulls back into the left lane, but then pulls in behind me and is right up my bum! I carry on up the avenue and pull into the left lane at the Park Gate traffic lights. He comes shooting up the right hand lane and pulls in in front of me making me do an emergency stop! He then gets out of his car and storms towards me! Needless to say I wanted to avoid getting my lovely car damaged by fists or feet (let along my girlfriend in the passenger seat) so i dive off to the left where you can turn left to go down past the land rover garage. I then go round the back of the garage and up towards the common trying to get back on to the avenue so I can get onto the M3 without having to drive roud the rest of southampton. Just coming up towards the avenue, when the old geezer in his rusty metro coming zooming down the middle of the road straight towards me :eek: (he'd figured what I was going to do and decided to cut me off! He obviously had it in for me), so I stopped and started reversing back while he was shouting at me and telling me to get out of my car! I carried on reversing until he came clear of a row of parked cars and I was able to nip round him and head off leaving him facing the wrong direction. Lucky for us we escaped that (images of Kenneth Noye running round my head), and it left both of us a bit shaken and mistified as to why the guy should have taken such a dislike to me! I mean I really didn't do anything wrong and I wasn't even driving agressively. What suprised me most was the fact that he deliberately hunted us even after we left him at the traffic lights. Just thought I'd get it off my chest and warm people in Southampton to watch out for an older chap with glasses who drives a rather rusty blue metro (didn't get the # plate though)

Bought my Octy VRS from these guys who were excellent (except that they didn't fill the tank as promised), but they did ring a couple of weeks after to see if everything was ok and I was happy (although I'm not sure what they would have done if I'd said no! ) Thumbs up from me so far (yet to have a service though)

Just before I bought my Octy (from Winchester btw) I was living next to Freeborn Skoda, so decided it would be nice and easy to walk down having phoned and booked a test drive (hadn't had one at that point). Went down and was shown a car that had been on their forecourt for 6 months - i'd been watching (as I said, I lived next door) and was told that because I was not planning to make a decision for a month that I should come back then! Ha! So the following weekend I went up to Winchester Motor Co. and took out their demo for 40mins. 2 weeks later I had bought my lovely black vrs which I am still incredibly happy with!