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3-5 year old is not 'Older cars' they can still be on Extended Warranties. Skoda Fixed Price Servicing and Maintenance at Participating dealers in the UK was on cars 3 - 10 year old. 7-10 years and older is Older cars, Models will have changed Generation from 7 years, had face lifts at 3-4 years. Servicing and Maintenance and pre and post winter care is much more than many ever get done with 'Main Dealer Servicing. A Full Main Dealer Service History if a full history can show how cars were not serviced or maintained to Manufacturers Guidelines, Recommendations or even schedules, even when on a Service Plan. @boardtc Location location location. A City car or a rural car, short cold start trips, maybe blocked dirty air filter from City Traffic / Busses / Taxis. eg Edinburgh. Live near a quarry or Oil Seed Rape fields. Pollen filters. Near the sea, damp pollen filters, air filters, rusty discs. Like living in the hills where roads get salted. Some guys / gals in the Czech Republic or Gemany know nothing about how or where you drive, how your Hygroscopic Brake Fluid will be as you drive. Where you park or how often the car moves. So they give general advice, you just need to think. Do you tow, do you do 20,000 miles, or 12,000 or 5,000 miles a year.

These oil condition sensors seem to be amazing things. Bl00dy fantastic. NOT. You can be on Variable / Flexible Servicing with a TDI and the oil like clotted cream and it is still showing what the Service Indicator was set at, 18,000-20,000 miles / 372 days from set. If you can not get booked in for 6 weeks then you might be over 20,000 miles and no oil change since the PDI, or actually 6 months earlier when the car was built. Even a year before pre WLTP certification or Covid Lockdowns. VW talk a good game. Service older cars. Not that old, 3-5 years. 5-10 years are more interest to many. Try getting a booking though. Even for a Warranty job, or a Recall Campaign / Recall Action, or a full SAFETY Recall. Very very busy. Pretty damn expensive.

There are always Simply Clever plans. Great ideas. Then it is the UK and the issue is Dealerships, lack of actual staff, trained staff, booking your car in. They are too busy with Warranty Work. Recall Campaigns, RECALL Actions, SAFETY CRITICAL Recalls, or ignoring / delaying them to be bothered with sorting cars. They are Fitters, not repairers, even Servicing can be beyond the comprehension of the Service Desk staff. Lack of interest is an issue with Franchised Main Dealers.

I do wish people could understand Oil & Filter Serving, maybe Fixed or Variable, and Servicing & Maintenance. Some do Interim Oil & Filter changes. all about annual miles, type of use. Location location location. Car manufacturers do not know you or where you are. Old system. Some still do this. New UK regimes, some have no idea what is being done.

PS Ford Eco-Boost. Brilliant. Needed to admit a Balls-Up quicker. Ford - VW Engines in a partnership now. What a coc-k,up. My pals service van has lots of thousands of quids equipment in to deal with these. VW Twinchargers. Engine of the year for 9 years. What a carry on. At least Volvo shorted things out, after Stephan Jacoby left VW to head Geely (Volvo). Mazda, fantastic, they had to become so, as they got stuff so wrong in the past. The tech was is great. Just needed snagging sorted. Mercedes, well that can be a Renault engine, etc etc.

I look out each and every day for what nice older cars are around. sort of S, T W, Y reg and up to 2007 type cars. There are ones that were sold in high numbers that kick about. Golf, Passat, Audi,s, some Fords, Toyota, Nissan, small cars like Kia Picanto etc. There are quite a lot of Fabia. Lets say Mk1. Also Superbs, maybe not so many Octavia. But 1999-2007. But then nothing is Mk1, or Series 1 until you get Mk2 or Series 2. They were a Fabia. I do wish Skoda would not keep faults into Face Lifts, Gen 2, FL, Gen 3, FL, Gen 4. Learn their mistakes... Different areas of Scotland can have vary different types of 'Older cars' that are daily transport which you might see parked, work places, roadside, car parks, supermarkets or Airport / Long term or short term parking.

Vehicles in the UK are on the roads with Air bags out of date. No issue as far as the DfT / DVSA or Insurance companies are concerned. The cars that started having no Spare Wheels have 'Compressors and a slime kit and sometimes a dealerships flag as out of date'. We have had members point out electrics and components that expire, corrode. There are door and hatch looms that are crap / scrap after as little as 5 years old. Much less welding has been required of cars from the past 15 or more years though. Disc brakes can last less miles than brake pads. Door Seals can be sh!t5, timing chain / tensioners can be guff. Water pumps can be guff. Euro 5 TSI engines can be guff. & Euto 6 (1.5TSI ACT a looming issue.) TDI,s with SCR can be guff. DQ200 DSG,s can be guff. So that covers VW Group but not comprehensively. Others have here issues. The Air Bags cover many car manufacturers. There will be totally guff EV,s and there are already, and some duff Technology & the way might be lead by the VW Group. Vorsprung Durch Technik.

No issues getting Riken Tyres or even Tigar tyres which are brands owned by Michelin, and maybe from Black Circles or ATS Euromaster who Michelin own. The issue is the size the OP requires. Lots if 'What tyre' threads in this section or the Wheel / Tyre section if you look @barnsleyboy I have used Tigar and Riken tyres lots over the years. As well as Michelins. Currently for All Season have gone back to Maxxis.

@stever750 is your advice or is anyone elses that it is OK to ignore the 40,000 miles oil and filter services in DQ250,s and go many miles over? What do you recon is ok. 60,000 or even 80,000 miles? After all what is the worst that can happen? Then with DQ381 and the 80,000 service schedule. Are people waiting that long? Are they only having oil changed and not the filter? If having it done then how much are people paying to have a DQ250 serviced these days, at main dealers or independent, and how much for a DQ381.

My mate is an Autobox specialist and does repairs for main dealers. I know other Autobox Specialists having only driven 2 pedal cars since the 1970.s. They do work for main dealers but do a lot of work where main dealers are hopeless or if accepted there were issues want to replace gearboxes. They are fitters and seldom mechanical engineers. They might be techs but replace parts not repair. So going over service schedule and having failures might be less common with DQ250 and that is good. Now dealerships seen to have staff oblivious to DQ381 failures. As to repairing those. New MCU or new gearbox sir or madame.

The Briskoda member tells it like it is so interested how he does in the Tourer with the big battery. He liked the Skoda Superb he had.

It will be interesting to see the reviewers & others driving the big battery cars loaded and see just how far they can go. 425, 426, 427 miles? Pic a number any number, 399! 86kWh usable. Amazeballs if it gets 4.9 miles a kWh. Some articles / data says 82 kWh usable. 427 miles divided by 82kWh is 5.2 miles a kWh.

This was 8 years back. Some place somewhere these cars are likely still on the go. This always to 80% stuff is just so much guff. As for 22/43 & 50 kW charging then that will be different again from 100/150- 350 kW. But 80% in the batteries of those cars might be double or treble the range available to the cars from 10 years back.

The issue with Motability was that you lost NCD / NCB when having no Insurance in your name for 3 years. People often had another car insured. i maybe had a few. But that was stopped maybe 20 years back because you could show no claims, accidents while driving the car from Motability.

@Graham Butcher 6 year old, £16,000 & really over priced insurance for what it is. 2.0 D Auto. 190 ps, RWD. Not quick. The named drivers are what has hiked the price. I have not had a car TPF&F for about 40 years now as that could be as expensive as fully comp. Not even on Offroaders, and never had 3rd party only. Been banned 3 times, paid a fortune for many years, had many many points over the years and quite a few accidents. Usually had several policies with different companies and 1 or 2 of them with NCB,s running up, or been on group insurance and Motability Insurance for 15 different cars. I was surprised that all points were cleared, no accidents in over 5 years etc etc. In the past years i have never paid over £300 a year no matter what i have had insured.

Indeed it looks like a lot of oil leaking. Where from when cleaned up? That is not what the issue usually is with Euro 5 1.8 or 2.0 TSI,s, They can use oil and no mess.

Car in my name and with 2 named drivers, parked on street. Just needed another new tyre. Last week needed a wheel welded. Time for more sensible wheels, but the tyres are not expensive when not run flats.

UK Insurers have no questions on your application over Holiday Homes, Residence or place you are at overnight with the bit on the side. Reps or just contract workers / jobbers that are commuting but carrying no tools so not a business / commercial driver. Then offshore workers, flight crew etc that leave the car safely at a family members property while away. Maybe while in area where they do not live but park their vehicle at gets flooded. 'No petrol left in this cars tank overnight.' As to EV,s and you say parked on drive overnight, you might not have home charging so the car is parked in the Offstreet Charging Hub overnight, or roadside charger. You are allowed to be away from home. But then a Loss Adjuster worth their salt looks at your actual circumstances, maybe where you do actually park the car on a regular basis.

@skomaz I know what the thread is about. But it is Off Street parking, daytime or night time. They ask the question, where do you park day. Work, College etc, where do you park at night. Many give the Registered Keepers address, Mum / Dads, not where their G/F, B/F, bit on the side lives or where they stay some or most of the time. It has always been a load of B0llocks and nothing happens until maybe a Loss Adjuster is put in to deal with a claim / claims, like recent flooding incedents. eg Brechin.

@PetrolDave It can be 1/2 a mile difference Post Code dependent, and big differences, and it is not always the council scheme streets that cost more than the private estate, exclusive roads.

This is 'Off street parking' and is why or how the UK Government make statements like 70% of homes have 'Off street parking. This is a figure the spout to make it look / read like for the majority of vehicle owners there can be EV charging at home'. Total guff as usual from Statistics, Office for national statistics etc. This government has no idea how many properties are subdivided, or illegally converted. They do not even know how many people live in Local Authority building like multi storeys.

Welcome. This has been a Trader with a good reputation, i have no experience of anything recent. Assume nothing about MOTs, ask. So be sure the Haldex Services were done, @ 3 years / 30,000 miles or when last done. The DSG Serviced, when was it last done. Due @ 40,000 mile intervals.

Parked on drive can have adverse weather claims with slates off roofs, and theft from drives is common, as is fraudulent claims from Business Owners with the Bentley and Range Rover Rover damaged as their company fails. I made that up, never happens. Road parking might well be as safe from theft or tempering as a secluded driveway with Trees, and EV Chargers and the car going up and the house / garage burning down. I made that up as well. Be sure to have good insurance if your car goes to a Dealership built on a flood plain.

Welcome to the forum. In the photography section hopefully you can add to the Cars with great backdrops thread.