skinnyman

Now sold.

I've not exactly been flooded with enquiries to be honest what with it being so close to Christmas. If you have any other questions, just PM me as I only tend to check in here a couple of times a week & might miss a message in this thread.

Hmm. I could look into a courier but it would be a shame for them to be damaged in transit. It wouldn't take much to mark the leather for example and then you'd be on the lookout for another replacement. I drove from here to within a mile of Brands Hatch to collect the Recaros I have in the car now. I didn't want them to be damaged so figured it was worth a road trip to collect them.

Where abouts are you in the country?

Now on Ebay.

I can relate to that. Our Ignis has a private plate which was on the car when we bought it. People must think we have ideas above our station as putting a plate valued at £700 on a 16 year old Suzuki must seem a tad ott. It's good to see you still have the Octavia and that you're sporting a set of big lamps on the front. Do they make much difference?

Looks great! I'll book my car in now if that's okay? 😁

I have a soft spot for Vauxhalls since owning a Vectra VXR a while back. People questioned my sanity and made all the usual reliability jokes but it was a cracking car. I had two years of fun and other than having to fix a slightly temperamental cruise control stalk it was great. We went all over in that and it even took us to France twice with no issues. Keep us updated from time to time as it's good to hear about cars other than Skodas.

I had something similar with my Mk2 a few years back. In the end I had to bite the bullet and have it towed to the garage. It cost me a few pounds but at least the car was back on the road. I feel your pain though, my red one was off the road for six weeks recently whilst the clutch was sorted out.

The car is looking great and the rolling road figures are a good sign of a healthy engine. Have you noticed any difference in cold startup with the SAI delete?

Both petrolbloke and andy68 have made some good points. The sizes mentioned all work well and I've used them on my Mk1s over the years. I'm currently on 225 40 18 Michelin PS4s on a set of OZ Ultraleggera for my daily wheels. They are really light wheels and combined with the PS4s, they are a great combination giving surprising levels of grip. Admittedly the current cold weather doesn't suit the tyres but for most of the year they are a good all rounder. I'm pretty sure the OZ wheels are 8j and have an et of 45. I'm running them on 10mm spacers on the front and 15mm on the rear with no rubbing issues I'm aware of. I've also got a pretty much mint set of TD pro Race 1.2 up in the spare room with a set of Rainsport 3s on. They're 17" and again are really light with 225 45 17 tyres. They weren't run with any spacers on and I always wondered if they needed to be brought out a little. I only changed to the 18" wheels as they popped up in ebay at a price I couldn't resist. They aren't cheap but definitely do help with the handling. The Pro Race 1.2s are also a really nice wheel and I'm tempted to go back to them at some point. I've put a couple of photos below so you can see how the car sits on both sets.

Another good reason for me to stay up here in North Yorkshire away from any sort of ULEZ area. We're about 20 years behind the rest of the world so I have a while yet to enjoy the car. 😄

Thank you. It's a work in progress and will never be perfect but it scrubs up quite well. I'm determined to enjoy it before cars like this are killed off through legislation etc. I get a lot of pleasure from driving the car, from making small changes and from not confirming to join the SUV masses that fill most driveways on our street.

Yep. I agree with you that they look quite smart once fitted, although I initially bought them to combat the steaming up issue. Improving the look of the car is a bonus! 😄

I said I wouldn't spend any more money on the car but it seems I can't help myself. Occasionally the windows steam up at this time of year, usually when I've picked the kids up and they've been running around at one of their clubs. It can make it difficult to see when reversing onto the drive in the dark, especially seeing as the rear windows have such a heavy tint. I decided to get some wind deflectors to allow some air in whilst keeping the rain out to help with the issue. I went for the Team Heko variant as I've had them before on other cars and they were a good fit. The rears went in just fine but the fronts were a bit of a pain to wrestle into place. I managed to not snap them (as I have in the past) and they fitted quite well. Fingers crossed they'll help with the steaming up issue and are a worthwhile investment.

I've also just done three little jobs before the heavens opened up again. First was to replace the expansion bottle. The old one was unsightly but also it had a few areas that looked like they were going brittle. I ordered a Meyle pattern part which arrived today. It was £15 from Ebay and seems to be just as good as the original in terms of plastics & build quality. It's a five minute job to swap them over really so for a few pounds and a bit of fresh G12, it was worth it. It's a lot smarter and I'm easily pleased.... As you can see I also replaced the power steering fluid reservoir cap. Again, small changes but it keeps me happy. Next was to replace the offside indicator lens as it was going green. This was a copy by the looks of it so I replaced it with an Ebay special. I did the other side a year ago and it's been fine so I'm hoping this will be the same. Just as I finished, it started to belt it down so I had to call it a day. None of these jobs were essential but it keeps on top of things and makes the car a little bit smarter in the process.

Our Ignis came with a private plate on it when we bought it back in 2013. It has no relevance to either me or the Mrs and has been valued at about half the car's worth! I worry that people will think we've got ideas of grandeur by driving around town with a private plate on a 16 year old Suzuki. I'd happily replace it with the original '05 registration but haven't got round to sorting it out plus I never seem to have the spare £80ish pounds to give to the DVLA anyway.

It was catch can time today. The car has covered about 1000 miles since the last time I emptied the can and as you can see, it was ready for doing. I'm surprised by how much stuff is in there but it's better to remove it than having all that going back into the system.

View Advert Mk1 Octavia vRS Interior - Lowered Price I've recently bought a Recaro interior for my car and removed the original seats. I don't need them and in reality don't have anywhere to store them so they have to go at some point. The photos show that they are in reasonable condition and considering the daftness of the white inserts, they are quite clean. There are a few small marks, there is a water stain on the passenger seat from when my son's water bottle leaked but on the whole they look presentable. The lumbar support works, the seatbelt sensor on the driver's seat works and they'll go straight in without any issues. I'll be putting them on Ebay if they don't sell on here but I'm not in any major rush at the moment. The seats are in Scarborough and if I'm honest, I'd prefer collection but if you would like delivery I'm sure we can work something out. As for price, I reckon £120 is about right as there are some grotty sets out there for not much less. Let me know what you think and if you have any questions I'll get back to you as soon as possible. I'm not on here every day so don't worry if you don't get an instant reply. Thanks, Andrew. Advertiser skinnyman Date 01/11/21 Price £120 Category Parts for Sale Shipping Estimate £90

It's sorted! Thanks for the help folks.

As some of you may have read in another thread, the seats weren't quite right. The driver's seat had a small plastic part missing that allowed the seat to rock back by about 5mm. It wasn't apparent until I fitted the seats and seeing as it was a 560 mile round trip to get them I wasn't going to bother the seller about it. Initially I thought it was missing two pieces, in the end it was just one, the other was hidden behind a lot of grease and muck in the mechanism. After a bit of help from Mr Evil I tracked down the part number and called our local VW garage. The chap there is really good at helping me source parts for the Octavia and he managed to get hold of the clip within a day. I decided to fit the part as I was getting annoyed by the movement in the seat . First thing was to cut off the bolt that prevents the mechanism from sliding off the front of the guide rails. I then slid the mechanism off the rails whilst holding the lever out to allow you to slide the seat back and forth. The clip was installed with a dab of copper grease and then the mechanism went back on quite easily. Luckily I'd ordered the right part and it went on perfectly. I then had to replace the bolt I'd had to cut off and used my tin of 'things that might come in handy one day' to find a suitable replacement. I'll cut it down to length when/if I get round to wiring up the heated seats. The seat works perfectly, doesn't rock about and I can get on with enjoying the comfort of a nice set or Recaros. So far they seem a lot nicer than the stock seats and even the kids have said that the rears are way more comfy so all's well. Also, I'm impressed that it only took £1.92 to fix what was a really annoying fault.

That's probably why it's caught my eye. On the odd occasion I consider getting mine resprayed, I keep thinking of this colour as the one to go for. Not too dissimilar to the original but it's got more depth to the paint.

Me too, I'm like an expectant father at MOT time. I can't settle till it's done & I know what I'm up against. Fingers crossed. 👍

Thanks for the heads up & making me look again. Having looked more closely and after a bit of Googling, it's looking like part number 16 - 1J0 881 203 A I'll see if there's a possibility of tracking one down. Thanks for the help.

I needed more lumbar support and these looked pretty good for the money. I've replaced the seats in my previous Octavias as I've never got on with the originals. In my other Mk1 it was Mk4 GTI seats, in my Mk2 it was Leon Cupra seats and I preferred them in both cases. On this occasion I'd considered S3 Recaros, leather Golf Recaros and Cupra R 225 seats but in the end decided on these. I also chose not to go with leather as I prefer cloth. These are heated so I'll have to figure out how to wire them in at some point. I hadn't considered that but I guess that's an unexpected bonus. 😁