Graham Butcher

@ColinD Many thanks for doing this.

A problem with lowering them is the greater chances of bottoming out on speed bumps. I have loads of these pesky things around me and with my mk2 (not lowered) if I was carrying 3 or 4 passengers it often bottom on some of the bumps. I had the springs and shocks checked out by the dealer and they were perfectly OK. I have yet to bottom on my mk3 and that was one of my concerns with the car as it has the DCC fitted and I have it set for comfort so I would have thought it was more likely. Does the mk3 have a higher ground clearance than the mk2?

It could be partly down to the throttle body being dirty, I had issues with mine and after having it cleaned I really noticed a massive improvement in the performance. I have also had the throttle sensor occasionally fail on me in a couple of VW Passat's, and was extremely scary every time it did so, it was while overtaking on a normal 2 lane road with another vehicle approaching fast in the opposite direction. Since I switched over to Superb's I have not had that happen, and I have had Superb's for longer than I'd had Passat's. So it could be either or a combination of the two.

Thanks for sharing these photos, its clearly obvious that the Superb was always the flagship of the range even from 1936 and the 1940 model shows its importance and position within the marque, it was always intended to be a limousine and hence its current day huge rear legroom, which was what drew me to switch from Passat's to Superbs and now I'm on my 5th model and I have not regretted it once. 😊

Err, just one small problem here, I never said that it was dangerous normally, but I can see how some would think it was. My case, the first time I encountered it was in a hire car and the previous hirer of the car had left it switched on and I was totally unaware that the car even had it fitted. I had the hire car because my own mk2 Superb had just been written off for me by someone doing a U turn right of me, and my car, which I had, had from new for some 9.5 years did not have the system, so I was not expecting it. Just for the record, my new mk3 Superb does have it fitted and I have it switched ON by default.

Hmm, let me see, 1. Not too sure just what you mean here, but I did try and change lanes without signalling and you could feel the car resisting, but unless you're not holding wheel it will still allow you to change lanes. 2. I agree, it is logical that you're going to return to the left lane after overtaking in the UK, but what if your not in the UK, then that would mean that you're going to enter a faster lane and therefore possibly putting yourself in grave danger, the car does not know what side of the road it should be driving on. 3. Yes, there is a chance that your wheels might drop into a flooded rut, but I refer back to 1, you can still easily override the cars steering attempt, it will detect that you are still in control and allow you move the car. 4. The same as above in 1 and 3. 5. Agreed, but equally lets look at say a dual carriageway and you're in lane 1 (left hand lane) and you stray over onto the cats eyes, that means that your car body is already partly over the line that the cats eyes are in . Now consider that there could also be a car in the faster lane and it too has strayed over onto the cats eyes, that means that if both cars are in the same proximity to each other they will or could collide with each other. As it has already been pointed out that currently you can always override the system, or elect to disable them altogether, it is currently not mandatory to have them switched on.

I can see that the system would not be dangerous in the ideal world, but here in the UK at least we don't have that ideal situation with many of our roads looking like they have had cluster bomblets dropped on them. I remember my first time with lane assist was on that Qashqai and I was joining a major trunk road from a side slip, looking in my door mirror for a safe gap to slip into and when I saw one moved to fill it. The car resisted most violently I thought and it gave the impression of driving over loads of potholes and the steering to the left before I realised what was happening and took corrective action. I never even knew that car had the system fitted so I can see why some think it is dangerous.

Would that be driving a Octavia then? Thats what we use here is Essex for the rapid response cars.

Wow, that's great, I have always thought it must be great to be driving with the blue lights on. I'd love to be able to do that. Also, I can understand why you emergency drivers turn it off because you are always having to change lanes and over coming the systems trying to keep you in a lane is one thing you can do without. However I still think for the average driver it is a possible life saver. If our roads were properly maintained, even those that vibrate the steering wheel, before taking corrective action action would be great as well.

Although this question was asked before but either it was ignored or was missed, what emergency service do you two drive for, and I'll add another question to that, what vehicles are you driving?

That is indeed well done to BMW, the lane assist should indeed shut down if it is unable to see the white lines clearly, be it because the cameras view is obscured by the rain on the windscreen, or camera is not able determine what is a white line on the road because of light reflections from the wet road. I would hope that the system in the Superb follows suite, I have already discovered that the stop/start will take into account the workload of the A/C so that is good.

I that case, I fully support what you you've done. It's about time the folk of Oz were educated about how good a car a Superb is. 👍👍

Well TBH it's more of a door badge. 😁

Nothing to do with calling into doubt the actual and perceived ability of some "Blue Light" drivers then?

In what way are we "off topic"?

Yes, so can many of us. As I mentioned earlier, while my car was assessed by the accident assessors, I had a Qashqai for 2 months and I ended up turning the lane assist off on that because it was to aggressive and made it almost impossible to decide if it was the lane assist or bad road surfaces at times. The system employed on my Superb does not fall into that category, it just works and works in what I call a sensible manner.

Yes. But seriously you expect us all to believe that you "Blue Light Drivers" always get it right? We can all see that is not the case, you are human just like the rest of and ALL humans make mistakes, fact of life.

Agreed, but isn't that just the point about lane assist, blind spot etc, these things are there for the less aware of us, and for every trained "Blue Light" driver there are many thousands who aren't? These things will and do save maybe more drivers from getting situations where you could be called to respond under the old "Blues and two's" method that you will ever be aware of?

Sorry, but I was not questioning your ability, I was just trying to make sense of what the lane assist is trying to do, and with it switched on, unless indicated, it will try steer drivers back into the lane as it thinks they may have strayed by accident. One such scene that I think you are trying point out is when you are coming off a slip road onto a major road, no need to indicate if the major road is clear, in that case, I totally agree with you. I have not had blue light training but I have been a professional lorry driver and covered many hundreds of thousands of miles during my time. As to saving fuel at idle, when I was not paying for fuel, I also to think it didn't make much difference, however when I started to pay for own fuel, I did notice the difference, I suppose it makes a small difference in may be more rural areas and a far difference in cities like London.

Yeah, I do kind of get the point, but I was always taught mirror and signal were always linked together and that for me at least has always been an automatic thing, you just don't indicate without checking your mirror first to see if it was safe to carry out the intended move. Much same thing as using the clutch when changing gears or pulling away from rest, its one of those operations that require no thought process, like breathing really.

@JR RS, Personally I'd thought it would have been better to over do the badging of the variant of the model rather than the model within the Skoda brand. Anyone who is a car enthusiast is going to instantly know that you are driving a Superb but not the which version of Superb it is? That being said, I like what you have done with it, but equally I'm beginning to see the appeal of debadging as it does mean it is easier to clean.

You might wish to re-read what I posted as that is not what I said at all. If you attempt to cross a white line, with Lane Assist active, without indicating, it will try and resist you crossing the line, not prevent you, but will resist. If however you indicate your intention, then it will de-activate Lane Assist while you cross the line and will then re-activate once you have crossed the line. This is equally true for overtaking and also returning to the slower lane again, attempt such actions without indicating will if you are travelling fast enough, invoke the cars safety system of resisting you. You can always by exerting more force, override it if need be.

Yeah I can see a certain appeal in a Q car, if I could afford one when they being produced, have loved to have had a VW Phaeton as looked a lot like a plain old boring Passat to most people, while it was almost a Bentley under the skin.

And how would/could you possibly know that your style of driving is actually saving more fuel than stop/start could. Besides that is not the point and is just simply not enough to argue against having the stop/start system active because it is a fact that while your engine is running while stationary in a traffic jam, at traffic lights etc is wasteful of fuel is therefore costing you money. I have been driving for far longer than you have and equally certain that my driving style is also very economical, but why not add to that economy by using stop/start system, especially when it has been proven to actually save you fuel, thus money? Never driven over white lines unintentionally, I seriously doubt that and you could never ever be certain that you haven't either, all you do know is that you are still breathing and able to claim that you have never done so.

Rather obvious really, Lane assist helps to keep you within your lane and safe by trying to prevent you from accidentally crossing the white line into another lane and maybe into the path of another vehicle which could result in an accident. It also teaches you proper to use signals and mirrors effectively. If you signal your intention to change lanes, the lane assist is de-activated and will not intervene because your changing lanes on purpose. If you don't signal, it therefore assumes that are doing so unintentionally and is trying to possibly safe your life, that is very useful. Stop Start is likewise trying to save you money and help to reduce harmful emissions, all modern cars have it and it is part of the emission control system required by the EURO engine categories in order to help with reducing the climate change problems.