Not being mechanically competent this is quite a challenge for me. I have an Octavia 1.9tdi Ambient Estate and an air filter. How do I join the two? All advice gratefully received.

The air filter is a panel shaped thing which sits in the big plastic box near the back right of the engine bay. (on the right in this picture, with a big tube going into it)

You just need to take the top half of the box off (it is held by clips or screws), take the old filter out, put the new one in and put the top half back on, securing it with the screws or clips again. There should be an arrow on the filter indicating which way round you need to put it, if not look at way the existing filter is as a guide. IIRC it should be with the pleats facing downwards. It's worth giving the box a clean while it's open, hoover out any insects, dust and stuff. Make sure you have the filter seated perfectly in the box before you put the two halves back together.

Thanks that looks really useful. I keep this car in Cyprus and the dust is, well, dusty. But I'm feeling optimistic now!

It should take no more than 5 mins from opening your bonnet to going for a drive to fit it.

It should take no more than 5 mins from opening your bonnet to going for a drive to fit it.

Should being the operative word :P I always find the vRS filter a bit of a pig to change

going armed with a philips screw driver and the job should be done in seconds. It can be easier to disconnect the cable to the MAF (the first sensor up the earlier mentioned 'big tube') as that will allow a bit more movement of the pipe and the top of the air filter housing.

On the TDi is easy!

going armed with a philips screw driver and the job should be done in seconds. It can be easier to disconnect the cable to the MAF (the first sensor up the earlier mentioned 'big tube') as that will allow a bit more movement of the pipe and the top of the air filter housing.

On the TDi is easy!

See thats why it took me so long. 10 minutes faffing about trying to unplug the MAF cable without success then after giving up on that the job was done in about 5 minutes :P

Is there some trick to getting the damn thing off? Haynes didn't give any clue it just said remove it but after much poking with a screw driver I decided it best just to struggle on with it in place before I broke something :P

I never uplugged anything to fit my filter on my vrs or my tdi, incidently I'm running the same filter in my tdi from my vrs, I do agree that it was less fiddly on the tdi

Is there some trick to getting the damn thing off? Haynes didn't give any clue it just said remove it but after much poking with a screw driver I decided it best just to struggle on with it in place before I broke something :P

Yes there is. At the top of the plug you will see a lug need to press that in and up to remove it. Here is a pic