Hi all,

New here, but been lurking a while whilst considering buying a Skoda Octavia after finally ditching an 8 year old Mondeo.

Have now bought an 05 plate Octavia II 1.9 TDi Elegance Estate which is my first Skoda and diesel after 20 years of petrol Fords, and am very happy with it apart from a few niggles which I hope can be answered here as I've searched threads and can't find any specific answers so sorry for the long first post.

1) Just taken the car on a camping trip and have a question on ground clearance.

I've had a few scrapes over the last week, I assume to the plastic undertray. I've been taking things easy because the first thing I noticed was grass that would never normally have been an issue in any of my previous cars brushing against the undertray.

Since then, despite taking things very slowly over any kind of bump, it's caught a number of times going over those dual square speed bumps which I'd normally let pass under the middle of the car, going down a track with only an inch or two of rut, and whilst reversing off the slope between kerb and road off the driveway.

As far as I can see ground clearance is specified as being 140mm. I've just been out and measured and the lowest part of the plastic undertray is less than 90mm off the road, and the lowest bit of real car (the bottom of some bolts) is about 120mm off the road. My father-in-laws Vectra looked to have nearly double the clearance and he sailed over the same terrain.

Is there anything to worry about as it's quite sickening to hear that grounding noise going over something that looks fairly innocuous? I even got overtaken the other day whilst slowly navigating a hump :(

2) The condensation from previous cars air-con has usually formed a pool somewhere under the engine bay. The only place that gets wet under this car is somewhere about in line with the gearstick, but I can't see how it can be anything else other than the air-con?

3) A creaky rattly sort of noise, probably inside towards the rear over any kind of uneven surface - think I'm going to have to climb in the back with the misses driving to find that.

4) And finally purely out of curiosity, how come the climatronic thing makes a gurgly ticky sort of noise when you switch the ignition on?

Your car might have sports suspension, do a search on here for more info, for example:

http://briskoda.net/octavia-ii/ride-quality-bone-shaker-what/134403/

Sports suspension lowers the car by 30mm -even lower than a VRS.

Puddle under the car sounds like the climate control, and normal for most modern cars.

My Octavia II 1.9 TDi Elegance Estate DSG clears speed humps with no problems at all!

My 05 1.9 Elegance has noticeably more ground clearance than the 00 1.6 Octy I had before it. I haven't grounded it on anything on the road yet. Local to me there are some private roads with speed bumps so big they'd be illegal for public road and the nose of my 00 Octy used to rub the speed bump before the tyres hit it. No such problems with the 05 Octy. There's another backroad near me one car wide with what's left of the tarmac falling away towards each side of the road, leaving a bulge in the centre. I didn't touch down on it once with the new Octy and couldn't drive it without at least 1 or 2 groundings on the old one. I reckon your suspension has been lowered. Check your tyres are a standard size too (Look in the fuel filler cap on the tyre pressure chart for the OEM sizes).

Thanks for the responses so far.

I'm now confused, but I think the sport's suspension idea is onto something.

I have the following option codes in the front of the service book that might be relevant.

H6L = Tires 225/45 R17 91W

G02 = Front shock absorption

L10 = Suspension range 10 installation control only, no requirement forecast

2UC = Sports version

What is confusing me now is there is reference there to "Sports version", but the tyres fitted are on 16"" rims (205/55 from memory). I guess a previous owner swapped the originals out or kept them?

Most of the threads in here seem to be on lowering the suspension - is there an option of raising it? Swap with someone who wants the sports suspension

Looks like your car has the optional sports pack as others have stated, if its running on 205/55/R16 thats one of the recommendations for winter tyres and snow chains.

Might be better off getting some original spec wheels but still low, sorry to say not best spec for off-roading.

Ride height usual measured from ground to bottom of sill, if I remember correctly.

Both tyre options are about the same diameter. Given how much harsher the 16" wheels I have are compared to other cars I test drove with 15" wheels I'm guessing combined with sport suspension (Which I'm pretty sure my car doesn't have) the previous owners of the car couldn't bear the harshness of the 17" wheels. I'll check the codes for my car tonight if you want - It's pretty much the same model.

Yup old owner had the 17" pegasus + sports suspension and kept/sold the wheels and put the standards on.

Either way the ground clearance will be the same.

Thanks for all the replies.

Seems like I'm stuck with the clearance then which on the down side is a bit frustrating given I keep catching it, but on the plus side this is the only one I test drove (had to snap it up quick because there were few available and we were going away) and I do like the handling.