Not sure this will work, but I've posted below links to a photo of the demist/defrost pattern on the windscreen of the Octy and then the similar photo for the old Discovery.

I bought the 56-reg Octy before Christmas last year, but most of the cold weather had cleared away before I got it back from the main agents because of the juddering and other faults. They say they will attend to the pollen filter at its first service (probably in December) after I complained about the misting up. The question is whether it is normal for the demist operation to favour the passenger side of the windscreen.

This morning, leaving the engines running with headlights on and heated rear windows on in both vehicles so as to load the engines as much as possible, the Disco screen was completely clear in 8 minutes, but the Octy screen still had a patch of misted up screen on the drivers side after 17 minutes. This is utterly hopeless. The white is the frost, the dark patches where it has melted.

http://picasaweb.goo...071998655736514

http://picasaweb.goo...071997393565970

The passenger side preference could well be due to the cars being predominantly designed for left hand drive hence the preference for the passenger side. That said since the right hand drive cars should have a different dash you would think they could correct for this!!!

I just changed my pollen filter last week £20 from a local motor factors, local Skoda agent wanted £32 odd for it to be fitted during the last 24 month service - we don't get much misting up here in Jersey till Nov/Dec so have not expieranced your problem.

I would be interested to know how much your garage want for a pollen filter?

thanks.

I'm not sure when the car will go in for its service. They told me it was on fixed interval and so I expect a little message to pop up on the display when I've done 10000 miles, which should be fairly soon. If I remember I'll post the cost of the filter here.

What I'm really keen to know is whether the melt or demist patterns shown in my pictures are normal or whether some pipe has fallen off somewhere behind the dash. It seems odd not to demist the whole screen equally as the Discovery does. They sold me the car with a 2 year warranty, so this winter is the time to give them a few nice maintenance projects.

Had exactly the same problem myself this morning, very annoying. Put anti-fog on the windscreen the other day too! There's some weakness with the Octy letting in water anyway as mine is perpetually fogged in rainy times and there's no evidence of a leak.

That doesn't look right at all to me, I was demisting my car the other night and while I'm sure it cleared the right as evenly as the left. I'd wiped both sides before hand which makes it more difficult to see what the demisters were doing, will check it next time which will probably be very soon knowing the current weather. In general though the demisting seemed painfully slow given there wasn't even frost on my car.

John

There's some weakness with the Octy letting in water anyway as mine is perpetually fogged in rainy times and there's no evidence of a leak.

Loads of threads on this, they usually start to appear around this time of year.

The Octavia is well known for letting in the damp which then impedes it's ability to demist in the morning, especially after a cold night.

When it gets really cold, especially if the interior hasn't had a chance to warm through the previous day then the inside of my windscreen can condense up so much that water droplets form and run down the inside of the windscreen!

Equally annoying is when it rains, even with just me in the car, with the A/C on, heat on and fan speed high I can never clear all the windows - even after an hours drive. On my previous car, a 2002 BMW 320d, you could turn on the A/C and watch the mist disappear within 30 seconds.

It's just an Octavia thing! I've heard the door seals are quite poor and don't drain very well?