Originally posted by devonutopia in this post

I actually need to sand & lacquer my wounds. Apparently it stops corrosion getting in.

"These wheels are lacquered"

"No they're not - the're good for a couple of thousand miles, yet!"

Sorry. It's late. I'm tired. But this nonsense takes me to 200+ posts....

bloody mv wheels on my 330 take forever to clean :(

very satisfying when done though

I must admit cleaning wheels is a pet hate of mine... 5 spokes are so easy and the vRS wheels are a bit of a pain.

Imagine the agony I'm suffering for the beauty of 20-spoke Skoda Style alloys...

I couldn't care less! I like the original 5 spoke alloys on my 4X4.

Originally posted by KLB in this post

"These wheels are lacquered"

"No they're not - the're good for a couple of thousand miles, yet!"

Sorry. It's late. I'm tired. But this nonsense takes me to 200+ posts....

- Not bad for a late effort, I reckon. I'm lucky my "wounds" are only on the very edge of the rim. The day I seriously wound the face of one of the five spokes will be a sad one. :(

PS: looking forward to RPM thingy now my seat has booked in Jon's 1.4.

Has anybody mentioned the 'rain psng into the boot problem to their dealers'?

I have had mine 3 weeks

600 miles.. love it! but I will mention the problem (only noticed today) to my dealer and will be interested to hear the response from skoda.

Do other hatches suffer the same or is it just this particular design?

It's a design... er.."feature"

All down to the shape of the hatch door and "frame" (for want of a better word). - the parts where the water naturally drips off the door are further inboard than the drain channels in the frame.

A partial cure is to open the hatch, and hold it sort-of horizontally for a few seconds, to give time for the water to run into the drain channels. It also helps if you "shake" it up and down (as fast as the gas struts will allow) a few times.

The permanent cure is to buy an Estate which comes in 4x4, L&K and vRS versions in addition to the standard models.

Pre face lift Octavias didn't suffer the problem as much as the facelifted models, prefacelift models had a plastic strip on the sides of the glass that kept the water on the glass when lifted.

I guess it was a money saving design feature that it wasn't tested properly.

Personal preference is to open the tailgate as quickly as possible, then most of the water runs into the tray at the top of the opening rather than over the sides onto the speakers etc.