After a six month wait I finally received my new Skoda Octavia Elegance 4X4.

It's the most expensive car I ever bought. I always bought new, and my previous cars have been as follows.

1982 Toyota Tercel for $10'000 in the Cayman Islands with NO air conditioning!

1985 Renault R5 for CHF 14'000 in Switzerland. Bits kept falling off it, so it put me off Renault for life.

1992 Nissan Primera Estate 1.6L for CHF 18'000. Never went wrong. Had A/C.

2001 Nissan Primera Estate 2.0L for CHF 29'000. A/C, CD player, Electric Windows, sun roof. Perfect!

2014 Skoda Octavia Elegance 1.8L 4X4 for CHF 39'000. Price included over CHF 8'000 of options. I love the options: DAB radio, Bluetooth connection to my iPhone, 2 SatNav screens. There are loads of safety options I don't really understand, like Lane Assist, Emergency braking, speed warning, sleep warning.

I bought it through Multi Marque who import from abroad in order to give a bigger discount. I saved maybe CHF 7'000 doing it this way, compared to CHF 3000 via a Swiss official dealer. However, it took 6 months to have it made in the factory with my selected options, and I only got a user manual in French and Polish and no service book.

I will post separately on a few features that I don't understand.

As you are living in Switzerland, what language do you prefer. If German look here:

 

http://www.skoda-portal.de/dokumente/bedienungsanleitungen/

 

For other languages:

 

http://new.skoda-auto.com/en/mini-apps/owners-manuals/owners-manuals

Thanks Freedom, you are a star. I actually wanted the manual in English! I will print it from your link.

As an aside, here is a little moan about Switzerland.

Why do so many large companies - including many of the world's largest online companies, assume that the language of Switzerland is German?

Here in Switzerland there are 4 "mother tongues" French, German, Italian and Romansch. However lets forget the 4th. Very few people can speak Romansch.

What many big companies fail to realise is that despite the official statistics, in Switzerland, something like 30% of the population do not have any of those 4 mother tongues. For those 30% they mostly use English as their preferred language. Furthermore, over 50% of the population can speak and read English pretty fluently. All companies, Skoda included, should automatically offer an English version of all documentation and on their website.