Hello, thought I'd tell you a bit about my Skoda and then tell you my own observations post-purchase, then ask about any upgrades. Please comment or maybe even answer some of my questions or concerns if you can? Thank you in advance.

 

This post is a wall of text, sorry about that, so there's a TL;DR (too long; didn't read) section down below.

 

 

 

 

On Friday 17th 2015, I picked up a Skoda Octavia "Classic" Hatchback 1.9L Diesel 'SDI,' first registered in 2002.

My previous car was a diesel Honda CRV '4x4' SUV from 2011. Quite a world of difference there!!

On balance, I think I prefer the Octavia over the CRV and I'll tell you why. It's simpler, cheaper and efficient. I could most likely service and repair the car myself, and it's much more economic. 

 

The CRV's full tank of diesel cost me perhaps £70 at the most. The Skoda cost me £49.68 to the brim from near-dry. It lasts longer, too. I can safely say that the fuel indicator still works and after a 150 mile test trip the needle merely twitched. I pulled in at a petrol station to see if it did indeed need more fuel, only about £3.00 worth!! I couldn't believe it. I'm still keeping an eye on the needle out of paranoia. Too good to be true, right? I think I'm paranoid because the CRV, a 4x4 turbo monster, drank diesel. It usually cost me ten times as much to do the same trip in the CRV. So that's the first eye-opener about the Skoda, its MPG is astronomical compared to the modern SUVs. I think this is down to the Octavia's SDI fuel rail. There's no Turbo or anything which burns up that extra bit of fuel just to accelerate faster, so the engine is only using what it needs to go, and it does it well.

 

To be fair, before I made the decision to actually hand over the money, all £750 for the Skoda, I did do some research about the car I am buying. I found a YouTube video of a guy in Ireland who tested the same model, and year, of car as the one I bought. The one in Ireland had over 500,000 miles on its clock and still going just fine. The one I bought has just under 200,000 miles. His video gave me a very good feeling and he mentions quite a high MPG too. Fair enough. 

 

YouTube Link -

Skoda Octavia | 2002 model | 500,000 miles review

 >>

 

The first and only thing to go wrong, so far, was a hubcap rolling off down the road and through a hedge. When I got home, I used the opportunity to look at the wheels and just about see the brakes behind. I think I might update these to some cheap aluminium alloys that I found on the internet; this also means I can prepare for the end of summer with some new winter tyres, just in case. As for the brakes, I think I've found a brake conversion kit to change the entire brake system to disc brakes, like the thin ones on motorcycles. I need to clear this with a mechanic, though, to check whether these kits are a good idea or whether it compromises the vehicle's behaviour negatively as a whole.

 

It's clear that I am going to be spending money on this 'classic' car, more than what I paid for it, and I'm okay with that because it's obvious that this is one of the few good ideas ever made out there. Whether it becomes a proper classic in league with the older generations of other brands, I will leave it to others to decide. And I think that's the point. It will never really match up with the likes of the old Ferrari or Lambo rarities out there, but it might be comfortable next to a few old Austins or Reliants.

 

I think the car was once a taxi at least once in its life, to which I am not surprised; the taxi industry used millions over them all over the world, and still do, or so I am lead to believe. I was just 16 years old when my Skoda Octavia was first registered in 2002, and I can remember even then how my home town was full of Octavias. The evidence for its use as a taxi is there as three small holes in the top of the dashboard, where, I imagine, there would have been a fare meter. There are also two bays, and the second one, currently vacant, is where a radio would sit. One regular FM radio with CD player sits in the top bay, which came with the car when I bought it, but the bottom bay has a false cover panel with an Audi logo on it! How did that get there, I wonder. I took it off once, out of curiosity, and it looks like a bay inside a computer tower where you'd slide in a CD burner/player. I think I'd like to fill this second radio bay with a GPS unit of some sort, or maybe relocate the 12V socket/cigarette lighter?

 

That's another issue. The central console, behind the parking brake lever and just out of reach from the driver's seat, is a rusted/corroded 12V socket and cigarette lighter. I tried to use my mobile phone charger in it to see if it still worked, but it wouldn't. I imagine that a small touch of copper grease or WD40 might do the trick, but as it's electronic I am a bit paranoid of causing a fault, or even a fire, so I'll leave that to the experts. While I was poking around down there, I noticed a flip-out cup holder and ash tray. They're situated right at the back of the console, so they'd only ever be useful for passengers in the back seat. I'd like to have the socket repaired or even updated to become a USB socket just for charging phones, tablets or even a means of, one day, connecting a USB memory stick to an upgraded radio? I don't know if that would require a whole new wiring loom to sort out, but I imagine that, with the car once needing to be wired up for transmitters, taxi sign on the roof and fare meters in the dashboard, it shouldn't be too difficult to install. 

 

If the 12V socket in the central console were to be replaced or updated, then I'd like the second radio bay in the dashboard to house a 12V socket and perhaps an array of gadget connections. Mainly USB sockets, perhaps. It would certainly benefit my Android phone, which I rely on for GPS with Google Maps, because it doesn't have anywhere in the car to charge at the moment. From a brief overview of a workshop manual I found online, the flip-out cup holder and ash tray appears to be able to convert to an old car-phone system. That would be fun to try! I wonder if they still exist and can still work in this day and age? Can a modern retro-styled one be bought, with a socket for my mobile's SIM card, and work that way? While I'm at it, I might update the FM radio to become a DBS radio set instead, with simpler controls. Whoever paid for the current radio cover went a bit too posh for my liking! So many buttons and so very tiny. I've got gorilla fingers, so I am sure you can imagine me trying to find the right buttons on that! Sometimes I just rip the radio cover off entirely and throw it into the passenger foot-well out of irritation and reconnect it later at the end of my journey, but that's just me being immature about it I suppose.

 

Finally, the paint job. My heart tugs a little bit because I think that coach-painting, or at least spraying old-fashioned bodywork, has become a lost art? I think back to the CRV and realise that robots painted the car within about, what, five minutes or less? Whereas my Skoda would have been painted by a bloke in denim overalls and a simple air compressor gun system, I think? He would have developed an eye for detail, worried about undercoat and primer, weatherproofing and scratch resistance... And he would have worked in a team on an assembly line? This is only my imagination, but I appreciate this sort of thing. Some people might say it's an art, others just shrug it off as a process. But it's sort of depressing to see the car all scratched up and marked all over from acidic bird faeces, then realise all that hard work has gone to waste. I'd like having the whole car resprayed, that or I spend many hours with a whirly-sponge-thing with a bottle of T-Cut and polish. My T-cut skills and lack of patience would probably require the former option. So, if doing that,  I think that I should spend £3000 to do properly. IF that's what it still costs to do a full sanding, masking and respray.

 

 

As I said before, it's clear that I intend to end up spending much more money than what the car's worth. But, if my gut-feeling is correct, then it's going to become a true classic one day, if I can get it cleaned up to concourse standard (yeah, right), it might sell for a few grand more? While I am on the subject, I notice that the bonnet/hood Skoda logo has faded to almost completely white over the years. I'd like to replace that with either another Skoda logo, or one of my own design just to add a personal touch to the styling. 

 

Finally, I tried it on a brief section of the M6. The North end. The car only has 5 gears. I say 'only' because at 70mph it just felt wrong. After driving the CRV I felt compelled to change up into sixth gear and settle the engine down. But, of course, sixth gear doesn't currently exist. So, from one junction to the next, I endured 3500rpm at 70mph - without cruise control, too!! This just won't do. I need to find a way of installing a sixth gear and cruise control, just for motorway and dual carriageway use. If there's room in the gearbox, maybe a 7th gear too, just to bring the engine right down to below 2000rpm. That's all a diesel needs to cruise long distance. The CRV would cancel the cruise control if the brake or clutch were ever so much as touched, so maybe I can find a similar system - for safety-concerned reader, of course. I mention cruise control because the Octavia was simply very difficult to control at 70mph. I don't mean the steering or anything like that, but the feathering of the accelerator to maintain a precise speed was very difficult for me and my foot felt like it wanted to drop off at journey's end. 

 

So, after typing all this, perhaps a summary would be good for those TL;DR types out there?

 

SUMMARY!

 

Things I want:

 

• Aluminium Alloy wheels and winter tyres. 
• Upgrade brake system to full disc type.
• Replace and add 12V sockets/cigarette lighters & USB sockets.
• Replace radio to DBS radio with simpler controls and USB input.  
• Install retro-styled car phone system.
• Full body re-spray. 
• Replace bonnet/hood logo. 
• Add 6th or maybe even 7th gear to gearbox for cruising. 
• Add cruise control.

 

Things I feel are necessary:

 

• Alloy wheels - don't want to hunt down hubcaps constantly.
• Install dashboard 12V socket - need my phone and GPS stuff.
• Cruise control & sixth gear - I use the motorway a lot.

 

Things I want beyond my wildest dreams:

 

Bucket seats - I feel the seats are comfy, but not quite there. I think race-style buckets would be good, although this would go against the concourse idea mentioned earlier I think?

 

Full dashboard upgrade - the dull grey cheap plastic annoys me a little, and I think the ultra-modern erspexp-like plastic dashboard would be cool, or leather or carbon fibre. I saw one recently where you could see everything under the hood, all the wires, pipes and cables tidied up and encased in clear plastic and everything had a neon glow to it... For a diesel car, this might be a flawed idea as diesel engines usually get very dirty and very greasy very quickly. So no point to that. But a complete dashboard styling overhaul would be good. Again, this goes against the concourse idea, however.

 

Tuning and Exhaust System - I think the car could have a better level of compromise between city, rural and motorway cruising. At the moment, as it was once a taxi, it is very efficient around 40mph. It'll chug along quite happily and economically from 35-45mph. Anything else around that range is a bit more... Difficult... Than necessary to maintain. Not perfect, I know, as 5th gear is doing a LOT; but this is why I want that extra gear or two, to put that extra cruising work onto a higher gear rather than using 5th as both a cruising AND working gear. I also think the exhaust pipes could be wider, although this might affect the MPG performance negatively. Tuning is also extremely expensive and sometimes destructive for older cars.

 

 

 

After all that, I think it's time to go to bed. I hope someone's read and responded this by the time I get back to it; sometime in the middle of the coming week, is when I am likely to check. If not, then no bother. I'll just keep pestering my local mechanics. Bless 'em. Thanks, again, in advance.

Edited 19 July, 201510 yr by ZoomZoomWolfy

Bump? Also, my rear windscreen washer happens to be squirting inside the car instead of outside, I learned today. Will need to get that sorted. lol

Manys a thread on retro fitting cruise control on mk1 octys, though dunno if its the same on an sdi (id presume so though..) adding extra gears? Eh... i doubt it tbh...even if you could get them on ( a 6 speed box for car of that age??? Sounds custom and waste of money imo..) the gearing would inevitably increase the torque required to turn the wheels at a given speed thus mangling the mpg figures anyway.

A see through fire wall into the engine bay???? Iirc its part of the structure of the car so even if you did manage it, god help you in any front end collision - youd be wearing your engine as a neck tie and matching trousers...

Oh and, new style bonnet badges are available that fit properly..

I have a 51 plate Octavia Tdi and am looking to improve it too.

if your car is anything like mine I'd do the following:

Fit new standard brake discs and pads? and swap out the brake fluid for fresh. Make sure th brake lines are not rusty or replace as needed

Full service on the engine (all filters/fresh oil/new coolant/thermostat) and consider whether you will fit a new cambelt/waterpump amd tensioners

check the condition of all your suspension-mine is definately tired- and I will be replacing it as funds allow.

re the steel wheels-pop the hubcaps off and at least run the tyres til they need channging-gives you time to save up for the alloys.

If you do that (as I currently am), then tou'll know the car is in good mechanical condition before you spend out on the major mods you mention.

just my 2p- good luck with it whatever you choose to do

I have Skoda Octavia 2002 SDi. Yes, it is very reliable and yes, it has high MPG. But thats it. You somehow forgot to say one thing: it is a bit slow. For a car of that size 68HP is just not enough. When I drove fully loaded (4persons, full trunk) the overtaking was nearly impossible.

 

I would be glad for the 6th gear but on that gear You just could not accelerate. If You intend to keep it as a future classic, I would avoid any drastic changes and keep it as it was build e.g. stock.

 

Classic diesel Octy will always be 1.9TDi with 66kW or 81 kW.

I have the TDi110 (same block, but turbocharged, intercooled, different engine map) and it runs 30mph/1000rpm in 5th. There is a 6 speed box that should bolt to your block, but it has 35mph/1000rpm in 6th and I seriously doubt that the  non-turbo engine could pull that gear.

 

Cruise control is an easy add using OEM parts if and only if you have a drive by wire throttle rather than a cable.

 

Next to the radio on mine is a cubbyhole that will hold about 4 cassettes (BTW mine has a radio-cassette head, and a CD stacker in the boot). With your's being ex-taxi, I suspect that cubby has been used for the driver's 2-way.

 

Rear washer - Look in the space between the LH rear light and wheel. You may find a disconnected washer pipe joint there (under the stacker if fitted). Also, on the hatch, the pipe may disconnect where it attaches to the rear wiper motor.