Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening

Firstly my compliments on a fantastic forum. Having spent many many hours reading various posts i have answered most of my queries. I am now looking for a little asssitance and advice..............here is my situation

I have the pleasure of looking at getting my new company car in a few weeks. With car tax being dependant on your car price there just seems to be no alternative to having the Skoda. They seem to be so well speced and with doing 25-30K miles a year comfort is a priority for me.

I have decided on an Octavia estate, L+K spec, 140Bhp. standard gearbox (due to emmisions). I have a few questions that hopefully you may assit me with:

The 17inch sport suspension - is this a worthwhile upgrade considering the amount of motorway miles that i do ...i have read posts regarding noise and comfort being compromised. Is this true?

I have a baby son and rather than sticking blinds to the rear windows would the `window tint` that is an extra be do the same job as the blinds?

What are my Ipod options? I have seen comments regarding a plugfor connecting the ipod to being standard on the L+K....is this correct?

When you consider that any extras increas the amount of tax that i would pay are there any `must have` extras. The L+K is very well specced but is there anything that you can think i will regret not fitting at a latter date?

If you have any other advice or comments regarding my intended purchase i would be really pleased to read them

Many thanks f your time:thumbup:

Window tints will make it very pleasent in the back for a kid (or adult for that matter) and so are a well worth while option.

I'll leave better informed people to comment on the rest.

Oh and by the way welcome to BRISKODA.

a briskoda sticker on the back window - that wont effect the tax

Welcome by the way.

Lovely car you have spec'd there.

Personally i'd got for the 17's and the sport suspension, well worth it.

Welcome

how much is it for window tints on the new octi estate? can you get them on the vrs?

I would also agree with 17" & sports suspension as being a good idea, just makes a great car handle even better! Had an elegance estate with the DSG box for a few weeks and missed the sports suspension!

Window tints are great for rear occupants, but only if they are done properly by a reputable company. The clip in blinds are a good option if you aren't sure (as they can easily be removed, handy at night!) but are not as easy to see through IMHO (have tried both!). If going for tints remember that they can only block 25% of the light & I think new legislation will limit them totally to glass behind the B pillar (think there is a thread all about this). Our local police have a device for testing this and have had a real crack down recently!

Also this is a great forum for support and advice, there is usually someone able to help!

Welcome & Happy Driving!

Another for the sports suspension,

Also welcome to Briskoda

I would go for all the safety options - curtain airbags, ESP + EDL + HDA (whatever they are) and tyre pressure monitor. I opted also for xenon headlights (excellent), sunroof, (quite unnecessary, but nice on a sunny day when you're pootling arround) and Audience CD/Radio (basically very good, but let down by the daft positioning of the tweeters). I wouldn't recommend built-in Satnav when a TomTom is a third of the price and just as effective.

As for keeping the sun out, I note that "sunset glass" is now a £200 option - anyone have any idea what that is?

As for wheels and suspension, 17" wheels will be noisier ad the ride firmer - are you really going to drive in a spirited fashion with your baby son on board? And the DSG gearbox matches very well to the 140 bhp TDi - but I presume emissions are financially very important for a company car driver. Me, I'm retired....

Thank you very much for your replies...

the higher the emissions the more tax you pay hence the non dsg box.

All being well i should be testing a the 17 inch upgrade on a demo car soon.

For the window tinting i would definately have the Skoda option once i understand exactly what `sunset windows `are.

Its aslo an additional

Skoda colours are pretty uninspiring - we went for the Sahara Beige metallic and then they axed it! What about a nice bright non-metallic red? If people can see you coming you're less likely to get involved in someone else's accident.

Black leather for kiddy puke by all means - but it's very matt, so you might want to lay down some leather sealant first. On the other hand, why not light coloured leather? After all, what colour is kiddy puke....?

Thank you very much for your replies...

the higher the emissions the more tax you pay hence the non dsg box.

All being well i should be testing a the 17 inch upgrade on a demo car soon.

For the window tinting i would definately have the Skoda option once i understand exactly what `sunset windows `are.

Its aslo an additional

Don't go for the 17" Sports Suspension unless you like a hard (jarring?) drive and for business use I would definitely stay with the standard suspension - gentler and quieter - and spend the money on ESP. ESP just might save your life and in my opinion is an absolute MUST - in fact if you can't afford ESP within the company budget then buy a cheaper model but get ESP.

The DSG gearbox is an absolute delight and mates to the 2.0 Tdi perfectly, however, ESP is still the MUST HAVE option in front of any other.

thats a very good post John i see what you mean....Being a Leicester City supporter the colour will definately have to be a Blue of some sort .

Golfturbo....i am based in Leicester and thanks very much for the offer. The lease company i am dealing with will be arranging test drives and that sort of thing.... I am intersted in Skoda owners insight to the best of bells and whistles for specifying. I am (hopefully) trying to avaoid that ...`bloody hell if only had a known that before i brought it `sort of thing. When you say fully loaded ...which of the extras is best value for money in your opinion?

ESP you say....must do some more investigating into that.

Thanks again to all

What are my Ipod options? I have seen comments regarding a plugfor connecting the ipod to being standard on the L+K....is this correct?

At the moment the L&K does NOT have an ipod socket:thumbdwn: but I have seen elsewhere on this forum that they may be fitted to Elegance (& therefore L&K) models soon. I would ask your dealer to check when it will be available. You can have an ipod socket as an option but at the moment you lose the 6 CD-changer if you do, and as you have paid for that it seems silly to disconnect it, in my opinion.

I have had my L&K estate for about 2 months now and have found the ride quite harsh and with more tyre noise than my previous car (Peugeot 406) so you may want to think carefully about the sports suspension if you want your baby to sleep and not puke on your new leather seats! (Admittedly this is not as bad as having a baby puke on your cloth seats as mine frequently did in the Peugeot.:shock: )

Oh, and welcome to the forum.

Don't go for the 17" Sports Suspension unless you like a hard (jarring?) drive and for business use I would definitely stay with the standard suspension - gentler and quieter - and spend the money on ESP. ESP just might save your life and in my opinion is an absolute MUST - in fact if you can't afford ESP within the company budget then buy a cheaper model but get ESP.

The DSG gearbox is an absolute delight and mates to the 2.0 Tdi perfectly' date=' however, ESP is still the MUST HAVE option in front of any other.[/quote']

I agree with the above re the sports suspension. I found it too uncomfortable but maybe i'm just getting old. The standard suspension setup is fine and provides good road holding although I admit 17"s do look better on the OctyII instead of the standard 16"s.

Personally I specced ESP and Curtain Airbags as essential items. With the few quid left over I added the tyre pressure monitor, light assist and maxidot with multifunc steering wheel. Obviously some of these are standard on the L&K.

It is my understanding that from week 22 or 23 all OctyII's with Jumbo box will have an mp3 player aux input for the head unit included. This is simply s 3.5mm jack connnection located in the jumbo box.

Bear in mind that this is an audio input only and will not allow you to control your Ipod through the headunit. To do that you still need a Denison kit or similar which on the Stream HU will mean you will lose your connection to the boot mounted changer as already said. Also my experience with aux inputs to Skoda Head units seems to indicate that the sensitivity of the Head Unit aux input is quite low. The Headphone socket of the Ipod is carries too low a signal to match those of the radio and single cd player so you end up continuallly adjusting the volume.

Note: These kits are not currently compatible with the Audience Head Unit without a firmware upgrade to enable the external changer input. I haven't yet heard of anyone successfuly achieving this but I could be wrong.

I have the the 2.0 TDI linked to the DSG box and I would happily pay the tax differential for that DSG box it really works and my lads who have driven my vehicle all rate it.

I have to admit to being 65 so I have long left the must have more power and two wheel cornering brigade so to me it is all about safety and comfort plus making driving as easy as possible. I would go as far as to suggest these latter qualities are very relevant on these over crowded UK roads, which make driving no pleasure and more a chore of getting from A to B. Also you say you have children so keeping them safe must take priority over going faster to no where or a little tax saving.

I find the standard suspension set up is perfectly OK for normal driving, in fact it is a little stiff initially, but now after 4500 miles seems to be improving with regard to ride quality. I have 16 inch alloys on mine.

Sun roofs lower head height and with air con seems to be an extra cost of little benefit.

In short get the safety and comfort basics right then if you can afford it go for those little extras you want that make the car just yours.

Many Thanks for your replies........i have been working away and have been unable to get to a PC for the last few days hence the delay in responding.

Having had a think over the last few days i am going to allocate myself a budget of