Greetings!

[markyd71]

Hi everyone. Although I've visited this site a few times since buying my first Skoda 3 years ago, I've not actually signed up until now, so this is my first time posting on here. I bought a 2006-reg Roomster 1.9 TDi on 1st Nov 2020, so I've had it almost exactly 3 years now. It had a little under 150,000 miles on the clock when I got her and now she's just under 175,000. I'd love to reach the "double ton" (ie 200K) one day, but that's probably going to take another 3 years or so, given my yearly average of around 8,000 miles. I bought my Roomster during the pandemic, when overseas travel was either impossible or very tricky, so in June 2021 I had the idea of driving to the most northerly, easterly, southerly and westerly points of mainland Britain and did that over 2021 and 2022, covering 3,735 miles in the process. I'm attaching one photo of my car on the long drive up to Dunnet Head, in the far north of Scotland - the first of those four epic road trips. I'm delighted to say that my Roomster performed brilliantly on all four of those trips, with no mechanical issues or annoying warning lights of any kind. The same is true of an epic 2,400-mile round-trip to south-west France (Tarn-et-Garonne) I did last summer, sharing driving duties with another diesel devotee friend of mine. Despite temperatures reaching the high 30's virtually every day, my trusty Roomster got us there and back without any issues. That doesn't mean that I haven't had any issues with my car - I definitely have, and one of the MOT bills was truly eye-watering (over £1000!), but overall, she's got me wherever I've needed to go and I really love my car. There's just something about the sound of that 1.9 TDi engine which I love. I'm looking forward to having more adventures with my Roomster in the years to come. 

[softscoop]

Welcome to the forum. 

 

That sounds like pretty decent roadtrip and looks like a decent motor.

 

Looks like you have one of the rare early cars with the cornering projector headlights that Skoda fitted as standard to the Roomster only for a very short time just as they were launched. 

 

175,000 is nothing for the PD engines, probably one of the most bullet proof and over engineered engines that VAG ever produced. 

[EnterName]

Hello and welcome!

[markyd71]

Hi Softscoop and thanks for your message yesterday. Yeah, I enjoyed all five of those road trips I did in 2021 and last year, and I'm already dreaming up future ones.....

 

Yeah, those cornering lights (which also serve as fog lamps) are pretty cool and I think one of the previous owners must've swapped the original clear plastic for yellow ones (see attached photo), rather like headlights used to be in France before the bureaucrats at the EU forced them to fall in line with all the other member states and switch to boring white - a sad day for individuality and difference. Strange though it might sound, those "phares jaunes" were one of the reasons I loved going to France as a child in the 80's. I can't imagine my Roomster left the factory in Kvasiny with yellow cornering lights/fog lamps! And yes, you're by no means the first person to describe the legendary 1.9 TDi engine in my car as "bulletproof" - it seems to be the adjective of choice when it comes to that engine, and with good reason. I have total faith that the engine is easily capable of doing another 100,000 miles - it's just the rest of my 17-year old car that I'm not so sure about! Wouldn't it be great if the engine was the only part of a car that could go wear out or go wrong, but as any car owner knows only too well, there are literally hundreds of other parts that can malfunction and cause headaches.....

[softscoop]

Even better then the cornering fog lights, I was referring to your main headlights. 

You appear to have the "curve projector headlights" where the actual headlight projector swivels with your steering to point slightly round corners.

 

Skoda only fitted them to the very early level 3 Roomster.

[markyd71]

Ahh, OK. Sorry for the misunderstanding. To be fair, you did clearly say "headlights" in your previous message, so I should've paid more attention to that, but because you also used the word "cornering", I thought you were referring to the foglamps which also act as cornering lights (but only when the sidelights or headlights are on).

 

It's funny you should mention the headlights because when you look at them closely, they definitely appear to have been designed to allow them to swivel left and right, so I mentioned this to a car enthusiast friend the other day. He was a little more sceptical, saying that the only production car ever made that he was aware of which featured headlights that swivelled like that was the famous Citroën DS. So we did a little test. I turned on the ignition and the headlights and then moved the steering wheel to the left, then to the right, while he stood in front and looked closely to see if the headlight projector moved at all. He said he couldn't see any movement at all, so maybe I just didn't move the steering wheel enough, I'm not sure..... However, I do have the Roomster 3 and it is one of the very early ones, being registered in Sept 2006. I'd like to believe that the headlight projectors do swivel when I go round corners, as that's a pretty cool feature, but the test the other day would seem to indicate otherwise.....

[softscoop]

They are definitely the headlights that turn.

 

My superb also has the same feature, and they clearly turn with the wheel, maybe only when you're on the move, never tried it when stationary.

 

[markyd71]

Thanks for the clarification. Clearly the little test I did with my friend the other day wasn't really thorough enough. I'll take your word for it that the headlight projectors do swivel when the car is cornering, so it's nice to think that my Roomster has at least one thing in common with the legendary Citroën DS! 😉

[Warrior193]

2 hours ago, markyd71 said:

Thanks for the clarification. Clearly the little test I did with my friend the other day wasn't really thorough enough. I'll take your word for it that the headlight projectors do swivel when the car is cornering, so it's nice to think that my Roomster has at least one thing in common with the legendary Citroën DS! 😉

I would just love an SM.

I was on the New Caledonia Safari Rally in the 70s and saw a prototype bent like a banana after the Co-Driver miss-read the route book and they hit a wash-out at over 100MPH. IIRC, it was an updated DS23, fitted with the SM running gear - entered by a French team.

Edited 26 October, 2023 by Warrior193
correction

[markyd71]

Forgive my ignorance in such matters, but what's an "SM"?? Did I miss something.....?

[skomaz]

1 hour ago, markyd71 said:

Forgive my ignorance in such matters, but what's an "SM"?? Did I miss something.....?

 

Citroen SM

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroën_SM

 

Basically a Maserati powered re-engineered Citroen DS

Edited 26 October, 2023 by skomaz

[markyd71]

Ah, OK. I can see I'm in the company of some serious petrolheads here! Blokes who really know their cars....😉🚗🚗🚗

[KrispInk]

Popping up to say hi. I'm back on here after around 6 years. I just bought a fl vrs tdi. In white.