Hey guys. I'm new to this forum. My friend has a 2004 Skoda Octavia with the 1.8L 20v turbo and the O1M auto transmission. Recently she was driving away from a stoplight when the car bogged down for an instant and then released itself into a surge forward. I was thinking that this was an engine related issue and started digging in that direction. About a week later the car does the same thing but lets out a loud sound and stops completely in the middle of traffic. The engine runs nicely when in P or N but when it gets in gear the engine struggles even at full pedal (as if the brakes were binding) and that's accompanied by a screeching sound. Luckily for her this happened a few metres from her house and was able to drive the car home (it got to no faster than 30km/h). A few hours later the car would not move (forward or backward). The following morning when she called a tow-truck to take the car back to the dealer the strangest thing happened. As the towtruck tried to pull it on the flatbed the car started to screech tyres. The engine was off and the car was in N. What she noticed was that the right front wheel was turning FORWARD even though the car was being dragged backwards!! This lead me to believe that the tranmsmission was not freewheeling, meaning there was a jamming going on somewhere inside. The car was taken to the dealer and that's where it was revealed that the car was out of warranty. It has 14,000km on it and has been absolutely cared for and pampered. What do you guys think the problem could be? She's basically on her own now and the US$4,000+ I've been hearing about for a new/rebuilt tranny is not an option right now. I really need some help. She's a dear friend of mine and is next to tears right now. Thanks a lot.

Nobody out there ever experienced anything like this? Any Skoda technicians out there?

Sounds like the box has locked up. Might be a differential issue, but either way the box will need to be removed for stripping and inspection.