A driving thread

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Noodle
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Noodle » Sat Jan 02, 2016 8:50 am

Niggles showing themselves.

1. Standard jack doesn't seem to fit the sills... Attempting to jack it up results in the thing slipping off and underneath, damaging the sill and making the potential for tyre removal* or changing a tricky affair.

(*for attempting to rectify niggle number 2's problem, for example)

2. Lifted the rear passenger mat to reveal the likiest reason for the bunch of air fresheners: Damp! It seems the likely culprit is the mk1's wheel arch covers which, according to folks on Skoda forums, are extremely prone to letting in water and crud, the latter of which tend to clog up the drainage holes preventing the former escaping. I have a busy day coming...

3. Door locks are a bit sticky. Been locked out of the driver's side once and the rear door on Alex's side a couple of times now... It appears to be a known problem with mk1 Octavias.

4. Cigarette lighter doesn't work. Taking apart the centre console has revealed it isn't even plugged in and there are no obvious wires around to suggest how to fix it. Seems to be very little online to help.

5. There's literally no lighting in the back! This combined with tinted windows make buckling Alex in at night particularly challenging.

I think I'm still happy with it. I do enjoy being able to put my foot down if I need to and be (at the speed limit :eyes: ) much sooner than I've been able to before, the engine develops a nice grumble above 3000rpm with a wide open throttle, and it's a comfortable place to be.
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Turbo » Sat Jan 02, 2016 12:05 pm

I drove the car I have been wanting to drive for ages. Golf GTD. 184BHP. Driven sedately will return 45+mpg. So when I do find something better work wise I think I might look into getting a new car.

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Re: A driving thread

Postby Tet » Mon Jan 04, 2016 2:13 pm

Noodle wrote:3. Door locks are a bit sticky.

Don't be tempted to oil them. Work some graphite powder in and it should fix the problem.

Noodle wrote:4. Cigarette lighter doesn't work. Taking apart the centre console has revealed it isn't even plugged in and there are no obvious wires around to suggest how to fix it. Seems to be very little online to help.

Cigarette lighters[1] are among the easiest things to fix. All they need is a +12V supply. Find a suitable source of 12V from somewhere (once you have the dash apart, there should be several available, easily findable with a multimeter), and run a wire from it to the back of the lighter.

[1] Fun fact: presumably in order to sound more upmarket, virtually no cars ever came with cigarette lighters - the manufacturers always referred to them as cigar lighters!
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Turbo » Fri Jan 08, 2016 6:32 pm

Nearly got rear ended yesterday. Had to slow down to allow a lorry to pass a broken down car because anyone who drives will tell you lorries don't wait their turn for shit so I felt rather than be taken out by it, I let it go. White van man behind weren't paying attention. Bibs his horn. My fault obvious. I hate Corby.

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Re: A driving thread

Postby Noodle » Fri Jan 15, 2016 8:27 pm

Tet wrote:
Noodle wrote:3. Door locks are a bit sticky.

Don't be tempted to oil them. Work some graphite powder in and it should fix the problem.

Noodle wrote:4. Cigarette lighter doesn't work. Taking apart the centre console has revealed it isn't even plugged in and there are no obvious wires around to suggest how to fix it. Seems to be very little online to help.

Cigarette lighters[1] are among the easiest things to fix. All they need is a +12V supply. Find a suitable source of 12V from somewhere (once you have the dash apart, there should be several available, easily findable with a multimeter), and run a wire from it to the back of the lighter.

[1] Fun fact: presumably in order to sound more upmarket, virtually no cars ever came with cigarette lighters - the manufacturers always referred to them as cigar lighters!

I think the door locks are two separate problems. The first is the driver's side, which is fine if you use the manual lock. The other is the rear passenger door, which is more problematic...

It refuses to unlock from the manual or remote locks. Pulling the inside handle pops its lock up, but has no effect. Release the handle and the lock is pulled back down. It does, however unlock via the driver's side control panel. That brings its own problems as it will then refuse to lock. After that, if you unlock the car again by remote or manual, the car will lock itself after a few seconds. Solution for now: Don't use the problem door; Use manual lock rather than remote.

Tracked the moisture down to two separate sources. Front driver's side: Seems to be a leak at the windscreen corner. Rear driver's side: Leaky rubber seal.

Problem with driver's side headlight level adjuster seemed to fix itself after I took the back of the headlight unit off and back on again.




Other bits to note: I'm falling in love with the engine. Quiet and civilised when sensible, throatier when asked. Turbo and dump valve noises are uneconomically addictive. 0-60mph still perhaps not comparible to a lot of hot hatches and performance estates and was put to shame by a mk.2 Fabia vrs the other day, but it still makes me smile.

The oversized rear spoiler is just at the right height to block most from the rear view mirror, so you rely on the wing mirrors to spot emergency vehicles, but it does block out everyone's headlights. The tinted windows are great at removing the glare when they get past it!

Handling is less stable than the Focus at the same speed, which felt pretty planted around corners. This feels more alive though.
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MetalBeast wrote: I got told off by the landlady for banging mine on the ceiling.
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Re: A driving thread

Postby thehairyone » Sat Jan 16, 2016 12:10 am

General driving thoughts. Now I'm a regular commuter, I'm becoming rather good at economical driving. It's a constant game to keep the average MPG above 38. Serves me right for getting the unnecessarily big engine I guess.
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Dansiferum » Wed Jan 20, 2016 10:20 pm

Coming back from work tonight on the A19, some fucking idiot signalled right then swerved into my lane on the slip road. Ended up diving out of the way only for him to start giving me shit. Can totally understand why i was always told it's other people i need to worry about on the roads
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Tet » Thu Jan 21, 2016 5:12 pm

Dansiferum wrote:Coming back from work tonight on the A19, some fucking idiot signalled right then swerved into my lane on the slip road.

So that's it, then? You disappear for a year and a half and then this out of the blue? No "Hi guys, I've come back to the forum"? No "How are you all doing?" Just a rant about some knob on the A19... :-P

Also: where and when are you going to be on Saturday?
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Turbo » Mon Feb 01, 2016 8:51 am

Had a Fiat 500 with what I thought was a semi auto box. Got part way down the M6 and noticed the giant A for full auto. I feel like such a putz. Hateful little car anyway. Autoboxes on small cars should be illegal. Universally awful.

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Re: A driving thread

Postby Noodle » Tue Feb 09, 2016 10:20 pm

So... I, erm... Have another car. Nope, I haven't crashed the Octavia! I've merely taken it off the road because it would be completely unaffordable to run that and its replacement.

So, here is my new car:

Fucking moronic pixel limit. Here, have a link instead

Subaru Legacy 3.0R Spec B.

Had it for just over a week. First impressions: It's fucking quick!

List of things wrong with it:

1) It developed a rumble on the journey home. I also didn't notice the knocking sound coming from the front when steering at low speeds.

2) Got a puncture on Friday. Space saver spare, but even with it bolted on the drive is just as stable as the proper wheel. 2 new front tyres now on.

3) Expensive on fuel. Expected. Worth it.

4) No way to switch off traction control.

5) The touch screen/computer is a little... Rubbish. The manual didn't explain how to adjust the clock on my particular system. I only found it after having a long casual play through the *satnav* settings.

6) The boot is surprisingly shallow.

7) The clutch does NOT like delicate manoeuvres. You can't be shy with it pulling away at the lights or reversing.
Now for the good bits:

Fucking CHRIST the thing shifts like a rocket! Managed 60 in a little over 6 seconds the other day...

It's absolutely planted to the road even at *ahem* more rapid speeds. Doesn't really feel lile you're travelling at the speeds you really are, either.

All the modcons and stuff work.

Cruise control is a truly enlightening religion.

It's a genuinely lovely place to sit in and drive.

Sounds a bit like a 911. It wouldn't be too far behind one either at full chat.

It's somewhat satisfying to floor it after having some arsehole inside my boot through the entire 30mph zone because they assume it's an old bloke driving a slow, agricultural estate, then watch them disappear from my rear view mirror.

tl;dr

Fast, expensive and couple of easily fixable issues, but this is an incredible driving machine and (whilst my wallet can sort of cope) I absolutely love it and I will be sad to see this civilised madness on wheels go to its next supervisor.

Now, is anyone in the market for a Hooligan Red Skoda Octavia?
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Turbo » Tue Feb 09, 2016 11:00 pm

I drove from London to Coventry on a space saver, faster than 80kph too. Seemed fine.

Only additional thing I am going to say is I hate cruise control. I never use it. End up with my foot perched on the brake where I am never comfortable. Had an incident on the M25 where I swapped feet and your clutch foot just tapping the brake is well... all I could smell was tyres. Luckily no one was behind me amazingly enough, that was the last time I did that.

Love to take the Octavia but I can't begin to look at having a new motor. My personal miles is extremely low, naturally I don't like doing what I do for a job in my spare time, so my cheap hair drier is doing just fine. For everything else theres public transport which I am more than happy to use always. Come to think of it I don't need a car at all.

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Re: A driving thread

Postby Noodle » Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:27 am

I have gone for years wondering what the hype about cruise control was, but having discovered it, it has two benefits that I can see in this car.

Firstly, 90mph *ahem* 70mph feels like 40mph, so by the time you feel like you're doing 70, and it will happily climb to it rapidly, you're doing about a ton. CC really does help with the temptation to put your foot down.

Secondly, I've found clicking it on at each speed limit zone is actually helping my fuel economy. It's sort of like the above, where it helps reduce the temptation to step on it.

My pedals are really quite heavily sprung so it's quite easy to just lightly rest my right foot on either of the pedals (usually the throttle ready to scamper away from aforementioned Danroushtailgaters expecting to be able to shove past the Grandadmobile).

As for the Octy (Briskoda forums... That's the best you could come up with?), it really is a hoot to drive but I wasn't really expecting any serious offers on the forum. I still haven't listed it for sale yet though, so you lot effectively get first refusal, and I quite like the idea of seeing it turn up to a Bloodstock (and subsequently get stuck in the car park) every year. So if you're genuinely tempted, I'm quite happy to go through the ins and outs.
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Jim » Wed Feb 10, 2016 5:29 pm

Noodle wrote:7) The clutch does NOT like delicate manoeuvres. You can't be shy with it pulling away at the lights or reversing.


If it's heavy and with a really narrow bite (like, an on/off switch), then it sounds like you've got a fairly new clutch in there.

Noodle wrote:Sounds a bit like a 911


That'll be that lovely flat 4 boxer engine. Can confirm they sound nice.

Cruise control is indeed fucking awesome. Note that the fuel efficiency gains diminish on hilly parts (think M1 between J24 and J22), but I'm able to yield 50mpg in the 50mph roadworks on the M1 using cruise control, which is amazing considering I'm normally getting around 30-35mpg.
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Noodle » Fri Feb 12, 2016 10:22 pm

The clutch is about 20,000 miles old. It's fairly high, but that's suposedly a trait of Subarus.

As for its motor, it's a 3 litre naturally aspirated 6 cylinder boxer. Its exhaust note is pleasantly quiet and dignified. Nice initial bite, lags a little up to around 3500 rpm, then really wakes up with a shock above that. Its 911-esque timbres appear at around 4500.
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Re: A driving thread

Postby Gandalf the Red » Sun Feb 14, 2016 4:41 pm

Interesting article on how few of the classic cars that I remember are left on the road. Most of these were everywhere a few years ago.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/enthusias ... spartanntp
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