OCTAVIA III Owners discussion thread

[STALLED]

I noticed that some of the unregistered cars at the dealership we purchased ours from had a black frame like mounting on the rear. I assume that these were removed at the pre-delivery stage...

Ours has the pre-drilled mounting holes at the front - not exactly impressed, but what can you do!

[vEnOm_oz]

I would recommend - https://www.lakinplates.com.au, for plate mounts. I use this on my car and it works perfectly. Philip is great to deal with and his customer service is exceptional.

[GTR27]

Second lakin plate holders. We have full size euro plates on ours, and a set of custom holders (screwless) and they are awesome! Perfect fit on factory holes, no drilling required. I insisted on fitting then myself as my mk2 rs was fitted by the dealer by screwing a self tapping screw straight into the metal, ignoring the factory holes. I vowed never to let the dealer touch number plates again. Mine were expensive, but I got the most expensive ones he makes (around 350 iirc for the set)

[furiousgibbon]

thanks, I've looked at the Lakin mounts previously but they're a little pricey for what they are.

If the Octavia has threaded holes on the boot I'm happy to drill the plates to suit (I take my time and get it perfectly straight/centered).

I've pulled up a couple of images of the front without a plate and it looks like there are 4 holes there so I could probably just drill the front plates too. Some people are a bit funny about drilling plates but I'd rather that than drill the car!

[GTR27]

There are two holes front and back IIRC in the middle

[HAZ79]

Skoda Albury just had some plastic brackets with long slots in them to locate the cars holes, and Australian hole spots up the top of them. Works fine not expensive either.

[daMama]

So I've often wondered if the outside temp indicator went below 0 degrees.... being a Czech car, I would have thought it would. My question was answered this morning....

[TheScout]

Another Canberra Skoda owner then I assume? I had a similar readout on my dash this morning


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[GTR27]

I'd be surprised if I ever see the snowflake in Brisbane

[K4neX]

It must be foggy too as you had your front and rear fog lights on.

[Opie]

I think it was -3 last night, and it was thick fog today.

[GeeMatt]

i had the snowflake pop up one morning. Shocked the life out of me ! Wondered what the #&%$ was that

[daMama]

Another Canberra Skoda owner then I assume? I had a similar readout on my dash this morning


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Sure am Scout [emoji4]

It must be foggy too as you had your front and rear fog lights on.

It was quite thick today, and bitterly cold for the whole day!

i had the snowflake pop up one morning. Shocked the life out of me ! Wondered what the #&%$ was that

Lol. I laugh when it tells me to be careful of the icey roads! Not far off it though.

[furiousgibbon]

picked up the RS last night, done about 200km in it so far and I'm very happy with it. I've noticed quite a few areas where Skoda cuts cost in comparison to our mk6 GTI (which is now for sale and I'm going to miss it), but overall the car is excellent and I still think it's an absolute bargain.

It's a white DSG wagon with every option ticked, the only thing I didn't go for was the 19" wheels.

The first thing I had to do was disconnect the soundaktor. I did the same in the Golf and it made it a much nicer drive. Same goes for the Skoda, but even more so. The sound that thing put out was so dirty and rough, it sounded like an unhappy diesel. Now it sounds smooth and refined but still has a good growl to it, and I can actually hear the revs rather than it just being overburdened by fake rumble. Next thing is to put some under hood insulation on (another cost cutting measure!) because there's a slight clattery sound coming from the engine bay and I think that will just muffle it slightly.

The car drives nicely, I'm not a fan of the DSG programming it's a little laggy, very slow response when I manually request a lower gear, slow kickdown. The car also feels a lot heavier than the Golf particularly at the front. I noticed the engine sits quite far foward, or perhaps the engine bay is bigger because there's tons more room at the back of the engine. Handling is still very good though. Surprised at how flat and firm the seats are, that's probably the biggest negative other than the gearbox mapping. Everything else is awesome!

Oh, and as for the question I had on the previous page about plate mounting, I was short of time so I relented and let the dealer drill the plates on the rear and drill the bumper on the front, and they did a perfect job! Phew. Needs euro plates though, the standard WA ones just don't look right on the front.

[parisfrance]

Welcome to the vRS club furiousgibbon, it is a relatively small and select group here in the West.

After three weeks ownership and just over 1300kms I can't find any major complaints about the vehicle. If I am being particularly picky I would like a bigger fuel tank, 50litres just isn't big enough for lengthy journeys and I can see myself carrying at least one maybe two 20l fuel cans on longer trips e.g. across Nullabor. Also I would like the cruise control buttons on the steering wheel, as it is in Golf and my previous Honda Euro etc. but I am getting used to it, apart from mistakenly hitting the Main Beam flash on two occasions when attempting to cancel the cruise control setting.

As for furiousgibbons comments regards DSG mapping, after only 200kms I suggest that it may be too early to be commenting on mechanical performance to that extent, the engine and gearbox are likely to be tighter than a photo finish.

I was surprised for the average fuel consumption to be registering 8.8l over the first two weeks, especially given I was driving it in as per the manual. But now that the car has driven over 1000km the average is nearing 7.7l and I expect that it will only improve over time.

As for responsive of the DSG, I have no complaints with mine. I was out for dinner the other night with friends and was playing skipper for two of my mates, one of which has a golf. He asked whether I use the DSG in manual mode and I showed him the shifts using the paddles and all three of us in the car noted how quick the gearbox is to change down/up. Give it time and a few more kms and hopefully you will be happier with the DSG responsiveness.