The skoda Octavia diesel estate thread...
The skoda Octavia diesel estate thread...
Author
Discussion

Emsman

Original Poster:

7,387 posts

220 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
Right.
Never had a skoda.
I will add I have nothing against them, brand snobbery went out of the window a while ago.
It's a 1999, 124k miles, full history, for £1500.
I wanted something cheap to run, roomy, and cheap to insure.
Have I made a good choice?
Does anyone here run one??
Any info appreciated- bear in mind I was looking at a stilo diesel estate.
Have I chosen wisely, or poorly.

matchmaker

9,067 posts

230 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
Emsman said:
Right.
Never had a skoda.
I will add I have nothing against them, brand snobbery went out of the window a while ago.
It's a 1999, 124k miles, full history, for £1500.
I wanted something cheap to run, roomy, and cheap to insure.
Have I made a good choice?
Does anyone here run one??
Any info appreciated- bear in mind I was looking at a stilo diesel estate.
Have I chosen wisely, or poorly.
It's just run in. Good choice. Thousands of taxi drivers can't be wrong.

eltax91

10,771 posts

236 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
I run the Hatch. Bought it 2 years ago for £2150, FDSH on 75k with recent cambelt. It's now on 140k and still tight as a drum, just one little niggle at moment. During that 65k miles, it's had usual wear and tear brakes/ tyre's etc. It needed the rear shockers done and the MAF failed the other week. I get a (calculated) 50.7 MPG on the 110 1.9 TDi engine, almost exclusively motorway driving though.

Servicing is self-done and easy enough, I do the oil and 3 filters every 10k, using very good oil, never skimp on it. Buying advice? I'd say the golden rules are:-

  • Buy one with history, so many are FDSH, accept no substitute - these engines are famed for reliability, that record deteriorates rapidly when the cars are not serviced
  • They seem to be heavy on front discs (weighty old lump) and they warp easy, feel for a "wobble" when lightly braking, through the pedal and wheel. Don't let it put you off, just use it to negotiate
  • These things are far to easy to clock (quick plug in with PC) and they wear really well, so watch like a hawk for tell-tale signs of clocking, don;t forget the 99-05 vintage Octavia estate is very popular as a taxi, so some mega-milers might have been clocked
Where abouts are you, you can drive mine for comparison if you want?

sherman

15,300 posts

245 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
They dont have much of a reputation for exploding in fireballs. Good choice thumbup

sadoksevoli

1,232 posts

287 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
Check what the cam belt interval is for changing on that model engine, it might be due for one soon. Otherwise good choice I reckon, although I haven't quite made it to 120,000+ miles on any of mine but never had any major issues. I imagine there's a fair few PHers who know more about high-mileage VAG diesels than me.

Chewitt

1,041 posts

267 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
make sure the cambelt and water pump are changed as dictated and will run and run and run and run

Baby Huey

4,881 posts

229 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
Best to discourage Emsman buying one as it will all go badly wrong.

He will single handedly(do you still have 2 hands Emsman?) raise your insurance premiums next year.

ian_c_uk

1,452 posts

233 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
I had a Y reg 4x4turbo estate for five years. Everyone mocked it in 2001, but over time it gained a lot of respect and I thought it was great, ran from 13k to 92k. My sister was so impressed she bought a mk1 1.6GLX, and my parents so much that in 2004 they bought a new 110tdi L&K, which they still run to this day.

Family needs changed, and I have had a few cars since my octy, but when I recently needed a cheap estate car for family duties, I bought another Octy 4x4turbo. This one is on 93k, x-reg, a little tatty but it "just a family hack", and with a little maintenance, has been fine.

Check window regulators, clutch pedal (welds on side can snap), auto door locking (ensure it doesn't auto lock when door has been opened) and you'll be fine. Lambda and MAF sensors can fail, but other than that are fairly bombproof. The sump is pretty low and exposed, so worth a glance to ensure no scrapes that are weaping.

Take a good look on Briskoda.

Emsman

Original Poster:

7,387 posts

220 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
Cheers folks.
I should have added that it's coming from my uncle who has run it for 6 years, and owned his own garage, it's in great condition and has been maintained as it should have been.
Only thing that scares ne is the amount of 'go' it has.
Last diesel i had was a passat so I guess it's the same lump- that was a company motor though, so tended to be driven with a fair amount of enthusiasm/lack of sympathy


Waugh-terfall

18,488 posts

230 months

Tuesday 18th May 2010
quotequote all
Might be an idea to get in touch with David ( KingRichard) on here, his private hire firm run loads of mk2s and a couple of mk1 Octavias.
Echoing what was said earlier, it's just run in, I was in one of his mk2s on an 08-plate with, I'm pretty sure, almost 120,000mi on the clock!!

ian_c_uk

1,452 posts

233 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
Emsman said:
Only thing that scares ne is the amount of 'go' it has.
Last diesel i had was a passat so I guess it's the same lump- that was a company motor though, so tended to be driven with a fair amount of enthusiasm/lack of sympathy

If it's the 1.9 110 engine, give me a shout, may have a tuning box for it, don't want much for it.

Ian


UncleRic

937 posts

198 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
Emsman said:
I was looking at a stilo diesel estate.
Have I chosen wisely, or poorly.
With that as the other option?

"You have chosen....


..wisely."

Nothing wrong with Octavias.

ZesPak

26,150 posts

226 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
Emsman said:
Cheers folks.
I should have added that it's coming from my uncle who has run it for 6 years, and owned his own garage, it's in great condition and has been maintained as it should have been.
Only thing that scares ne is the amount of 'go' it has.
Last diesel i had was a passat so I guess it's the same lump- that was a company motor though, so tended to be driven with a fair amount of enthusiasm/lack of sympathy

The 110bhp is fine, not quick by any means, but good enough. It will get you and all the people/luggage it can carry everywhere.

If you want go, you'll want another engine choice.

lost in espace

6,615 posts

237 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
This engine runs well on a mix of veg oil, up to 80% in the summer.

littleredrooster

6,412 posts

226 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
Provided it has the necessary turbo (i.e. NOT the SDi), great choice.

eltax91

10,771 posts

236 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
lost in espace said:
This engine runs well on a mix of veg oil, up to 80% in the summer.
Yeah, but the £1k to replace lift pump doesn't!

surrey7er

3,950 posts

299 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
I ran one for 137,000 miles.

In that time, other than normal servicing:

brakes. The comment above is correct. Mine warped like a mofo. Very disconcerting, I guess you need to chose the disc/pad combo well.

cruise control. Broke in warranty, got it fixed. Apparently, the part was £500, so when it broke out of warranty, I lived without it.

electric windows. Once the car had 130,000 miles on it, the door seals started to leak, which meant the windows had a life of their own.

Other than that, mechanically, it felt as fresh on its last day as it did on its first...

I found the front seats were uncomfortable, but I was pushing 16 stone at the time...

lost in espace

6,615 posts

237 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
eltax91 said:
lost in espace said:
This engine runs well on a mix of veg oil, up to 80% in the summer.
Yeah, but the £1k to replace lift pump doesn't!
Agreed there is a risk, but if you mix sensibly you (fingers crossed here) should be ok. These engines are fine for "single tanking" as recommended by elsbett, which simply means a few mods including new glowplugs and injectors, but it does not require any work on the injector pump.

See http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/forum/viewthre... for a discussion about running these engines on veg with a mix. I ran my Passat 110bhp on new oil for about 40k and have now done 10k in my Galaxy. Unfortunately everything else seems to break on the Galaxy, but the engine runs fine on veg/derv.

Do not do this with a common rail/PD engine!

cv01jw

1,137 posts

225 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
surrey7er said:
I found the front seats were uncomfortable, but I was pushing 16 stone at the time...
I would second that, and I am just a shade over 10 stone. They are not too bad going to/from work for me, but anything over an hour and I start getting uncomfortable in them. A little too firm IMO.

Other than that ours has been a good family car - it's a 2001 1.6 petrol estate and has served us well. Only issues we have had in 2 1/2 years of ownership was a faulty ABS sensor and a wiper linkage that failed. Oh, and the water pump siezed, but that turned out to be the skin flint who owned it before us didnt change it with the cambelt.

surrey7er

3,950 posts

299 months

Wednesday 19th May 2010
quotequote all
cv01jw said:
surrey7er said:
I found the front seats were uncomfortable, but I was pushing 16 stone at the time...
I would second that, and I am just a shade over 10 stone. They are not too bad going to/from work for me, but anything over an hour and I start getting uncomfortable in them. A little too firm IMO.
yeah... thats right... too skimpy on the padding.

I regularly did 600 mile roundtrips in mine and ended up with 'square arse' syndrome at the end of it. Maybe a cushion woulda helped?