delticdave

Since Microwaves usually have a glass door, it's not a very good Faraday Cage...... I use a metal container c/w a metal lid & that works vey well. If it's difficult to find such a container (used to be made for for leaf tea &/or coffee beans) I would suggest food cans. Choose your whatever you fancy, & eat the contents... Make sure that you buy 2 sizes, one larger than the other, open the smaller (but big enough for your keys.....) can & remove top lid. Then, open the larger can from the bottom lid, (upside down of course.....) & consume the food. Then after washing the cans, (leaving the labels on) put the keys into the small can & cover iit with the larger can. Hide your new Faraday Cage somewhere safe &/or just leave in the food cupboard amongst the other food cans....... HTH, D.C.

I is confuzzled, what R decals do you mean, for the car or the calipers?

Nice choice of colour! SWMBO has a similar wagon & it's not often recognized as an R at all. Still fun to drive, easy to live with & our car of choice for vacation trips, especially in Europe. Enjoy, DC.

The new Golf estate is a bigger car than the Mk 7, it's on the 2686 mm wheelbase platform, as is the Octavia 4 & the new Leon. It's 4633 mm long, rather than the 4562 mm Mk. 7. Tomas was quite happy with the head & legroom, (when testing the Alltrack version).

Re. the left foot, play some music & tap said foor to the beat....But, if you can't hear music or conversation @ 80 mph, that won't work. But, if you can't hear music or conversation @ 80 mph, that won't work. You can, of course use the shifter (in manual mode) to shift up & down, but I find it easier to use the paddles, which also work in D or S. There must be something wrong with the flaps, my R hatch is reasonably quiet @ an 80 mph cruise, as is the estate. (No flaps on a Mk. 7 estate though, different exhaust system, just a noticeable drone at motorway speeds..

I'd think it's the DQ381, the dry clutch (DQ200?) 7-speed couldn't cope with a 190ps TSi. I had a test drive in a 1.8 TSi 160ps Superb 2 many years ago with the DQ200, but bought a 2.0 TSi DQ 250 instead......

I have to agree with you, Skoda do indeed seem to steal sales from their cousins. Skoda did sell a few AWD Mk.3 Facelift Octavia estates recently, in SE+L & LnK trims. All with 190 ps TSi & 7-speed DSG. I've never found one (on Autotrader) with paddles, if I had I just might have spent the £25K they were asking, Add a stage 1 remap & you might have a junior stealth bomber....

You're not the oldest R owner, Swmbo & I own an R each, & she was born in '49, myself in '47. I'm dithering re. replacing my R hatch with something "sensible", a 4WD Arteon or Superb would work for me but if the petrol Octavia Mk.4 vRS is offered with 4WD I'm going back to Skoda. I had a quick peek & poke in a Mk. 4 Octy yesterday & it's quite impressive, especially with the interior materials. Better than the Golf 8.....

Mtech are closed..... As for OE brakes, my 2017 Mk. 7 hatch had it's 3-year health-check from local VW dealer, (before it's 1st MOT), they stated that both front & rear pads were 10% worn. The car has only covered 13+K miles so I'd be surprised if I'd needed new pads / discs at that age / mileage but if the general thinking is that the OE brakes are sub-par, should I be looking for replacements soon? SWMBO's R wagon is due for it's 4-year MOT in May, after it's booked service in April next month , her OE pads were 20% worn at £10K miles, but our driving styles do differ.......... As for MOT's, is it now allowed to drive to & from an MOT or service? The new 6-month MOT relaxation period information seems to indicate that an MOT should be postponed, but driving to a garage for essential repairs is acceptable. Is a scheduled service classified an "essential repair"? Any advice would be very welcome............ DC.

SWMBO's R wagon was obtained on a PCP, but 5 days later we bought the car outright (paid VW Finance in full, just had to pay for 5 days interest). Why do we do this, I couldn't make sense of the 6.8 % rate, it would have cost us some £3.4K + the balloon payment just to keep the car. She has decided that it's a keeper, (low mileage & a nice spec.) so it's going to be with us for another few years.... As buying an ex. VAG management car, my Superb (the daily driver) is on a K plate, & was in very good condition. No qualms re. purchasing it at all, same thoughts re. the 2 Ford "Management Role Car" Mondeo wagons, which I kept for 4 & 6 years respectively. I've owned the Skoda for 7+ years & still can't find a suitable replacement.............. One other point, all VAG press fleet cars used to be registered on "O" plates, but they now seem to be using KU plates instead. FWIW I'd never want to own an ex press fleet car............

I / we use the paddles too, but the Mk 8 doesn't seem to have a manual "hold" facility, unlike the previous DSG shifters. I rarely use the shifter to change gear, but "hold" + paddles works for me, especially on hilly roads.

No worries, the current Leon doesn't feel cheap either.

Sorry, not quite the case. The Cupra Ateca isn't cheap to buy, but it's not cheap inside either. Compared to a T-Roc it's positively luxurious! It could easily be a replacement for a Golf if accessibility becomes a problem, (been there, my late wife had MS & helping her into a normal became impossible) & it's more fun to drive than a Tiguan.

I too can remember the VAT relief, etc, we mostly used Motability, the last two cars were a manual V6 Mondeo estate & an auto V70 diesel. After her demise I stuck with estates 'cos they are very useful, 2 more V6 Mondeos for 4 & then 6 years, but I've since succumbed to the VAG brand, we've now owned 2 VW EOS's, 2 vRS Octavias, my current & now ancient Superb + the 2 R's. Could be worse....... Cheers & best wishes, DC

We have already considered & driven the Mk. 3 Superb Estate, the 280 is quite nippy, but it's too big for my garage. I'm not keen on leaving a vehicle on the drive or in the street & my 1965 garage is just too small for the Mk.3, it will fit inside, but the drivers door can't be opened. My Mk. 2 Superb is a tight fit, but it's relatively narrow. The new facelifted Passat might work, & will probably have a 2.0 TSi 4X4 option, but I've no idea when it's going to be available in the UK. I've been sent updated prices for the New Focus today, & the ST 2.3 manual petrol estate is about £33.5K. Only FWD though.

Hi Neil. Welcome to the forum & enjoy your new wheels. I don't have your problems but my late wife had M.S., & couldn't walk, so we needed to carry a wheelchair + a mobility scooter as well as shopping & luggage. After a owning few hatchbacks, (including a red '89 Ford Escort 3-speed Auto....), we decided that we really needed an estate car. If you've moved from a GTi to an R then you'll know just how much space you really need, but I do feel that the R wagon is the better/ more practical car. We (new wife & I....) now own two R's, hatch & estate, both nice cars, but I'm looking for a replacement for my hatch, whereas her estate is definitely the keeper. If VW do decide to drop the estate in the Mk.8 Golf, we would probably go back to an Octavia or a Passat, but we would notice the performance loss. Enjoy your R, it really is a very versatile car. DC.

At our age, (OAP.s....) SWMBO & I would quite happily live with Ladette / Lad.

Too true, we had a new '04 V70 & that was easy to park in my garage, but although either of our Golf's are shorter they are wider, even over the tiny door mirrors. It's doable, but takes more care than the older cars.

My other car has front fogs & I really miss them on our Golf's. Living in a river valley possibly = more chance of mist + the extra wide light spread makes it easier to drive into an unlighted garage. Looks-wise, that's that's more personal but I'd like to see front fog-lights on an R, maybe the next-generation cars can provide decent cooling & lighting.

That's not old, I'm 72 next year....... & I /we really didn't like the S3's we've driven either. It's not always about the money, becoming Audi drivers just didn't feel right.

The T-ROC is a bit too small, a Golf Estate is much more useful & nicer inside. Sizewise, the Ateca is the next size up, as is the Tiguan & Karoc. DC

A possible alternative to an estate "might" be an Ateca. The new Cupra version is, effectively, a tall Golf R / Leon Cupra ST, but it might be worth considering an Ateca Fr 2.0TSi instead, it's AWD & DQ381 DSG. Only 190 ps ex works, but I'm told (& I believe) that the power output is just a software limitation, the engine is basically the same as the R, & can be remapped to it's real potential. Just a thought.......... DC

Interesting..... We drove a few DSG cars (Mk. 5 Golf GTi. Octavia vRS, & a few Superbs) & bought the car I/we liked best, my (now quite old) Superb. SWMBO then decided that she wanted something similar so her manual EOS was replaced by a '11 Octy DSG vRS, & I swapped my even older V6 Mondeo for a DSG EOS. Possibly a slight lack of logic, but so what!) All three older DSG cars were remapped by AMD, because our experiences with our previously mapped manual cars, my '07 vRS & her EOS, (AMD maps) were that they were much nicer to drive with decent bottom-end torque. So, we experimented with the DSG Superb, & loved it enough to have the other cars mapped within weeks of purchasing them. Maybe the extra grunt is enough to mask any DSG delays, &/or maybe we have learned to drive around the problems? Both our R's are stock, there's no real need for more power, & the DSG software has certainly been updated in the last 4 years, & they are both very easy to live with. So, we're unlikely to buy a manual car again 'cos we like what we have, still enjoy driving but are getting lazy in our dotage ..... FWIW, we've both got 50+ driving years behind us, so we feel that we deserve the luxury of two-pedal driving, (+ power steering, power brakes, ABS, parking sensors, etc.etc.) DC.

Maybe I (& SWMBO) are doing something wrong, but we've owned 5 cars with the DQ250 & can't recall any lag when needing to "depart rapidly" or when trundling around in traffic. Also, don't see the point in spinning round to the redline too often, my Superb makes maximum power (249 bhp) at 5844 rpm, & drops to 205 bhp at the 6500 redline. Which it does in "S" mode, all by itself.......... Never used the quickdown either, it's just not necessary when the car has the Tiptronic shifter (usually used to hold a gear) & paddles, which are used a lot when we want to play...... We have driven the DQ381, some S3's, 7.5 R's & an 2.0 TSi Ateca, nice box, 7th seem to be an overdrive ratio & the fuel savings can't justify the cost of a new car just yet. I too used to be rude about autoboxes, especially the '70's 3-speeds, but the modern versions are both fun to play with & good stress relievers, so I / We are very unlikely to buy another manual. DC

I'm a bit older than you lot, so I learnt to drive (& owned for a good few years) on RWD cars. Mostly live axles too so sliding through corners on wet roads & narrow tyres was far too easy. Rear engined cars, 3 x Imps, + Simca 1000, SEAT 600 as holiday rentals were part of the learning curve, as was a Ford Mk 4 Zephyr 6 with it's odd semi-swing axle independent suspension. FWD for me was somewhat later, small Fords, Cavaliers, Mondeos, various Skodas & VW's, all safe & some good fun too. Now that we own an R each, (after testing a few 3 & 4 series BMW's) we appreciate the abilities of part-time FWD & don't feel the need to own tail-happy cars. FWIW, it seems that on my late (66 plate) Mk7 R, VCDS can find an option for the %age of power fed to the Haldex unit, I've gone for the little bit extra to the rear option, but when compared with her R wagon it's not very noticable. Cheers, DC.