2002 Skoda Octavia Ambiente from UK and Ireland - Comments

Nothing yet, but no doubt something will sooner or later.

Good car, my second Octavia, much better build quality and dealer service than Renault.

Just one minor grumble - the car feels coarse road surfaces which seems to transmit a drumming noise through the car. Anyone else noticed this and more to the point anyone else cured it? I've driven several and they all do it. It ain't so bad that it stops me liking the car - especially the overall abilities that enable it to do everything well without being expensive to buy or run.

It could be the tyres.

I owned a Seat Leon and it was a nightmare, doors leaked and all kind of stuff went wrong and my Seat dealer made things even worse.

I contacted Seat UK and they couldn't care less.

Sold my Leon after 10 months and bought a Japanese car.

I just purchased a new Octavia Combi 1.9tdi, it is a beautiful car, but like you say it is very noisy with that drumming sound on rough road surfaces especially concrete roads with that rippled type finish. I find it very annoying and have in fact worn ear plugs where a long journey on rough road surface like this are encountered. it is difficult to hear the radio when on this type of road. I live in Ireland where there are lots of this type of road surface. I was about to bring it back to the garage as I thought something was wrong with it, but now that I see your posting it would appear it is not a fault. My advise to buyers is to road test it on rough roads before buying. It is a great pity this fault exists as the rest of the car is just great.

Just like the first comment said, it might just as well be the tires making noise. The importers usually just put on a set of tires without testing them on the different surfaces, so it's recommended to try different sets of tires. I've tried Continental Premium Contact on my old Golf and it was very quiet even in that car...

I have just bought one of these extraordinarily good cars (1.8 turbo 20 valve) which goes like a rocket, and I agree very much about the drumming or what seems to be tension in the body shell when traversing slightly rough roads. It may be the tyres are overinflated, but I notice a strange boom when shutting the doors as if something is over tensioned.

I have noticed a marked improvement in this when the tank is full and we have four people in the car.

Actually it is a nice and cute car, but the problem that it is tough and not comfortable at all for long distances.

It is a great stony car with strong body,very economic especially the 1.9 TDI which I have imagine that I drive 1000KM by filling the tank only one time. another thing we should, but in the hand is the A|C that provide icy air in a fiery whether like the one we have in golf countries. But a little problem when I want to clean the front glass the water reaches the back of the car as well and the front left window when I try to close it all autoumatically it closes half and opens again i asked the maintainance thhy said it is afactory error.