Friday, 6 May 2011

Strange lights - it's not paradise by the dashboard lights, that's for sure

I've possibly written before about how impressed I am by the Skoda Octavia VRS I occasioanally get to drive at work. If I had expressed such an opinion 20 years ago I would have been certified as insane and probably awarded the Iron Curtain equivalent of the George Cross. Of course these days the sensible cost efficient Skoda makes a valid alternative to any of the VW/Seat/Audi models in the sister range of cars. It is to all extents a VW Passat without the badge. Lift the bonnet and parts are stamped with Audi, VW and SEAT labels as well as the Skoda mark. And with a VRS badge the Skoda becomes another beast altogether.
Fortunatley I am in one of the few ocupations that allows, and indeed demands that on occasion we push vehicles to their limits. I can honestly say I haven't found the limits of the VRS yet. Give me a closed motorway and an unlimited petrol budget and I might, but I've had this little beauty up to 140 with plenty of travel left on the acceerator pedal giving me the impression it would go much faster if demanded. Not even my regular Volvo T5 gives that performance, topping out at 147 with foot firmly planted in the carpet.
Now don't get me wrong, the Volvo feels far more stable at those speeds, and whilst you wouldn't choose to crash at over 100 mph, if you had to, you would chose the Volvo over just about anything else on the roads. The Skoda, by comparison, feels like tinfoil against the Volvo's aluminium. It's a Ginsters Pasty in a world of Steak and Kidney Pies. And this is possibly why having crashed through a pothole on the A63 at around 60 mph it decided to throw up a strange warning light, the meaning of which perplexed and confused me. It appeared rather like a goldfish bowl, with an exclamation mark in the middle of it.
Aware that an exclamation mark on a road sign relates to an otherwise unspecified hazard I was immediaetly concerned as to the welfare of my Goldfish, some unknown fate was about to happen to my fishy friend - until I remembered that I have no Goldfish or aquatic pets of any kind. So what did this mysterious pictogram warn of?
I reduced speed, and havug deaklt with the incident I was responding to, I return gingerly to the garage. There I was advised that this symbol was a tyre pressure warning, and that by depressign a button under the4 radio for two seconds or more I could determine whether this was a false alarm, caused by a momentary alteration in pressure, caused by, for example, crashing through a pthole at 60 mph, or soemthign ore sinister, like a screw in the tyre.
Okay, fair enough, but why the Goldfish bowl symbol? If the tyres in cross section resembled a Goldfish bowl, I could understand this, but given that they are ultra low profile tyres, and resemble at best a very shallow washing up bowl or maybe even a thin baking tin in cross section, Ithink the symbol was a little misleading. So, Skoda, must try harder.
I think I have lost the point now, but I'll conclude that it is not paradise the dashboard lights, more a case of confusion by the dashboard lamps.

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