<< You don't save money by missing services. It costs you big money when something breaks. The cheapest way to run a car is to service by the manufacturer's recommendations ... >>

As makers' service intervals these days are probably longer than they should be (partly because fleet buyers don't want to spend on servicing) that is probably true. But that does not necessarily mean that every annual MoT visit should be accompanied by a 'service'. Filters or coolant don't need changing that often, for example. If you are a typical owner doing 6-10K miles a year you can have jobs done accordingly, maintaining the car and saving a bit as well. If you drive a diesel for short trips, different again....

If ending back with another Octavia (which as you say is no hardship, they are good cars), is there any particular reason not to get a bit longer out of the existing car? 150k miles doesn't seem OTT to me, if it's been properly serviced.

It's a case of pre-empting potential future issues - they are 150,000 hard/abusive miles as my son doesn't take after me in that respect.

We had similar with our Honda Civic. Water ingress into both front side marker lights. Almost certainly poorly designed and manufactured but not covered at 3 1/2 years old under extended warranty. Around £300 a pair too.

Re the lack of police, I'd assume this kind of thing could be enforced semi-automatically via CCTV/speed camera stylee remote sensing, plod participation free, so the offender just gets a picture of their illegal lights through the post along with a fine....

Did the invoice emerge from a computer controlled printer? Service invoices probably say almost exactly the same thing, so the printer might be made to print out the details of all the tasks with just a very few keystrokes. In my previous life as a GP much time was saved by such elementary programming. For instance, I could create a detailed record of a common problem and a printed prescription with merely a couple of clicks from my 'favourites' list. The problem for a big garage is the person doing the service might not be the same person operating the printer.