luke_a

Getting a loud noise when driving over 50mph from the front left wheel, pretty certain the wheel bearing has gone and I need to replace the wheel bearing hub. The car is an 05 reg, and has done over 240,000 miles, and none of the wheel bearings have been replaced in this time. I jacked the car up this morning to have a look, the wheel doesn't appear to have any play when rocking it, but I'm sure the wheel bearing needs replacing. I'm using good quality tyres, Michellin Cross Climate, and there is no uneven wear on the tyre which would suggest a different problem. The hub is held on with 4 bolts with a 12 point star head (spline?), this is what the bolts are supposed to look like. Unfortunately, this is what my bolts look like. They all look in bad shape, and the bottom right one looks like it is going to be impossible to get out as there is no recognisable star on the head. The part is roughly ~£100, and have been quoted £250 to get it replaced by a garage (parts and labour), so before I looked under the car I was considering doing it myself. I've done some research and found this video detailing the process for replacing the wheel bearing hub. They have also written up a post with more photos and information. http://www.myturbodiesel.com/wiki/wheel-bearing-and-hub-replacement-vw-symptoms-and-noises/ Would I be insane to even consider doing this job? I think I'm going to pay the professionals to do it. But just out of interest, how would you get these bolts out? Thanks, Luke

I spent about 2 hours today struggling to remove the sump plug. The bugger is at arms reach, so I can only get one arm to a tool on it, and as I am laying on the ground it is difficult to apply the required force to the tool. I've tried a ring spanner and three different length socket sets, I even tried hitting the end of the longest socket set with a hammer (although not very hard given the limited space), yet I still couldn't get it to budge. I did consider axel stands/ramps, but I really don't want to be swinging off the sump bolt whilst laying under the car, because if the car falls off the stands/ramps it will almost certainly kill me. Does anyone here use an Oil Extractor? Can anyone recommend one that they have used on an Octavia 1.9 TDI, as I am concerned that I might buy one with a tube that won't fit down the dipstick hole. I realise the general opinion seems to be that oil extraction doesn't remove as much muck, but I just can't get the sodding sump plug to budge, so my only other option is to pay a garage to do the oil change for me.

Thanks for the reply. The car used to be owned by a lease company, so I can only assume it was a company car given the high mileage. They bought it new, and sold it to a independent used car dealer after 3 years. (Not quite sure why they spent £20,000 on a new car with nearly all the options, to sell it for £3000/3500 3 years later?) The lease company serviced it regularly, there wasn't a Skoda service log, instead there were invoices for all the servicing done, but none of them listed the cambelt. I bought the car with 116,000 miles on it, no doubt with the original cambelt, so the first thing I did was get a full service done and get the cambelt and water pump replaced.

All well and good telling me to have a go myself, but not a lot I can do without spending £300 on a VAG-COM surely. God only knows if you can get hold of part lists and diagrams for the car, or where I would get parts from, or how long it would take. Christ if a garage couldn't even get the parts they needed to replace my intercooler pipe, after spending a day trying to figure out what the sodding part numbers were, I'll be buggered if I can. I got a quote on cambelt replacement. Was ~£290, with water pump, iirc. He also said it doesn't need doing at 60,000 miles, its 80,000 miles.

Took it to an independent VAG garage. Seem like a nice enough bunch. Wanted £45 for a diagnostic, which they don't charge you if you get them to fix the problem (if there is one). The warning light turned off on the way to the garage, but I still thought I should get it checked out. It needs a new brake light switch, and 3 of the 4 glow plugs are knackered, so have been advised to replace all 4 at the same time. £190 for 4 glow plugs and a brake light switch doesn't seem too bad. I'd rather not risk it snapping and destroying the engine considering the money I have spent on it recently. I'll get a quote from this indy garage for doing it, should hopefully be less than the £800 the dealer charged me when I last had it done with a full service.

Car: Skoda Octavia 1.9 TDI Estate (2005) Mileage: 171,000 miles I've owned the car for nearly 4 years now, I bought it for £3995 in 2008 and it had 116,000 miles on it. It's been reliable up until recently, but the past 6 months have been very expensive. I had a full service and MOT in December. All was fine. Then in February the Turbo failed (on the exhaust side). This resulted in having to hire a car for several days, and having to replace the turbo and catalytic converter, which set me back around £1400. Then 2 weeks ago the "Control system for exhaust" light came on, though it did not go into limp home mode, and was seemingly fine, I took it to a garage. They diagnosed it as the seal had failed on the intercooler pipe from the intercooler to flap motor housing, but they couldn't get the part and told me to go to the main dealer. They said I could drive it home, but I barely got 1 mile down the road and the car was spluttering and kangeroo-ing all over the place, so I pulled over and called the breakdown recovery chaps. A nice chap turned up, he said this happens all the time on VAG cars. Straight away he secured the pipe with lots of cable ties, and followed me home at 50mph. I then took it to the dealer the next day, and ended up with a bill for nearly £400. Then yesterday the "Glow plug system" warning light started flashing, and I heard a bong, though again, no problem with the car, and no limp home mode. No problems starting when I went to drive home. Upon researching it, it could be an issue with the brake pedal switch, or with brake lights not working or staying on, but it isn't that, and I had the switch replaced about 18 months ago. My car is due a full service and cambelt change at 180,000 miles, which is soon as I do 400-500 miles a week. So that'll cost me anywhere between £500 and £800. What would you do? Keep spending money to keep it on the road, or give up? I've been keeping my fingers crossed that the worst is behind me now, and it could well give me several more years without problems, but I'm starting to lose faith. The problem is my car isn't worth anything... so it doesn't seem worth it. webuyanycar would give me ~£1000. I can't afford to buy another car, apart from a really cheap one out of the local paper, so it will be unreliable and cost me a fortune to run.

Great, just had this flash up on mine. So after reading all of the responses here, it could be just about anything in the car that is causing the problem. So that'll be another £90 to diagnose the problem. Only had it out of the garage a week, and now this. I must have spent nearly £2000 in the past 6 months keeping the car on the road. Rather tempting to leave it in Liverpool with the keys in the ignition.

I have a 2005 Octavia 1.9 TDI Estate, and have owned it for the past 3 years. I bought it when it was 3 years old with 120,000 miles on it, did a full service and cambelt replacement as soon as I bought it (as it was well overdue). It is now just over 6 years old, has 165,000 miles on the clock, and everything has been fine, up until now. Last Wednesday when I was driving to work, I pulled out of a junction and as I was accelerating up a hill there was a bang. Immediately I lost a considerable amount of power and smoke started pouring out of the exhaust. It scared the **** out of me, I just didn't have a clue what to do, so decided to panic. I pulled over, and the back of the car was splattered with oil and the exhaust stank of burning oil. As I was very close to a garage (about a minute), I stupidly decided to drive it there, instead of waiting 2 hours for a breakdown truck. Once I got it to the garage, they guessed straight away that a turbo failure was probably the cause, and quoted me for fitting a new one, £1300. They then put it up on a ramp and had a look around, and warned me that as all of the oil had gone through the cat and the exhaust, that they may need replacing also. A new cat would bring the total up to £1700, and a new exhaust on top of that would bring it up to around £2100. Anyway. I decided to go ahead with the work, as the car was worth spending the money on. So they started taking it bits to figure out how much of the car the Turbo had destroyed. My knowledge on the subject is hazy at best, but it turns out that on the (exhaust?) side of the turbo that connects to the cat, an (oil?) seal had failed and bits of the impeller/turbine/spinny thingy had smashed and shot itself into the cat destroying whatever the hell is in that. The other side of the turbo was intact, so I have hopefully avoided damaging the (intercooler or the?) rest of the engine. Fortunately, I didn't need a new exhaust, as they were able to clean the oil out of it. So they cleaned everything up and replaced the Turbo and the Cat for £1700. The work they have done is covered by a 12 month warranty on parts and labour, and looking around the internet at other tales of Skodas with failed Turbos, the quote seems fair enough for new parts. I'm not here to discuss the cost, I'm just putting the figures up here for reference if anyone else stumbles across this post. What I am concerned about is the future, and if this is just the start to all sorts of other expensive problems down the line. I know no one can say for sure, as from what I can gather Turbos appear to just fail without warning or provocation. Anyone here had a turbo fail, got it replaced, and lived happily ever after? It would be reassuring to hear from you. On a more technical note... how the hell did it happen? Did I cause it? I had the car serviced every time it told me it needed doing. Does the turbo have a replacement interval I was not aware of, or do they just go bang seemingly at random?

What sort of budget is more realistic then? No one does an expensive service, then sells their car, so all high mileage ones I am looking at doing the Cambelt. I bought my Octavia when it was 3 years old, just had its first MOT, and it only cost me £3995. Sure it had 117,000 miles on it, and was due a cambelt service, but it's an Elegance spec with all the extras, so I got hell of a lot of car for the money. I'll be buggered if I am paying any more than that for its baby brother. So these comedians on Autotrader with their 6 year old cars, with a high mileage, wanting £6000+ for it can get stuffed. It simply isn't worth that much. There's a 53 plate for £2750 on Autotrader that might be worth a look. Shame it's yellow.

Hi I've currently got a Skoda Octavia, but I need another car as the missus will be passing her test soon and will need a car. As she will be driving the kids around, it makes sense for her to have the Octavia and for me to get something smaller. When I bought my Octavia, it had 117,000 miles on it, so I'm happy to buy a Diesel Skoda with plenty of miles on it. Whilst I've been reading that section of the forum I have noticed that there are common faults with the Octavia, so I just wondered if you were looking to buy a second hand Fabia VRS what would you watch out for, and what sort of prices would you look at. My budget for car and insurance/tax/etc is about £3000, so roughly the budget for the car is £2000-2500. Ideally I would like a VRS, as my Octavia is a bit boring when you put your foot down, but I've noticed the VRS have held their value better than the non-VRS models. I've looked on autotrader, and found a few that fit the budget. Then I looked on ebay, hoping there would be something cheaper. There is, but it looks like it has been driven into a tree, and all the road worthy ones are well over my budget and their value. Any advice appreciated. Cheers Luke

Diesel VRS... 170bhp Petrol 1.8... 160bhp You were never one for top trumps.

Shame you bought the petrol version if MPG means so much to you. Now that Diesel prices have gone up to make a tank £70 to fill up, and are going up again soon, I have decided to stop driving like a loon. I used to get around 50-55mpg driving like a nutter, but have had it up to around 60-65mpg when driving like a coffin dodger. I would turn the Air Con/Heating off to get more MPG, but I've heard that if you don't use it it can stop working. Also I could stop listening to music/radio on my commute, but that would be too depressing.

I find the "miles left" thing is really inaccurate, makes me wonder if the average MPG is accurate either. If I fill up the tank, it thinks it has 700 miles range on it... even though I can only get 500-600 out of a tank. Then after 300 miles it goes down to 500 miles on it... Then during the next 300 miles, the figure absolutely plummets. I get a low fuel light when I have 70 miles left, and as my drive home is 30 miles, it always annoys the hell out of me that is quite happy to go down to 0 miles. Last time it did that, it went down to 0 miles, for about 15 miles, then went back up to 5 miles. Talks utter *******s. I carry a fuel can in the boot because I don't trust the ****er.

What sort of prices are they looking for? I got lucky, and in 2008 bought a 3 year old (05 plate) with 117,000 miles for only £3995. It was an Octy MK2 1.9TDI (estate) elegance model with lots of extras. It had FSH, as it was an ex-lease company car, but was due a cambelt + water pump change at the next service. The service after that was a normal one, then the service after that was new brake discs and pads. Even with the servicing costs, which you have to accept for any car, you can get a hell of a lot of car for the money. I didn't buy from a main dealer, bought it from a sole trader who probably bought it at an auction (or from another dealer). In terms of things to check. (some common things people report... off the top of my head...) - Rear washer squirter works, and isn't obviously leaking into the boot. - Cruise control works (if fitted). Hmmm... not a long list. Sorry. Have a scan around the forums. Don't be worried about buying a VAG Diesel with plenty of miles. It shouldn't fall to bits.

I doubt the driver will be young, as I thought most car delivery companies would struggle to get insurance for drivers under 25. I would assumed people that deliver cars would be very careful, as I imagine you don't get paid if you get a speeding ticket or damage the car! If it's a company car, why do you care? (unless of course you own the company!) Most people I know with company cars get a new one every 18 months. ******s. A lot of people on here get their cars professionally valeted when they buy a new one. Might not be worth doing because of the weather, but I'm sure people on here will have plenty of people to recommend.