Lang Hayr

Cheers for the reply, yes my car is definitely drive by wire. Its an AGR engine. I'm almost certain all the diesels are drive by wire? I think I might treat myself to a vcds lead also. Has anyone had any experience with the aftermarket stalk switches? Good, bad, indifferent?

I have a mk1 octavia estate, 1.9 tdi glx 90bhp. I was thinking of installing a retrofit cruise control system. There seem to be a few sellers on evil bay selling the stalk and loom 'kit'. Has anyone done this before? Is that all I need? Do I need a switch for the clutch pedal to deactivate the cruise control? What do I need to do to programme the ecu so that everything works? I've had a look round the forum and can find some info on fabia retrofits but not much for octavias. Any advice would be greatly appreciated or if anyone knows of a thread, can you point me in the right direction. Thanks

FUBAR, you'll be absolutely fine running it on veg oil. I ran mine on veg oil from it having 56K on the clock. It now has 156k on, six years later, and it goes through the MOT every year running on cooking oil, while they do the emmisions test. It pushes out less emmisions and less particulates running on cooking oil than it does regular dino diesel. I regularly tow with it, and just make sure every now and again i give it a dose of injector cleaner. Keep the engine oil and filter changed religiously, and the fuel filter changed at least half the recommended interval, even more if you are using WVO with dubious animal fat content.

Mine used to have a mind of its own, starting, going halfway across the window then stopping, juddering a bit, then going, stopping. All this without even being switched on!, the metal pipe which runs through the spindle for the screenwash had fractured and when 'squirting' the screen, it was actually squirting inside the motor, which kinda screwed it up somewhat. Ive since had two fitted, both off scrap cars, and have given up trying to find a decent second hand one and got a new one from GSF for £55. Fit and forget for the rest of the life of my car me thinks.

You can get a blaupunkt replacement for the original. To everyone else looks the same as the original bee sting, but it's a DAB and fm aerial in one. Mine works a treat. It cost about £60, but you can get cheaper ones (i.e. not blaupunkt) for around £40 http://www.incarconnections.co.uk/car-aerials-car-antenna/in-car-dab-aerial-fm-bee-sting-roof-mounted-antenna-ct27uv53-autodab.html

I've fitted powerflex front bottom arm bushes (small front one and the big back ones) to my fabia 6 months ago, went to to get the tracking reset after fitting two new rack end and track rod ends, just to find that the off side has got play in the rear bush. I'm seriously not impressed with powerflex. For the price of them they should last longer than 6 months The original rubber ones have lasted 9 years (and yes they were greased correctly!) Grrrrr

I've been running 100% SVO in my 1999 GLXi 1.9 TDi 90 bhp AGR engine for the last 7 years. So far done just over 100,000 miles on veg oil. Here are some of my experiences. Buy the best quality oil that you can (currently 64p per litre in COSTCO) for new stuff. If you are using WVO, make sure it has been de-watered, and does not contain animal fats. A simple way to do this is 1. let it stand for a couple of weeks and all the water will settle to the bottom. 2. cool it down (save it till winter time and process it then), the animal fat will solidify when cold. Then filter it to 5 micron. If you can not process it in the winter, for summer use, make sure that you always carry a spare filter, and the tools to change it at the road side. Even in the summer it can be 20 degrees during the day, but on a clear night, it can drop to nearly freezing, and the animal fat solidifies and clogs the filter first thing in the morning!, i know by experience! I run 100% SVO, and have twin tanks. A small custom made alloy tank in the poystyrene spacer around the spare wheel (and hence under the boot floor, leaving me with a full size boot), and an ATG solenoid kit to swap tanks and purge the system. The car runs on diesel until warm and then switch over to oil. This is passed through a heated, aftermarket fuel filter which has a specially designed filter element for biofuel, thus injecting the oil which is now warm. Change the fuel filter every 10,000 miles, or 5,000 if using crap quality wvo. Change engine oil regularly , especially if doing a lot of short journeys. I've been stopped a couple of times, and both times pc plod has asked me what i'm running the car on (they could smell it when following me), when i replied with 'cooking oil', their reply was fine, coz they know its perfectly legal. I've also had the tank dipped once, and again, they couldn't do a thing. I've worked out the figures, and get 45 - 55 mpg on normal everyday driving, 45 around town, 55 on longer runs. 67 mpg on a 150 mile run where i sat at 55 - 60mph all the way, and 42 mpg with a full car, towing another car on a trailer behind me. I also use other fuels, e.g. waste hydraulic oil, and 320 grade fully synthetic gearbox oil. It runs great on a mix of 40% diesel and 60% 320 grade oil!!!. I mix it like this to give the same viscosity as cooking oil!

If it was mid spec they must have missed mine out on the production line It's not got remote central locking, or roof bars, or rear speakers (in the boot sides or tweeters in the rear doors), well, it didn't as standard, and it was a one owner car before i got it.

Hiya, i know!!!! My car is a V reg 1999 GLXi, so it's the bottom of the range and does not have remote central locking. I have to use the key. The central locking works fine still, and the old trick of turn the key in the lock and pull the handle to drop all the windows still works. ARRRGGGHHHHH!

I've just put a Western Power Steering recon rack on my friends Fabia. Works fine, only criticism would be that the boots which come with it are not tapered at the ends, so i have a feeling that they will rub on the bottom arm and eventually wear through. Time will tell i suppose.

Hello people, The scenario is, a couple of days ago, the popup button for the door lock started only moving up and down about half way, (up all the way and halfway down), the door lock and central locking still worked fine. Then this morning, i unlocked the car as normal, and pulled the exterior handle........nothing, the door won't open, there is no resistance on the handle. So, i climbed in the passenger side to use the interior handle, and again, nothing, there is no resistance on the interior handle. It seems like i've got a broken cable, and i need to take the door card off to investigate. That task is simple enough, apart from the fact that i can't open the door, PLEASE, can anyone help with suggestions on how to get the door card off with the door closed? Many Thanks

Cheers Jimbling, thanks for the reply. Thanks to everyone else for their input on this!!!. As it happens, nothing at all wrong with the turbo, nothing wrong with the alt. Took the alt belt off and ran the engine and the noise went away. The alt tensioner pulley bearing was to put it politely 'broken'. the deflection pulley also had a tiny bit of play on it, so changed them both. Price from the dealer (even with my dicount as i spend a lot there) £157, price from euro car parts (for a genuine SKF pulley and genuine Litens (sp?) tensioner £89. Sound now gone and hopefully good for another 140K miles!! Happy Days

I've just done an oil and filter (genuine, as always) on my mk1 oct estate 90bhp AGR engine 140K miles (FSH). After running for about 500 miles after the oil change it had developed a whine / whistle. It sounds like the old alternator interference you used to get on older cars without a suppressor on the radio!, but its coming from the engine! It starts around 2000 rpm and is noticable above other engine noises, although still not LOUD. The noise increases in pitch with engine revs. The car runs fine still, just done 250 miles up and down hill and along motorways, with no loss of power, no oil consumption, no smoke, no dash lights, just an audible whistle. I've checked all the hoses etc and can't seem to find any air leaks (not obvious ones anyway) Is this likely to be the start of my turbo on its way out or possibly the alternator?, both are still the originals, now with 140K on them. Not had much to do with turbo's so any advice greatly appreciated. Cheers

Ive tried loads of remoulds over the years on various different cars, colways were always great, but the compound was variable, sometimes hard, sometimes soft. Ive got Avon Ice Touring (45 pounds each) on the fabia at the moment, they are fab, can't fault them. I've also got Kingpin KMS4's (25 pounds each) on the octavia and cant fault them either. They are only P speed rated (93 mph) but the chances of my car ever reaching that speed are negligible, so they are fine. I ran them last winter and have just put them back on ready for this winter. No appreciable difference in road noise, but the braking is much better when its cold, and worse when it's warm, but that winter tyres for you! They need to be cold to work properly. I run kingpin KMV2 on the car during the summer, they are great too, never had any problems with the 8 tyres i've gone through so far, but they don't last. I got 30,000 miles out of some Goodyear Eagles, and Continentals, but have only managed 16,000 out of the kingpins. Half the price but also half the life!

My mk1 Octavia (AGR engine, 110k miles, full service history) has developed a problem. When slowing down to almost a stop, pressing the clutch and braking, the engine revs drop to about 500 - 600, and it runs rough, it sounds like its only firing on 3 cylinders. A quick 'blip' of the accelerator puts it back to normal idle speed of about 850. If i'm stuck in traffic and only moving a cars length at a time, sometimes it does it again, sometimes it stays at normal idle. Once the accelerator has been 'blipped' it will sit quite happily at normal idle e.g. sitting at traffic lights. It happens when the car is hot or cold. I've tried knocking it out of gear and using the hand brake to slow to a stop to see if its brake related, but that seems to make no difference. My reason for trying this was to see if there was a servo air leak. It starts and runs fine otherwise. Anyone had anything similar happen?