Leaderboard

Having covered 22k and owned it for 12 months I thought it time to write up my experiences on this car, some of the logic behind my choices and then some of the good, bad & ugly! The car:- ~~Skoda Superb Laurin & Klement 2.0 TSI 280ps 4x4 DSG estate~~ Extras/Options:- Panoramic sunroof Cooled front seats Space saver spare wheel Heated steering wheel Retractable parcel shelf Rear view camera What I've done to it:- K&N air filter - something I always do to my VAG vehicles! Enabled High Beam Assist - amazing that this £300 extra can be enabled with coding, it's pretty awesome too Fogs on with High Beam - more light on country lanes please Enable KESSY to lock the vehicle with the engine running - ace for frosty mornings (although not strictly essential with a heated front screen) Enabled teardrop wipe front + rear - can't think why this isn't standard Enabled undertaking with Adaptive Cruise Control - this one bugged me like mad, 2 motorways merging or a filter lane off at a junction were always a PITA Disabled Start/Stop - thank goodness. Turned off boot closing 'beeps' - not sure if this is sensible or not, can't make my mind up! Enabled refuel qty in Maxidot - just because I could! Enabled fan (blower) speed in AUTO mode - again just because I could! (As you can see, mostly coding/VCDS tweaks) So, firstly let's deal with some of the justifications of the Options! Pano sunroof:- having had this as standard on my Hyundai i40 Tourer I couldn't (and still can't) see myself owning another car without one - I agree, this will be a totally personal thing but I absolutely love the airiness & light that it brings to the vehicle and is worth the £1k to me (obviously not to all!) Cooled Seats:- SWMBO is always freezing & I'm always boiling! If she can dictate heated seats & steering wheel, then I'll have cooled ones thanks!!! Spare Wheel:- a bag of jungle juice & a compressor on the side of the M4 yesterday wouldn't have sorted my shredded tyre............. Best £100 you can spend IMHO Heated Steering Wheel:- SWMBO's orders. Retractable Parcel Shelf:- think I got diddled here - fairly sure this is standard on L&K, but it appeared as a £100 extra on the invoice from the dealer.............. perhaps someone will be able to clarify! Rear View Camera:- partly SWMBO and partly because it was standard on my old i40 and found it jolly useful! Secondly, let's deal with the actual vehicle justification! L&K (nearly) had all the things on my must have and nice to have list... As the title suggests, I'll be having this car for a long time and will be doing 22k+ per year in it so it had to be something decent. My other car is a Leon Cupra 290 so the 280 Superb seemed a logical choice! It was a tried & tested engine as far as I was concerned and the DSG box is just awesome every time I've ever driven a car with it. The 4x4 was partly because it 'was there' but also because I decided my next car was going to be 4x4 as the Leon Cupra just has far too much power to be delivered efficiently to 2 wheels - burning through tyres isn't my idea of fun! The KESSY was also pretty crucial as it was on my i40 & I found it incredibly useful. Thirdly. the Good, the Bad & the Ugly! The good:- find me a 4x4 300bhp estate car with this amount of room for passengers & luggage alike, with this build quality, with this spec for this money and I'll say you've got a Superb. No other car can come match it as far as I'm concerned. The bad:- An annoying subtle clonking has crept up on me - seems suspension related... intermittent and elusive so far!! The ugly:- It's 'only' a Skoda... So, what now. Well it appears I have an itch I need to scratch! @superbtte's absolutely stunning work to his (now sold) Superb is really, really winking at me! To justify another £x,000's on this car will be difficult, but it still winks! I'd probably do something like:- new exhaust, lower it by 30mm, new turbo, remap & leave everything else stock!

So a while ago, i was getting pretty bad engine rocking (sounded like the engine was going to drop out whenever the wheels spun up), and combined with my inexperience with how NVH works, i had the large rubber bush on the dogbone mount replaced with a poly one, the original had split and was allowing almost free movement back and forth. This was a huge hassle as the mount was damn near impossible to install with the new bush in place. Eventually i got it in. Instantly, huge vibrations at idle and below 2k rpm, but by heck the gear changes became absolutely beautiful and buttery smooth! Over time the mount bedded in and suchlike, it almost completely eliminated the wheel hop banging, now it just shuddered when the wheels slipped. I then noticed a slight split in the gearbox mount (the famous one known to squeak or fail), and replaced that with an OEM one designed for diesels, wheel hop completely gone! The wheels just slip and screech. The new gearbox mount also very slightly reduced the amount of vibrations that were going through the car, but after some time, i was given an OEM dogbone mount which like the replacement gearbox one, was designed for diesels. I fitted it... No wheel hop... No banging like the engine would fall out... and best of all... absolutely NO vibrations at idle! Clutch and gear changes are ever so slightly odd feeling, but i guess they will until i get used to it again, nowhere near as bad as original though. I have a feeling this was caused by the fact the bush is so large it was clamped too much by the subframe, restricting its movement too much. Below is a picture of the mount in question. The original black bracket must be used as the one for the diesels is slightly different. TLDR,; Don't put poly bushes in the dog-bone mount! Instead replace the gearbox mount and the dog-bone mount with the diesel counterparts; Diesel Gearbox Mount: 6Q0 199 555 AS (AR is original petrol one) Diesel Dog-bone Mount: 6Q0 199 851 AP (AS is original petrol one)