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Octopus giving an hour of free lecky from 1pm today. In a counter move the petrol station are thinking of giving a happy hour of free fuel. Nah, made that bit up.

When you've been talking about EV's so much your autofill uses 'armature' instead of 'amateur'

"In the case of the vehicle involved in the Incheon accident, batteries made by Farasis Energy have experienced recalls in the United States and China in the past due to fire risks. Lee Ho-geun, an automotive professor at Daeduk University, said, "Given that Farasis batteries have been pointed out for stability issues in the past, I cautiously predict that the cause might be a design or manufacturing defect." Experts advise that to prevent EV fires during heat waves, it is best to avoid using ground-level chargers and to use slow chargers, ensuring that the battery is not charged beyond 90 percent. "By charging only up to 85 percent with a slow charger, you can prevent over 95 percent of EV fires caused by thermal runaway," Lee said." https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240807001100320

Hi all, so last weekend got the car back, here's some random pics: I think they technically missed a spot on the B-Pillar, where there's a bit of primer that wasn't covered with white, but it's nice and lacquered, so not going to worry. The rest is not too bad, and the use of the stone chip for the sill underside hopefully helps. The benefit of having relatives in this industry is that from their overall quote of £2800, I was asked for less, and paid £1200 for the job. Given the amount of effort, I'm very happy with the result. Most of the rust they encountered and ground down appears to have been surface rust somehow rather than my fear of coming from the inside out. I'll give the car 3-4 years before I go further with it, and hopefully by then there'll be more power and whatnot assuming all's well. Assuming none of this comes back again... Only niggles were that the doors were off which triggered the airbag light, but nothing the VCDS couldn't clear (missing sensors, which makes sense as the doors were missing). The other niggle was that the car was left standing for long periods of time, which took its final toll on the battery. Despite leaving it overnight on a trickle charger, a trip to the petrol station to fill up left me stranded and standing like a lemon when my backup jump starter couldn't give it enough juice to tick over. I was at the mercy of a kind white van man who drove over and lobbed over his jump leads. Was super lucky he was around and it was early enough in the morning to have not caused a massive queue at the forecourt. That poor original Moll battery was ditched, and amusingly, lying around in the garage was a 096 battery. Specifically a Yuasa YBX5096, so technically not compatible with this car due to not really being suited to start-stop. However, that's been on the trickle charger for years, and it starts up the car without issue, so will suffice whilst I recover from the bodyshop bill and swap it with a proper one. Wife doesn't like the start-stop so disabling it is usually the first thing she does, so the battery will tide me over for a while. Would make sense that a YBX9096 is the target. I think that's that for a while though. Maybe I'll take pics of a battery change if really required, but other than planning for the future and maybe some tiny bits, the car's ready to be used! Maintenance: £3540.22 (+£1200.00) Upgrades: £1595.25 Miscellaneous: £820.07

A few from last night.......... It was lovely to see a family of Swans after they all previously died a year or 2 back🙏

Very common its part of the evap system to recirculate fuel vapours from the tank to the engine. Fitted loads. Full pipe usually comes with the purge canister valve and resonator etc. if you look at the resonator that clips into the coolant tank then there should be a part number you can use.

"In short, this is a story with legs and has the potential to spark a global discussion around EV battery transparency. The incident highlights the stark contrast in approaches to battery disclosure across different regions. While it's rare for EV makers in the US to disclose a car's battery brand, the European Union has taken a proactive approach. Last year, the EU approved a mandatory "battery passport" for EVs, set to take effect in 2027." https://www.techspot.com/news/104256-mercedes-benz-ev-fire-south-korea-could-lead.html

"A preliminary investigation by the Incheon Fire Department revealed that the fire was detected by the receiver momentarily after the vehicle busted into flames at 6:09 a.m., but the pre-action valve, which controls the sprinkler system, was turned off from the apartment management office. The sprinkler system will not activate despite receiving a fire alarm if the valve is deactivated. " https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-08-09/business/industry/Damage-after-EV-explosion-caused-by-deactivated-sprinkler-system-fire-authorities-say/2109713

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-08-11/business/industry/Insurance-claims-pile-up-amid-escalating-blame-game-over-Mercedes-EV-fire/2110407

Please do. I've not seen this in any credible the news.

why is it unfair? It's still less tax then is imposed overall on petrol & diesel. Why should EV owners pay less tax or get preferential treatment? Perfectly acceptable that Public chargers have VAT added at 20%

5% on domestic electric 20% on business electric (with some exceptions)

AC compressors are permanent drive and have a shear plate on the front I believe they have 2 styles of plate. you'll probably find the pully is spinning independently too the shaft.

Likewise. It's one of those things - I'm fairly confident the width is right for it to fit, but I am not sure the mounting kit would work in the Superb, and also that groove seems longer than the Octy, so it might just slide backwards and forwards a lot. Ideally, need to find an Octy 3 owner with one so I can try it for size before risking buying one.

Looks much better from that angle, now I see why you like them👍🏻

A better angle ...............

I successfully opened the MIB31_EU.ROOT/3D/PRODUCT.NDS file in DB Browser for SQLite.

Loud, smoky cars are antisocial, not cool.

I'm picking up this beauty on Saturday morning.

Thanks very much for all the replies. Brings back lots of memories plus some learning of new factors. The last time I changed a battery was in the 1970’s 😱 Think I’ll get it checked, see how it stands up to a load, and then decide what to do. Thanks again

It's a nice, large car - the hire car they gave as a "like for like" was a BMW 5 Series Sports hybrid, but it had neither the cabin room capacity nor the boot capacity. The fuel economy could have been better if I was able to charge it but without that ability at home I was getting about 20 mpg on a below 50l tank. It had nice handling but I'm glad to be back with the Superb (minus my excess amount). That being said, the large size is primarily for the comfort of my family and ease of driving over long distances. My premiums last year were with NCD (and NCD protection). I'll have to see how much it'll go up given one claim (non-fault) - the only issue is that it's an open claim as to a closed one. Thank you for posting that, yes that makes sense given if you have a claim yet still have a no claims discount protection. Some discount is better than no discount. It's actually due to renew next month, I'll probably send you a message a bit later on as now is a good time to see how it looks. Thanks all I'll keep you posted.

My son's car has a monitoring connection on the earth, but its still made no difference to anything. It would appear the car's ECU 'learns' that a new battery is in place and adjusts accordingly. I also didn't do anything with windows, etc. Have had no problems with anything on the car. Also, the original battery had a catastrophic failure due to some internal trauma. It was instant and without warning. You could squeeze some more life out of the battery with a recharge, and test the voltage across the terminals, etc. My son's battery read 8v across the terminals, it should be over 12v if it's still any good. I did ring a garage about the VCDS thing. They said if it was a Land Rover Discovery, then maybe a good idea. For a Citigo, don't worry.

This is a simple DIY job, disconnect the negative first then the positive. It's the other way round when connecting the new battery (positive first then negative). My son's car has stop/start, the battery went straight on, everything worked fine and the car runs/charges normally with no need to VCDS (just replaced with a similar EFB battery, 60Ah, CCA 640). Because yours has no stop/start, it may well be a standard battery rather than EFB/AGM, etc, which should be cheaper. Just make sure the battery you get is similar type and output and you should be fine. As for the radio, I had no problem at all - everything just worked. The only thing you need to change is the time.

I did and confirmed it was real, but I wanted to learn more from a better qualified source, and just rely on a newspaper articles as the journalists don't have much of a clue and many are actually told what to say etc by the editor or above to make sure it fits the required narrative. Now is this the last word or are we going to continue?

Already wrapped with amalgamating tape as a temp measure. Seems a daft place to put a nearly rigid pipe that needs to flex between stationary wall fixing and flexing engine. Hmm. Cheers for the help

I have never bothered with them and travelled to France and other EU countries for 10 years. I have never been flashed or stopped by the police. Our French friends who visit us never bother either

Just adding this to help anyone else out. 2014 Octavia Estate 1.4 tsi So my car was not over heating, and the coolant level was about 1cm below minimum so I must have caught it in time. As I reversed the car off the drive I noticed a small puddle. Putting a tissue on this and you could see it was pink. Left the car unused and the level didn't drop, so must have only leaked when under pressure. Opened the bonnet and if you looked here you could see some dampness on the ledge to the right of where the water pump was. Took it to the garage, and after investigation you could see the gasket had split. Replaced the water pump and drive belt and all is good .

The dropping of EV subsidies in Europe, particularly Germany, had much to do with the drop in sales. EV do not need subsidies any more. UK got it right dropping those subsidies more than 2 years ago. Subsidies should be more about keeping public services running which is very difficult when one if expecting drivers to run their cars for 45p per mile !! Yet Gilmour and Waters have not really got on for decades.

Sliding key. Just had a VW T-Roc R-Line loan car. That had a flip-out key and the key had to be inserted old-school. I did some searches on the internet and found a supplier of keys for ~ £20, which I would just canniballise, but she found it just in time. My keys have CR2032 as standard.

"The affected residents were moved to state-run residential facilities, provided with food and daily necessities. A total of 121 people were relocated as of Friday morning." https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-08-02/business/industry/Mercedes-EV-fire-causes-power-outage-hospitalizations-with-140-cars-damaged/2104634

Thanks for your reply Gabbo you are right, replaced the GPS aerial, jobs a good one, works a treat.

If your model has a power steering pump check the fluid level and condition.

Mine does the same. Someone else here had this problem and after a bit of investigation, the garage told them it was the steering pump and not an issue. It cheered me up.

But one pays that anyways on one's electrical supply. As another bonus one is only charged 5% VAT rather than 20% with dinosaur juice with all the noxious byproduct gases when burning and then producing the carcinogens.

Wife went to her mother's house today. Found the cover on a footstool. Now refitted.

Hi CAtk. You have my sympathy. I’ve had this problem (not the nav switching county and country) for a couple of years and no software updates or trips to Skoda dealers have produced anything other than temporary respites. Radio spontaneously coming on and increasing in volume even when the car is locked and switched off. It’s happened when I’ve been driving too. Info screen going crazy, switching on and off randomly, and randomly showing clock, nav, radio on-screen each time it switches back on. The on/off intervals vary from half a second to several seconds, sometimes accompanied by clicks, sometimes not. The three dealers I’ve used who have all attempted to provide a permanent fix to the car, and failed, have all said that they’ve not encountered Octavias with this problem before, which seems scarcely believable. It seems inconceivable that Skoda are unaware that the problem is as widespread as it obviously is from the various forums complaining of this problem. Might it be that Skoda know about the problem but have no permanent solution and are reluctant to admit it. I would be really interested to know if anybody with an Octavia who has experienced these problems has ever had a permanent fix made through software or hardware updates/replacement. My own feelings are that the internal design of the unit fitted in the Octavia mk4 is inherently faulty, so fitting a new similar unit won’t make the problem go away, nor will any amount of software updates, and Skoda know this. I don’t know if the recently updated new 2024 Octavia mk4 has a different version of the infotainment system, but it would be great to find out if anyone has experienced any problems with it. It’s disgraceful that Skoda can’t offer their dealers any way of sorting this problem, yet still take money from Octavia customers who keep hoping that the next software update will cure all. My car has had this problem from new, has never been permanently fixed, is now out of warranty, and all future potential fixes will have to be paid for. It cost me £100 for the last failed fix when I was away on holiday! As I’ve mentioned previously in another post, very high temperatures inside the car, as you might get when it’s locked and in full sun, seem to trigger the infotainment/radio switching on randomly and going berserk. For the past two years, when it’s been practicable, I’ve been covering the windscreen with a reflective heat panel, putting a heat absorbing cloth over the infotainment screen and also leaving the windows open a smidge whenever possible. Not once when I’ve done this has the infotainment system switched itself on spontaneously. Surely this must be a significant pointer to the problem. I love the car, but wouldn’t ever buy another Octavia until and unless Skoda made the infotainment system utterly reliable and a helluva lot easier to operate on the move. The new Superb has decent controls, why not the Octavia?!

I cleared my inbox now, sent me a PM again. I can provide you all the files. Use of MIBSolution is at own risk. Also 332 is the latest, not 330.

Power to heaters of both oxygen sensors are the blue/red wires, originating at cabin fuse 9. Control is via the brown wire for precat sensor, and the brown/white for the post cat sensor. They go to engine ECU pin numbers 5 and 63 respectively.

I've have a 2023 model and can say I've done this a few times too. Typically it was when we were skiing and the kids sit on the boot lip to put on/off their boots. If I stand too close when helping them the boot lid has started to close on them. It's funny because I had those one the Volvo XC90 & Merc GLE and couldn't get it to work reliably on either. The Skoda is the opposite. It's easy to use but sometimes a bit too trigger happy

It's a common problem with late 80s/ 90s drive belts and not just tape decks. VHS, turntables etc suffered as well IIRC. Edit. Wasn't there a big sales pitch about direct drive stuff C mid 90s?

The belts on the Teac I mentioned earlier were the same... They'd disintegrated to a thick black sticky mess

Unsure as to the engine number, I'll have to check tomorrow now. I found a workshop manual via this link - https://www.hypermiler.co.uk/skoda/skoda-octavia-mk-iii-2013-workshop-service-maintenance-repair-manuals-downloads-inc-vrs-free - which has proved quite useful. Looks like the procedure is to drop the exhaust off then you can move the cat back far enough to access the pipe. Almost sounds easy when you say it like that 😆

You should be able to fit seats from a Polo Mk4 9n or a Seat Ibiza Mk3 6L. I believe Audi A2 seats will fit too, but not 100% sure on that.

My Citroen C4 diesel had to be left for 6 months, after my licence was suspended (diagnosed with Sleep Apnea). Car was only a few months old, but started immediately (or near enough), having been left parked up for those 6 months. Probably the fact it was a nearly new car, that the battery could cope.

I spent all of last night hoovering all the mouse fun out of it, fully masked up and gloved. The car was owned by a smoker, so there's that to deal with as well. It's clean of debris now, but it's due a healthy bath of disinfectant before we can really get into it. It still can't select any gears, the lever moves left and right fine, but front to back is locked up, you can see the linkage at the gearbox end move a BIT when moving the selector back and forth but I don't know where it's bound up. I got under the car and doused the selector joint under the car with penetrating oil just in case it's sticky in there somehow. I'm sure I'll get it figured out. Till then, this can never be unseen

Here is the pic @Gizmo with thanks.

Swapped the Altairs for a set of Becruz's .

So little bit of a side line now... and something I am 99.9% hasnt been done before... Ventilated Sportline Seats So this was an all new project and going in blind! So a bit of theory behind it first: On the superb, all seat frames are near enough the same, then the difference between the leather and sportline seats is the foam insides and the headrest. There are no ventilated parts for the sportline and the ones built into the leather seat foam are far from the right shape, so it meant starting from scratch. Also something to note - the fans suck air through the seat, not blow air onto you. The parts that were needed for this: 4x Fans Wiring Plugs Terminals Diffuser sheet Isolator sheet Fan mounting Now the fans, wiring and terminals are easy to source but the sheets and mountings are actually built into the seat foam and cant be purchased separately. I then found a company that sold me all 4 diffuser and isolator sheets and some mountings that would work. Now we are in business! There are 2 fans per seat, and they are wired exactly the same (almost) and controlled by LIN. Each seat gets a power on pin 1, a LIN on pin 3 and a ground on pin 2. Pins 4-6 are then grounded differently depending on the fans position and this is how the LIN knows what each seat fan is doing and where it is. Thats the wiring out of the way, next the physical mounting of everything: So this is a cross section of how it currently looks: Yellow is the solid seat foam Red is the heated seat element Black is the seat fabric itself. And this is how it ended up looking: Yellow is the seat foam which now has holes going through it completely, indicated by the brown lines Red is the heated seat element which is porous so needed no modification Black is the seat fabric, again it was porous and luckily no modification needed. Blue is the diffuser sheet - which is a semi rigid sheet that is full of holes allowing the air to distribute fully across all the holes, even with a persons weight pushing on them. Green is the isolator sheet - this is what seals the area to allow the only air being sucked it to be from the front of the seat, via the holes in the foam. Brown circle is the fan. And now some photos of it all - the parts and strip down first: A rough marking of the fan location and the foam being cut The seat base to show the 2 circle holes where the fan could possibly mount The fan, mounting, diffuser sheet and isolator sheet Decided on mounting the fan is the forward seat base hole A torch behind the fabric to show the holes are require permiable, so air wont have an issue. Next is the actual building of it all: Seat back wired up and fully ready to refit, fan installed Seat base foam cut, very roughly before sanding it flat to give a better finish Diffuser mat laid in the cut out All the holes, and the foam pieces ready to fit back on top at the end to maintain its shape Diffuser mat glued in place and trimmed to fit perfectly. A sportline seat base - the head rest is what gives it its shape, very odd design Back of the sportline foam before i began cutting The cut out for the diffuser foam. The holes - drilling these is pointless - i heated up a piece of rebar and melted the holes through - a drill just pushes the foam out the way. Diffuser, isolator and fan mount fitted. And some photos of the controls now fully working! And all of that, took 2 whole days for a single seat! Next is the drivers seat! It did get me thinking though.... the 4B module often refered to as the headlight control module, is actually a multi function control module and it has a lot of other odd options too - almost like extra pins for the BCM. But anyway, it has functions on there for rear seat ventilation too... just a thought. But that would mean a completely custom rear temperature control panel, intercept and inject LIN and canbus signals through my own controller... but yeah, just a thought.

A few photos from a recent holiday in Cornwall.