Paul52

I guess these days everyone has to err to the side of caution - in the "old days" the advice would probably been "we can give it a try and see how you get on" and 95% of the time the tyre would be fine and in the 5% of cases we would have shrugged our shoulders and said it was worth a try. Nowadays the 5% would probably end up as a law suit as failing in duty of care. It's the world we live in. I did check Kwik-Fit on line so knew they were comparatively expensive but when the technician phoned to tell me I'd need a new tyre I said I'd be wanting two but at that price Kwik-Fit weren't competitive and really expected a "Let's see what we can do, what prices are you looking at" and an offer in the same ball park as everyone else. But the price was the price so the sale has gone elsewhere. Maybe for Kwik-Fit no sale is better than a sale with a smaller profit because I can't see they would be paying more for tyres than their competitors. And if Kwik-Fit had come back with a revised figure within a few pounds of the Halfords price I'd have got the tyres there - Kwik-Fit is convenient for me and I'm now of an age where getting the absolute lowest price isn't important to me; I just don't want to feel I've paid way over the odds.

Thanks for your further thoughts. I inflated the tyre to 40psi and then dropped it to my usual 33psi and all seemed well for a couple of short runs. Then I had to make a longer trip along the A27 between Havant and Chichester, the direct route but for about 8 miles it has no junctions. About half way along the tyre noise ominously changed and by the time I was able to get safely out of the carriageway the pressure had dropped to just over 20psi. Took the wheel to Kwik-Fit for a repair only to be told it wasn't repairable; in this case I had unknowingly run the tyre flat for about 100m when I drove out of the drive and back in on that first day so I can believe that the sidewalls had been damaged although I'm surprised how these days so many punctures "can't be fixed" and you have to have a new tyre. More regulation than in the old days perhaps? Not the end of the world, the rear tyres had both been picked up at MOT in May as advisory because of a deep cut through the tread but not to the cords and I was down to around 3mm of tread so I'm changing them both tomorrow. What did surprise me was the range of prices quoted - for me Halfords were nearly £100 cheaper than Kwik-Fit although my wallet will still be £350 lighter by tomorrow night. (A couple of other sites were very close to the Halfords price so Kwik-Fit were very much the outlier). The bill would have been higher if I had 17" rather than the "special" 16" wheels as the larger tyre comes in £25-£30 dearer per tyre. So thank you those early members on this forum that let me joining the 16" Special Wheels Club back in 2013.

Thanks for these ideas. I would have thought the leaking valve would have shown up with bubbles through the water because it lost all the air within less than a day but I wasn't aware of the wheel corrosion issue. The alloys are now over 13 years old and 100,000 miles. That might also tie in with the complete deflation but once reinflated/over-inflated it seating itself. All was looking good at 8pm this evening so I'm crossing my fingers and waiting to see what the pressure is in the morning. Thanks again.

Backing out of the drive yesterday I realised I had what I thought was a puncture. Fortunately still being at home it was a quick job to remove the affected wheel and replace it with the spare tyre. (Sometimes you can be grateful for being old school). When I got home I carefully looked round the tread and both sidewalls but other than the odd bit of grit there was nothing. The pressure in the tyre was zero, so absolutely flat. Being tight with my money I avoided rushing straight off to the local tyre dealer for a pair of new tyres - the tread is down to about 3mm on both sides so a puncture repair would been better spent on a new tyre and as I like to keep the tyres on the same axle as close to identical as possible it would have been a case of replacing both tyres. I have a large capacity plastic trug, I half filled that with water and, after partially inflating the tyre (about 25 psi), I was able to rotate the wheel/tyre through the water a section at a time. After three rotations there was still no sign of a stream of bubbles, not even from the valve, which was my second suspect after a puncture. I inflated the tyre to 40psi (I usually run it at 33psi) and after 24 hours this afternoon it was still holding at 40psi. I've now refitted it back on the car but I'm bemused as to why it should fully deflate - it was sat under the car port after I used it the previous day. I even wondered about someone letting it down as a prank but firstly "Why?" and if you did that would you bother to replace the dust cap? And nothing was picked up on the security camera that covers the drive and car port, although that's not a guarantee as despite being a Tapo model I've found it not to be 100% reliable, just better than nothing. As far as I can remember I've not had a puncture repair in this set of tyres and if a repair had failed I can't believe it would self repair. There's no kerbing (curbing) on the wheel that might suggest a failure of the seal between the wheel and the tyre. I'm totally bemused. Has this ever happened to anyone else or has anyone any thoughts on what might have happened?

I don't think anyone has said it can't be a wheel sensor and perhaps that is what it will turn out to be. I only suggested getting the battery checked first because from 13 years on this forum I've seen a lot of "electrics" problems resolve when a new battery has been fitted. And of course also a lot where it didn't solve the problem and more investigation was needed. If garages in France are similar to ours you can usually get a battery tested for free, or very cheaply, and usually it can be somewhere very local so it's a quick and cheap test to rule out a battery problem. If the battery is fine then VCT can go to a garage knowing that she probably will be looking at a new sensor. Dogbook, I don't think you've been ignored but looking down the thread it looks like you may not have made the comment in this thread?

Under two years would seem a very short life for the battery but a quick Google search threw up this https://www.varta-automotive.com/en-gb/knowledge/articles/article-details/what-happens-to-the-battery-during-summer which suggests extreme heat can be very damaging to batteries. Combine that with short runs and although it might well be a wheel sensor as Prezafab suggests checking the battery is probably a wise precaution, just so you can rule it out. Good luck sorting it.

Hi VCT, welcome to the forum. I've been on the forum since 2013 so my car is nearly as old as yours. There are lots of post concerning faulty wheel sensors but also over the years there have been a lot of posts of seemingly random lights coming up on the dashboard which resolved when a new battery was fitted. Depending on how old your battery is it might be worth getting it checked to be sure it's in good enough condition not to be causing the problem or, if the battery is showing it's age then it's not a great expense to get it changed and see if you still have the fault. It seems, and I'm not an expert on these things, that even if the battery is starting the car and running things OK the condition can have deteriorated to a point where the electronics become sensitive and start misbehaving. This happened to me some years back which is why I mention it.

Purely by accident I happened to catch the top Gear repeat on BBC3 last night where Mr Clarkson did his level best to destroy the then new Yeti, including landing a helicopter on the roof. He clearly came away very impressed with all aspects of the car and, after 13 years of owning mine (and neither trying to land a helicopter on the roof nor using it as a mobile tattoo studio) I have to say he wasn't wrong. I'll repeat that as you don't often hear it. Jeremy Clarkson wasn't wrong. Yes, the Skoda Yeti has proved itself to be Top Gear.

Perhaps you just take out the spare wheel and fill the space with bits and pieces as necessary and will fit plus odds and ends in the polystyrene blocks. If needed you could put a simple support under the floor. You'd get a decent amount of extra space without any work and then when/if you decided to put the spare wheel back it would just go straight in. I'm all for a simple life.....

Thank you both (and Carlodiesel that PM'd me). I did both the above and still had the problem although fortunately if I didn't rely on the autoclosing function once up the window stayed shut, so no security/weather concerns, but kept on trying and suddenly for no reason it was back to working properly again. As the slogan goes - Skoda, Simply Clever ... and Occasionally Frustrating. So now its just a case of fingers crossed and see if it happens again.

I'm having the regularly experienced problem of the driver's window closing but then going back down to the half way position. This happens when I use the "auto" function on the switch but if I hold the switch up until the window is closed it stays closed. I've tried the usual remedy (several times over a couple of days) of turning the ignition on (but not starting the engine), lowering the window fully and then raising it whilst pushing the top edge out, then holding the switch in the up position for 10 seconds or so when there should be a click as the switch resets. But I'm not getting the click and the problem remains. Anyone any ideas? The car had a service about 10 days ago and a new battery but I can't honestly say the problem started then (in fact with the hot weather almost certainly I'd have noticed before now). For the moment it's just a bit of a nuisance so I'm in no rush to get a professional involved to start taking things to pieces and it's possible if it's a electronic glitch it will sort itself at some point. But someone may have had the same issue and found a solution.

My Yeti is serviced by a local independent and they don't seem to have a problem with having all the right kit for all the basic stuff. (They probably don't have the jigs to straighten a crash repair but I'm hoping I'll never need to find out). It's hard to believe that a main dealership can't do the necessary work on something within the same group. Perhaps you should put a polite and factual review on Trustpilot and see if they respond.

It's three years younger than my Yeti and got 15,000 less miles on the clock yet seems to carrying a lot of problems - like it's lost its nearside mirror? I may be a natural worrier but it seems like it might have had a hard life in the past and for me that would be "keep looking".

This is a photo of the Bolero fitted to my 2013 Elegance. Yours is rather different. I can't tell you whether there was a revamp of the unit between 2010 and 2013 although it's possible. This is the unit that takes 6 CDs. I think, but I can't be sure, there was an alternative unit fitted to some of the more basic models that was a single CD player. Hopefully someone with a 2009/2010 Yeti will see you post and put up a picture of their unit for you.

In case it helps, a few years back I had an irritating rattle that I struggled to pin down - sometimes it seemed to be coming from somewhere, other times from somewhere else. It didn't help that my wife and I could hear the noise at the same time but think it was from different parts of the car! Purely by accident I found it was a loose "stud" - one of the little stalks that the cord that raises the tailgate shelf when you lift the tailgate attaches to. I tightened it up and the noise was gone. I have a Yeti but if the Superb has a similar arrangement worth just checking the tightness of these little posts.

I've got a Yeti and before I ordered it back in 2013 I took the advice of the most knowledgeable Yeti owners and got Skoda UK to agree 16" wheels rather than the standard 17" wheels. Thirteen years on they have withstood British roads and potholes well, I find them comfortable to drive on and when I've had to buy new tyres I'm happy saving around £40 a tyre compared with the 17" option. I'm on my second set of Michelin Cross Climate tyres and they seem to suit the car well. (For what it is worth, I've also found the MCCs pretty quiet in terms of road noise).

Just a thought but rather than start pulling trims off, depending on how old the car is and how fussy you are, maybe a little clear silicon sealant to hold the clip to the trim? If it works, great. If it doesn't then it's not a problem to slice through it and go down the trim removal route. (I've not had this problem but the car and I have reached an age where we look for simple answers!).

I second Carlo. My Yeti is now 13 years old and I've been following this forum all those years. In that time there have been reports of strange things happening, for example random warning lights coming on for no apparent cause, and in some cases replacing the car battery resolved the problem. I did experience this myself when the car was around six or seven years old. The battery wasn't giving me any problems but replacing it seemed an easy option (as it would rule out a dodgy battery; it was something that was likely to need replacing soon anyway and in the cost of running a car it's not a lot of money). I was lucky and had no more issues. Would it be worth putting a charger on the battery until you get a full charge reading and see if you still have the fault?

Thanks guys. Comforting to know that in most cases it will just look after itself. But in the worst case it's not a big problem to pull out the radio and get the serial number.

This seems to be about my level. There is one button. You push it. Then you leave everything alone and go and have a cup of tea or several. I can beat your wife (I probably could have put that better) as mine has been in a senior management role for 52 years, all of them blissfully happy , or so it says on the directive I've just been passed.... Co-incidentally just before I read you post I opened a letter from my garage (how old school is that?) reminding me of my MOT and I'm about due for a service. Thank you for the advice. I'll be back to the forum with my next crisis shortly.

After my recent battery problems I read up on how to change a battery without losing power to the radio but things can go wrong so I was wondering what my code was. I couldn't find anything in the paperwork from the dealer who sold me the car new but is no longer in business. Googling didn't give anything other than there "might be a sticker in the glove box (there isn't) or to remove the radio to get the serial number and then use this to get the code from a dealer or one of the sites on eBay, provided you can find a reliable one. Has anyone found a way to extract the code from a working radio without removing it? I know it's only removing the trim and four bolts but come on Skoda, that's not Simply Clever it's just irritating. I did find this on a thread from 2019 which I'm reproducing (acknowledgements to pikpilot) as it may be helpful to someone in the future. "If the radio remembers it was switched on last time it was used, when you put the battery back on it will ask for the code. If you then switch the radio off and then the ignition off then ignition on then radio on it will start up without asking for a code. Waiting for one hour causes the radio to go off again so next time you apply power via the ignition it will go through the process of the code checking handshake with the display system correctly and the radio will work when it switched on". The thread is https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/426867-bolero-radio-code/

You're good with "Paul you're over thinking it". You've never met me and yet diagnosed my tendency to jump to the worst case scenario and work backwards 🙂. You also get a thumbs up from my wife, who has never believed in loyalty. I've bought the Ring battery charger and it's on the car now doing its thing (or so I assume - the instructions are in those pictograms that are universally incomprehensible). Since the weekend (and I know it's only Wednesday today) the car has been starting as normal and it's had two decent runs of 40 miles or so the last two days to the vet - for those who think £100 for a battery is a lot of money, my advice is don't get a Cocker Spaniel no matter how cute they look. So I'm going to do my usual thing of crossing fingers, stick my head in the sand and hope it was "just one of those things". It is due to go in for MOT and service in the next few weeks so if nothing else goes wrong between now and then I'll get them to test the battery and charging whilst it is with them - they're a local firm that I've been going to for 10 years or so and I can trust them to be honest.

I'm not sure if my Yeti has the same engine as yours or if it could be related but several years ago I had a constant smell of oil in the car, really noticeable when driving. A local garage had a look at it for me but couldn't find anything but didn't charge me. For which I'm thankful. I'm not really mechanically minded but decided nothing to lose by having a bit of a poke around (just fingers, no tools so whilst I might have electrocuted myself hopefully I'd not damage the car). Doing this I found a loose pipe, maybe 8mm diameter which should have connected to one arm of a tee joint but it had broken. Stiffness in the three pipes meant it wasn't obvious to the eye there was a break. A quick search on eBay and I found the little three arm connector for a couple of pounds, carefully removed the broken piece of pipe from the tube (I didn't want it to disappear into the engine through my clumsiness), connected the three hoses and the problem was solved! Once I'd found the break it was five minutes work even for the technically challenged. (Or four hours labour plus parts at a main dealer; me? cynical? how dare you!). I didn't have any noticeable oil leak, or maybe I just didn't notice, but yours might be a similar situation. Worth having a good prod around and see if anything moves more than you think it should?

Sorry typo - September 2021. Fat fingers, bad eyesight and declining mental abilities not ideal for existing in the modern world. But not a bad description of a lot of us Yeti owners 🙂. (See, it's only us old 'uns that think the original smiley face is still cool. Or use the word cool).

It's been niggling at me why my battery suddenly gave up the ghost Sunday morning. I tried the thing of starting the car this morning (started just like it usually does) with 14.0 volts showing on my little meter, then turned on the headlights, the heated rear window, the heated windscreen and the fan up on high. The voltage dropped to about 13.5 volts and then went up a couple of points. I've been out in the car, my usual two 5 mile runs, and its started without problems each time. So what could have caused the problem? Once in a while I'll forget to unplug the sat-nav but didn't seem likely. Then I thought about my regular journey - to walk the dog in the local woods. Usually it is a reliable 5 miles journey each way but over the last couple of months the local authority has spent a small fortune reducing carriageway widths, tightening corners and widening footways on an important local staggered cross roads to create a wonderful cycle route where you seldom see a cyclist and this has meant traffic signal on all arms with long delays. It usually has been taking two and sometimes three complete cycles to get through the junction. With very long inter-green times I have been switching off my engine whilst waiting, moving forward and then switching off again. I'm now thinking with a four and a bit year old battery these repeated starts a couple of times a day over weeks may have drained the battery more than the driving sections were able to replace. Basically I've been using stop/start without the technology and bigger battery that this needs. Electrical engineering was my nightmare when I trained to be a civil engineer (best advice from the relevant professor was "You will be young civil engineers. When you go out on site and there is an electrical problem CALL A <expletive> ELECTRICIAN it will save your employer having to scrape you off the wall, what's left of you". I digress) so I don't know whether that's right or if I'm even on the right track but I think we can say I won't be switching the engine off at those road works again. Lesson learnt.