Paul52

Mine's a 2013 1.2l Elegance bought from new (with the 16" wheel "option" - if you argued hard enough) and it's nice to know there are still a few of us holding onto our now rather old cars - and still pleased with them. Like you I've not had to spend a lot of money keeping it together and, because I'm nerdy like that I can say at 90,000 miles with an initial cost of £21,350 and total expenditure since purchase of £27,820 (fuel, servicing, tax, insurance, MOT, repairs etc) that's £49,170 or 54.5p per mile. (Factor in it's present value of about £5,000 and it comes out at 50p/mile). I'd say that's pretty good value motoring. It's the longest I've ever held onto a car and the only reason I bought one was because I stumbled on this web-site at the end of 2012 where I read a lot of posts from people who seemed to really knew what they were talking about and this pricked my interest. But budget considerations, and a long history of estate cars meant I went to the local dealer with the intention of buying one of the last of the Ocatavia Mk II, which were selling at 15k with the Mk III on its way. But the Octavia demonstrator was already out, the Yeti was on the forecourt so with time to kill..... I really liked the Yeti but it was £5 over budget so I went out in the Octavia and after the shortest test drive area blew the budget. And never regretted it. Now, if I could just pick up that T 1 BET plate reaaaally cheap....

Thank you, useful to know although I hope never to need his services.

Hi Mellowmike. If it makes you feel any better you aren't the first one caught out. It happened to me a few years back - frightened me to death the noise it made. But a hint I picked up on this forum sorted it for me - to drive backwards quickly which, if the gods are smiling on you, will dislodge the little blighter and all will be well. Glad it was nothing more serious.

Resurrecting an older topic. I'm having to replace the locking mechanism on mine for the second time - in the last few days the noise coming from the fuel flap when I lock and unlock the car on the remote has changed and I'm not going to wait for it to fail; releasing the stuck flap with brute force and a screwdriver last time wasn't good for the nerves. Interestingly the first one failed in 2019, this one in 2025. As mine is a 2013 car this means for me at least they last about 6 years. It might be interesting if others have found something similar although I appreciate not many people keep the same car as long as I have. List price seems to be about £65 but I found one on eBay that looks identical and although it's not listed for a Yeti it is listed for a lot of VW and SEAT models so worth a try at £20 (new, not used). I've disconnected the wiring whilst I wait for the part to arrive and it's reminded me just how much force you need to pull out the flap and liner. Update. The part arrived and though not listed for the Yeti was the correct part. Now been fitted and all is well. For anyone with the same problem and tempted to have a go themselves (it really is easy an easy fix) to protect the paintwork whilst levering out the filler flap and liner I used a little plastic spatula used for spreading glue to get between the edge of the liner and the body paintwork and then slid a screwdriver down that to carefully lever out the liner from the lock side. Also a couple of layers of masking tape on the hinge side protected the bodywork against any scuffing from the filler flap as you remove the liner. Simple things but make the job a bit less stressful for the technically challenged.

"The wastgate flap allows controlled leakage to limit the boost pressure from the turbo. I wouldn't mind betting that this is repairable without needing a new turbo, though probably not by a main dealer". At the moment it is "showing wear" and the garage don't seem too concerned at this stage so with a 12 year old car and the way the car market is changing (and the fact I wouldn't know what to go to next) I'm going to adopt my usual head-in-the-sand-and-wait-and-see approach.

That's interesting, thank you, and could explain why it went flat whilst in for a service - just enough left to start it at the garage but too short a trip home to replace the charge so failed in the morning. Sometimes you wonder who makes the decision on where to save weight - the pre-F/L Elegance came with a 6CD changer as standard and I've lugged it around as unnecessary weight for 12 years because sat alongside it is an SD card reader that can accommodate dozens of albums on a single card. Simply Clever - well, sometimes maybe. I think a battery booster might have to go on the shopping list.

As I had the spare tyre out.......There are two plain blanking grommets in the boot floor and third one that looks like it might have a purpose but might also be a point of entry for water. I removed the loose storage boxes but two of them are bolted in so possibly there could be further blanked holes under one or other of those. As I have a spare wheel covered by the false floor the foam cutout for the compressor and puncture gunk is redundant. Removing this it sits in a stiff plastic tray set into the floor. If the bottom of this tray is open to the road possibly the seal between the tray and the boot floor could be defective? Sorry, these are only thoughts but might help - I know how frustrating it can be trying to find a water leak having had to do the same thing in the house recently. Good luck.

At the end of this month I will have had my Yeti 12 years and been following and contributing to this forum all that time learning a lot on the way. For the first couple of years every so often I'd learn something new about the car and its various setting and potential problems. On Wednesday without warning I had a severe shuddering, loss of power and several warning lights came on. Trying the usual thing of stopping and restarting unfortunately didn't resolve the problem (well, what is life without hope?) so 48 hours and nearly £600 later I got the car back from the garage with a new set of leads and plugs; the diagnostics, which threw up a whole load of seemingly unrelated faults associated with the flat battery of two weeks ago, cost more than the actual repair. But everything seems to be working properly again so as it's the first major unforeseen repair in 12 years I'm happy. Noticing the clock was showing the wrong time I went into the MFD to adjust it and took the opportunity to flick through the other setting to see if anything else needed adjustment. And I saw PDC with its sub-menus for front and rear volume adjustment. Now being a bit slow on the uptake these days I assumed "volume" as "space" - as in boot volume - and so wondered what front and rear volume could be and why it would need adjustment? And, after 12 years of ownership I now know that I can adjust the volume of the front and rear parking sensors! So can anyone beat 11 years and 50 weeks before finding something new about their car? (The garage also found slight excess play on the turbo wastegate (whatever that is) so I could be looking at a new turbo in a "two or three years" although hopefully it will last long enough that it will be an easy decision to say at that stage it's not an economic repair).

Thank you. It certainly wouldn't do any harm, I'll get onto that.

My gadget to plug into the accessories socket arrived yesterday so I've been able to take a few measurements Voltage first thing this morning before starting the car was 12.1v, this then dropped to 11.9v when I turned the key in the ignition and dropped to 10.6v when the starter motor engaged and went straight up to 14.3v when the engine was running. After a 5 miles run the meter was showing 12.6v with the engine off, 10.7 with the starter motor turning and then 14v with the engine running. Hopefully someone has a better knowledge of car electric than me (it's a very low bar I've set, trust me) and can tell me if these look like reasonable figures for a healthy battery (it's just short of four years old) or do these suggest the battery's not long for this world, in which case I'll need to go back to the garage and see what happens under the warranty. Thanks for any advice.

This is a long shot but happened to me with one of my earlier cars - there aren't any loose or perished blanking plugs or gromets that could be letting water in? There was a blanked off hole under the spare wheel in the boot and it was just loose enough that in wet weather water would get forced up past it and once in the boot would find its way to a low spot so couldn't drain back out the same way. Visually the plug looked fine but prodding around I could feel a little bit of play. The other thing is it might help the more knowledgeable on this forum if you could give an idea of how much water we are talking about - a couple of tablespoons, a cupful or worse?

Thank you Zib. I'm back to my more usual pattern of 10 mile round trips each day and not had the problem since i first posted so I think I'm in the "see how it goes" phase. I'm old enough to remember the good old days when (a) if a car broke down it stayed broken until you fixed the problem and (b) you had a fighting chance of diagnosing and fixing the problem without a second mortgage. But in fairness I've had it 12 years and its been very reliable overall.

I asked for that!!! Well done!

Thanks for that RickT. I've got the Bolero unit so only AM/FM so it looks like the aerial I've seen will do the job. Now, is there a Yeti-specific air rifle I should be searching for? Problem is I'll probably have to shoot the wife before I can start on the squirrels 🙂

Owing to squirrel damage (don't ask) I'm looking to replace the stubby aerial on the roof of the Classic Yeti. To avoid buying the wrong part can anyone confirm the part number is 6R0035849. Thank you.

Thanks to all for the above. Annoyingly this morning the car started as normal - I was hoping the non-starting would keep presenting to help determine the cause of the problem. It's interesting to hear your thoughts on the park mode interfering with sleep mode. Don't know why, if this is the problem, it should appear now when the camera has been like this for 2 months or so unless it has slowly but incrementally each day taken capacity from the battery to the point it is now a problem. And it would explain why once the car has started I've not had a problem for the rest of the day, having put some charge back. And thinking about it, yesterday I did a longer run in the afternoon so did about 50 miles yesterday rather than my more typical 10 miles or so and perhaps put enough charge back in the battery to be sufficient to start. today Again, thanks for these thoughts. Before I go back to the garage I'll try switching the dashcam out of parking mode and see if the problem repeats. I've also ordered a cheap cigarette lighter (very non pc to refer to it in this way but we all know what I mean) voltage meter which should be here in a couple of days. Not very sophisticated but it might give me a clue as to the battery state first thing in the morning; I don't think I'd be safe/competent with anything more complicated. Warrior 193 I'm not sure what you mean by "Does your automatic idle stop operate normally". Are you referring to Stop/Start as I don't have this on my Yeti - one less thing to go wrong : )

On Thursday my now 12 year old Yeti had its MOT (no issues) and an intermediate service plus replacement of the brake fluid and an air-con recharge. Picked the car up from the garage and everything was fine. Took it out in the evening for a short drive, still OK. Friday morning it unlocked on the key fob without a problem but switching on the ignition all the usual dashboard lights came on, the MFD was very dim and nothing from the starter. Headlights were just a dull glow. I assumed a flat battery, although I don't know why this should have happened. Started first time with a booster battery and no problems the rest of the day. I spoke to the garage, that I've used for years, and they confirmed they hadn't needed to disconnect the battery for the work I'd had done and looking at the terminals I believe them. This morning (Saturday) again unlocked without any problems but when I turned the key in the ignition all the dashboard lights started flashing and the rear wiper swept back and forth - despite the stalk being in the off position! Again with the booster battery it started first time and has been fine the rest of the day (I've started without problems six times today). Following my own advice to others my first guess would be a battery problem and just a coincidence it's appeared immediately after the service/MOT. If it is then as it was fitted in September 2021 it's still within warranty and the garage has confirmed it would be a free replacement. I'll see what happens tomorrow and Monday mornings but if the problems persist I will drop into the garage and have them test the battery on Monday (although ideally they would try starting the car from cold, which will mean leaving it with them overnight). As a bit of preparation before I go back to the garage has anyone else had this happen and it has not been a battery problem? In two days I've had two lots of different symptoms make me think its not a specific electronic component breaking down as logically you'd expect that to show the same fault each time you start. Is this something that might show up in error codes (I can't read these but I'm sure the garage can). As far as overnight drain on the battery other than the standard things that keep the car alive when the ignition is off I've got a basic NextBase dashcam on a permanent live feed to be able to use its parking mode but I've had that in the car since mid-March so I think it's unlikely that's putting excessive drain on the battery.

I've had mine 11 years come the end of May and no plans to get rid of it. Even for local runs I get 42mpg, a bit better on long runs but then it's usually laden with luggage and family. And even under those condition the little 1.2l engine has pulled me up steep hills in Devon/Cornwall and the Peaks with barely a gear change. I have to say after living with it for these 11 years I would struggle with a meaningful answer to "How could they have improved it". But I may be biased. My worry is writing this one off and not being able to get another.

Seeing the previous posts I'm wondering how old the battery is. So often we have seen on this forum all sorts of strange behaviours which resolve themselves when a new battery is fitted. And this can happen even when on paper the battery is still "good". For my money if the battery is five years old or more a new battery isn't going to be a wasted investment but it might save you going through all the hassle of sourcing and fitting a new head unit just to find you still have the same problem. (Although not Yeti related I've had a recent lesson on not over-thinking problems. I've had a worrying noise from my tumble dryer for a while. On the principle of common problems happen a lot I self diagnosed it as needing a new main bearing - not a lot of money but a faff to actually do the work. I decided to throw caution to the wind and get an engineer in to do it for me having been quoted £80 plus parts. Engineer duly arrived, listened to the noise, asked a couple of questions and did a couple of quick tests. Apparently the bearing is fine but as it is a condensing dryer with a heat pump there is a capacitor somewhere in the works that, as he described it, gives the drum an extra nudge to get it going. Apparently they lose capacity over time. His advice - leave well alone until it fails - if it ever fails - and then he'll come back and put a new capacitor in for the cost of the part. Possibly the best £80 I've ever spent as I'd have spent a day replacing the wrong bits so time and money wasted. Hence my suggestion of fitting a new battery if the old one is at or close to the end of it's life; you have certainty that if the problem persists it isn't the battery and it's not cost a lot of money or taken a lot of time).

I second Lanigraham. In years of following this forum there have been numerous occasions of weird behaviour in the electrics that were resolved by a new battery. I even experienced this myself - a new battery was probably the cheapest fix ever!!

Just my thoughts but I also have a 2013 Yeti with the Bolero, a car I'm very attached to but at the end of the day now coming up for 12 years old. I assume there must be other reasons why you want to upgrade as I believe map updates for inbuilt sat-navs are usually both expensive and often not terribly up to date. Having has an integrated (and out of date) sat-nav on a previous car and now a standalone unit I feel the latter has the advantage in that I can have it where it's easy to see without looking away from the road but that's just my preference. I recently faced a similar dilemma. My elderly Garmin sat-nav with integrated dash cam is becoming unreliable. I looked at the replacement model and it was over £400 and security updates were only guaranteed until July 2024 - yes, the middle of last year! So I've opted for a Nextbase dashcam (£180 fitted including SD card) and when the Garmin finally gives up the ghost I'll either buy a sub-£100 sat-nav or, more likely for the small number of times a year I actually need a sat-nav (other than to give me a more accurate measurement of my speed), give Google Maps, Waze or one of the other apps a try. Hopefully some of the more technically minded members will be able to give you the advice you are looking for.

I've got the Bolero unit in my Yeti and found it could at times be temperamental about the file information - something that would play without a problem on another media player either wouldn't play or played in alphabetical track list order rather than album track list order for example. So I do understand your frustration. So on the basis that I have zero expertise here but you don't seem to have anything to lose I wonder whether there is a clue in your earlier post "I am an Apple mac user (and) I used iTunes to export a playlist to my SD card and it worked a treat. Now a few years ago Apple withdrew iTunes and replaced it with the Music app". Could it be that in the conversion some piece of information isn't being transferred over? Is it worth trying converting a few tracks using a different converter? Perhaps something like VLC, which I've used in the past (but not for a while now) but seems well respected. And rather than just dragging them drag them straight onto the card I'd be tempted to put them into a named folder. Personally I'd probably set up two or three folders and put a track or two in each.

"I would say the average owner age around here is 70". That's depressing - I now see 70 in my rear view mirror even though my wife says I behave otherwise. I'm thinking about being buried with my Yeti - like a Pharaoh with his favourite chariot or a Viking in his longship - although I don't know how the Co-op feels about such things

Thanks Gumdrop. That's an interesting option - I wish I'd known about it before I'd booked mine in at Halfords. Would have saved me £40 and even I should be able to put a plug in a socket without wrecking anything!

Thank you both. I think Halfords may have wired to a non-permanent live fuse as this morning after I'd driven a bit all was OK. I'll go back and talk to them. I opted for the permanently on option after having my number plates nicked whilst parked at the side of the road! Nextbase do say there is some wizardry that will turn the camera off before it drains the battery but that may be "until you find out otherwise". Thanks again.