Paul52

Not specifically Yeti related but I wasn't sure where to put this post and I'm sure a moderator will move it as necessary (thank you in advance). Born in July 1952 my driving licence will in a few weeks need to be renewed. Looking on the government web-site it tells me I'll be notified 10 weeks before the due date by the DfT or DVLA, can't remember which. The problem is with nine weeks left to go I've still not heard from them. I can get the form from the Post Office (when I remember - a whole different problem) but it got me wondering whether because of exemplary driving or more likely rather good luck I've never had to send my licence away to have it "updated" with points so I still have the old paper licence rather than a photocard. As an aside as I don't have a passport this gives me another first world problem when someone insists on photo ID - you know who you are John Lewis. I'm sure there are other forum members who have reached, or are about to reach, 70 still with a paper licence, and I'm wondering if the powers that be have a system that doesn't pick up us old uns with the old style licence or am I just an anomaly (probably be blamed on Brexit or Covid). I'm posting just to make others aware so they don't get caught out.

I can only tell you what happened with mine - original rear screen FM/AM radio was fine, first replacement screen with two connectors radio reception was dreadful, with second, three connection screen everything was back to normal. Other than changing the screen nothing else was done to the car so to me that says the rear screen must play a part in FM/AM reception. Urrell, my Yeti is pre=FL and doesn't have DAB.

Heated rear window does the FM radio - I had a rear screen replaced and in error a screen with two connections was used and radio reception was dreadful. Screen replaced with one with three connections and all was well again. My car doesn't have the fitted sat-nav so I use a Garmin unit that combines sat-nav with a dash cam but this post caught my eye because at the moment on one road I drive almost daily the "car" is shown to be maybe 50m to the north of where it should be, running through dense woodland!. Before I join this road everything is fine and when I leave it the "car" jumps back to the correct location. What makes it even weirder is it seems to be a seasonal thing! Whether it has anything to do with the trees coming into leaf but then why only on this road? Ah, don't you just long for the old days and paper maps with your navigator turning them in all sorts of directions in a bid to try and avoid saying "turn left" when there's onlya junction on the right.....

The Yeti is a great car - mine is coming up to 9 years old now, the only car I bought new and I've no intention of getting rid of it any time soon. It's been very reliable, surprisingly economical (around 42mpg - mostly short trips on local roads) and very versatile. As others have said you can't simply bung a spare wheel in the back there are shaped supporting blocks that give extra storage and a new floor level with the rear bumper. plus the essential tools; make sure before you take the car off the forecourt in with the jack etc. is a small plastic set of tweezers - you need them to pull the wheel nut covers off and it's not unusual for them to go missing. (I speak from experience - they were missing from my brand -new-from-the-factory Yeti).

I'm posting a before and after photo of a repair in case they are of any help to someone else. Backing out of a parking space in a multi-storey car park one of the columns moved a bit (come on folks, work with me here) and got intimate with my off side front wheel arch. Some deep scratches, flaking paint chips and a bit of metal distortion. Looking at it and based on repairs I've had done on other cars in the past I'm thinking there won't be any change out of £500 for that (on a good day) and I'm a bit precious about my NCD but although the car is now nearly 9 years old it's been reliable and other than that bodywork modification in pretty good nick internally and externally so I wanted to do something to put it right or at least tidy it up. Bit of a conundrum. Then I thought "SMART repair". I got an estimate of £120 from a local guy (trading under Scuffmaster) based on sending him a couple of pictures, he had the time to be able to come out and do it on the drive in a couple of days so I decided to give it a try - at least it would smarten it up and protect the metal from the elements until it was convenient to get a proper repair done - at the moment it wouldn't be convenient to be without the car for several days if it went into a body shop. When he arrived he took a proper look at the damage and, very fairly, warned me that he didn't expect to be able to get a perfect repair - it was pushing the limits for a SMART repair - but he thought "99%". The repair took just over an hour and I have to say I'm really pleased with the result. There is a slight ridge left on the edge of the arch where the metal was pushed up, which you can see in the "after" photo, but unless you know it's there most people wouldn't notice it. The colour match (Regency Green) is spot on. Hope this of some help to anyone in a similar situation in the future.

I wouldn't disagree with you but isn't that the argument for not using LEDs for brake lights? - their function guarantees they will be switched on and off multiple times on each and every journey so hastening their demise and an expensive replacement and apparently the creation of unnecessary plastic waste if you have to throw out the whole housing rather than a small glass and metal bulb. It seems another example of "we have the technology, we must use it whether appropriate or not. A good few contributors to this forum will be old enough to remember "If it ain't broke don't fix it". (This of course did not apply to The Plumber and others who took to pieces perfectly good Yetis so they could help the rest of us fix ours when the time came!!)

The price of progress.....LED lights should "last the life of the car" but probably won't (I'm already replacing led bulbs in the house which were advertised as lasting 25 years at about 5-7 years) and then it's a second mortgage for replacements rather than a couple of pounds at the local motor factors. (Am I the only one that cynically believes "lifetime" is manufacturer code for "about two weeks out of warranty"?).

Well. you learn something new every day. In my case you can own the same car for coming up to nine years and only now find out it does indeed only have one rear fog light. Now I'm wondering what other mysteries I've yet to uncover.

It's nearly midnight so I'm not going out to check but I'm pretty sure my 2013 Elegance has two rear fog lights. The OP has a 2010 S so earlier and more basic and it's not really a surprise that Skoda kept it down to the minimum spec to be legal. I do agree on the face of it it seems penny pinching but if you are selling cars it would be logical to have as many points of differentiation between models as you can even if the cost saving is minimal. One of those is higher spec cars have two lights, lower spec only one.

As Graham says, the 2011 cars wouldn't have had the removable torch (mine is a 2013 Elegance) and the boot light does stay on for a long time after the boot lid goes up - I've often thought it stays on far longer than necessary. (Having a light on both sides of the boot seems a sensible idea, whether one of them is removable or not. One of those simple ideas that should be standard).

Thanks to everyone for their advice and thoughts. I hadn't realised that the tablets don't give anti-freeze properties and life's too short to spend working out whether or not I'm going to have to add anything to the washer bottle for winter protection and if so what and how much. I've got to go to Screwfix anyway so I've added 5l of Prestone to the order which is good to -10°C which should be more than sufficient down here on the South Coast. (Not as cheap as Urrell has been buying it at Tesco at just over £5 but it will probably last me the best part of 6 month so I'll not lose any sleep 😊). Thanks again.

I'm running low on screen wash and wondered if anyone had experience of using the tablets you dissolve in 5 litres of water before filling the washer reservoir? I like the idea of reducing the amount of plastic involved but wondered if there is a down side, such as a residue building up in the washer reservoir over time and causing problems. (I have been using Michelin's concentrate sachets and been happy with them but they seem to have been taken of the market so I'm needing to look elsewhere). Thanks.

I can't offer advice on the technical aspects of your problem but I would have thought there is little chance of a goodwill gesture from Skoda on a 10 year old car. Might be worth asking for a contribution (they can only say no) but I would have thought to have any hope you would have had to have bought the car from new, had it serviced by a Skoda dealer and possibly have a history of buying new Skodas so they appreciate a "No" risks losing a loyal(?) customer. Even then if they offered, say, 20% of the cost of repair but it had to be by a franchised dealer would you be any better off than paying your independent garage? If you bought the car second hand and it's been serviced by yourself or a local garage I can't see Skoda being interested. Of your three options, on the Isle of Wight even without Covid there must be limited opportunities for long, fast run that diesels seem to need these days and I'm guessing low mileages don't give you any great cost benefit compared to petrol. My feeling is you should find a suitable replacement vehicle on a forecourt or two and have conversations about the cost to trade. Personally I'd be honest about the problem (they should be able to get it fixed cheaper than you) , a repair is still an option but you've lost confidence in the car and decided it doesn't really meet your needs now. If the cost of change is too high then you can have a rethink about whether to have the repair done and then either keep the car or sell privately. Sorry to hear of your problem but my thoughts might help you decide how to go forward.

And of course the Yeti, in both its iterations, enjoys the company of the Morris Minor, the VW Beetle, the Robin Reliant, the classic Mini, the E-type Jaguar and a few others you can probably name (probably from some time back) where when you see one you don't think "Is that a Yeti or one of those that looks like it?". (I should also add the Ford Anglia as I grew up with a couple of these and the Ford Capri that, as a young Anglia owner I aspired to. No-one aspired to a Ford Cortina).

Or was it one of MarieK's excellent photoshop exercises, he mused.

That's gotta hurt if one of the gas struts fails!!! Or did they adapt the tailgate for side opening? (Here we go - the traditional Yeti forum digression from the original post ☺️ - we'd been doing so well up until now).

As far as I can see it can only go in one way because, if the wheel has a boss, of the restraining "screw" in the middle of the well but more importantly you've got the polystyrene moulding that sits over that and holds the jack etc. Even if you dispensed with the jack/tool holder (the bits could go in the other boxes alongside) and had the spare without a boss I don't think you gain anything because the tyre is the same diameter one side as the other. The only way it might work would be to take out the surrounding boxes - which of course support the false floor which would then let the wheel drop flat on the floor of the well. But whether that would be enough to let the floor lie flat I don't know. If Nimit is trying to get to the position where he could effectively have five wheels rather than four road wheels and a spare I think he's set himself a challenge!

I've just found the details of my renewal at the beginning of October. For my 2013 registered Yet Elegance Skoda Financial Services charged me £188.18 with £100 excess and 10,000 miles/year - as my car is now more than 8 years old with 66,000 miles on the clock 10,000 miles per year is more than adequate for my needs. It works out at 50p a day, equivalent to about one third of a litre of petrol or 3-4 miles. For me that's pretty reasonable for the reassurance if any major bills come along they should be covered. (Actually thanks for raising the thread because I realised I couldn't remember paying for a renewal so it sent me scuttling off looking through old statements and e-mails and I was able to track it down. Well, what else is there to do between Xmas and the New Year?)

I've just switched one of my wheels for the Skoda supplied spare so took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures of the road wheel in the boot. As you can se in terms of diameter it's a tight fit, the floor won't go completely down and finally because of the boss(?) in the centre of the wheel you can't lock it down into the well with the large plastic nut. Mine are 16" wheels (rather than 17") with 215/60 R16 tyres so slightly larger than the tyre used on the same wheel for the Greenline.

"I just don't really trust it" and "They fitted a new experimental wiring harness and it's fine again. But unfortunately it has had so many issues that I have lost confidence in it, but I don't know if with its abysmal reliability history it would qualify for an extended warranty!" In your situation I would certainly be going down the route of an extended warranty (and a better chance of sleeping nights) and although you might get a better price elsewhere I would get the Skoda one. If they baulk at selling you one then I imagine there are a good few motoring journalists who's love a story about the motor manufacturer who wouldn't sell the motorist an extended warranty because they knew his car was a bad 'un and was likely to cost them money. If they do sell you one again you have the high ground if you have to claim and they question whether the defect is covered - "What guv, you sell me an iffy car then you sell me a warranty for it and when it goes wrong you say it's just one of those things? I'm off to the press" (or these days I guess the Twitter-sphere. If the warranty is outside the Skoda family there's more chance of everyone trying to slope shoulders and give you the run around. I had a car like yours, although in my case a V50 Volvo, and when it ran well it was a dream but every so often something would go wrong - limp mode would kick in and I'd have to crawl to the garage which fortunately was close to home, it also developed a vibration through the steering numerous checks and adjustments to wheel alignment and balance failed to fix and was eventually diagnosed by a master technician from Volvo HQ as a fault with the dual mass flywheel. This was replaced (apparently at considerable expense), I picked the car up and drove down the road to feel the same vibrations...... There were other problems and the car was in the garage, a main agent, so often most of the mechanics knew my name! Without the extended warranty I dread to think what the bills would have been. Just my thoughts but then I'm a renown pessimist and cynic so you've now been warned ☺️

I agree with CJJE and have renewed the extended warranty each time it is due - I think the last one was about £250. I've never had to call on it but have always taken the view that I can budget for a foreseeable £200-£300 each year and although I'm lucky that I could afford a repair bill running into two or three thousands it would make a nasty and unexpected dent in the savings. It all comes down to your attitude to risk but the fact you are even asking suggests you have real concerns you could face a major bill before you sell the car......

Kodiaqsportline gave some very comprehensive advice which seems to be in line with the Consumer Rights Act 2015 but you are clearly talking about a lot of money here and if it was me I'd consider getting some formal advice from a solicitor who should be able to advise you on your rights in respect of the repair being offered but also possibly on compensation for inconvenience and any out of pocket expenses, which might include his/her fees to provide you with the advice and letters to the appropriate parties. (I mention this because I had to employ a solicitor a few years back to resolve a commercial debt owed to me which required me to sign a wordy release. I had to pay the solicitor initially but it got added on to the debt). What you don't want is to try and be reasonable and then find that later down the line you unknowingly gave up your rights.

Yes, 80kph. Old age is beginning to show ☺️

Just a thought but did the problem occur just after the battery was replaced and if so could it be related - I know it's very unusual these days but a defective battery slipped through the checks? (Many years ago my mechanic told me of an owner who did his own servicing and had been going slowly crazy trying to trace a fault, replacing part after part at considerable expense. In desperation he finally took it to the garage. They eventually traced it to a new but defective spark plug put in by the owner as part of his routine servicing. Different plug, problem solved).

I've been on this forum for about 9 years now and it was invaluable in helping me to firstly decide the Yeti was a car I'd rather not live without and then to decide on spec. (and indeed what some of the options actually were) and it was through the advice of some of the earliest members I took the trouble to get my Elegance supplied on 16" rather than 17" wheels, which I've never regretted. Throughout most of that time there has been light-hearted banter, excellent advice and on many occasions clear disagreement about the "right" way to do things. But posters seemed to be able to agree to disagree and leave the OP to decide what advice to follow and what to ignore. You quickly learnt who "knew their stuff", for example The Plumber was held in high regard for his technical knowledge, Llanigram was the go-to guy for off-roading and had an impressive knowledge of legislation and there were others of their standing or close to it. I learnt a lot along the way, most of which I will never put into practice but at least put me a little less in the role of sheep-to-the-slaughter when the car goes into the garage for work. But what I don't remember was any unnecessary and sometime sustained unpleasantness - usually about something totally inconsequential. Unfortunately owners have moved on and, at least in my opinion, some of the newer members seem to think they have a monopoly on being right and aren't slow in expressing that anyone holding a different view is either incompetent or a fool. A couple of recent examples are the tirades being delivered about where to put the locking bolt (if at all) when the OP simply asked about replacing a rounded-of bolt and the "discussion" about the possible insurance consequences of changing the ride height and, by inference, handling characteristics. It's perfectly reasonable for a forum member to point out modifications can affect insurance and totally out of order to say that this isn't appropriate for a car forum. If you don't like any advice, don't take it but it might be helpful to others now or in the future. I will continue visiting the forum because there is always something to be learnt and also hopefully occasionally I may be able to help someone with their issue but I have to say that these days there's an increasing urge to use the "ignore" button for some members and their content. If this posting offends anyone sorry about that but I'll happily add you to my Ignore list as I'd simply rather correspond with posters who can respect the views of others even if they can't agree with them. Best wishes for the New Year to the many, many forum members able to participate in a sensible and civilised manner.