boneman

you could move the rears to the front and wear them out quicker. I have same car and tyres and have set rear to about -1deg 20min camber and toe in 9min each side which is supposed to minimize the dreaded sawtoothing.

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/356011-which-tyres-to-go-for/ Following the renewal of my front Goodyears. I've just come back from France but whilst there managed to drive over a steep kerb and damage the sidewall of one of my rear Kuhmos which were nearly new. Now I've had the rear Kuhmos replaced by Goodyear F1Assy2's to match the fronts and with another four wheel alignment the car feels a lot more settled and quieter on motorways. I've now got a spare 18" Kuhmo with 7mm of tread which I've advertised on ebay. Hope this is helpful to someone.

Had two Goodyear F1 Assy2's and four wheel alignment done yesterday at F1Autocentre Ware Rd, Hertford. £268.96 total. The job was done to my satisfaction but I will never go back there. The manager is a real pita. Abrupt, rude, with an aggressive manner. The four wheel alignment was the problem as I wanted my settings which are within manufacturers tolerance and these people are not mentally adjusted to customers having their own requirements. I had a printout of previous settings from Wheels in Motion Chesham for reference and discussed this with the technician and this moron manager constantly bickering and being obstructive. Waited 21/2hrs On Tuesday I will phone head office and complain about his attitude. Tyres were £92.00 ea, the remaining cost for alignment, which needed adjustments both sides to front toe, rear toe and camber.

I'm in a quandary which tyres to go for and been googling for ages, getting bored now. Car is Octavia mk2 vrs diesel on 225/40/18. I have Goodyear F1 ass2 on fronts which are down to 3mm and I want to replace them but rears are Kumho Ecsta le sport KU39 6mm. Is it better to replace the F1's with Kumho's so I have a set or replace with F1's with the same again? Which drive the best Goodyear F1 or Kumho KU39, obviously Kumho's are cheaper but that's not my deciding criteria? Any thoughts on this which may help me decide? I should add, motorway use mainly as fast as conditions safely allow and she who must be obeyed.

Have a read through Rob_e's thread: http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/278947-chassis-upgrade/ he ran the neuspeeds and had his work done with AKS. I have the lead weight Neptunes which according to my bathroom scales are 54lbs/24.5kg c/w tyre. What a shock when I took one off to fit mudflaps. Incidentally the spare steel wheel weighs 38lbs/17.2kg c/w tyre and I'm sure the car would handle a lot better running a set of these. Anyone tried this? The Speedlines are lightweights, my WR1 scooby had the 18" PFF7's hence my shock at the weight of these dreadful skoda wheels. The lightweight alloys appear to be the flow formed ones as compared to the cast ones.

You'll all be catching up with the Subarus soon , well when thy're in standard trim.

Do you suffor from dyslectia? Could amke this thred intrestnig?

I've converted my low beam to Xenon but can the high beams be done as well? Years ago I converted my Scooby to Xenons both low and high and it was excellent but no canbus so relatively simple. Never got flashed, no issues switching to high beam and vv, passed all MOT's for 6yrs. Anyone done this?

So the low beam is off when the high beam is on, are you sure?

http://www.ecotek.eu/power-boost/

Light alloys, reducing unsprung weight for improved ride, that's a laugh, they're like lead weight wheels. Don't bother.

Although the EPS saves a bit on economy its a backward step when compared to hydraulic rack and pinion. Modern cars with EPS are more like driving a computer game. It would be interesting to test drive a few different makes to see which are better (or worse).

The symptoms you describe are exactly the same as our other car which is Vauxhall Corsa D 1.4sxi. Had the EPS changed 3 times main dealers checked it all out. Awful on straight roads eg motorways. It was a criteria I was anxious to avoid when buying the 12 reg Octavia vRS I bought for motorway journeys and is thankfully smooth although like these modern EPS there is no feel, give me hydraulic power steering any day. If you're still under warranty I should get it looked at and be persistent, do a test drive with technician/service manager on the motorway to show the problem.

I went through this process a few months ago as the Skoda Octavia vRS has the feeblest dip beams of any car I've driven in 40yrs. I can't repeat my actual words here!! This is a bit confusing at first but after reading all the posts here on HIDs/Xenons I was convinced I needed the London colour Non Canbus ones and to get coding done. All good now. Fitted all parts inside the headlamp unit using Halfords self adhesive velcro to secure. Coded by a member here thankyou. It's a no brainer for £25.00. Eight years ago I fitted HIDS to my Subaru Impreza, which also had poor lights for a 320BHP car. Did high and low beams, wow the high beam was fantastic No problem passing MOT every year, not even a question asked. Never got flashed by other drivers as had manual beam height adjustment so kept low in traffic. Would love to do the high beams on the vRS but seems it's not possible with the coding etc. Has anyone changed the 35w for the 55w HIDs as I'm curious on the improvement. BTW you can remove the headlamps from the car quite easily, take them indoors fit all the bits and then refit to car, then get it coded.

Did you have OEM pads and discs fitted by a main dealer? Suggest you take car back to dealer and ask them to check over the brakes and wheel bearings and don't get fobbed off by them. I guess you're not the last of the late brakers so for two sets to warp in 4k something must be amiss. Perhaps brakes are dragging a bit causing too much heat build up. eg sticking pistons. Has your fuel consumption gone up? I have an auto vRS 12reg 40k which I've done about 6k mainly motorway. I notice the brakes are really over servoed to make these cheap puny items effective and they don't really look man enough for the job. I suspect these brakes are really easy to overheat on a B road blast. I'll be interested to see how get on with this so keep us posted. Sorry can't be any more help.

OEM or retrofit Xenons?

But they all look the same haven't taken any pics, would you like some of my scoob?

Road test a few to compare, listen to tyre noise as can be a problem with rears Get the newest you can with manufacturers warranty if possible. I get 50 to the gal on mways no problem. Get the 4 wheel alignment done to prevent undue rear tyre wear. A sat nav would be handy. Check service history with the servicing dealers to check whats been done to the car DSG should be serviced at 40,000miles it costs about £180 for oil and filter etc. Servicing schedule can be set to variable about 18,000mile /2yrs or annually.

Phone SKODA uk to check things out first. Go back to dealer, see the top man, be assertive but not rude, Tell him you're extremely unhappy, as above, and want to return the car. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Thanks, It seems ok. Had free health check at Skoda and warranty work to stop the airbox rattling also 4 wheel alignment done by specialists and got ebay HIDs, just need to install. The noise has not been a problem and have done several 100mile motorway runs with good economy 50+. May not bother with Columbus as have been looking at Tomtom and Garmins with lifetime map and traffic updates although the phone app works ok but a bit small and fiddly to use.

The bi xenons are the high and low beams controlled from the same unit with one bulb. There is apparently a solenoid operated shutter built in which when closed covers up the high part of the beam leaving the low only and when activated the shutter lifts up allowing the high beam to illuminate the road. That's about all I know but I hope it helps, There's always more tho. I'm in process of converting my Octavia vRS to HID too but want to get the VCDS coding done before I fit them.

Ah, I refer to high beam as main beam and low beam as dip. I have the Octavia vRS which I suspect is same as Fabia vRS. When I adjust the beam height it only adjusts the low/dip beam and the high/main beamis not adjustable in the car, hence my comment on dazzling other drivers. I guess that's where the bi-xenons score.

Another problem is the main beam doesn't adjust for height so more potential for dazzling oncoming traffic.

Is there any way of controlling the scatter with Xenon in the main beam? I notice my halogen main beam lights up the trees even after dealer adjustment.

I've had a 2004 Impreza WRX STi WR1, to give it it full title, for about 7yrs. It's a special edition by Prodrive to celebrate Solberg winning the WRC in 2003. They only made 500 so a little different. 320bhp, 0-60 4.25s. Economy is 22mpg on a motorway, I got 29mpg driiving off boost below 2500rpm but it was too boring. needs service every 10000 mls with intermediate oil and filter at 5000mls fully synthetic. cambelt change about every 4yrs about same cost as vRS. Acceleration is stunning, no wheelspin in the wet, However a std STi will be pretty close to a WR1 and a bit cheaper to buy. Try and get an unmodified car if possible. STi is stronger engine and transmission than WRX. Road tax goes up with a jump after march 2006, 2005/2006 was the change from Blobeye 2.0 litre to Hawkeye 2.5 litre which are not quite as reliable, can suffer head gasket and piston troubles but will have more torque. Service history needed. Tyres same as vRS Need 4 wheel alignment to get best handling, easier to adjust than vRS. Conversion to HID's easy, no canbus to worry about.did mine 5yrs ago dip and main, never been flashed no prob with MOT. I just bought a vRS tdI DSG a couple of wks ago for the economy tho, 50mpg compared with 22mpg! Take a look at wr1oc.co.uk and scoobynet.co.uk Have fun!