NeilInExeter

Hi all, So my compressor was changed a couple of weeks back and so far all is good in air-con land! Following the recommendation from pikpilot and meaty101 I have purchase and fitted the mesh to my front grill. I don't know if it'll help anyone, but I took some photos and this is basically what I did: First, I prised out the side bit of the grill as it looked like they went in last and would hold the middle section in. I took out both sides. Next I took out the middle grill section using the same technique, plus a bit of prising along the top of it. It came out pretty easily. I took it into the workshop, gave the back side a wipe down along the spars and offered up my mesh (from the eBay supplier above in this thread). (Please excuse the mess in my workshop!) With a hot glue gun I laid a bead of glue along the four spars on the left hand quarter and the vertical bar at the edge and 1 in. I then laid the mesh into this and pushed it down before continuing to do the same on the second quarter and so on. I punched a little hole through the mesh on the second from bottom spar and put a cable tie through. I did this at both ends (belt and braces really, the glue will hold not least because it squishes through the mesh and gives a good mechanical interlock). I put a bit more glue at either end having trimmed up the overhanging length of the mesh. Finally I trimmed up the overhanging mesh top and bottom with a knife: The finished result was pretty tidy: (Back side) (Front side) I popped it back into the front of the car and added the side bits. They needed a gentle thump as to get the little clips in, but it wasn't hard. The mesh looks good from the outside, it'll stop stuff flying in easily and I don't think it's going to reduce the airflow much. (View looking out) View looking in: Tidy job! Thanks again for the the advice to do this. It took all of half an hour and I reckon it'll save me getting the condenser replaced for a while. It's a big gap without the mesh! Cheers Neil

Thanks Zar, Well, so far, the replacement compressor is working and the AC is working great - it is ice cold, gets cold within about 30 seconds even at tick over, so I think it's all good! I've just ordered the mesh discussed above to save the condenser from any future damage and hopefully that'll be it for life (or at least for a long while). I've got the old compressor here - does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do with it? Is it worth reconditioning / keeping in case I need to get one reconditioned in the future? Thanks everyone, Neil

Thanks Zar - I grew less worried about it as it seemed to come and go to be honest, but thanks for putting my mind to rest! Cheers Neil

Quick update on this, The dealer did the compressor on Fri and it was regassed at another place. It held pressure (or whatever test they do) but the guy did say the condenser looked "a bit dinged up", but also said if it holds pressure a and works then there's no need to worry, and if it didn't the dye would show where the problem was. Anyway, it held, and his only suggestion was that it was worth putting a mesh piece in front of the condenser where the grille holes are huge, as suggested here, so I'm going to order some of the item in pikpilot's post and give it a go! I'll take photos! Thanks everyone! Neil

Here is the stuff that fitted in the boot - sorry about the quality of the picture, but I just thought it was cool that this actually went in! Great car!

Just to add to this - we drove our 2005 Octavia Estate back from Spain last year, boot absolutely packed to the gills, solid! I weighed the stuff as we bought it in from the car - 247kg in the boot, 3 passengers, suitcases on the remaining back seats and still 58mpg. Oh, and that was when it had already done 232,000 miles. 239k now. Looking to sell it as I've just bought a Mk2, glad to hear the boot is even bigger... we'll make use of all that extra carrying space!! I'll see if I can find a picture later of everything that was in the boot!

Hi all, I have had a MKII 2012 2L TDI CR Octavia for a little over a week now. It's done 100k miles but has a FSH with Skoda and seems to be in reasonable condition. There's an issue with the aircon which is due to be fixed and I had some radio issues which I've sorted, but there's a strange ticking noise from the engine, seems to be coming from around the fuel pump / aux belt area but I can't be sure. It isn't there (or isn't audible) at tick over, but anywhere over 1000RPM it is. It changes frequency with the speed of the engine, i.e. ticking gets faster as you put you accelerate, but it doesn't seem to get louder. I've tried to capture it in this YouTube video Any thoughts/ assistance very much welcomed as a ) currently the car is still under warranty (for another 2 and a half months) and b ) we're going to Spain in it in 3 weeks time! Many thanks, Neil

Yes, exactly that, with the radio on, press and hold setup button for a few secs, then a settings menu appears, then press FM and it gives you the screen shown in my first post.

Thanks to both Anddento and Meaty101! That's great info as the dealer has actually said he'd do the compressor first, and then the condenser if necessary now, so hopefully it'll all get sorted. Other than that I'm very happy with the car so I'm chuffed that this is pretty fixable! Thanks again for your help. Cheers Neil

Thanks to both John999boy and TheClient for the speedy replies! Since you had both said I was going to have to replace the aerial base, I thought I'd see how easy it was to get at, so I popped out the middle section of the plastic around the boot to make get to the edge of the ceiling panel, and then slid my hand up inside the roof lining carefully to have a bit of a feel around. I left the radio turned on at the time on the off chance that perhaps I'd wiggle something and it would work better, and would you believe it, I found the little plug/socket that's clipped up onto the metal roof wasn't tight, so I carefully pulled it apart, and re-joined it again, and the radio immediately got a lot better! I went to have a look at the diagnostics screen and now it says both ANT1 and ANT2 are on! Brilliant! Maybe I've just got lucky and it'll stop again on the next pothole or perhaps it is oxidised somewhere and it's just working at the moment, but it is pretty coincidental that it started working just as I pushed the plug back in! Here's a photo of the bit I'm talking about in case it's useful! So thanks again for the pointer - I would have started at the radio end and worked towards the antenna if you'd not said, and that would have been a long job! Cheers Neil

Hi everyone, I'm not sure this is the right place to post this, so please, if it's in the wrong place feel free to "move" me! I've recently bought a MkII Octavia estate and (other than an AC issue - which I've posted about in another thread), most things are going well... however, the radio seems to have a terrible problem picking up any station well. It's a Bolero and having followed the method for the secret radio menu online, I found that ANT1 is reporting itself as "OFF". I worked out that ANT1 is the one on the roof as ANT2 which is reporting as "ON" goes "OFF" when I disconnect the rear window antenna from the cable where it's connected in the rear door pillar (C pillar?). So, I'm guessing that OFF on ANT1 means it's disconnected but I've removed the radio and it's clearly connected there! There appears to be no snagging or squishing of the cables as far as I can see in the dashboard before it gets tied into a bit of loom, so my question is, where is the most likely place that this "break" has happened (I'm presuming it's a physically cable broken or damaged somewhere) and what's my best course of action to rectify the problem as it's awful trying to listen to radio when it spends its whole time dropping out! Thanks in advance for thoughts / replies! Neil PS - pic of the screen showing what I see.

Hi guys, Thanks for the advice - at least he's agreeing at the moment to address whatever the problem is, so that's good! I'll let you know the outcome and thanks again for the comments. BTW, I think I've worked out how to upload photos now - please see the attached photo of the condenser with the bits of damage to it - do you think it looks bad? Thanks again! Cheers Neil

Hi all, I've just bought a 2012 Octavia estate, very happy with it apart from a couple of things, the first being aircon not working. The dealer I bought it off says he's going to fix it, he's going as far as to get a new compressor, but from what I read it is much more likely to be the clutch on the front of the compressor or the condenser. I should just say "hey, his problem, it's under warranty" but it's a sixty mile trip to visit him, so I'd rather get the problem identified right and solved in one trip! The condenser has quite a bit of a superficial damage, including a bit of corrosion but doesn't obviously have holes! I'd like to upload a pic but can't quite work out how yet! What do you guys think? What's most likely to be wrong do you think? Thanks for your help Cheers Neil