SideshowBob

I'll let you know tomorrow with a bit of luck... There's a torx screw just above the sill which, if undone should allow some amount of access to where the crud is accumulating. It depends on how big that sill 'cavity' is though as to how much crud there is to be removed - hopefully it's blocked off a few inches back where the wing and door panel meet. I think worst case a couple more torx screws should allow good access...

Hi all I've got some paint bubbling up around the seam inside my front wheel arches, no surprise really given that my Octy hasn't had mudflaps fitted and has done 80k. So while checking it out this morning and looking at how best to sort the paint bubbles out before fitting mudflaps I pulled the inner wing plastic away to peer inside and what do I find? Sills full of mud! Inches and inches of the stuff! It's probably from water that's got sprayed up and the water drains away leaving mud and silt behind. So if you've got a Mk1 octy with no mudflaps I would urge you to check for the same problem. Hopefully when I get the mud out of there I won't discover that the panel has rotted from the inside out, but I can't say until I've cleaned it.

My sills on recently acquired Mk1 Octy vRS aren't in good shape, there's paint damage on the sill behind the wheels and on the end of the skirt at the front. Just looking at these on fleabay: 1998 - 2005 SKODA OCTAVIA GENUINE FRONT MUDFLAPS on eBay (end time 10-Nov-09 14:16:22 GMT) I know it says they won't fit the vRS but I can't see any difference between the wings and the skirt compared to any of the other models. Has anyone tried a set of these?

Any chance you could you elaborate?

I had this on my Golf TDi, and yes it was sat in traffic day in day out. It only had the sticking vanes problem in 6th gear and was more likely to do it with a passenger in the car due to the extra load I suppose. I found that giving it a good caning in the lower gears, coupled with a fuel additive helped get rid of the problem. I used Millers diesel additive (stinks though) but Forte is supposed to be the best stuff you can get. Buy it on eBay as it's not widely stocked. I would be careful not to use too much of any additive in too little fuel though. These products are basically detergents that, diluted heavily by fuel, are supposed to slowly release all the build-up of deposits within your engine. If they are run in a less diluted mix they could release heavier deposits in larger quantities and that could cause other problems.

If the noise happens for instance going over speed bumps, then I would check the ARB and bushes first. Also from searching older threads it seems that the lower radiator brackets can also allow movement and cause a similar noise. My rad moves about 5mm at the bottom and despite me not being able to hear any noise from it I think I'm gonna make a bracket up from ally flatbar and brace it a bit more. But yep check your ARBs mate.

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread... I just got an octavia mk1 and mine does exactly what you describe. It's recently had discs & pads so I don't want to wreck those due to one of the calipers binding or dragging the pads. I think a clue here might be that one of my calipers has lost a bit of paint, so I'll check that one first and probably jack it up and spin the wheels over the weekend. I'm also suspicious that the handbrake only needs to come up perhaps 1-2 clicks to be fully activated so I may adjust it back, it could just be due to that being over-adjusted at the last service or not adjusted at all when the new pads went in. VW recommend 5 clicks so it's likely the same on the Octy.

When my Golf TDI was smoking even on a very light throttle it turned out to be the MAF. The ECU gets all confused and either over-fuels or under-fuels.

I've just paid 3695 for a 2002 vRS with 79k, so yep that one would seem to be slightly high but not by that much?

Thanks for the welcome guys

I had one replaced on my Golf, but I needed someone with VAG-COM to identify which one had gone and then to clear the fault after it was done.

Hi I'm picking up my Mk1 Octy VRS on saturday. I'm a mate of Fluffmeister's of this very forum, in fact you could say he's to blame for switching me on to the vRS since I took a spin in his Octy a couple of years back. :rotz: :rotz: :rotz: Mine is the first standard one I've drove and I loved it, it out-handles my Golf Mk4 GTTDI by some margin and although it's a bit down on torque in comparison, it's begging for a remap and some extra ponies. :cool: I need to get the water pump switched for the metal impeller version as a precaution because we can't tell from the reciepts whether it had a WP with the cambelt change at 60k or not. After that, all being well, I'll be looking at getting a P-torque remap Still trying to work out what sort of difference a cold air intake would make as well as the remap? Any tips welcome.