AlienP2

Loop a cable tie round the wires. Slide it forwards until it is over the bulb holder. Carefully tighten the cable tie. You now have a handy tail from the cable tie that you can pull on to extract the bulb holder.

Part 2 (2 years on) I gave up on the rear discs. Sorry for not posting sooner. I just couldn't get the M14 bolts started as I wasn't prepared to work from inside the wheel arch which seemed to be the only place I'd get enough purchase on the bolt to stop the spline socket from slipping out as soon as I applied any pressure. The rear pads were absolutely worn out though and replacing these gave new life to the hand brake. In summary the rear brakes had their first new pads at 30k and the front have been changed twice by 55k. Will be doing the rear pads again soon. Two and a bit years on and the latest MoT had advisories on all four discs, the front being worse than the rear. The front nearside brake started binding about 2 days before the MOT and I suspect the disc was still visibly marked from this when it went in for the test even though I'd managed to free it. The car has done 55,000 miles now so I bought new pads and discs for the front. Why can't Skoda or the various parts suppliers agree on what size discs my car has? Turns out they are 312mm on the front (2012 1.8TSi Estate). By comparison to the rear discs, the front ones were simple. In part because you can turn the steering wheel to angle the wheels and provide better access to the carrier bolts but mostly because they've used proper bolts instead of the wretched spline ones. They were still very stiff to get started, but as someone pointed out above, WD40 is your friend. The only problem I had was that the little grub screw that secures the discs was locked solid and I didn't realise this until I'd sheared the head off the first one. Some WD40 and a little patience meant the 2nd one came off OK. I couldn't drill the rest of the screw out of its hole which made reassembly a pain. This doesn't do an important job in terms of the operation of the brakes, but trying to get the wheel bolts back in with the disk able to spin freely was a frustrating exercise. Need to buy myself a better drill bit and go back to do this job later. One final challenge was the spring clips that go back on after the new pads have been put in the callipers. The nearside one came lose during the test drive and made a dreadful noise. Seems to have bent slightly out of shape so will be ordering replacements, although it is behaving itself for now. Hope others find the tale useful. There have been many helpful tips from others. I know some regard brakes as being best left to the experts, but they really are very basic and the technology hasn't changed in years so if you were comfortable changing them on previous cars, then no reason not to carry on doing so. What does seem to change is the ever increasing variety of sizes of the components and the weird and wonderful tools needed. I've still got the rear discs in the garage so might have a go at those later in the year. Plan B wouuld be to free issue them to the local independent for them to fit. A vehicle hoist and impact driver would make all the difference. PS having bought a rewind tool for the calliper 2 years ago, I now find a part of it has gone missing from my tool box. A G-clamp and block of wood worked far better.

OK - so I made a start and now I know the difference between a calliper and a carrier. Got the first off really easily but the discs on my car (1.8tsi) are too large to come off with the carrier in place. Struggling to even get to the bolts so came on here for a look at the pictures again. Back out to the car now.

That's the tool, but a 3 times what I paid. The bolts on the callipers worry me. Made a complete mess of one on my old car and the problem is that you just can't get to them to apply leverage. Focus used to have an Allen key from the front. Will take photos when I do the job on Sunday.

Thanks both. Had another look at the discs to see if they really needed replacing and they are badly scored, even through the front ones are near perfect. Didn't measure the thickness, but given that they aren't expensive and I'll have done 75% of the work to get to the pads it seemed silly to leave them on. Ordered some EBC discs and pads (OEM, nothing special - about £70 for the lot) and then went on Amazon for the tools. Will do the job on Sunday if it doesn't rain.

Apologies for lack of paragraphs. It looked OK when I typed it, but I don't seem able to edit.

Hi Looks like I need to replace the rear discs after only 30k miles which is a shock, but I guess the previous owner didn't look after them. I've searched this forum and others and it doesn't look too hard but I want to check i've not missed anything. Replaced pads on plenty of other cars and there are often awkward bits, usually wrong tools. I have a 2012 1.8 TSI Estate. Various websites give me a range of sizes for the discs. I know the largest are for V6 or 4x4 but there is still some variations in the smaller ones. Will be calling EBC for advice but if anyone on here knows then I'd apreciate the input. Just going with their OEM replacements. The job itself looks like: 1) remove wheels 2) remove 2 bolts holding calliper in place 3) remove spline screw to take off disc. Questions: 1) mixed advice on here about how hard it is to get the bolts off for the callipers. On others cars I've only taken one bolt off and rotated the caliper on the other one. Anyone tried this on a superb? Any tips welcome for freeing the nuts. 2) anyone got a picture of the spline screw? What size and what shape. I've seen different advice on different pages. Oh for a Haynes manual! Thanks in advance. Will let you know how it goes.

Thanks both. I can put that down to user error then.

I noticed this morning that the journey time, distance, avg MPH & avg MPG on the MFD were recording a journey of 600+ miles, 32 hours driving etc. This would represent about 3 weeks of driving so clearly wrong. I'm sure it was working a few days ago, so I'm not sure what happened. I managed to cure it with a factory reset, but what might have caused this? Is there a setting couldn't find to over-ride the auto reset that happens when the car has been turned off for a couple of hours? Any suggestions?