ronime

I have used a soft toothbush and/or round detailing brush on the door glass seal in the past. No green stuff now because the rubber it grows on has disintegrated!

I want to replace the outer door seals on my 2014 3-door. The one that fits around the top of the door/window frame is torn at the top rear corner and the flocked outer glass seal strip seems to have been digested by the green algae/lichen stuff that grows on it. Has anyone tackled this and got any tips? It looks like the frame seal is secured with some kind of plastic pin at the top rear corner but do I need any kind of adhesive or sealer tape to fasten the rubber seal to the frame?

Would that be the current PCH deal? ETA - don’t stress yourselves too much about paddle shifters. Having owned a Leon DSG and now a BMW 8-speed auto the paddles are a short-lived gimmick. Only used properly a couple of times to descend icy inclines but could have used the gear lever to achieve the same, the rest of the time was just faffing about because they are there. Paid extra for them as a factory option on the Leon at the time but they are standard equipment on the 3-er.

Good point! How much of an increase are we talking here for lease vehicles? Anyone know?

The SE Tech 1.0 DSG PCH deal has caught my eye. Just got an insurance quote for one and it is £3 less than I paid at renewal in June this year for my Citigo 75PS. Does anyone know if the first year's road tax is included in these PCH deals?

I had a Golf Mk5 for seven years. Original battery still going strong when I traded it in. If the stop-start stops working in normal temperatures (not the Arctic conditions we have at the moment) then this might be an indication that the battery is not holding charge and/or a decent voltage level.

My Elegance has 14" alloy wheels and 176/65R14 tyres. Maybe the steel wheels are slightly narrower, hence the 165/70R14 tyres? ETA: Just checked on ETKA online and the alloy and steel 14" factory rims are both 5Jx14 ET35. So if you are planning to replace all four and can get a better deal on a set of 175/65 tyres then you should be OK.

Are you sure that the current battery has truly had it? Modern multi-step "smart" battery chargers like the CTek MXS range can do wonders to revive dead/sulphated batteries.

The spec on the back of the 5W-30 bottle that I have here says it meets both VW 504 00 and VW 507 00.

All Citigos are on fixed service interval regimes. FWIW I use Castrol Edge 5W-30 meeting the VW 507 00 spec in mine because I have some lying around and it meets or exceeds VW 502 00 and VW 504 00. VW and BMW seem to have moved away from Castrol (to Shell) for factory fills and recommended oils but Castrol Edge is still a good oil.

With the benefit of hindsight, I would make my own template from thin card if I was fitting the carpet again. The pre-cut carpet is oversized and some jiggery pokery is required to get it to fit neatly. Took me three attempts to fit mine before I was completely happy with it.

No doubt the Up! GTi will be much in demand and as such the discounts will be nowhere near those offered on Citigos.

The "sshh" or hissing sound is the brake servo. Mine does this, I put it down to the engine gubbins being very close to the passenger compartment and the general lack of sound insulation in these cars. My Elegance had its 3rd service in November last year and for some reason the 2nd service does not appear on the printouts. It is recorded in Skoda's service history though (I asked the dealer to confirm and show me the screen). Check the oil with the car on level ground. The road outside my house is only slightly off-level but enough to wrongly show the 1.8TSI EA888 engine in our previous SEAT Leon to be on the lower limit on the dipstick.

20k per year is a lot of seat time, a lot of fuel and a big hit on residuals that are not great to begin with. I would suggest a diesel automatic to cover that kind of mileage.

Mine makes similar noises. 3 cylinder engines are inherently unbalanced and VW opted to not include balancer shafts on these engines. The gearbox oil is also very thin and as such does not mask gearbox noise very well.

Wheels speed sensor failure is a common failure on MINIs. Theoretically easy to replace but in practice often rusted solid where the sensor locates in the rear face of the hub on older cars.

It’s a convenience like automatic headlights and kerbside dipping door mirror. Once you have owned a car with these kind of features you come to rely on them and miss them when they are not there. We have had four cars with autolocking doors over the course of the last ten years so it is almost an expectation now.

By all accounts the VAG 180/190 PS 2.0 diesels are pretty good, if not among the best on the market in this class. As much as we love our BMW we wouldn't have one with their 2.0 4-pot diesel, good performance and economy but sounds like a cement mixer full of ball bearings at full chat!

Makes no difference as long as you perform a factory reset with the Garmin Fresh app. I bought mine from a SEAT Ibiza owner.

It is a Helmholtz resonator. It is there to reduce unwanted surges and drops in intake flow caused by odd resonances. As already stated, it helps to smooth out the torque curve and prevent annoying intake noise/booming at resonant frequencies.

Lovely looking car but I suspect that it drinks the Devil’s juice!

The Skoda dealer probably doesn't use VCDS (they will use the official VAG factory diagnostic system) but yes, there are separate "options" (tick boxes) for auto lock and auto unlock.

Actually, thinking back to the last time that I used VCDS, auto lock and auto unlock are two separate settings (bits 3and 4). 2014 models did not have auto lock/unlock enabled at the factory.

Does it lock when you reach 10mph though?