Billy Balthorpe

Isn't there a little microswitch which is activated when the boot is closed? If so, couldn't you "fool" the car into thanking that the boot is closed if you hold the switch in the "Boot closed" position? I'd go and have a look on mine, but I'm in the garage waiting for an MOT test on my Dads Ibiza FR.

Sorry, binnacle not pinnacle.

My dials illumination has disappeared except for the temp, fuel gauge and the left hand side of the rev counter and the needles. I am suspicious that it is water ingress that is the problem. When I bought the car in December it was as I described above, then as we had a bit of a dry spell, the rest of the dash lights seemed to flicker and illuminate for a short while, but they were definitely getting to be more on than off. Then after the deluge we had a couple of weeks ago, I was back to the start again, except that I also lost the fuel gauge light too. This has since come back on. I think I'm going to see if I can get my hand up behind the pinnacle and feel for a connector, or just see if I can find a path through so I can get a tube with a hair dryer on the end to see if I can dry the area out. If it works and the dial lights come on, I know it's water ingress and the nightmare of finding where it's coming in can begin.

Thanks guys!!

Would this be it? BXE? Its on the chassis plate, didn't notice it before.🙄

Thanks Gaz, that seems a lot easier than taking off the exhaust from the turbo as I've seen in the You tube vids. Still wondering how to find out what my engine code is though.

My 2009 77kw Octavia 1.9 pd TDI lost turbo power while overtaking yesterday, and for the rest of the journey I could tell that the turbo just wasn't kicking in as it should. There was no noise or smoke when it happened, nor has there been since. There is no engine management light on the dash illuminated, and I'm too far away from my OBD II reader to see if there are any codes stored. I don't know what the actual engine code is because, despite having searched this forum using "Engine code find" or just "Engine code", all I can see are various engine management code questions, not how to find the actual engine code. Any pointers to help me find the location of the engine code would be appreciated. So I've done some research on here and on Youtube and see that Mr Muscle oven cleaner can clean out the exhaust side of the turbo (If you are very careful obviously). Is this right? Would it work on a 1.9 pd engine? I got the impression from Youtube and this forum, that the variable vanes on the turbo were sticking probably due to a build up of contaminants and causing an overboost problem. Does the 2009 1.9 77kw PD engine even have variable vanes to stick? I'm quite happy to do the work myself, I just thought that before I go swapping the turbo, I'd better try to clean it. Any help would be really appreciated.

The only problem I can see is that you HAVE to remove the outer door pull cable from the outer handle to be able to push the lever inside back so it re sets. If I were you, I would get some fishing line braid and tie it around the cable before you pull the nipple out of the handle, so that once you get the door open you can re connect it by pulling on the braid and re attaching the nipple to the handle.

OK, now its stopped raining and ive got some daylight I've had a bit of a mess around with the door. I've figured out that no matter how many times i pull the outside handle it was never going to open. Mainly because, the "Mechanic" who owned the car before me had disconnected the cable from the door handle. So I removed the little plastic cover next to the handle and was able to get a very stiff coat hanger wire through the gap between the pulled open handle and the part of the handle assembly that stays still when you pull it. There is a useful video here showing what the problem actually is. It explains why the lock is not re setting, because the lever shown in the video is not returning all the way back. So I got in with my thick coat hanger and generally pushed everything back that I could get it planted on. Then opened the window so I could yank away at the inside door handle whilst double pressing the key unlock and hey presto, it popped open! I closed it, locked it and tried again but it failed. So i poked and pressed a bit more and did the same thing with the door handle/key, and it worked again. Ive since given the door some serious slams and now it seems to work every time or thereabouts. At least now I know I can get the door open so I can strip it down and sort it, probably by removing the spring as shown in the video and re connecting the external door pull cable. Hope this helps you out simontaylor.

I just hope someone comes up with some advice. Maybe the middle of the door card can be undone and pulled back exposing a hole or something so a bent coat hanger can be inserted to pull or push on the locking arm, which presumably has stuck in the lock position. But I'm just guessing.

As the title says, the drivers side rear door on my 2009 Octavia will not unlock, either via the central locking, inside, or outside, or a combination of yanking away at the outside and inside while my Lad tries to unlock via the key. Ive also tried thumping the area where (I think) the mechanism is while pressing the unlock button and using the handles. Ive put my ear against the door and I can hear the "thunk" of the mechanism trying to open the door when I press the unlock function on the key, but it just wont open. So it cant be the "Damaged wiring" theory because the unlock mechanism is getting the signal to open and actuating the unlock solenoid. My question is, how the hell am i going to take off the inner panels to be able to get at the unlock mechanism (If i will be able to, from the inside of a locked door) and figure out what is wrong, from the inside of a locked door? From what i've seen on Youtube, removing the door panels requires the door to be open? Can anyone offer any advice?

Found them now its daylight.

I don't seem to have any sidelights on my newly purchased 2009 Octavia. When I switch them on from the toggle switch on the dash, the main headlights go off, but the rear lights stay on suggesting that the sidelights at the front should be on. Are the sidelights contained in the main front light assembly, or are they separate units? Thanks.

Hello all you lovely people! Well its been a while! But I'm back at the wheel of my own 2009 Octavia purchased this very night. Company cars have kept me away, then a divorce and various other things. But I'm back now, and hungry for info! Billy.

The inerior lights stopped working in 2006, the puddle lights stopped working in 2008, the petrol flap stopped working about 6 weeks ago, the boot release stopped working 3 weeks ago, and the alarm developed a mind of its own a week ago so that every time i locked it it went off randomly and would only turn itself off if you were lucky. The wife drove it to work last week with it sounding like an ambulance. Removed edge trim from passenger side, pulled carpet back and wiring loom out as far as i could in the rear footwell. Cut off the kanckered "node" thingys and put them all into some big "chocolate block" connectors. Did the same in the front footwell, got some silicon sealant that goes off in an hour, sealed up the connectors, taped them up when they dried off. Sliced all the covers on the "nodes" to check them, the ones that were ok i filled the cover with slicon sealant and slid it back on and taped them up. Didnt take the seat out (its electric, i couldnt figure out how to do it), didnt need to. Took me 2 hours to do. Now everything works!! I'm chuffed! I think the main culprit is the node in the rear footwell that has 11 red wores going into it, 7 fell out when i wiggled it about a bit. Thanks for all the advice in these forums, i knew exactly where to look. I think i'll try to get the pollen filter housing out and re seal it to stop the water getting in next, looks a bit of a swine to get at the nuts holding it down tho.

Where did you get the HID kit from? Paul

Cheers Gizmo, how much would a set of HID's cost and where would i get them from? Found some Phillips H7's on ebay for £15, worth it or what?

I've got an '02 Elegance and the headlights are complete rubbish, Its like driving around on sidelights. I dont know if they are HID or Zenon or something else, they are definitely not "Standard" type incandescent bulbs, i wish they were, everyones lights are brighter than mine, its a bit dangerous at times with oncoming traffic. Does anyone know what i can do to make them brighter? How long are they supposed to last anyway? Is GSF the place to get better ones from? How easy are they to take out and check the wattage (or whatever the rating of them is)? Please help before i put it in a ditch i cant see.

Like these? eBay.co.uk: Skoda Superb 2002 onwards Shock Coilover Coilovers (item 320077283660 end time 28-Feb-07 22:25:45 GMT)

I'm running 17" wheels at the moment on 45 tyres. I just want to get rid of the wallowy ride on the Superb, sometimes i feel like it should be fitted with a rudder instead of the steering wheel . So a big drop is not needed, just a firmer ride, so should i just go for the 30mm and 30%? I'll give Fluffy a shout and see what he says as well.

I'm sorry Baker21 but i must have missed the previous post, where it said, what exactly was the Tyre / Suspension set-up on your Superb was? Or did i miss it? What size wheels are they and how far has it been dropped, suppliers of kits would be helpful too, been offered a 30 mm drop on 30% uprated dampers complete for

Love it!! :rofl:

Very very true mate, visordown can be really bad for this kind of thing. I usually just go on to view the stuff for sale and wanted nowadays.

Put your handbag away. You first! If I want to call someone who dresses up in multi-coloured leather a power ranger, a f*ggot or any other term I can think of I will, I wouldn't be particularly worried about calling a someone dressed up like that to there face either, under all that leather they are just the same as the rest of us. You're a brave guy! I wouldnt insult someone to their face unless i knew them well enough to know how they would react. Insulting someone like that is called "Picking a fight". Unless you know that you can beat up the guy you are insulting, then its called "Being a bully" If you dont want to be called a power ranger, dont buy multi-coloured leathers, just buy normal ones? it's not rocket science! Would that be plain black ones? Nowadays the majority of leathers have got more than one colour in them, plus the fact that all black leathers are supposedly harder too see. Brighter leathers safer than plain black??? No one is saying 'ALL BIKERS ARE POWER RANGERS' just the ones who wear multi coloured leather. Ok then i'm not saying all car divers are ch@vs, just the ones who modify the exterior of their cars in any way. In my experience of driving for a living, I come across many bikers on the road, and yes - there are some very good riders out there, no one is denying that, however, the percentage of good bike riders to bad ones is far smaller than for car drivers, as has been said, a lot (but not all) bikers dont realise how slow they are round bends, and because they blast past on the straight bits dont even think to look behind them when they get to the bend, which brings me to my other point - Not sure about the percentage of good riders to bad riders compared with the precentage of good car drivers to bad. I would have thought it was the other way round as most of the bad bike riders get "weeded out" by natural selection (crashing and giving up biking) So called 'better awareness of their surroundings' because they ride bikes, this is the biggest load of ******** I've ever heard, the fact that a biker is wearing a helmet means he hasn't got a clue what is going on around him,you have no peripheral vison when your looking out of a letterbox sized slot!! Fair point. My experience of bikers is drawn up from driving for a living and observing how others use the roads in order to protect myself and my income, and as I've said before, not all bikers fit the stereotype, but an alarming amount of them do. Yup, used to do 60K miles a year as a service engineer for about 12 years. Saw a lot more bad drivers than bad riders (still do, foglights on in summer, lane changing without looking, etc, etc,) but the proportions may be out because of the sheer numbers of cars compared to bikes, maybe i just havent seen as many bad riders as you have. As an aside, I used to drive to Canterbury and back every weekend when my missus was training to be a nurse, this involved driving through Rye on a sunday, which as some of you may know, is a bikers mecca due to the marsh roads just outside, in 3 years I was only ever beaten by 2 bikers down that road, despite hundreds of them thinking they'd 'show up how slow that GTR was compared to a bike' and in both cases the (excellently ridden) bikers pulled up afterwards to ask about the car and have a chat, both were top blokes, and neither were wearing power rangers suits, just normal leathers. Yup, done the same with a guy who was the Plutoline something champion in about '97 or '98, he was in a Scooby, i was on an '90 FZR 600. We both had a good old chat, a laugh and enjoyed our run. So if any bikers were ever embarrased by a purple R33 Skyline GTR near Rye I can tell you it was me, and the car had over 600BHP and 4WD so I could go round corners that you slow down for without even noticing them!! R33 GTR Skyline with 4WD and 600BHP what did you expect? If you didnt beat 99% of the bikes on most roads with that thing you obviously weren't trying at all!

Cant you sneak out of the country then come back in as an illegal alien?? That would sort out your need to be part of a generalised group!