alfalincs

I have a Mk3 Octavia 4x4 I bought with 14,000 miles on it in 2017. Its now done 68,000 miles in 2022. Its now on its third set of discs and I don't drive to abuse them, but I do live in a hilly part of the country. I've never had discs deteriorate like this and I think the quality of VW group OEM must be poor. It has also needed all four wheel bearings changing along the way which is three more bearings than my five Alfa Romeos put together between 1989-2010. The clutch slave failed contaminating the clutch. It now needs both front swinging arms as the rear bushes have gone (I remember changing just the bushes on our Skoda Favorit way back when....not any more). The two front disc shields also disintegrated. The car is maintained by a Skoda specialist with whom I have zero complaints. This is our ninth Skoda, the others being Favs/Felic/Fabia 1 & currently 2x Fab 2s run by my kids. My sons car needed two front suspension arms at 70,000 miles and I don't think you can complain too much about that to be honest...but the brake disc consumption on mine irritates me I confess.

I have to say its a mystery to me as we are on our ninth Skoda in 31 years with Favorits x 2 Felicias x 2 and Fabias x 4 I've changed rear bearings on the Fabia 1s, but at 140,000 miles or so, and we had a front bearing go on the 03 Fabia 1 we scrapped earlier this week at 170,000 miles, but nothing really to complain about so its a complete head scratcher as to why my Octavia chews them up. I don't even drive fast these days. Anyway the four new bearings are VW group parts..so lets see how it goes from hereon. Smoothly I hope !

As of yesterday and at a grand mileage of 57,000 I've had to replace my fourth wheel bearing on a 14 reg Octavia 4x4. I'm not impressed really as thats four times as many wheel bearings as I had to replace on five Alfa Romeos over 20 years, three of which had mileages in excess of 150,000 miles on the clock. Just to rub matters in my specialist apologised for the parts price which he says has rocketed in the last few weeks. They failed as follows : offside front at 26,000 miles, near side rear at 36,000, and both the offside rear and near side front failed last week at 57,000 miles, but the rear was so noisy we hadn't realised the nearside front was on its way out as well which only became apparent after the offside rear was fixed. Tyre wear and tyre life is completely normal. Its on Goodyear Vector 3 All Weather tyres fitted in December 2019 and probably just over half worn. Is it just me or have others experienced similar. I've had the car 4 1/2 years and its fully serviced by a Skoda specialist.

They are certainly there to deflect water away from the disc in very wet weather, and the wheel performs the same function on the other side. Anybody who rode motorbikes when they first went from drum brakes to discs soon found out that you could end up with no brakes at all until the pads had cleared the water. This was worse by far on some of the Japanese bikes (like my Suzukis) that came with stainless discs for largely cosmetic reasons. The rusty looking cast irons discs were far better as brakes in both the wet and the dry....no guards of course..

Well I'm flabbergasted at the acceptance of what is essentially a crap quality component ! I've never had to replace disc guards on ANY other car I've had in 49 years, and in the early days my cars were pretty elderly when I got them. I'm pretty fed up with the things that have gone wrong on this 4x4 estate that shouldn't at such low miles (leaking slave cylinder so new clutch....front wheel bearing failure, new water pump, now this) and I give a hollow laugh when people cast aspersions on Alfas as more has gone wrong in 40.000 miles on the Octavia than went wrong in 140,000 miles on my previous Alfa 156 Sportwagon. Catching the wheels on the discguards when removing the wheels ? Who does that anyway, and even if you did it should only damage them if they are made of foil. Do you seriously have to take a front hub out to replace them ? I flippin hope not. It seems like there are three torx headed screws...and as long as you can get at them. I think I know where this all started..the mission for VAG was lightness to help with emissions, and boy are these lightweight at 140 grammes. The replacement came today and is made in Spain as opposed to Germany on the original. It might even be a pattern part as there is less coding on it, but they both weigh the same. This is our eighth Skoda since 1990 and whilst in many ways it is impressive, in other ways it is proving to be the least robust Skoda of the lot, and it doesn't get hard use at all.

Oh dear......so now I can expect the other disc guards to fall apart as well can I ? As the same guard/part number is fitted across the entire VAG group range I expect there is a regular little ongoing epidemic of disc guard failure..😒 Its not very good design is it, and they don't give them away. I understand it is going to be the wrong kind of 'fun' getting the fixings out and fitting the new guard. Hey ho, what are saturday mornings for anyway....😐

I'm not quite sure how to explain this, but having heard the odd graunch that we thought was a stone caught between the disc and the disc guard on the O/S front wheel, yesterday it got really bad to the point of thinking "something has come apart or dropped off" yesterday over 100 miles from home on the A38 just south of Burton on Trent. It was dark so I found a filling station forecourt and after telling them what I was up to I jacked up the car and removed the wheel in an out of the way (aka SAFE !!) spot. The disc guard was still there, but flapping around as the centres had been ripped out of all three attachment points. I was able to slide the shield rearwards off the hub with no tools and that revealed some serious grinding marks where there had been contact with the revolving disc. I'm not aware of anybody having contacted anything that might have damaged the disc shield I have never had the hub off, but it did have a new front wheel bearing/hub unit fitted last spring. After removing the shield it was of course totally quiet, which was a relief. When putting the wheel back on I found myself wishing for a wheel locator pin like Alfa Romeo used to supply with the 164. Getting those lug nuts in is a complete PITA.... I've ordered a new one. its a common VW/Audi/SEAT/Skoda part.....so now I know what I'm doing with at least part of next weekend...

Well I was driving over the tops from Horsforth to the Dales yesterday in very thick mist and fog, and you'd be amazed how many cars and vans don't have light thats come on automatically. Even the rear lights of those who had them on were barely visible two cars back as they wern't using their rear fog lights either. Have you met members of the human race recently...😉

You know what they say about Audis.......if the driver uses the indicators the car bursts into flames, but it only happens rarely.

Which is one of the reasons I don't use the main dealer. The independent is more conscientious. I've dealt with them since 1990 when we bought a brand new Favorit LX. The garage is no longer a main dealer and two owners down the line , but the ethos of doing a good job and being open to discuss stuff seems to have survived....thankfully.

Well, it may or may not be battery related as we know how sensitive they can be to decent voltage, so why not give the battery a really good "deep soak" charge using a proper intelligent charger and see if that makes any difference. Batteries can fail early, though its rare. I know its a long shot, but give it a go. Also when you get a cornucopia of electrical faults then I'd suspect an earthing fault, or water in an ECU or a break somewhere in a wiring loom, or even a connector plug fault. You have too many different faults cropping up for it to be anything else........all in my humble opinion of course. A dying battery was the ONLY thing that ever troubled my Alfa 156 Sportwagon when it started throwing up odd codes, So I know it can do it.

What !!!1........ Isopon 182 Zinc Primer Grey. ? I'm sorry but those of us born in the 1950s remember grey cars as a symbol of austerity and lack of money. I'm not sure I want to be surrounded by invisible cars doing 80 mph on winter days or in the spray on the M1 either. I laugh whenever I see one. Glossy grey is still grey. It makes me nostalgic for British Leyland Brown...which was equally 'orrible...looking like something we shan't mention...😃

I have my 2014 Octavia 4x4 maintained by a Skoda specialist ( main dealers until 20 years ago). When it went in for the 40,000 service and cam belt/water pump swap I asked them to change the Haldex 4x4 Clutch oil as well. They said it was part of the service anyway. I knew the oil in it had never been changed before. Now I apologise if this is already common knowledge and I'm teaching people to suck eggs, but the service manager told me that the gauze in the haldex was well clogged up when they changed the oil and that the Mk3 Octavia Haldex is a simpler device without a dedicated filter, and that set my internal warning lights flashing a bit ! My thinking now is to have the Haldex fluid changed every 20,000 miles, and I'd go as far as to suggest that anybody who has not had the Haldex fluid changed in their series 3 4x4, or is not sure if it has been changed should have it done and make sure the strainer gauze is cleaned properly. It might just save people from 4x4 failure and dare one say it...expensive and possibly needless repairs. I'm sure somebody must have covered it before, but a reminder can do no harm, so indulge me please.

My car has now run perfectly for over a week, so I have concluded I was probably jumping at shadows. I have just watched that Audi technical bulletin film and been left with the feeling that the car I really need is something like a Mk4 Cortina, or even a Morris Minor..... i.e. something I understand... I had not appreciated the complication of the cooling circuits and the additional complication in general necessitated by Euro 5 and 6 emissions standards. I knew they were difficult to comply with, but I hadn't quite appreciated how difficult.

Stuck the OBD reader on it today. Nothing logged or pending. I'm not sure I expected anything anyway, but you never know.