jimmyg58

Up until yesterday, my air con smelled of really strong sweaty feet. I used an air con bomb then replaced the cabin air filter, now it smells like a new car, well worth the £13 spent and 15 minutes of my time.

You can zoom in the rear camera in playback mode on PC, you cannot do it on the camera itself whilst playing back video.

Parking mode uses a lot of disk space as it activates and records after opening/closing doors and hatch, so after reviewing I format disk then I changed record length down to 30sec, much better. I used a Power Magic Pro, it turns off power to camera when battery gets to a set level (11.8v is what I have set). I used the fuses as stated in the thread below. I used this thread from Aurial 01 Jun 2015. This is a much better set up than having wires running to power socket/s. The whole job took me about 30 minutes to complete. I had to get a replacement for my dash cam because of a fault. It arrived today, so in order to assist Gallo, and any other prospective dashcam buyers out there who need a pointer in the right direction, I thought I'd remove what I could of my setup to try and give you a step-by-step guide. It's not difficult, so I hope this gives someone the confidence to give it a go. DISCLAIMER: As always, this is entirely at your own risk. I make two apologies up front. First, the state of my car. I did a long DIY detailing session last week but unfortunately the only space I could get in the car park over the weekend was under the bushes / trees so my pride and joy is filthy. Second, the quality of the pics isn't great but the weather is pretty pants today so I've done my best. Also, this is not the only way to do this. Schodoodles and some other helpful users have posted other methods to get things wired up earlier in the thread, so have a look at their methods too and choose whichever you prefer. Schodoodles' is certainly better if you want to run something like a satnav as well as it allows you to power more than one device. My dash cam is the Blackvue DR650 so it has two cameras that record front and rear. I've also got a Power Magic Pro to handle the power side of things. Those are the two bits of kit I'll show you how to fit here, but please do your own research and choose what's right for you. The Power Magic Pro is already stuck to the car, but it looks like this The purpose of the power magic pro is to keep your camera running while you're away from the car without running your battery flat. It has a series of jumpers which allow you to set either the battery voltage it will turn the camera off at, or the amount of time to run the camera after you've turned off the ignition. I have mine set to turn off once the battery voltage drops to 11.8v and that seems to work fine for me. You don't need one of these to run a dashcam as they all come with cigarette lighter sockets, it's just for the added benefit of battery safety. You'll also need a pair of these Add A Circuit Fuse Taps. I got the pair for less than ?4 from eBay. Be sure to get full size ones and not the mini version. You'll need two 5 amp blade fuses to go in them. I also got a plastic panel removal set so as not to damage the panel you need to take off to access the fuse box. A screwdriver may do just as good a job but I didn't want to take any chances with damaging my trim. First step is to fit both cameras where you want them. I found that with mine I could mount the holder for the front camera at the very bottom of the black bobbles to the side of the rear view mirror, which kept it hidden behind the mirror from the driver and also meant the windscreen wipers cleared the glass in front of it when it was raining. Next, remove this panel from the passenger side (on U.K. cars) of the dashboard. Which will reveal this cavity Here you can see why I didn't photograph my Power Magic Pro, as it's already stuck to the inside of this recess. I used a piece of double sided adhesive that came with it to attach it, and it stops it from rattling around in there. Should be easy to remove when I change cars. Now you need to remove your glove box. There are instructions at the back of the owners manual with a diagram of how to do it. It's in the "Fuses" section of the book. Essentially you need to unhook a little arm from the back to the glovebox by poking a screwdriver through a hole which you can't really see in the picture above. Then it's a case of pulling the glovebox upwards to dislodge it. Be brave. Once the glovebox is out your fusebox will be revealed. You may have more or less fuses depending on the options you have fitted to your car. The Power Magic Pro has three wires that you need to hook up. (BATT +) Yellow wire - Needs to be connected to an always on fuse. (ACC) Red wire - Needs a fuse that is only live when the ignition is on (also known as a switched live). Black wire - Needs to be earthed. In the photo of the Power Magic Pro above I have loosened the bottom of the three bolts to the left of the recess and attached the black earth cable underneath it. I've checked the whole area with a multimeter and you can't really go wrong there wherever you put it as the whole metal plate, and therefore the three nuts are all earthed. The Yellow and Red wires, as you can see, are fed over the top of the metal plate and through a small hole there that drops down to just above and to the left of the fuse box. You'll easily find it with your fingers. Once you've got your wires through feed the bare ends into the ends of your Fuse Taps and squash the metal ends to lock them in place. If you glance back at the picture of the fuse box, we're going to use fuse 47 for the switched live (red wire). Fuse 47 is the blue one on the bottom row and is the fuse for your rear wiper. For the always on current (yellow wire) we'll use fuse 40 which in the picture is the yellow fuse on the row above. Fuse 40 is for the cigarette lighter socket. The first step is to remove both of those fuses. Next, put one 5 amp fuse into each of the fuse taps in the slot directly above the wire. Then put the fuses you've just removed into the spare slot on each tap, which should be the closest slot to the metal pins on the end of the tap. The tap on the red (BATT+) wire should now look like this. And the yellow (ACC) wire should look like this. It's very important you get these the right way around. Once that's done plug the fuse taps into the slots in the fuse box where you removed the fuses from earlier. Red wire (which now has a blue fuse in the tap) into slot 47, and yellow wire (with yellow fuse) into slot 40. It should look like this. The fuse numbers are embossed into the plastic of the fuse box if you look closely, so that makes things a little easier. Now, so long as you have your earth wire connected to one of the bolts mentioned earlier you are good to go. It's simply a matter of plugging the power cable from the camera into the cigarette plug on the Power Magic Pro and you should have power. Note that there is an On/Off style switch on the power magic. If it is set in the On position it will provide power to the camera whether the ignition is switched on or off. If, however, you have it in the Off position it will only provide power to the camera when the ignition is turned on. I haven't mentioned how to set the jumpers for voltage or time limits, but there are too many permutations to cover so I advise you to look in the instructions. It's very simple. All that remains for you to do now is route the power cable and the connecting cable for the rear camera. Both of these can be tucked into the roof lining along the top of the windscreen quite easily. From there I ran mine tucked into the top of the A pillar, and brought the power cable down the door side of the A piller into the recess where the power magic is. The cable for the rear camera I just carried on around the edge of the roof lining all the way to the back of the car. Once your glovebox is back in place and you've put the plastic panel back on it's job done. Make yourself a cup of tea. Parking mode uses a lot of disk space as it activates and records after opening/closing door and hatch. I used a Power Magic Pro, it turns off power to camera when battery gets to a level (11.8v is what I have set). I used the fuses as stated in the thread above.

I fitted a Next Base duo 720p dash cam permanently using a PowerPro unit and piggy back fuses, used the thread on this site to do it. Looks good and is unobtrusive, good video quality front and rear.

I saw PO02 VAT on the A590 a while back

I have seen this one on eBay that does not connect to OBD and only used GPS for information to be displayed, even less expensive than the one in my first post. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NewUniversal-GPS-HUD-Head-up-Display-Car-Alarm-Detector-Real-Time-Speedometer-A1-/252049380289?hash=item3aaf5053c1:g:LoUAAOSwLVZVyEao

Has anyone tried one of those HUD displays that are available on eBay that plugs into the OBD connection? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-5-Car-HUD-Head-Up-OBD2-II-Fuel-Speedometer-Display-Projector-Speeding-Warning-/191744691873?hash=item2ca4dfcea1:g:NdYAAOSwbdpWUxT~ I'm thinking of trying one out as it's only £30 or so.

Got my 2014 Octavia III on 26th Feb. 2016: vRS TDI DSG hatch, Gemini 225/40 R18 Alloy Wheels, Cervena Rio Metallic, Columbus + Kessy, now fitted with mud flaps front and rear, black front grill surround and wired in dual dash-cam

I undid the top four torx screws and pulled top of the grill towards the front and pushed one of the clips out, this gave me room to get hold of surround with some needle nosed pliers and removed it in pieces, as long as you don't go wild it comes away without damaging any of the main grill. Some of the clips remained in place so I teased them out with the pliers. I then just end clipped in the black surround.

I replaced my chrome grill surround with a black one from Superskoda this morning. It took no more than 10 minutes (had to be brave and destroy the chrome one getting it off), then pick out the odd clip remains from behind grill. Then it was a simple push fit for the black surround. Looks very nice now.

Just followed Mikef's very concise instructions above and I now have my dash cam wired up, took now more than 40 minutes

I've purchased Boora Permaseal from: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371554434798?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Supposed to last 10 years, going to apply it this weekend, if it stays fine, cheaper than the £300 quoted at Skoda dealers.

Got my car on Friday, fitted deflectors on Saturday (from superskoda). As long as you fit the metal clips, included, iaw the instructions the safety mechanism does not kick in. No noticeable increase in wind noise when windows are closed.

This is my first Skoda, drove a Mondeo Titanium X, 2.3 Petrol auto, for 8 years, up to last Friday, so far I am impressed, nice build quality, good mpg and lots of oomph when I need it.

I got my 2.0 TDI vRS (july 2014) Columbus sat nav, Kessy, Cervena Rio metallic for £14,000 with 22,300 on the clock from a Ford dealer in Wales on Friday, love it.

I'm thinking of replacing chrome surround with a black one. Can't you just remove top four screws (top pic, Xpower post Posted 27 April 2014) and pull grill forward to unclip the surround, thus not destroying it to remove? Then just push fit the replacement.