Papfox

Hi, My rear wiper on my 2012 vRS just stopped working. I checked the fuse and it's fine. My next guess is going to be either the motor itself or, possibly more likely, a broken wire in the wiring bundle from the tailgate to the body. Would anyone have the wire colour list to identify which wire the rear wiper is please? Thanks, Paul.

It's a little more than your budget but have you looked at the Garmin Venu (currently in the sale)?

Glad you found it. If the timing was off, do you know when the last time the cam belt/chain/tensioner were changed? My vRS was getting grumpy on starting. My local independent ran the car over with VCDS and the timing angle was 3 point something degrees out. They inform me that something very bad (replacement engine bad) happens at 5 degrees and the speed of the angle increase goes up as the chain gets more worn. The spec of the tensioner I believe was revised on some engines so you may not have the latest part and it is a worthy improvement. I'm not sure which engine you have but the cam belt replacement interval on my old vRS was 3 years so, if you've had the car for 2.5 years then it could well need doing.

Thank you. One Mann filter and an Autoglym bomb ordered

Hi, It's getting time to replace my cabin air/pollen filter. It got a bit smelly during lockdown and I'm going to aircon bomb the car but I thought I'd replace the filter as well. I see there are several companies that make them including Mann (the factory one IIRC) and Bosch. Would you have any preference for brand please? Thanks, Paul.

Hi, The aircon in my Mk II FL vRS has died. It will only get cold if it's cold outside and if it starts to get warm it gives up the ghost. It's also possibly making a groaning noise. I'm a noob when it comes to VCDS. Are there any measurements I can do that would reveal if it's the compressor (as I suspect as I had a very similar fault with my old Mk II) or something else please? Thanks, Paul.

A message for any makers in the group... Mod My PI from Tunbridge Wells suffered a burglary at the weekend. A large quantity of Raspberry Pis and related items were stolen. If you are offered any Raspberry Pi items for sale, particularly at discount prices or in quantity, you are asked to inform the Police or bring it to the attention of ModMyPi.

Blackvue do a parking mode power controller (the "Power Magic Pro") that wires to the battery and you can select how long the camera stays powered after you turn the car off. It also has a low voltage cutoff if the battery happens to be low to stop the camera running it down below a selectable voltage. They also do accessory battery packs that charge when you're driving and keep the camera running independent of the car battery when it's parked. I don't know if these accessories can be made to work with other cameras but I am hopeful.

I've disconnected the battery in my car moe than once and the radio didn't need the code.

Thank you both. One of my other hobbies is amateur radio. My mobile amateur transceiver can be controlled over an RS232 serial connection plugged into its accessory connector. The protocol to control the radio and surface metering from it is well documented and Linux software to do it is freely available. In a perfect world I'd like to achieve the following: Mount the amateur radio gear in the boot out of sight so I don't end up with brackets and control panels spoiling the look of the car interior. Install a Raspberry Pi or small microcontroller in the boot to control the radio. Craft a touchscreen and rotary control interface to display on the Bolero to provide access to the functions I want from the radio in the boot via the microcontroller. Use the phone kit mic and speaker link for the receive and transmit 2-way audio. Capture button presses from the MSFW phone buttons to operate the PTT and mute on the transceiver. Thanks again, Paul.

Do you have VCDS or can you find anyone on the VCDS thread who can scan the car for you so you can post it? That might reveal if it's grumbling about something.

If some helpful person hasn't written it on the side of the radio, I believe your Skoda dealer may be able to get it for you. If not, there are various sellers on eBay who will find the code for you for a small fee.

Another thought... Is your car an Mk II or a Mk II Facelift? My Mk II Facelift has, from memory, two extra vertical elements in the rear screen heater that don't seem to make sense as part of the heating function and my previous Mk II didn't have. They're about the right length for a 430 MHz radio antenna. I wonder if these are the receive antenna for the fob. Does your rear screen heater work OK? It might be worth checking the wiring to it. Can someone confirm what these vertical elements are?

Might be worth ruling out interference issues. Does this behaviour happen everywhere or is it worse in some places than others? Are there any non-Skoda accessories installed in the car?

When I used to work in breakfast TV, the camera crew car was a Chrysler MPV. That did have auto-lock. It was a total pain in the rear. Total number of times it saved us from someone leaving the cameras unsecured, zero. Number of times it screwed us by locking the crew out the car, lots. I didn't work anything close to every day and I had to break into the car 3 times in a year when someone put the keys down in the camera cage in the boot and it auto locked. Thankfully, the rear quarter windows opened on that model and were flexible enough that someone could flex them open an inch to hook the keys out. I used to keep a straightened coat hanger with a hook bent into the end in the technical vehicle just for that purpose. More worryingly, one day when it happened, the presenter made a joke on air asking if there were any car thieves who could come and help and three showed up. Their response time was half that of the AA too. On a more serious note, it is possible to screw yourself by locking your keys in the Octavia's boot as it auto-locks in the following circumstances: If you open the boot with the boot open button on the fob, it auto-locks when you close the boot. If you unlock the car with the unlock button on the fob and don't open one of the passenger doors, it will auto-lock after 30 seconds.