Warrior193

Question, what steps should you take if your car catches fire? Answer, Bl**dy long ones!

I know quite a few members dislike the engine auto-stop, although M6 owners do have rather more control over when the engine stops. Depending on the length of stops I think that you will increase your economy by an indicated 2 - 4 mpg if you leave it enabled - at least that is what I find. Not a real lot, but even a couple of miles is pretty tiresome lugging a jerrycan! It should be noted that the fuel computer may be a little optimistic compared to actually working out miles to litres used, also remember that your odo is probably reading a little high (along with the speedo) when compared with GPS.

Hi John, it depends on where the fraying is - but I rather suspect that the nice man at your dealers is going to say 'that's wear and tear Sir - not covered'.

I would have thought that the DSG consumption should be pretty similar to the manual - possibly a little better. My 1.4 TSI SE L M6 combi regularly gets more than 400 miles to a tank - the most I have ever managed to put is 48 litres (with remaining range showing as less than 10 miles) Most of my mileage is done on an 18 mile round trip commute to work, averaging 22MPH over the past 1500 miles. I tend to shift up at around 2000 RPM - and don't exactly trickle away from the lights!

Hi again, it happened to me too the first time I removed the lid to replace the cabin (pollen) filter. The lever unhooks from a pivot near where the left hand side of the compartment hinges - lift the lever up to unhook, you should be able to fit it back together if the lever isn't broken. The small cog wheel arm runs in the groove with the rack teeth. Rather a fiddly job to get it hooked back on to the pivot - I made up a hook from a strip of alloy to hook/unhook the arm back on as my hands are too big to fit in the gap, it took a few tries! - and quite a few muttered curses - mainly directed at the parentage of the person responsible for the RHD conversion design!

Is that the one with the 357CUi V8?

Hi, that's part of the soft-close strut for the glove compartment. A bit of a fiddly job to put back together. The strut fits on the left-hand side of the compartment lid.

Hi Chaz, take a look on the forum for the gas strut conversion - I think it's listed under bonnet struts. I did mine a few years ago, well worth doing - I used Febi Bilstein gas struts (350 nm)

Hi Nick, I'm assuming the 1.0 has the same air filter box as the 1.4 - if so, you will need to remove the airbox from the car to change the filter, pretty stupid idea, but there are two screws hidden on the under-side of the box - which secure the top cover! to remove box, remove both air hoses and breather pipe - much easier to remove the hose clips for the air hoses if you have the proper hose-clamp tool (amazon or Ebay) The box pulls up off ball type spigots once the hoses are off. Once off, remove the two screws from underneath, release the 4 clips securing the top cover with a flat-blade screwdriver. Take a look on youtube for 'how to video'

I recall an old joke from back in the days when it was usual to check the oil at least once a week - 'if, when pulling out the stick, you find no oil on it, it means that you should have pulled it last month'.

Seems to be such a common thing nowadays for drivers not to check the oil - or anything else for that matter! Includes SWMBO of course - until something starts making a noise - or falls off! I'm guessing it's because vehicles have got so reliable (normally) now. Most people would be at a loss if told to do 'first parade' on their vehicle nowadays.

Are you attempting to replace particular screws or bolts on your vehicle - or are you looking for them just for general use?

Hi Chaz, plenty of suppliers of A2 and A4 SS on Amazon or the 'bay'

The JB cold weld is probably worth a try - pretty good stuff if I recall correctly.

Hi Shy, do you know if ACT shuts down the same pair of cylinders - or do they alternate? Idle interest as my 1.4 doesn't have it, nor does my Canadian friends' 2019 Jetta.

Hi Mat, try googling plastic ball stud, or take a look at 'Snaploc' vibration and noise-decoupling mounts. If you were to drill and tap the manifold webbing you really want a coarser thread to screw into the plastic - although I have seen one type that looks as if the threaded section is self-tapping, which would be ideal if you could get some with the correct size ball head.

Hi Mat, unfortunately I assume that the mechanic is not going to put his / her hand up to breaking this - was the air filter changed as part of the service? While it takes a bit of force to remove the airbox, it seems very unlikely that this broke all by itself! - When I did my first air filter change recently I was really pulling on the top of the box (I didn't know about the two screws underneath) - and I didn't manage to break any of the mounts! To fix, from memory, the webbing on the manifold is fairly deep - it might be possible to drill and tap the mount to fix replacement airbox studs (if such a thing exists) - or use the ball-type mounts similar to those used on gas struts, these are available in various sizes. The ball engages with a rubber bung fitted into the bottom shell of the filter airbox. NB. if this works, make sure you smear a little silicon (or similar) lube grease on the rubber bungs before refitting.

Hi Sam, welcome to the forum - if your car is a 66 plate shouldn't that be a 150 in your profile - or is it just a missing decimal point? A tip for newbies driving an auto - remove your left shoe for the first couple of times to remind yourself not to stamp on the 'clutch pedal' with your left foot when going for a gear-change. I think you will really like the 1.4, pulls like a train, even from pretty low revs - although I wouldn't say no to a 245 either.

Hi Jehu, start by telling us what car you have (model and year) - and what the problem is. If it needs to be shifted somewhere else the moderators aren't going to bite you. Oh, and welcome to the forum.

Interesting test, something I've thought about doing, but never got around to it - only had a couple of apparently spurious activations myself where I couldn't see anything obvious to trigger it - however I do feel that mine is a little too sensitive if I'm clearing a vehicle turning left in front of me, but it's something I can make allowance for, usually only triggers the warning alarm.

Hi Andmag, I assume that you mean the plastic cover over the coil packs, on top of the engine? put your fingers under the left hand side of the cover (belt pulley side of engine) and gently pull up - a rubber bung in the cover fits onto a spigot bracket bolted to the engine, the right side of the cover has two spigots that fit into recesses in the intake trunking. Smear a little petroleum jelly or similar on the rubber bung before refitting.

Hi Tannerman, my 65 plate (MY16) Octavia has done the same thing on one occasion only, at less that 17,000 miles - as I was moving off from a traffic light, it cleared the next time I operated the clutch. It felt like something had caught the pedal but couldn't see anything that might have done so. I didn't feel any obvious clutch-slip when this happened, but the clutch bite-point at the time felt really odd. Clutch pedal not fully coming up will almost certainly prevent the switch that restarts the engine after a stop, from operating. I will monitor your post for possible cause of this.

Apologies if this is topic has been addressed previously - I couldn't find it in a search on the forums. Is there anyone else who thinks that VW/Skoda air filter change schedule is highly optimistic? VW appear to say change at 30,000 miles. My MY16 Octavia is now approaching 17,000 miles and I am going to change both the air and cabin filters soon. I did a little number crunching and have calculated that a 1.4 litre engine will consume something over 15.5 billion litres of air in 16,000 miles, even at moderate RPM! - that's more than 1,500,000 M3 if I haven't got my calc. wrong.

Hi Peter, have you checked that the data-lock switch is in the correct position on the SD card?

While checking how to change my air filter I decided that the top of my engine looks a little unfinished with the coil packs etc. exposed - it appears that Skoda, etc. decided to delete the engine cover cap some time before MY16, presumably in a cost-cutting exercise. Took a look on "The Bay" and found someone supplying a VW one, apparently sourced from VW Shanghai - £35 including free postage, bracket and bolt. Perfect and easy fit, looks genuine/original and finishes off the top of the engine nicely - I know, not a Skoda-marked part, but OK with that - my steel winter wheels have VW trims which I've never bothered to change.