nicknorman

Well yes and no. No more overflowing, but I don’t think it’s quite right as I still don’t get the sucking noise I used to get on opening the filler cap. I have a feeling that I should have replaced the valve at the same time as I replaced the canister. As it was I replaced the canister first, then the valve a bit later. I have a feeling that the valve being permanently open might have caused fuel to be sucked into the new canister and saturated it. But I suppose as long as it doesn’t leak, that is the main thing. But then again we haven’t had any very hot weather since I replaced it…

The valve is easy to check, it’s on the top of the engine (under the plastic cover). Hoses held on by spring clips. It should not be possible to blow through it when unpowered. 2 minutes to check it. Not expensive either.

Front. The rear one aren’t colour coded as far as I’m aware. And just to be clear, the Lesjofors non-OEM new front spring isn’t colour coded either. It’s all a bit confusing, there are about 20 different rear spring part numbers listed for DCC equipped Superbs, according to the PR number of the specific car. No idea why they need so many! However one can “do it properly” and find the correct part number by looking up the “vehicle-specific information” on ERWIN to get the Pr codes, and using that to identify the correct spring on partslink24 - both of which require payment.

Well front and rear springs now replaced. A right kerfuffle as usual, with rusted nuts etc. Well that was just me, on the car it was less the rusted nuts and more that Skoda (VW) like to leave unnecessarily long threaded bits sticking out beyond the nut, which get rusty and jam the nut as it comes off despite wire brushing and WD40. For the rear I just dropped the bottom arm so I could get the spring in uncompressed, then jacked it back up. This being because there wasn’t room for the spring compressors. I was a good boy and bolted up the damper and hub bolts with the suspension jacked up to the “unladen weight” position like wot it says in the manual. For the front it was at least fairly easy getting the carden shaft out (just as well as I don’t have an extractor!) but a faff getting it all back together without an assistant. Still, all done now and I saved about £300. Test drive entirely satisfactory. But Hmmm, I think next time I’ll just pay the £300 to avoid spending hours grovelling around on the garage floor. I’m worth it!

On my 16MY L&K 280 tsi there are sensors, but I think they are just limit sensors - they don't tell you how much pad is left, they just activate when you reach the wear limit which is 2mm. Presumably by "3/4mm" you mean three to four millimeters, not threequarters of a millimetre! In which case you have a little way to go yet. I seem to recall they are only on one front and one rear brake, can't remember which side.

Maybe, but you have to be careful which gen of Haldex you are talking about, early ones had a pressurised reservoir, gen 5 doesn’t. But anyway, I just checked Skoda’s own service instructions and for both and oil change and a pump change, it just says to fill the oil to the level, it doesn’t mention running the pump. I guess there is very little oil retained in the actual pump on gen 5. And you are allowed up to 3mm below the hole.

Oh yea one other thing, the filler plug is made of cheese, best to get a new one.

For me there wasn’t enough slack in the cable to get the pump out without disconnecting or at least undoing the control module. But if you can get the pump out, that is all that is required. You can unscrew the plastic filter and clean it elsewhere. You jut need to activate the Haldex pump after filling, to check the level. You can do this with VCDS (engine has to be running) but probably putting it into gear and revving a bit on the lift will do it too.

It’s fairly straightforward. You need to release the cable between the control module and the pump, attached by clips that slide out, and disconnect the cable at the module. I found this difficult to do because I didn’t really understand how to release the connector, so I just undid the control module (2 screws I think). One is supposed to replace the O rings on the pump body but I didn’t bother, and no leaks.

Thanks. Blue and grey.

Over £400 from the Indy garage, (using genuine springs), £500 if the top mounts need replacing, vs £120 for springs from the local motor factor, one Lesjofors and one BRA. A bit like OEM brake discs, the OEM springs don’t seem up to much as they’ve only lasted 80k miles or so, so I don’t feel inclined to pay a premium for more of the same. I am 66, I’ve had old cars that I run to destruction (way over 100k miles) since I was 17 and this is the first vehicle that I’ve had to replace springs on. If anyone is interested, the genuine part number for the 2016 280tsi estate with tow bar are 3Q0 511 115M rear and 5Q0 411 105GM front. @ApertureS if your kind offer still stands and you have one of the above part numbers, I’d be delighted to take it off your hands! Please send me a PM re. shipping.

Mine is 2016 otherwise same model. Although i do usually give it Tesco Momentum 99, sometimes I just put in supermarket 95 and to be honest there is very little difference, it certainly doesn't cause any misfiring or rough running. I did replace the spark plugs at around 60,000 miles but it made no difference to the running (which has always been fine) and they didn't really look as though they needed replacing - ie pretty indistinguishable from the new ones. Coils are more likely to play up under load then when idling.

Now he tells me!🙂 Yes I think I should have made more effort to do it cheaply, but with both the headlights and the suspension playing up, I just wanted it fixed. I'm waiting for the garage to call me back with a price, if they are going to charge a lot I may resolve to do it myself (I have some coil spring compressors somewhere) but am rather hoping to avoid the hassle and just get someone else to do it. I'll get in touch if I am going to DIY, thanks very much for the offer.

A generic ODB2 reader only reads generic ODB2 codes, there are a myriad of manufacturer-specific codes for all the various computer modules installed in the car. I would get someone with VCDS, or the dealer, to check for stored codes. As has been said, if the EPC light was on then almost certainly there will be something stored somewhere.

Yes the front sensor was easy. But the front RH coil spring also broken. This is getting expensive!

So I fitted the rear sensor. What a pain, everything rusted and those spline drive screws have a ridiculously shallow spline socket, difficult to get to. In the end I took off the actual sensor bit from the new bracket and installed it on the old bracket. Which made realise that all the actual sensors are the same, it is just the bracketry that is different. So I probably could have bought 2 of the cheap front LH ones from ebay and just transferred the sensor. Would have saved me about £200! Also of note, I changed only the rear sensor, all the warnings disappeared even though the front RH sensor is still showing fault on VCDS. So as I suspected, the front RH sensor will have failed some time ago with no visible warnings, only when the rear sensor subsequently failed did the display light up with warnings. Hopefully the front RH sensor will be easier to change, the front LH one certainly was. In worse news, I noticed that the rear left coil spring has broken. I think I have had enough of grovelling around under the back of the car and will get it done at a garage.

Couldn't find cheap sensors on the internet so I have gone with TPS and they are £350 for the pair. Ouch! Should arrive later today, I just hope that fixes it. Whilst waiting I cut open the old front LH sensor I replaced last year, to investigate the technology. Basically it is a rotating magnetic disc sitting over a small IC that measures magnetic field in 2 axes and thus gives rotational position (Hall effect sensors for those technically minded). Signal is sent to the control module as PWM (pulse width modulation) signal. Failure mode, unsurprisingly, is water ingress up the shaft, magnet turned to rusty dust.

I use blackcircles and a local back street tyre shop where the owner does most of the work. No stupid upselling or carelessness. Support your local small business!

yes although I’m a bit confused about what does what, the headlights only use the front and rear LH sensors, the RH front sensor is only used for the dampers (along with the other 2). I suppose one possibility is that the front RH sensor failed some time ago, no effect on the headlights and maybe the dampers can cope provided there is one front and one rear without flagging any visible errors, then the rear sensor quit yesterday and that upset both systems. Here’s hoping it is that and not something more fundamental.

I suppose it’s possible as the car is 6 1/2 years old now, still on original battery. But start stop still kicks in most of the the time and even if I clear the fault codes with the engine running, they pop back on again in a couple of seconds. Having just driven 85 miles, shut down for a while, and started up again, faults still present.

Got in the car today, started and got a ping with amber "Fault: damper", no seen that before. Car has DCC variable dampers. Also headlight warning a few seconds later and not levelling properly (pointing down into the fallback position). Last time I had the headlight problem it was the level sensor so I went in wit VCDS and found the front left sensor wasn't working. Replaced it and all was fine. This time I have 3 warnings on the chassis control, one being the P1624 which I think just tells the system to bring on the warning light. But I also have both the rear left and the front right level sensors showing faulty. Of course this does explain the headlight issue but it seems unfeasible that both sensors would fail simultaneously. It also doesn't really explain why it is giving the damper warning. I looked at the adv measuring values for the damper current (target and actual), they are fixed at 0.6A for front and 0.5A for rear regardless of which DCC mode I select. And the car is somewhat wallowy, it is at least "normal" if not "comfort". Definitely not the "sport" I usually have it in. Anyone got any ideas? Of course I can just replace both sensors, they are about £60 each so not going to break the bank, but I am suspicious that something else is up that is causing the apparent simultaneous double failure.

I disagree. Firstly my point was to try to make the process seem less daunting. Some sort of sensor makes it seem complicated, with issues of complexity and alignment to worry about. Secondly general misconceptions have a habit of coming back to bite later. And thirdly, an LED (in this context) is a type of light.

well to be accurate there is no blind spot sensor in the mirror, just a light that is activated by the blind spot sensor that is under the rear bumper.

Not impolite, perhaps just a bit abrupt and lacking normal social interaction. However I think if you had filled out your location as "Norway", people would have realised that English is not your first language and also that the Norwegian culture is a bit different from the UK one. I have known a few Norwegians who, to the UK eye, can seem a bit abrupt at first. Nothing wrong with that, we are all different and yet all the same under the skin!

This happened to me. Some kind of software crash wiped the data in memory that tells the system what options the car should have. Fortunately it was under warranty and the dealer connected the computer to HQ and recovered the configuration from the build database, everything was restored. No charge, although they muttered that I must have done something and it could be due to the pedal box. Yea right!