nicknorman

I can’t help with your direct question, but I suggest that buying OEM brake discs and pads is a bad idea. Mine lasted 20k miles. I replaced them with fairly cheap pattern one that were massively better. Skoda brake discs are rubbish!

If your car is 2017 it won’t have that feature.

Yes this is my understanding. My 2016 model didn’t have it (just beeping) but my 2023 model does have it. It has saved me from reversing into a car in a supermarket car park when I was distracted by pedestrians. But is also a nuisance at the gliding club where it objects to reversing into long grass, and woe betide me if I try to reverse my glider trailer without connecting the electrics!

Interesting. I can’t recall it ever happening on my 2016 version, which I owned for 7 years, and yet in 8 months of ownership of the 2023 version it’s happened several times.

My 2016 Superb didn’t do this, but my 2023 one does. I’ve noticed several times that when I have been loading stuff into the (estate) boot, suddenly there is beeping and the tailgate starts to close on me. I always have the key in my pocket and we all know how easy it is to press the key fob boot button accidentally, so I assumed that I was somehow activating the key fob whilst bending into the boot. But no, it transpires the virtual pedal now works both ways - ie you put your toes under the rear bumper whilst reaching into the far reaches of the cavernous boot, and it thinks this is a signal to close the lid on your head. Whoever thought that was a good idea is not clever! I wonder if it can be turned off - the closing bit, I mean.

This is why I bought one of the last Mk 3 280tsi in Dec 2023

Yes normally the tailgate can be opened from the handle at the back. I would just check that the car is definitely fully unlocked, I seem to recall mine had the selectable option in the infotainment that the first key fob unlock press would only unlock the driver’s door, or both front doors, or all doors. Not sure where the tailgate figured in all that, but as a first step try pressing the unlock button on the key fob twice, see if the boot can then be opened from the handle.

That is very good for a 6 speed 280. I think the best I got was around 34. My new 7 speed 280 is better on the motorway, I get around 40 on a long run at 75.

I found this in the manual: ”The temperature of the storage compartment supplied with air is dependent on the setting in the air conditioning.”

I only have experience of doing it with VCDS. Yes it is expensive but I have found it well worth it over the years, this is our 3rd VW group car and I do all the servicing. You are paying for the support behind the software design, rather than the hardware. If you don’t want to shell out for it, then perhaps you could ask for someone in the area with VCDS to help you. Alternatively an independent garage with expertise in VW group cars might be able to help you, especially if you go armed with exactly what needs to be changed.

Probably the anti roll bar drop link and the position sensor (if it is LHS) need unbolting too. I can’t quite remember if I ended up undoing the lower arm from the hub or not.

here you go…

They stopped transmitting the preferred traffic info. There is another provider that you can switch to, which works in Scotland (the old one didn’t work in most of Scotland). It requires VCDS or equivalent to change the setting. I’ll have a look for the relevant thread…. Cant help with the TPM thing, I do get the occasional false warning but only about once every 6 months.

No I don’t think it is reasonable to expect this to happen unless you did some extreme repeated heavy braking. After all, the last set of discs didn’t do it! I think ultimately because life is too short, you are going to end up either living with it or forking out for new discs, but if you are up for a fight I would ask the garage to explain exactly how/why the juddering is occurring if there is nothing wrong with the discs. If that fails (and anyway, due to this garage obviously not being very good) take the car to another garage for a report on the discs and replacement. Then you can sue the first garage under the small claims system to refund for the dodgy discs.

It’s hard to understand how there can be brake judder if there isn’t some damage to the discs. Overheating usually causes warping ie run-out and hence judder. Obviously the runout won’t be exactly zero even on new discs, but it should be undetectable with normal test gear. So I suppose to some extent it depends on how much run-out you continue to call “no run-out”. As to why the discs overheated, probably due to some slight binding due to dirt or corrosion of the calliper / pistons. Slight binding causes the discs to get fairly hot, and then when there is some heavy braking, instead of starting from cold discs you are starting with discs already quite hot, hence the overheating damage. When I replace pads I always take some time to clean up the callipers and ensure the pistons move freely, and give them a light greasing with brake grease. This takes time which costs money which is why a garage often doesn’t bother.

In the spec for my new 2023 car it said “auxiliary electric heater” without really saying what that was. But the car warms up much, much quicker than the 2016 car with the same engine, and I read somewhere it is a 1kw electric heater in the cooling system. Quite likely that fitment varies with destination country and year. Presumably it is fitted to the later 280tsi engines only to meet some emissions requirements - ie to get the engine up to working temperature as quickly as possible. It is not the same as the remote control heater you can get in some countries to warm up the car before getting in. Oh and nor is it something that just heats the heater air - the car’s coolant temperature gauge rises much more quickly than the old car.

I swapped my 2016 280tsi (average time to get warm air from the heater) to a 2023 280tsi. The latter warms up / gives warm air from the heater much quicker. This is due to the electric auxiliary heater which, as far as I can tell, is a roughly 1kw electric heater somewhere in the system that warms the coolant quickly. And presumably the high load on the alternator also makes the engine work harder / heats quicker. As mentioned, the temperature gauge reaches “normal” before it actually gets there. It is interesting to look at the oil temperature, which takes a lot longer to come “off the stops” at 50C.

Fairly sure that it is built into the fuel pump. Hopefully someone else will confirm. It might help if you say why you are asking.

It’s quite a cheap option, £60, have it on my 2023 model. So I am wondering if Skoda would think it worth having two wiring looms according to whether the option is selected. Maybe the wiring is there and it just needs the USB socket? I am just guessing! Perhaps you can log onto ERWIN and check the wiring diagram for your vehicle?

And bear in mind there are 2 injectors per cylinder.

Air filter is trivially easy to replace, spark plugs a bit more difficult because it can be tricky to extract the coil packs due to “sticktion” of the rubber seals on the plug stem. As mentioned, a coil pulled may be necessary. Be gentle, the plastic noses on the coil packs are not particularly robust. Check how to disconnect the coil pack wires before forcing the connector! The main trick is to push the connector in whilst operating the release tab, then whilst still holding the tab in, pull the connector off. If you don’t initially push in, the tab can be jammed. In terms of diagnosing, I might have said “#1 coil pack duff” but since something on cylinder 3 is also troublesome it is probably not that - double failure unlikely. I have also heard of strange behaviour with dodgy crank or cam position sensors, but try the plugs first.

The codes are telling you that there is misfiring going on. It’s not telling you why! I would start out with checking the usual service items - have the spark plugs been changed recently? Engine air filter? And what do the spark plugs look like?

You have to think how it works. If you are approaching a bend, the radar is reflected off houses, street signs etc. there are lots of things straight ahead of the car, the radar doesn’t know that the road bends before you get to those houses etc. You don’t want it to jam on the brakes every time there is a bend! The system use Doppler, ie the change in frequency of reflected radar signals when there is a speed difference between your car and whatever the radar reflects off. Same concept as speed cameras. So if the radar sees an object that is 50kph speed difference from your car, and you car is doing 50kph, it knows that the reflective object is stationary and probably some road infrastructure, houses etc. It therefore ignores it. Any reflections that have a Doppler/speed difference that is not the same as the speed of your car, are moving. And therefore probably other cars. The system will react appropriately to them. In the case of a reflection which is moving, but then slows down to become stationary, the car realises that this is a vehicle that has come to a stop. So in summary, if vehicles that are travelling ahead and in range of your radar, come to a stop, the ACC will react appropriately and bring your car to a stop. But if you come round a corner and encounter stationary traffic, or come up behind cars that are already stopped, the system will assume that they are fixed objects like houses etc and presume that the road curves before you get to them. So you have to brake yourself. Obviously it is important to understand how the system works! The other thing to bear in mind is that there is a deliberate limit on how hard the system can apply the brakes. This is to avoid a system glitch causing maximum braking which might create a rear end shunt. So sometimes, even when the system is correctly applying the brakes to avoid hitting the slowing vehicle in front, it might be necessary for you to push hard on the brake pedal. There is a ping and a big red symbol to tell you when to do this!

Before I sold my car the front shocks were an advisory for several years. After a couple of years, one gave way. A year later I sold the car and the other feont shocker was still ok more or less. So several years of “light misting” can happen before failure. I would get replacements from eg Autodoc BEFORE they fail an MOT, because then you will have to get from TPS and that will be £500 a side. As to brakes, almost anything is better than OEM. I fitted Delphi, much better despite being a budget product

Pretty sure that a code reader like that only looks at the engine module. The other modules are manufacturer-specific and you need something like VCDS or ODB11 to read them. The NoX sensor is probably duplicated and it is using the fallback one (or the fallback one is faulty) and so probably no impact in how the engine runs. Unrelated to the other faults you mention