brettikivi

+1 on Ctek - nice quick release connectors, waterproof and good. I have multiple connectors for mine; a cig lighter one for the car where it's permanent live, then a fixed pair of M6 rings I will shortly be attaching to the wife's. I have an MXS7, it's a decent unit. Wasn't cheap, mind...

I adjusted my Octavia lights with a screwdriver about a month before selling it and was surprised to find that a half-turn was more than enough. I was intending to have an accurate piece of information to say "hey, this is where it could be and seems to work well - this is the result" rather than "just dob a screwdriver in there and mess with it, job's a good'un". Too much and you'll blind everyone - it's a very subtle process. I also wanted to have a reference to say "this is what you get if it's correct" and "these are the accurate measurements for this setup". Considering most of the time you're told to find a flat floor and measure... I'm sure there's a good way to do this with simple-ish tools. I feel there's a lot of guesswork going on here, and the light pattern Halogen vs Xenon Auto vs Xenon Manual vs LED is going to be very different, along with the light output. I know the candles on the front of the A2, I've driven Octys with all three light sources and though the Halogen on the Octavia is better than I thought, H7 output really is limited and so the height gets to be very important. After having been through Katsastus here last week with the A2, I think that most inspectors are looking for egregious errors, not "this is optimal". I see the wife's SX4 LEDs as being "too high", but the throw is beautiful. The Superb is on the limit but has a better spread, especially at 100-120km/h, so not "highway mode". Then again, the SX4 has a better high beam pattern, Superb has a blob of light at 1 o'clock which is mostly wasted. Distance also leaves quite a lot to be desired, but they're only ref 17.5, so no real surprise. SX4 dipped beam doesn't light the next lane over as well as the Superb. Octy lights were almost as good as either, prefer the LED colour to be honest but could do with more light on high beam. I think I've done 1000km in the darkness over the last couple of weeks in the Superb, which makes it most of my seat time in the car... Light is life up here. When the clocks go back at the weekend, it's darkness to the office, darkness back. Most of my trips up north and back will be pure darkness with no streetlights and minimal traffic, so I like my lights to be as good as they can be, especially with moose around.

quick check on the motorway last night on the way home tells me I get reflections from 200m on the verge side. (I'm driving an LHD, so it's the right side for me, but the kick on the lamp profile is there). Main puddle of light stops around 75m or so, with a really wide spread on both sides, covering both lanes out to well over 50m. Might try to find a drone pilot for mapping this on snow later, but for the moment, will try to get a flat unlit carpark (I know where there is one) and take a couple of photos.

mine are really good. Can maybe do a quick trick: I now have access to a flat garage, so I will see if I can jerry-rig something together with a laser measuring device and a measuring stick or two to show how far off the ground they are at a specific distance from a well-known flat spot on the car. Will have to see how to do this. Nominally the angle is 1% or so, it's printed on the headlamp itself. These are Xenons, LEDs or Halogens? With Halogen, replace with Nightbreaker or so. . Bret

good to know - I did Lahti - Kuopio with a full car on Saturday, then Kuopio - Lahti half empty Sunday and this morning, Lahti - Helsinki. Difference is significant. Saturday quietest, then Sunday and Monday was quite noisy. Now all I need to find is some time.

X-Ice Norths replaced with Hakka 8s in the same size (215/55R17) Friday. Car drives better now, though the tyres really are obviously noisy. Snow when I got home last night - that was a revelation how good the grip is. Also 5.3l/100 on the trip home ain't too shabby for a half-full car (full set of tyres + rims in the boot) and winters on but summer limits, so lots of 100km/h where shortly it will be 80. Pretty happy with the bi-xenons though more light at the end of the beams would be good (which is why I'm currently looking at extra lights). . Bret

I would rather do the grill surround, mirrors and maybe a small something else in a contrast colour, like a subtle deep red or maybe green, depending on your car colour. Maybe do the calipers in the same colour. Keep it classy, but different... I've seen the Nismo Jukes done here like that and find it quite good. The older 307s and V70s also had something similar with door handles and a couple of pieces of trim in silver metallic.

washed, clayed and waxed - this was obviously professionally detailed before sale as the clay was way cleaner than I expected. Onwards towards winter...need to do another round of clay later but won't do it until the car's nice and warm, this was way too cold.

on the audio front: I have a C-DSP 6x8, a CSS SDX10 and a Soundigital Evo 400.4 lying around. If I replace the front speakers with some GZRC 165.2SQs, I should have a decent front end. Then a custom box for the sub (along with a board so it can be clipped into place) and maybe a Soundigital 1600.1 for some serious power and we should be good. Don't need 1.6kW but that for €270 is a serious bargain. So it's a grand total of €500 for new parts Will try to get all cable runs done at the same time - power to the sub amp, rear camera and if the door handle is being replaced, then that at the same time as the door driver.

So the Wheel and tyre problems: Summer and winter wheels are both 17", 215/55R17. I had a new set of Turanza T005s added before I bought the car. Problem: the Stratos rims are stone-pocked. We have lots of gravel roads here and the stones get thrown up despite mudflaps - and then they hit the spokes. Winter tyres are the second problem. The winter tyres have 7.5mm, 7.5mm, 6.5mm and 4.9mm. Winter tyre tread depth must be 3.0mm here and 4 is recommended for traction. The one with the least tread is currently on front right. It also has had an unscheduled meeting with a kerb or stone at some point as there's a bunch of gouges out of the rim. At least 15cm round the outside is damaged. The spokes also have some of the gravel pock marks as the summer rims have. Question becomes what to do. I like the Michelin X Ice Norths - I've driven them elsewhere and they're nice and progressive when losing grip and otherwise very tolerable. They're also around €175 each. I'm currently very tempted to replace two front tyres with X Ice Norths on the winter rims and keep the better of the two as a spare. I'll need a rim for that - that's easy, I drop the 6.5mm tyre on the damaged rim and replace the damaged one with a new one. But the car doesn't currently have a spare, so there's some work to be done to allow that. Replacing that rim is going to be at least €150 - 125 for the rim plus shipping plus fitting and balancing. That leaves me at €550 total, which is bearable. For the summers... refinishing those Stratos is going to be €500. A set of WIzards in grey is going to be the same price. I'll have to look them over and see how bad it is...

So I picked up a Business Grey Superb the other week. 116k kms at time of purchase. 150PS 4x4 TDI Combi, registered in March 2018. So yes, 45k kms per year for the first two years. We're moving up north and I will need to be in the office in Helsinki sometimes anyway, so it's been christened the Helsinki Express... I drove down the other morning in 3:20 or so to the present house and it would have been under 4:30 to the office. That's more than acceptable. And Katie is from the letters on the plate. Some time with ErWin the other day gave me the full spec: Ambition for the Finnish market (Bi-Xenon) with Winter package (heated screen + wheel, remote Webasto), Amundsen, Fondpaket (220V + USB in the centre console), rough road package (+15mm, extra plastic underneath). It's returning 6l/100 which I'm happy with. Problems so far: - there's a couple of dings in the door and the trim, I'll post some photos when I've washed it to show. I think I'm going to have to replace the trim around the rear window and the driver's door handle. Will try to get this done while the door card is off for the speaker replacement. - there was a bunch of white paint splats on the wheel and gearstick. Fixed - i'll explain more below. - rims and tyres --> more on this below - the tracking was way out, as were the tyre pressures - now sorted. So the white splats were quite easy - I'd seen what some hand disinfectant did when cleaning the wheel, so i used it again on a microfibre towel. Hey presto, all the splats are gone and the leather was matt again. I fed it with some horsey stuff we have and buffed it lightly - after a couple of days it's excellent. Lightly worn smooth, not shiny and polished. Very happy with this result. Other stuff on the to-do list: - Rear Camera - More light out the front - Stereo upgrade - clear the VCDS errors and see if they return. Should be out washing, claying and waxing it today.

with regard to the BCM, I know @Petunet has done this before, though on an Octavia. About coming up here... Nordkapp: The roads are apparently awesome, but it isn't normally open all winter, so you will have difficulties getting the lights and Nordkapp on the same trip. I know some of my regular Icetrack guests have done Tromsö specifically for northern lights, but that's also not trivial, as the mountains from Muonio through can require convoys and it's not a fast trip at all, 5h in good weather and potentially 15 in bad. The lights are also most likely at the coldest part of the winter, so mid-Feb through, and you can expect -30C or colder. Tromsö is warmer than Finland for this. Assume travel speeds of 80km/h and no faster and you should be good. I would also consider taking the car train from Helsinki up to Rovaniemi. I will be running track again this winter, we will be back at Vesanto. .Bret

I've found a good offer on what are essentially rebadged SAE Seekers at Lumise - these - they are close to the correct max reference, so 100% legal. Will need to do some wiring with the BCM to get it to work correctly as I've already got bi-xenon. I was trying to avoid mounting directly over the plate as they're a full 100mm deep. Need to play with the grill a little and test some ideas..... the seekers also seem to fare well at valovertailu. But not 100% decided, . Bret

so I ended up with a 4x4 TDI combi. Pretty happy after an alignment and a new set of tyres (which the seller paid for). Consumption similar to the old Octy is also OK, especially since it's now a diesel - though a few km/h seems to make a big difference in those numbers over 110km/h - I'll be doing some testing in the near future. First up, though, is more light as we're moving up north so there's a lot of driving in the darkness to be done.

so the Octavia went in PX the other week for a Superb. There's only really one reason for the Superb: I got a decent deal on the Octy's trade-in value, and the Superb is higher mileage but relatively new. It's also a diesel. Final numbers from Spritmonitor: 6.08l/100 over 40000kms. Not bad. The Superb's just matched that on the initial runs to Kuopio and back and to the office, so with a bit of luck and slower speeds in the winter, I should see a 5 at the front. Thanks for the support and knowledge, I'll be over on the Superb side for a while now .Bret

thanks, I drove it and was not impressed - ACT caused vibration and there was a strange occurrence with the servicing - the paperwork was there, but apparently the car thought its next service was in 200+ days, which doesn't match. It's been sold in the mean time. I have another in my eyes now... 190 4x4, hatch, 2018 with just over 100kkms on the clock. A little more expensive, will try to get out this week to test it. Much nicer equipped with KESSY, alcantara / leather... it's also a DSG which I'm not that fussed over.

Essentially, if Bluetooth is connected, it should just work. The options for it not working are it's being interrupted because the signal is too weak and not a lot else. So if the phone is in a bag in the boot... it should still just work. Unless it's in some form of protective mesh or there are other signal sources and it can't decide which one to use. I'm assuming you have deleted the phone from the BT devices on the car and re-paired it. If this doesn't help, I would remove *all* the devices from teh headunit and re-pair. I would also make sure that the issue isn't just in one location, i.e. go to your supermarket car park and confirm exactly the same problems, just to make sure there isn't some local interference (for example, the neighbour's kids with their speakers). can you show on a video, please, exactly what happens?

so if you're - for example - using Spotify - and you have the playlist downloaded, this still happens? Phone calls use a completely different technology. With your stream, you are downloading the music / video in "real time" and then playing it back. If your internet connection is poor, this can't work well. Hence the question about the downloaded playlists.

oh yes, it's a MY 17 with a Webasto and a bunch of other stuff - I know how to test most of it and I know it exists as my first Octy was also an MY17. At least I think I do ...

I've found a Superb 3 locally that seems OK. It's been touch-parked at the back so there's quite a few small scratches on the bumper. Service history is OK; it did 90kkms in the first three years of its life, and the Haldex oil was changed in the last service. That's nearly two years ago, I'm fine with that - it's been off the road for a while, untouched at a dealer, and now it's on sale at another one. It's a 4x4 TSI ACT hatch. Any thoughts on specific things I should be checking? I figure the cambelt is probably due at 6 years old. I want to check smoke at startup, the engine bay looks OK. Mayonnaise I will also check, along with the error codes. Going to take it for a drive on some curvy roads and some higher-speed stuff. Thanks! . Bret

I think the starting 57 mpg is really rather good if the speed is 70-75mph. If it's 60mph or lower, those numbers are only decent. I'd get 5.7 easily in the old car and 4.2 on a slow run (lots of 60-80km/h), which translates back out to well over 60mpg... but the new one drinks far faster and so my average is in my sig. I have a clear run to the office most days and cruise is on to the office, with 120 and 80/60 limits. If I were to drive up north with 3 up and a light load, I'd expect to see 4.8 or so, so around 58mpg with 50-60 mph on the tacho as permitted. No major differences in my experience between 1.0, 1.4 and 1.4 DSG, i had them all at one point in quick succession last winter and the differences were negligible.

maybe log in to erwin - erwin.skoda-auto.cz, pay your money and get the electrical diagrams?

I'm on LEDs..... I was intending to retain the head unit, just drop a DSP on the back and some amps in the boot. I'm pretty convinced on a 15" sub for effortless bass and some nice silk membrane tweeter comps for up front (I have these in the A2 and I'm impressed considering the really nice price). I have the DSP already, just need some cabling and to work out just where I want to put everything. Took the car up north at the weekend with a massive trailer on the back. Probably close to the weight limits on the way up with a bunch of my offspring's gear in. Averaged 9l/100km (!). Oil temps were also pushing 105-110C at 100km/h with 24C ambient. I found this quite high, but apparently up to 130C is OK. There's minimal performance with that size of brick on the back, though - it's essentially 1m65 inside height and 1m50 wide. This: https://www.vuokrauspalvelu.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/7t9a9057.jpg Was a very interesting experience. I think we might be borrowing a van next time, the fuel costs were nuts for the relatively short distances of 350km each way.

36k now. no news. One issue with the intake air temp sensor, that was a pain but fixed under warranty. Two rental Octys within a week doing my usual trip - no major changes in terms of consumption over the 1.0 for a 1.4. A little more, but not much. Off up north this weekend with a trailer... going to be interesting. Just happy it's only 24C outside not 34.

got to admit I'm tempted on a set of Bilsteins and Eibachs with a mild drop.