freelunch

I have the hatchback version of your car. I park on the street and for six years the car went relatively unscathed. This year...! I have a dent on the nearside front wheel arch that looks like a kid on a scooter hit the car with his handlebar. I got in touch with a dent puller outfit and they want £540 to fix it. That's more than I pay for insurance, but if I involve the insurance company, the premium will double. I scuffed the rear wheel arch on a roadside bike locker. Two weeks later, I scuffed the rear door (same side) on a pillar in a very tight and dark underground car park. I was barely moving, but managed to put a 3" mark on the car. I will have this car, still parked on the street, until Mayor Khan decides to make it obsolete. I used to take some pride in its appearance, so I got out my scratch-removing compound, applied some muscle grease and some touch up paint. I swear, the car looks like new from 20 feet. Okay, 30 feet. The dent I'm gonna have to live with. Good luck with your insurance company.

I have to ask: did your other half scrape the car along one of the street bicycle lockers? Looks just like the scrape I put along the side of my car. I hate self-inflicted wounds...

Halfords fit my new battery for £25, but in the shop.

Purchased demo Sportline in January 2017 with 1,700 miles on it. Just nudging 25K miles now. Only time it's required servicing other than normal annual service is when it sat for four weeks and the pads froze to the discs. "Drive it more," said the mechanic.

I bought my Sportline in December 2016 with 1,700 dealer miles on it. I've done 23,400 since, averaging 36.4 mpg measured at the pump. Except for loose window trim, I've only ever spent money on annual services and a battery after 6 years. Best Most reliable car I've ever owned. When they finally install electric charging points in my neighbourhood, someone is going to get a really nice petrol motor. (Edit) Forgot a new set of Vredestein tyres I bought to replace the Pirelli's I never really liked.

It was a sad day when I found it was going to cost more to fix my Nakamichi than it cost new. Great deck.

I have a CD player in my Columbus unit (glove box) . You have to be really careful of potholes. As a result, it never gets used, even though it has had a CD queued up in it for the past seven years!

I stopped in Bloxham for petrol. Loads of different diesel, but the only petrol on offer was the E10. First tankful of that stuff, so I'm curious to see how it goes. Last tank of Shell V-power gave me 35.9 mpg, which is in the middle of my expected range. I do a lot of short urban miles.

I had a 256Gb SD card in use. The limit is not on the size of the card, but the number of files. The infotainment system will only read the first 9,999 files on the card, the rest get ignored. I forget where I read this. I now use a 128Gb card and a 64Gb card, plus there's the Jukebox on the system (10Gb?) and I've got a 32Gb USB stick plugged in next to the cigar lighter.

My six-year-old has been parked outdoors since purchase. The sunroof works fine and is used as often as possible. Just make sure yours is working before purchase. The only time I ever had trouble with a sunroof was on a 1995 Renault 19, which was routinely parked under a lime tree. The tree sap sealed the roof and the motor broke when I tried to open it. I don't park under trees anymore.

Well, if your car came from Marshall's in Croydon, I've got your umbrella! 😁

I've always lusted after a V8 Mustang, but I suspect the wide open spaces of Adelaide might be a better place to drive one than London.

I bought the sales manager's car (1,700 miles). When I picked it up, I noticed there was no umbrella in the passenger door. The manager nicked an umbrella from another car and sent me home happy. Five years later, I have never opened either one of those umbrellas.

Thanks for that. A 64 Gb SD card it is, then. Maybe Black Friday will come in hand after all...

For the first time, the download wouldn't fit on my 32 Gb SD card. My Mac said it needed an extra 77 Mb of space. Simple, I deleted the maps for Russia from the Mib1 folder and there was plenty of room. Haven't tried to install it on the Columbus unit yet, though.

I had my car jump started (five year old battery), drove to my local Halfords, they had the battery I needed on the shelf, it was fitted and coded in and I drove away happy two hours later. £150 all in.

DPF issue? I drive a petrol engine, so not a lot of experience other than reading about other people's problems. Do you do a lot of short trips? Would a lap around the M25 in fourth help? DPF replacement? If the car was dead in the morning, I might suspect the battery, but not when dying while you're on a run.

Don't worry about my intelligence: I have a thick skin and/or know where the 'ignore button' is. I've only ever had my light switch set on Auto, except when the car is serviced and find out much later that the mechanic has switched the lights of Off. Also, I have never pulled the switch out to enable fog lights. When I read this in the manual, I went to the car, tried to pull the switch out and it wouldn't budge. I will now add fiddling to my list of things to do... Thanks!

Thanks all. As soon as things dry out, I'll get down on the ground and start wiggling. 😁

It was dark and stormy. I was following my mate. He said that one of my front fog lights was out, but I would have expected a warning light? I wonder if only the off-side fog light is supposed to work? When parked in daylight, I can't seem to replicate the problem. I always leave the light switch on Auto. On the night in question, the it was on Auto and the fog indicator below the Auto position was also lit. Any ideas? Thanks.

In my experience, 'very close' can vary depending on speed, i.e. the faster you are travelling, the bigger the gap even on very close.

I assume murderers will be dealt with more harshly? 🙂

@Warrior193 @Danoid I checked with the shops and neighbours. They all know the car, it's been parked there or thereabouts for five years and they see me cleaning it often. I meet most of my neighbours at the car. Anyway, no luck. I even walked about the common opposite to see if the wind had taken it. I checked on a central website linked to breakers yards, I got two replies: £140. I checked eBay and found a used shelf for £89, but it looked grey and scuffed. Others were closer to the £140 mark. Finally I called my dealer: £157.46, including strings and hardware. So, I went for new. The cost of a tank and a half of petrol. (Edit) If anyone gets in the same predicament, the part number is K3V5867769E6V0 for the cover (not parcel shelf) and K1M6867574A for the holder (as the pins which attach to the hatch that the strings hook over). Turns out I didn't need the two pins as they were already in the hatch, but they were only 28p/each.

I suppose this should be posted under "What I didn't do to my Superb III today" I was driving into the sun the other day and was surprised to see how dirty the inside of my windscreen was. No one has ever smoked in the car, I don't know how that film of grease got there. Anyway, on Friday I cleaned the front windscreen, then got around to the back. Lifted the hatch, removed the parcel shelf, leaned it up against the wall of the Café G (I park on the street) climbed into the boot and gave the rear window a good clean. Excellent. Sunday, we went for a two-day road trip. When I unpacked the car, I finally realised that I had forgotten to replace the parcel shelf. D'oh! Double d'oh!! Got home yesterday, hoping that the parcel shelf would still be leaning against the wall where I left it... So, what's the best way to replace the parcel shelf. Dealer? e-Bay? Breakers?

Don't know if I'm on the wrong track here, but the stock Superb gas pedal has a lot of movement before anything begins to happen. If that is the problem, a pedal box solves it. If the car is reluctant to move when the revs rise, maybe it's brake pads not releasing? Wheel bearings shot? Put the car on a lift/jack and spin the wheels around to see if anything is binding. Also, you can adjust the "stiffness" of the steering wheel in the infotainment unit.