allanhodgson

Last week I was fitting rear wheel arch liners on my 2014 Citigo (see relevant Briskoda thread) when I noticed some serious corrosion on the right hand side of the rear subframe. The rust is worst along the various welds, where I chipped thick rust scales off, but it has also occurred around the various flanges. The subframe had not been primed or protected in any way - it appears to have been treated with nothing but a light spray of black paint. Given that this severe corrosion has occurred over a mere three years & 19,600 miles, and similar corrosion has probably occurred inside the subframe, I certainly would not expect my Citigo to survive ten years without serious remedial work. I attach pictures below, but please note that it didn't occur to me to photograph the rust until I was some way through removing it (the rust was originally flaking off and much worse looking). I had fitted the left hand side rear wheel arch liner first, but didn't check the condition of the rear subframe on the left so I don't know whether that side is in a similar state of deterioration. Having chipped off as much of the lose flaking rust as I could, I treated the surfaces with 'Loctite 7503 Rust Remedy'; when dry, I sprayed the area with Dinitrol ML, and will follow this up with one of Dinitrol's underbody waxes. I have also found my old spray extension and, if we get a spell of warmer weather, will spray inside the subframe. This is the first VAG car that I have bought in 46 years of driving; if this represents the 'quality' of current VAG vehicles, it will certainly be the last VAG car that I shall buy. I recently sold a 2004, 148,000 mile Ford Focus estate - the rear subframe had a similar level of corrosion to that on the Citigo. Has anyone else found a similar horror story? I was under the impression that the 'old' Citigo only had a three year anti-corrosion warranty, whereas the 'new' (2017) Citigo has a ten year warranty. Would any dealer or VAG representative like to comment on such a high level of corrosion in a nearly new car?

Hi Owens, after spending a further hour going through the Briskoda site, I did find your very useful rough guide - many thanks. Although I have since lost the relevant page location, I had printed the guide out; it was reassuring to confirm that what I did is more or less right. PS. Without the rear mudflaps, the liner does hang rather loose at the back, and it protrudes a little below the rear bumper but it's hardly noticeable. There are a number of gaps where mud could perhaps build up, so it may be worth removing the liner after (say) a year to check whether this is a problem.

Really sorry for being so dumb, but where exactly do I find this guide? I can't find what I would regard as a technical section, never mind your guide. I have exposed some of the liner mounting points on my red Citigo Elegance, but it appears that there is very little support on the outer side of the wheel arch, and I can't work out how the heck I would fit and stabilise the liners on this side. I have ordered the front plastic mounting bits for the fronts of the liners, but it appears that I would need mud flaps fitted in order to support the (outer) backs of the liners. I followed a link to a guide for the Up! (written in German), but the rear wheel arch liners appeared to be significantly different, and came with felt pieces and some side strips to link the liner to the outer part of the wheel arch - so no help there. Hence, I really would appreciate a perusal of your guide. As an aside, one of the most common places that cars corrode is round the rear wheel arches due to the way that the manufacturers wrap/bend the steel sheet to form the wheel arch seam. I had previously been intending to strip out the rear side upholstery to get at the inside of this seam, but I discovered when looking for fixing points that there is a round rubber bung that can be levered out with a small screwdriver (see picture); from the bung hole, the complete seam can be sprayed with (in my case) Dinitrol penetrating cavity wax. It's obviously much easier to do this BEFORE fitting the wheel arch liners.

It's useful to know that I can squirt some water up the back quarters of the Citigo without problems, as I can't reach the mud up there any other way. I'll be using photos provided by other posters on this topic to find the holes (fingers crossed). I've collected my originally-ordered wheel-liner kit, but have found that I need a couple of plastic brackets for the fronts of the two rear wheel arches (now on order). With regard to sound insulation, the two sources of noise are panel vibration and sound penetration, so it's a good idea to stick vibration damping sheets (usually 2mm thick) on the centres of any flat surfaces before fitting the soundproofing foam sheets (typically 10mm thick) over them. I've already fitted vibration damping sheets to the in-boot sides of the rear wheel arches and the bonnet. Don't forget to wipe over panel surfaces beforehand with meths or white spirit (then wipe again with a dry towel or cloth), otherwise the vibration damping sheets will gradually peel off - I forgot to do that under the bonnet, and had to peel off the sheet, clean and replace. I suspect that it would be worthwhile to vibration-damp the insides of the doors, including the boot door, and also the spare wheel housing; however, if I go to the trouble of removing all this trim, I'll probably squirt some Dinitrol cavity penetration fluid into the seams at the bottoms of the doors.

I discovered to my dismay that the wheel arches on my recently-purchased 2014 5-door Citigo Greentech Elegance allowed mud and debris to be thrown all the way up the insides of the rear quarters of the car. So, having found this thread (many thanks for the useful parts lists and fitting instructions), I decided to order the wheel arch liners from the local Loughborough VW dealer. Total cost came to £109, so there seems to have been significant inflation over the last year-odd. I'll report back after collecting and fitting the liners. As far as I can reach up the back of the wheel arch cavity (and beyond), the surfaces are covered in dried mud so I'm probably going to have to use a high pressure hose - does anyone know whether this likely to cause problems, e.g. due to the cavity not being sealed at the top? I don't want to find muddy water emerging in various places inside and outside the car! My next (pretty simple) job will be to fit anti-vibration/noise reducing self-adhesive matting under the bonnet, on the inner sides of the wheel arches, plus other yet-to-be-decided places. You can buy a 12-sheet pack of this matting for about £15 from Amazon UK, so it's not an expensive job.

I bought a standard (full size/14") Citigo steel wheel and tyre off ebay, and bought the jack toolkit designed for the spacesaver from Horton Skoda. I used a Stanley knife blade to remove a quarter-inch sliver off the expanded polywhatever toolkit holder, and it then fitted perfectly in the spare wheel. As long as you align the kit in the right direction, the tyre and tool kit are at the correct height, and the toolkit provides extra support for the boot floor, without lifting it. [2014 Skoda Citigo Greentech Elegance]

The rear light clusters contain no logic circuitry and are fully insulated. Therefore their wiring needs can easily be enumerated - they have five functions and therefore require six wires to operate fully: Rear/brake/indicator/reversing/fog/earth. The right cluster has six wires and is therefore fully operational, the left cluster has five wires and is therefore missing one function. The plug wire to position 1 (fog light (+) on the circuit board is missing, therefore the fog light does not work. Unless this wire is earlier terminated in the wiring loom (any ideas?), the easiest alternative would be to jury rig a cable from the right cluster to the left. It seems very perverse logic to me, as I assumed at first that a bulb had blown, then that a socket had failed, before tracing the circuitry. As an aside, the middle double-filament lights on each side could be connected to the brake light strips, giving you extra brake lighting.