kirkynut

I've not posted on here for a while as other cars and life gets in the way. We've still got the VRS and it's done us proud in the 4 years we've owned it. I've just changed the oil at 114043 miles, so much later than I intended. I had every intention of changing it at every 6k miles but it's not happened on this occasion. I'll make sure I do so after this slightly longer than recommend service interval. I've been using top quality longlife Castrol oil, so it's only a couple of thousand miles over Skoda's service schedule. The aircon is still cold but needs a recharge for summer. It's had a CV gaitor for the MOT this year, which I identified as the start of a small tear and asked the garage to fix before the MOT. I was slightly irked by him failing it on this and then passing it as it blemishes the MOT history. I suppose that doesn't matter on a 2006 car, which we plan to keep until it's run into the ground. I really need to change the oil more regularly than this last change with that in mind. My Mrs has moved jobs and travels further now, so oil changes will come quicker. It will need new front discs when the front pads wear out, which I'll do. We've also had a pair of rear calipers on it after one leaked. The MOT man noted front bushes as an advisory but I can't see the issue, having checked them before the MOT and today. We'll see what he says next year. There's no knocking and they're not split at all. This has turned out to be a good car. Kirkynut

Oil changed at 101k miles and a bit of driver's side sill cut out and replaced due to rust. I'm trying to keep this nice and make it last. Kirkynut

I've finally finished installing a Parrot hands free kit in the Mrs 2006 petrol estate Octavia VRS. What a palava! Something that should have been straightforward caused me issues! I found an ignition only live in the fuse box at the end of the dash with my test lamp. Easy I thought. I ran it neatly up behind the head unit and plugged it all in, turned the ignition on, all the dash lights came on but none went out like they ought to. Perhaps if I turn the ignition on and off they'll sort themselves out I thought. I started the car but they all stayed on! I turned the ignition off and pulled the keys out of it. The lights all stayed on and the engine kept running whilst the keys were in my hand. Oh dear I thought! Well actually I thought and said some other words with a sweaty brow but hey, I look back at it now and can be self depreciating about it! I stalled the engine and unplugged the ignition only live add a circuit fuse I'd used to make it all end! Then I put it all back to factory and had to drive around the block to make the abs and traction control lights go out. Phew! No damage done but what the ...? I called my friend who is a Volvo trained technician, who agreed to have a look after lockdown ended, once he'd finished laughing! He's also very good with modern auto electrics. Once he found a different ignition only live I got it all working on his drive but there's so much extra gubbins with the conversion leads and the big connector blocks they used that I had trouble fitting it all behind and getting the head unit back in. Faffing around trying to achieve that meant that the head unit needed to come out and go back in a fair few times to get it right, so nothing got broken or pinched etc. Well that led to the Fakra plug that's on the aerial lead going into the head unit to get broken on one of the times it got pulled out - by the professional, not me I might add! The aerial wire is just too short and you only just have enough room to undo it, so I blame Skoda for being tight fisted with their coax! Finally today I fixed the aerial but not with just another female fakra plug as that would have been super tricky in the head unit aperture with the aerial cable being so short. My solution was to put a male ISO aerial plug on, that is a screw fitting and to use Halfords' female ISO plug on a lead to female fakra plug to connect that to the head unit - their part no. CT27FM02. Now we have a fully working Parrot and a good radio signal, which still receives KISS FM, which is weak in our area, which is handy as I hate it but the Mrs loves it but the radio in the VRS is quite good. So after all that palava, the Mrs seems happy with it but it's not my cup of tea. The Parrot takes ages to load up and synch with a phone and you have to press play on your phone to start music playing by Bluetooth, which is irritating to me. If it were my car I'd have put a double DIN head unit in a facia plate but it's not and she wanted it OEM. I tried to persuade her into one of the Chinese head units that would be plug and play and look OEM but she wouldn't have it. Oh well, it's her car and I got there in the end!

Oil change done yesterday at 92674 miles. I aim to change it every 6k miles to keep it in tip top condition inside and have been using Castrol Edge 5w30. So 6464 miles since the last change isn't bad, especially as this is long life oil and is meant for many more miles than this. I still preferred working on my old E46 as BMW made things easier, such as having a removal panel on the under tray for draining the oil and the oil filter was up top. The only thing was I was always repairing the Beemer and the Skoda just needs servicing. He says reaching for some wood to touch (don't be smutty at the back). Kirkynut