rum4mo

I bought a set of 5 steel wheels fitted with winter tyres for my wife's 2002 VW Polo, the Polo at that time and maybe still, used small holes holes around the rim to secure the wheel trims, but I chose to fit a set of maybe older VW Golf wheel trims and they use the inside of the rim to grip onto, doing that worked out very well, maybe had to snip off some stand-offs from the VW Golf wheel trims, that is easy to do even using wire cutters. As said already, the black paint on typical steel wheels lasts no time and the wheels begin to look nasty quickly, so buying a set of used wheel trims worked for me, plus it is a lot easier to clean the wheel trims in winter to keep the car presentable. The other aspect of using wheel trims from an older and different car means that they are cheaper and more more available from the likes of ebay - so in your situation, I'd guess that you could find some wheel trims from an older Octavia that look okay. Edit:- with her next car, a 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, I bought a set of 4 used 15" VW Polo alloys from ebay Germany, almost as good as new, without tyres, and put Michelin Alpins on them - for winter only use, or maybe 6 months of the year.

The description of what you need to request maybe at the selling dealers' parts department, is "CAR DATA" - I've always asked for that to have every time someone in our family buys a new or used VW Group car, some dealer's parts department know where to access that from your reg, others play dumb and need to be giving a nudge! I could be wrong here, but I think that the minimum requirement for a car to have HillHold is to have an ESP compliant ABS controller, now I would have thought all modern VW Group car would have ESP and if so, why is Skoda being stupid and not enabling a system like that. Edit:- correction, why is Skoda not enabling a driver aid when everything built into the car is already in place - except ticking a box to allow it to operate.

Are you sure that it has not got the "light weight/cheap" version of HillHold - if you stop on an incline, and press, hold, then release the brake pedal, the car should be held on the brakes, all of them, for maybe 3,4 or 5 seconds, then release and the car will move down the incline. So, the plan is only to provide braking for the short time the driver needs to get their foot from the brake pedal to clutch pedal > down, then release, then off you move.

As I've probably said elsewhere, look out for 4 hardish plastic cover/bungs - as opposed to softish "rubber" covers/bungs, that is where I and some other people on various VW/Skoda/SEAT/Audi motoring forums have fitted Audi TT jacking point protectors - and locate a typical DIYer trolley jack under them locating the projecting protector in the cup/saddle of the DIYer trolley jack - then I locate axle stands fitted/adapted to suit, at the strong points using the correct areas of these strong points to take the weight of the car.

Fair enough - but that was a long time ago, I thought that you would have been back over and used it by now.

To find any HVAC fault codes, first you will need to use a VW Group compliant scan tool - ie a scan tool that can talk to all the controllers including the HVAC controller.

I took a gamble via ebay when buying from a dismantler - or from someone that said that they sourced their stuff from dismantlers, and it worked out okay, I think that they even included the source car's reg or VIN, but I didn't need to use that info. All very pain free to upgrade from nonDAB to DAB while keeping it "original" as DAB at the time my car was built, was an option.

When my wife's 2002 VW Polo 1.4 16V 75PS back box outer skin started to "open up", I just bought a pair of SS Jubilee type bands from Halfords, really just to keep the outer skin closed so that it (a) hurt/injure MOT testers and (b) never to be in the position that it started to have bits fall off. That worked and continued working beyond when we traded it at 13 years and 105K miles, and we never ever got any comments/advisories on MOT while these bands were in use/place. I did make sure that I cut the excess banding off and rolled the end back on itself to remove any sharp edges. Milltek is good, I should change all the clamping bands on my own car as at roughly 12 years on from new, the steel bolts are rotting - I respect that Milltek used large sized steel bolts in their exhaust clamps for best strength, it just pays to be aware that they will be the first thing to fail, but maybe most cars that end up with Milltek exhausts don't last beyond 10/12 years after being fitted with them. VW Group exhaust joining sleeves clamps tend to have a typical life of 8/9 years - just something else to look out for, or be aware of, I've got a new ready for use when needed on my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI!

If you can find a localish VW Group Indie, then they should have all the necessary kit and licences to sort that out, I've bought a used radio and checked it all worked before CP jumped in, and my local proper VW Group Indie sorted it out for maybe 20 or 30 minutes labour charge. Edit:- always remember that if it has been reported as being stolen, then a proper VW Group Indie will not be able to proceed - same as any VW Group main dealership workshop.

I’ve always thought that I’ve had that issue with my wife’s August 2015 VW Polo, I’ve tried opening the window and pressing the window sealing strip in, I think that that worked. For me it was just a shame as the car is overwise very quiet when driving.

In that situation so would I.

That price from "SEAT PARTS" for 5 litres of 50/50 premix is seriously cheaper than I paid over 2 years ago, I paid roughly £7.50 per litre bottle with, at that time, no option to buy 50/50 G12evo in 5 litre containers, somewhere was selling the more dilute 40/60 in 5 litre containers but for roughly £35.

I'm trying to find this information out for a May 2019 SEAT Arona 1.1TSI 115PS, it has Iridium plugs or so the VW Group copied parts listing claims. I'm just trying to get the service parts replaced when recommended by VW Group for this car/engine, I'll add in the air filter to that as well, it is my younger daughter and husband's first car and they know zip all about car servicing needs, so I'm just trying to be a useful father Okay nothing wrong with making our own minds up and sticking with 4 years at that sort of annual mileage - but it would be useful to know what VW Group recommend. My wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI, another EA211 engine, does not have Iridium plugs and the recommendation for it is 4 years XK miles for plugs and air filter, so this year is its second plugs and filter change. I get the feeling that you are considering that if a car has Iridium plugs, then the recommended change period is longer - that is my way of thinking and so why I'm trying to find this out as well. Edit:- what is your engine code?

Exactly, I had worked that out after reading that posting from the newish Karoq - before that I lived in ignorant bliss, maybe. I think that I still have a few spare repair "washers" for exhaust heat shields - I made up quite a few from food tins when I first needed to sort out that issue many years ago.

Yup, I've used it where a cheap scan tool could not find stored OBD2 codes on a Renault Clio and a SAAB but really most "interesting" engine related fault codes are "manufacturer specific".

My 2011 old S4 has alloy dust shields, even although I know the issues with aluminium alloy heat shields and steel retainers well, I had so far failed to consider that these aluminium alloy dust shields will suffer in the same way, ie dissimilar metals, hum, maybe I should check them when changing the winter/summer wheels over! That happening on a 2019 car with only 30K miles is a bit much to take, even up here where rock salt is regularly spread on the roads - though I think that councils roads department are now just getting rid of stocks of salt to create space for other things, plenty salt was laid down early Saturday morning it seems. Edit:- at least the identification marking have survived on that corroded dust shield!!

Being a bit risk averse, I was thinking "concerning"! Though maybe it was to make sure that VW USA workshops know that G12evo has not replaced all coolants, just coolant in internal combustion cars. It would be handy to know what exactly it meant though.

@EnterName, where did you get the sticky label denoting that G12evo 50/50 was in that cooling system? Ah, I think that you just cut a bit of the sticky labelling on the bottles, why didn't I think about doing that! (still I do have 4 bottles still in the garage, so I'll consider doing that)

Sorry for dragging this on even further, I sort of remember that the first car that we had that had a lanyard, a 2002 VW Polo, the material that the lanyard was made of was very supple and lasted the 13 years/105K miles we had that car. My daughter's 2009 SEAT Ibiza appeared new with a horrible stiffer plastic sort of lanyard, and when I ended up looking after it when she worked abroad, it came at maybe 5 years and 25ishK miles with that lanyard snapped/broken - that did not surprise me after seeing that nasty newer lanyard material when it was new! Now we have 2 newer cars and that daughter and her sister also have newer cars all VW Group - and so with this newer probably cheaper nasty looking lanyard material, for me, that is the main reason why I don't make the effort, when fuelling my wife's 2015 Polo, to make use of the cut outs on the cap - as the memory and its strength of the shaped lanyard, makes it clear that it would rather not be sitting on the fuelling flap - it would rather jump free and land on the paint work, so I save it the effort!

I remember seeing someone selling G12evo 40/60 in bulk, probably 5ltrs on ebay, and thinking that that was what I'd buy when replacing the coolant in my old 2011 S4 - then suddenly became aware that that car left the factory with a 50/50 coolant mix, and so I changed my plan to buying G12evo from my local VW Van Centre by the litre bottle in 50/50 form which was what was being sold - it would have been cheaper if I had just bought premixed 40/60, but at that time I could not find 40/60 pre mixed in the parts listing for VW marques, only 50/50 premixed - so I guessed that VW AG had initially put 40/60 into the market place then had a rethink and only supplied 50/50.

I was wrong in my last posting, my wife's 2015 VW Polo does have 4 cut outs on its fuel cap - as well as a lanyard.

So these car will have been filled with G13 coolant mix at the factory, it seems to be that someone worked out that at least for some engines, trickle feeding the G13 with extra Silicate is needed to retain the initial corrosion protection. Some years ago I bought a tin of "coolant test strips" these have 2 areas on them, one area for checking %age of coolant-water and the other area for checking the ph of the coolant, ie how it is degrading towards being acidic from initially being slightly alkaline - now these strips are now out with their recommended "use by" date, but as I have them I am continuing to use them, and what I discovered was, the old G12+ or G12++ tended to stay slightly alkaline over a period of 12 years, and the 2 cars that I check that have G13 in them, are moving towards being acidic, even the car that has a silicate pouch still in it - the other G13 car was not fitted with a silicate pouch at the factory. Okay that is only a sample of 3 cars, one with G12+/G12++, one with G13 and no silicate pouch and one with G13 and a silicate pouch. The car with the G12+/G12++ I changed to G12 evo maybe 2 years ago, the car with G13 and no pouch, I plan to change to G12evo as it is 8 years old and 40+K miles, the car with G13 and a silicate pouch - well I've suggested that the pouch might be better being removed and then change the coolant to G12evo, but its owner does not like spending money where it is not absolutely needing to be spent. I'm not sure if I'm pleased or not that I made the effort to buy in from USA these coolant test strips, but as I did buy them, I am using keeping on using them. Back in the "good old days" it was easy to work out when to replace coolant as the cambelts needing replacing frequently and on older engines, the smart money was on changing the cambelt driven water pump at every other cambelt change - and so the coolant was renewed.

I seem to remember that the 2002 VW Polo my wife used to have, did have the earlier style of fuel cap that maybe had the lanyard tightly fitted into a groove on the top of the cap, did have these cut outs in the cap that allowed you to park it on the open fuel flap. I'm sure that her 2015 VW Polo that has the later fuel cap with the free running hard plastic ring that the lanyard connects to, does not have any cut outs in the cap - progress, maybe. Edit:- I was wrong, that 2015 VW Polo does have the 4 cut outs in its fuel cap as well as the lanyard.

Fancy that, that is how things are with my 2011 Audi S4, so the clock has been changed back to maybe 2008 or 2009 when the B8 version of Audi A4 was launched - or maybe even before on some VW Group marques. VW Group seem to work or go round in circles sometimes, or maybe spirals.

@GerrycanGood plan, I'll try selling that idea to Laser Tools!