rum4mo

Oh! So I wonder what the main dealerships are charging for this work, okay it will be viewable on their "menus". I had thought that that price would have been what they charged for the same job on the EA211 engines, wrong again!

Just out of interest, was that £583 Skoda dealership price or the VW Group Indie's price? Every time that I got the belts etc changed on a BBY or latterly a BXW engine, I was aiming to save suffering from idler and/or tensioner failure wrecking things, and changing the water pump at every other belt change - just to play safe for a car that was being used every day for commuting to/from work and leisure/shopping.

Yes, but probably a lot better than not having a coolant gauge - like SEAT seem to omit from lots of their cars at the lower end of the price range, that used to annoy me when I was looking after my daughter's 2009 Ibiza 1.4. I've always had a temperature gauge in my cars or vans, my Anglia van (ex Royal Mail), had one, my Escort MK1 van (ex S&N Breweries) didn't, so I needed to get the dash panel from a similar aged Escort MK1 1300 XL, wiring and sensor were already in that van, from then on always had a coolant temperature gauge! I've even got a "plug in" 12V DC voltmeter in the front power socket - to keep an eye "smart charging" ! Edit:- back on topic again, while the coolant temperature was slow to "get up" when the ambient temperature was anywhere between -7C and -2C, after the outside temperature rose up to just above 0C, the engine coolant heated up a lot quicker - surprise surprise - not! So even when driven moderately and mainly on the flat, at that slightly higher outside temperature, the coolant gauge quickly (<2 miles) got up to an indicated 90C without the cabin heater being on, switching the cabin heater on then had no visible impact on the coolant gauge temperature for the remainder of that 9 mile journey. I'm just posting this so that you can see that I have noticed a change in "warming up" times ie going by what the coolant temperature gauge is showing over a slight change in coldish outside temperatures - nothing more.

If it is the 1.2TSI 16V (belt driven camshaft), then you might just be witnessing that these petrol engines are a lot more energy efficient than previous models, and so this can mean, that on a shortish journey, the engine will not be providing enough waste heat to keep the cabin heater hot and also keep the engine coolant sitting at an indicated 90C when the outside temperature is way below 0C. If driving at normal "out of town" speeds for journeys longer than maybe 8 miles, then I would expect that everything would be okay, we were out in my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI, and normally I just suffer without the cabin heater on in winter - unless the glass mists up, until the coolant temperature gauge is up to 90C, this morning I chose to not do that so at the end of a 5 mile journey starting from -2C, the indicated coolant temperature never got up to 90C even although the first mile or so was uphill, I'm not worried about that as normally as I said I just let the engine warm up first before demanding a lot of heated air coming into the cabin. That is probably the price to pay when I have 110PS max output that moves the car along very well, and 50>60MPG. Edit:- of course maybe your findings are worse than I'm describing.

I've bought my engine oil from Cox Honda's ebay store as they were the cheapest for Mobil One, which I tend to use, I have not noticed them selling it or their ebay store this year, so I might buy from Uncle Arnies ebay store as they are currently the cheapest that I can find. I'm not trying to say "buy Mobil One", it just happens to be what I want to use. Quantum used to appear from online sources for less money than your local VW Group outlet sells it for. As I'm retired too, I tend to keep an eye of parts prices over the year and buy when I feel the price is okay for me, for oil filters I either buy VW Group ones if being sold at an okay price or Mann from ECP during one of their better "continuous discount" moments - though catching one of these moments takes a lot of luck! Same for air and pollen filters though I prefer Mann Frecious pollen filters. Edinburgh TPS will not deal with ordinary members of the public so TPS is outside my reach. Spark plugs I tend to get from one of maybe two online sellers that I have used in the past - or someone selling off NOS. Autodoc, I have used them once for front wheel bearing assemblies who were getting a couple of these from F-A-G to my doorstep cheaper tan any other source that I could find, and I was not in a hurry for them. On the topic of returning "wrongly supplied parts" to Autodoc, my mate seemed to have paid a small premium for Autodoc to select the correct clutch "set" for his 1972ish, or newer SAAB 96, they got it wrong, and quickly arranged for a courier to collect the parts for return to Germany and then sent out the correct parts - for at least for a single person, that worked out okay - and like me, he was not in hurry to get that car going again. Some of the names that appear on Autodoc and their prices, for me, do say "don't buy", but maybe that is just me! For parts that I know that need to be ordered in from VW Group warehouse down South, I've used CCP, but only for high value parts as delivery costs can consume a chunk of the savings. For parts that I need quickly, I tend to get them from Western VW at Newbridge as there is an older parts guy there that I've used from when that dealer was Sloans in Gorgie Road - and I used to work round the corner in Robertson Avenue, and he takes pity on me when the final bill is quite high, so chops the cost with a bit of discount. (my cars are SEAT,VW and Audi). Sometimes, for convenience, I'll save the extra mileage and buy from Central Garage Skoda at Sighthill, if I'm passing by there anyway, I've tended to avoid Western VW at Ford Kinaird as they don't seem to be very user friendly especially if you know what you need.

I bought the "bent" circlip pliers in good time, so far not been required, but there still is time! (2015 VW Polo).

These mirror switches on at least same/similar 6R/6C VW Polo, do feel quite nasty when rotating to the heater position, they, for me, have never filled me with confidence that they work and will remain working, but at 7.5 years and 42K miles, so far so good.

Yup, roughly midway through the previous year, the model year changes are made. Edit:- as much as anything else, it makes this (extra) service item frequency a bit easier for some people to come to grips with.

Ooooh! That will require a big of creativity - maybe a length of stiff wire with a curled up end that you smother in sticky tape? Maybe there is an easier way, I've not tried and hope never to find out.

Sounds like a good plan!

If or when you need any work done after the warranty has run out, AVW on Gilmerton Road always seem to get good reviews, they are a proper VW Group Indie and so have licences for access to VW Group resources etc. I use them for MOTs, and for removing CP (component protection) once, also got my older daughter to take her Ibiza there for a cam belt change, and probably her Leon Cupra for Haldex eDiff fluid change, they seem to be just capable and honest car problem fixers, who could ask for more.

Yes, we are a very "easy" market to sell into, mind you, I'd think that USA mainly only attack foreign producers/companies as part of their "free and open" market approach.

In this exact fault, there is a known time frame for engine build, so in USA and I think Canada, all possibly affected engines, ie cars, are recalled also any cars stocked as trade in are being checked over, the minimum effort is to replace all 4 bolts and torque them up correctly where there is no sign of bolt failure. So no real need to look out for or identify dodgy bolts - which probably don't exist, just wrongly torqued and then fracturing with time/injector pulsing ones.

One thing you could try, with the ignition key out of the switch, is to remove the pollen filter and push a couple of fingers up to make contact with the fan blades, then see if you can rotate them freely - okay if the motor bearings are a bit stiff then the fuse should blow eventually, but doing this would give you an idea if the motor seems okay, although the brushes could be worn. Really just something to try before the garages are back open again, save you being bored!

@Krissi, sorry to hear about this, good luck! Maybe startling to think that every driver must have a good sense of smell, maybe a new or upcoming condition for having a driving licence. Same for "this leakage will get picked up eventually at service time", I don't think DSVA is up to doing their job.

Unless time and water has killed that same lead at the inline socket<>plug on the underside of the engine/gearbox joining point, then yes I'd think that you will need to separate that glued up mess and work out why it is not acting as a good plug<>socket connection.

If it is a 2009 car used in Central Scotland, that is a very good/long life for the original front road springs, I've had 6 years out of a 2002 car and 7 or 8 years out of a 2009 car, my wife's 2015 VW Polo must be getting near wanting new front springs!

I just use the crock clips, or have done for many years.

This should really have been posted into the correct model specific section of this site to get the best visibility and so responses.

14" might not work, okay if the car has 256mm front discs, but not so handy if the car has 288mm front discs, I'd expect the lower powered 1.0TSI will have the smaller brake size and the higher powered 1.0TSI the bigger disc size. I just bought a used set of 4 15" VW Polo 6R alloys for my wife's 2015 6C VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS and put on a set of 185/60 X 15 winter tyres. The one error that I made was, I bought Michelin Alpins, great winter tyres, but they are lasting too long for the winter mileage we cover, next time I'd aim to buy a cheaper less well wearing set as long as the grip performance was just as good!

I'm not beyond buying bits via ebay, but for my cars, I tend to favour buying genuine VW Group NOS, well aiming/hoping that its genuine VW group or from one of their supplier brands.

Well, if I had that issue, and I didn't know which/what pads were currently fitted to that car, I'd be checking that as well as making sure everything was nice and cleaned up - before taking the next step.

Which brand of brake pads did you fit, as most suitable ones should have a tapered shim bonded to them to minimise that sort of thing happening?

I had that on a completely different VW Group car, a VW Passat 4Motion 2000, which like the earlier MK1 Superb were just some old Audi bits as far as the drive train was concerned, so being a pessimist, I thought "gearbox/diff" so handed it in after swopping wheels around, with a very heavy heart, the noise that car made, and started making quite quickly from being very quiet, was more of a wah wah like older army trucks with off road (mainly) tyres, luckily it was only a front wheel bearing so I got both sides replaced, noises gone, I never ever tried driving through that noise, I just used it as little as possible until I could get it "seen to", mileage at that time was probably near 75K miles/9years old. My wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, started making "bearing noises" when it was only over 6 years old and 30/35K miles, as I initially hoped it was uneven tyre wear, but when it came time to change from directional winter tyres to summer tyres the noise unfortunately did not go away! I did keep running it and yes, I could easily drive through that noisy band of road speed, it was just a hum that could easily be "got rid of" by turning the radio on and up a bit, I replaced both front bearing assembles and that sorted that out. Edit:- that can be the reality of running a 4WD car, always start with the worst possible source of the noise, I've only ever had, as my car, a 4WD car for the past 30 years and never yet had any "4WD" related issues.

Unfortunately, having a "fully overtightened" battery clamp, can also mean that the local dealership has in the past removed that lead!