rum4mo

I had that issue back in 2007ish, with a 2002 VW Polo 1.4 16V - a petrol engine, I took it to an exhaust specialist in Falkirk, Stainless Creations is the name, they messed up the first replacing of that flexi, but got it right second time when I supplied the exact correct flexi repair section, that repair was still "like new" when we moved that car on in 2015 at 105K miles. These what must be dealership prices will probably be correct - but I'd hope very few people end up getting them to sort it out, there will be must cheaper full exhaust replacement parts available as aftermarket parts. I think that the original repair to my wife's Polo was just under £100 which sounded very attractive when compared with my only option at that time for a replacement front section - which was VW Group dealership! Edit:- correct the name of the firm I used, and they still exist and have a website. Another Edit:- that was not Arnold Clarke that you used was it?

Typically nowadays, the easy way is to remove the headlight assembly, normally there will be just a few screws that need removing and the headlight is then forced/pushed forward out of its mounting in its carrier, and then out, refitting it into the same position should be possible but that might not mean that the head/dip bulb position is back in its original position due to slight differences in bulb assembly, so I'm guessing that Skoda will advise that this is always a workshop task - but that does not seem to tie in with "all cars mandated light bulbs must be able to be replaced at the roadside". My wife has a 2015 VW Polo and I have removed both headlights and checked how to replace any bulbs in its headlight assembly even although the main/dip and DRL are LED.

@nta16, maybe VW Group revised the air filter service period since I replaced the air filter on that 2015 VW Polo, and your wife's car's year 4 service, but as @AGFalco said "air filter off to replace plugs" it does make sense just to change it then especially to a DIYer, for a main dealer they should be quite happy to add in some more labour time and ££s to replace it at a later service. I "bumped into" a genuine VW Group air filter being sold at an extremely good price on ebay recently, so ended up buying it a bit early - looks like the genuine thing!

Well that SEAT Leon 1.4TSI owner got the "we can't repair that" from the garage that the AA dropped it off at, so the nearest SEAT workshop collected it and discovered that it was "bolt 4" that had come loose and lost its head and was causing fuel to leak from injector 4 - that is the bolt nearest the HP pump, so that makes a change from the usual bolt. Parts price quote was £90.38 and 2 hours labour to strip down. That owner is reporting this as a safety defect on the GOV website - which ever one that is.

I'm sure, or thought the air filter change point was also 4 years for that engine in a 2015 VW Polo - as I replaced that along with the spark plugs at the year 4 service.

There was another one yesterday, a 2017 SEAT Leon 1.4TSI, AA could only move the car once and so to the local non VW Group workshop, that car is obviously out of warranty but has full SEAT dealership service history from the local but 15 miles away dealership. Probably due to annoyance etc, that person walked into his SEAT dealership today to have a chat with the sales team, "we have never heard about this happening before". I suggested that he saved time and further annoyance and let that non VW Group workshop complete this repair so that he can get back to using it to get to work. Not good, he is going to chat to his local service department - just because, why not, spread your pain! Edit:- on another VW forum, the guy that runs it is a tech in a VW Group Indie workshop, and they have not heard or seen any EA211 engined cars coming in with this issue, so it seems most owners take the only action they can to get mobile again and that is to get their car to their nearest workshop after the fuel rail bolt has snapped - and it sounds like 9.5+ times out of 10 that means a non VW Group workshop.

Another 1.2TSI engine with this issue, a December 2016 reg'd Fabia with the 110PS version of this engine, recovery service conditions meant that it could only be taken to a local non VAG workshop, cost for repair and parts £390, that owner intends to try to get some redress for costs from Skoda as that car has had all its servicing at a Skoda workshop, but feedback suggest that VW Group are not interested in this sort of thing.

Yes, the immobiliser is built into the "pod". Recoding is needed to enable the CC as long as the correct wiring exists, in other words probably a small bit of rewiring then re-coding is needed, there will be "how to do it" threads are on some VW Group forums.

The felt stuff is just thermal insulation - in case you are wondering how to remove that plastic "lump", I seem to remember that it gets clamped down over the top of the battery, so to remove it, after removing the earth terminal and slackening off the +VE post clamp, feed a largish screwdriver down through the hole in each of these clamps, maybe 3 in total, press down at that point to relieve the tension on the clamp and pull the screwdriver handle towards the centre of the battery - doing that should force that clamp out and so free, repeat for the other 1 or 2. Edit:- the top section with the wires hinges back first it also has a small clip(s).

I'd think that if this annoyed you enough, you could order in a matching lock barrel for the RHS front door then remove the existing cover, cut a slot on its lower surface so that it could be "flicked" off with a key blade, then remove the dummy lock barrel - or lock blank, which ever you want to call it, and fit the new matching key lock lock barrel in its place, I think that there is probably a small pin and washer that needs removed as well before fitting the barrel in, just remember not to completely remove the barrel securing screw from the door rear face area as it will probably drop down inside the door before it unscrews out beyond the "flush" point in the outer door skin - when that happens the easy way round it is said to be to buy a new screw. Years ago I bought 3 lock barrel blanks and new covers so that I could remove BOTH from my 2000 VW Passat 4Motion and the driver's side one from my wife's 2002 VW Polo - but never got round to doing that "upgrade" - I think that was a smarter move than going with the flow and removing all side door lock barrels, though in 13 years neither car ever suffered from remote central locking failure or car battery failure.

I even bought a tool made by Laser Tools to "yank" rear light clusters off VW Group (and other) cars, the similar aged VW Polo has a horrible special big screw that holds the rear clusters in - not as easy to remove as the plastic wing nuts on previous version of Polo, plus access through the hatch in the trim fabric is not good even for people with small hands. For previous models of some of these VW Group cars you could buy a replacement gasket for the bulb mounting section, SEAT seem to use Valeo to make their rear clusters and when you add in some "classy" shapes, the end result does tend to require an application of clear sealant where the plastic parts are meant to have been heat welded in production.

In any VAG cars that I have had with that button, I've always assumed that its sole purpose was to lock/unlock the doors from you sitting in the driver's seat, and to only operate the first stage of door locking and so leaving them NOT deadlocked. That button, so me has become more useful now that cars are being sent out with "anti carjacking" enabled, ie global locking when moving away and staying locked until individual doors get unlocked by opening them from the inside - something that you would not be able to do if they were deadlocked - as well as the motion sensor triggering the alarm on cars fitted with a car alarm. Maybe something that you don't know able yet is that you can lock any door that does not have a key lock by removing the soft rubber bung from the rear facing door surface and flicking the manual locking that hides under that soft rubber bung - then closing that door, though that is meant as a back up for if the central locking system fails or the battery has failed or has been removed.

I just never worked out why VX never tried to keep or lure Ford buyers in, from far too long the marketing side of VX has been its worst enemy. Ford lost me when it repeatedly, or its sales people repeatedly informed me that "5 speed gearboxes were just a fashion fad" followed maybe a year later by informing me "multi valve petrol engines will never take off", then tried to get me into a rear wheel drive car (Sierra) as that was what proper drivers liked, and no chance that any cars would be 4X4 "very soon", so in late 1991 I accidentally walked past a VX showroom who had just taken in a 6 month old Cav GSI 2000 16V 4X4 which had a 5 speed gear box - so ticked all my boxes, and so I left Ford for ever!

I think that you wrote that "the wrong side round" - the big issue was needing to unlock the only door with a lock barrel and then squeeze across into the driver's seat and get the key into the ignition. I'm just commenting on that so that if you correct that it will make more sense to future readers, that is all. One other thing about this "change from what went before" I was always of the opinion that with any car from any marque that came with remote central locking, if the remote fob failed, you would get global unlocking and locking from using the single key barrel door lock available, and if the central locking system failed - or the car battery failed, that single key barrel would always unlock that door mechanically/directly. Maybe I've always been wrong about the global unlocking/locking though - I should check both our cars wrt that! Also, from another poster, I've never just taken any pictures to be a true reflection of all cars, I even think that VAG handbooks at least used to make it clear that pictures will only be correct for LHD cars and the usual comment about "not all cars will have all features shown".

@xman, are you saying that in your Superb MK3, that the bonnet release is NOT blocked when the doors are closed? That is strange, my old 2011 Audi S4 has its bonnet release blocked when the (driver's) door is closed and so does my wife's 2015 VW Polo, though I will openly admit that initially I thought that there was an issue with that S4's bonnet release as sometimes it worked with very little effort and sometimes it was "solid" - obviously my error coming from a 2000 VW Passat 4Motion, the times the S4 bonnet release was "solid" would be when the driver's door was still closed!!

I am not and never have been a VX fanboy, but that VX Cav GSI 2000 16V 4X4 was a very good car, I had it for over 8 years and the factory order VW Passat 2.8V6 4Motion that I replaced it with was less than half the car that GSI 4X4 was, my 2011 Audi S4 is probably better than that Cav GSI 4X4 was, and I should hope so too as it is 20 years newer! I used to have to drive a similar aged VX Cav 1.6 as a pool car at work, and it was a complete dog in every way, no power steering and "not nice" brakes.

I'd think that comment you made does answer my question as it would be very strange for a VAG car to have a lock cover fitted that did not have a cut out for removing it, if there was a proper barrel under there.

I worked from first principles, ie I looked and worked out what the inner to outer height difference was, what the width of the slot needed to be as initially I ended up ripping some of the stone guard paint off the Polo sill when I first used the S4 version of my adaptors - there was a profile that made the sill wider somewhere along the length I was using as extended sill protection. The jacking point protectors from the Golf R of a similar model to at least the 2019 Leon, for the rearward ones just pushed into a hole in the body very much in the same way the Audi TT ones fitted the Polo and so Fabia, the frontward one needs a section of the under cover removed, the frontward Golf R insert fitted into the body, then a modified cover, ie from the Golf R fitted in place of the original Leon one, so I'd think the same for Octavia if you felt the need to do that. All these VAG cars have the underside fairly well covered in plastic cover - I think that the first time I used my wide and long adaptors on my S4 that the edge of the plastic covers made a bit of noise, but no permanent damage occurred, same for Leon Cupra - maybe a "balancing act" ie offering a bit more protection to the structural metal parts and causing slight cosmetic damage to the plastic under covers, it depends on which bothers you most I suppose.

Sounds like the crank case is being pressurised and that extra pressure has just found a weak spot. Now to find the root cause of that maybe.

Yes new cars can have a few assembly line or parts manufacturing errors that take some time to show up! My bought new 1988 Ford Orion Ghia 1.6 Injection, had to drive over a bit of rough road on the way to visit my wife in maternity hospital just after our second daughter was born, car cut out, I called for RAC help but they were not interested in an under warranty car, so sent out a contractor with a low loader who gave me the option, dealer or home, I chose "home" and found that the LT feed to the coil was sort of faulty, the moulding of the insulated push-on connector had covered up most of the ring contact inside it - I had washed that car that day and moved that lead as it was wedged in at an awkward angle - I had discovered then why! I cleared off the plastic that was masking most of the contact area, gave that push-on terminal a good "squeeze" with a pair of pliers and "sorted" in time for the hospital next visiting time! A few months later, when the weather got colder, I discovered that the demisters did not work, checked under the dashboard and found 2 pipes waiting to get "plugged in". My wife's 1989 Ford Fiesta 1.1 Ghia, hear a rattle in the back when it was only a year old (no warranty as it was an ex Channel Isles hire car bought by us at 9 months old and 1350 miles), found an extra threaded plate for the rear door lock assembly, removed it, started making same noise a few weeks later, same thing - eventually removed 4 or 5 extra threaded plates), still have them in the garage I think. My 1991 VX Cav GSI 2000 16V 4X4, similar cold weather issue with it, but this time it was "rear window heater not working", I removed the side trim cover and found a pair of leads still taped back out of the way, fitted them, rear window heater working okay for the next 9 years for me. My wife's 1992 Ford Fiesta 1.6Si, we had it over 4 years before there was a rattle and then something fell down between my legs, after we stopped I found what looked like a bolt for securing the steering/ignition lock assembly, ie it had a waisted neck on it but where it should shear while being torqued up, it had not - after getting back home refitted that one and found the other one was also very slack. Totqued both back up shearing the heads off as intended. (a security design thing)

I suppose with Skoda and SEAT having the bonnet release on the LHS of at least RHD cars, it does make a bit of sense to have a single key lock on that side, though why both can't be on the RHS of RHD drives like VW and Audi have beats me. Also, do some Fabias really have a concealed key lock on the RHS of RHD cars, why would they bother fitting a concealing cover on the RHS of a RHD car, I would have thought that there will just be the normal "dummy barrel" cast bit under any "covered" area of a door handle. I bought a concealing cover for the driver's door lock on my 2011 S4 but so far, after having the spray paint etc for 4 years, I seemed to missed painting the new cover in the warm weather or even cutting a slot in it so that it could be removed using a key blade if needed to.

Warning about ignition especially barrel wear reminds me about 1970/80's Ford Fiestas, Ford only ever, I think, at that time supplied a "lock kit" which was essentially a set of general parts and a set of 4 of each of the 4 disc versions that made up a lock. So the plan was to check either the lock number or as a DIYer carefully take the old barrel apart and note the number of each of the old discs and assembly the new barrel using the same "code" - I've done that a couple of times, though it was still a bit tricky if you had the space of 4 or 5 years between reasons to need to do that. At least with Ford and their Chubb locks, it was normally the softer keys that failed/wore out first, so when I got the call "dad, I can't get the key to work in the ignition!" I knew to look out the "red" master key which any smart owner never used normally as a convenient 3rd key, and it in its pristine state worked in that slightly worn ignition barrel, so we got the car back home and I bought a new lock kit so back to all keys working again!

Remember I was initially aiming to be able to lift my car and safely support it at these points while I worked underneath it, so my plan was for more than just lifting and working from the side of the car then dropping it back down again. If you only want to lift the Fabia on a strong enough point or 2 and work at the side of it, you can buy a set of 4 MK1 Audi TT "jacking point protectors" from Audi etc and fit them and then you just stuff your trolley jack under each of the 4 points and lift the car, when I'm being lazy/dangerous I just do that with the 2015 Polo, but I'd never ever work under the car while supporting it only on a couple of trolley jacks - but doing that makes swopping winter/summer wheels/tyres over very quick and easy. For more serious work, if not having the car up on 4 solid wooden ramps, I'd use the 4 Jackpoint jack stands. Edit:- I believe there are roughly similar jacking point "bits" you can buy to fit to Octavia - well at least they exist for Golf R and some people fit them to Leons so that they can feel happier about stuffing trolley jacks under them.

Well, my lifting kit is slightly more than a couple of trolley jacks, I needed to buy something that would allow me to lift originally only my car as it is covered in stiff plastic sections underneath, so jacking at another few points, maybe 4 points around the car was not an option, so I knew the easy way out was to jack at the 4 sill lifting points, using 2 trolley jacks and lifting up one side at a time and placing jack stands under 2 points at a time! I bought 2 pairs of Jackpoint jack stands, they are made up of a top plate - that I place on to the lifting pad of a trolley jack, and a sort of stool part that the top plate locates into, freeing up the trolley jacks to repeat the same on the other side. They give about an extra 14" under the sills so all the wheels end up clear of the ground/floor. The top plates have a roughly 4" raised section that has a 1/2" slot in it that is roughly 3/4" deep - so if I had just used them "as is" I'd be back to lifting essentially from the base of the folded lips, so to maximise the lift height when using them and to spread the load out along more of the lifting areas, I cut 4 pieces of 4" X 2" roughly 7" long, cut out a hole to clear the raised part of these alloy top plates, and bonded them to each of the 4 top plates, and then stuck and screwed bits of maybe 1/4" rubber on top of each side of the slot and lined the slots with thinner rubber. This worked for my 2011 S4 as both the inner and outer load bearing areas are the same "height" and there is plenty space "outside" this area so nothing else is touching the car's body. When it came to using this on my wife's 2015 Polo, I found that as it "sits" a lot higher than the S4, I needed to fabricate an adaptor to find some more height, and also the issue with the outer and inner low bearing surfaces being a different height, so again I used something like 4" X 1" with strips of a suitable height and width for the areas where the adaptors connect with the car, and again added similar rubber to the top surface areas. To keep these top adaptors stable enough on top of the adapted top plates I secured strips of steel on each of the inner and outer faces. This works quite well only as long as I make sure that the trolley jacks are in the best end position so that the adaptors all end up fully seated one on top of the other and in full contact with the car body sill areas once both sides have been jacked up. You will hopefully have less of a problem making them safe as you will get away with using only one adaptor as the lifting span of trolley jacks will take care of any differences between the ride height of Fabia and Octavia. Only one thing and that will be to end up with adaptors that fit both cars wrt the top profile, I don't think that the 2015 Polo ones quite match the underside of my daughter's 2019 Leon Cupra, but given time I'm sure that her man will come up with his own version of lifting gear as he has an old Lotus Esprit GT that needs lifting up and I don't think I'm willing to allow him to use my Jackpoint jack stands so that that car can spend 9 months a year up in the year, borrowing these jack stands for a weekend okay but not for 9 months! Edit:- I just wish that someone in UK or Europe had come up with a cheap and tough system for lifting and supporting at the sill lifting points and I would not have needed to scatter lots of cash!

I've always made sure that I've fabricated trolley jack adaptors so that the car's weight ends up on both these flat sections and never on the folded edge, it just makes good sense to me, and yes frequently the front and rear load baring areas are at slightly differing heights. Others might disagree with us but that is okay.