rum4mo

It could well be that that 1.4TDI engine does not have a cambelt that is expected to last for a very long time, the EA211 engine family of 1.0TSI, 1.2TSI and 1,4TSI do claim to have a cambelt that is not a service item in normal use, so you have been maybe been wise to stick with the 5 year XK,000 mile advice.

I sort of picked up that for the intended user, de-skilling this job was a priority, so I'd agree with @FabiaGonzales that that sort of charger would make life easy /safe enough.

I'm surprised that the front hub ball joint/swivel(s) had started to fail at such a relatively young car if so and along with wheels bearings failing in early life does not sound like that should be happening yet. Which engine does your car have? Edit:- ah sorry, no swivel failure only damaged during removal for wheel bearing replacement.

I bought a pack of 4 or 5 of these stick on ones over a year ago, they do surface now and again but so far I've not actually fitted any of them, I keep putting that job off until I've modified or reformed them using a heat source so that they can be pushed under the trim and still apply enough force on the screen to grip parking tickets, but maybe I've moved away from using parking tickets and paying online instead! Though a few places we park still work by physical ticketing, so maybe I'll get this sorted out!!

Auto Windscreens, hum, yes they can be tricky to deal with, they were my "go to" insurance repairer for my old VW Passat 4Motion to fill in a chip, my older daughter used them to fill in a chip on her old Ibiza, when I got them to repeat that repair as the original repair had started to become visible again after a few years and their paperwork for the first repair said it was covered for life - but when they were challenged their answer was "yes, but we have changed all our business management systems so we now have no record of that repair" - and I was showing them the original repair paperwork. As I said, can be a horrible area of a car to get worked on - unless you find a proper repairer that uses correct OEM parts - but in an emergency these "fast fit" companies can and do save the day. Pilkington probably don't sell direct to the public especially as far as the normal auto glass screens are concerned, so why would you expect to be able to contact them directly, I wouldn't.

I thought that these "Skoda only" ticket clips were fixed to the car's windscreen pillar steel section with a small self tapping screw, so maybe you will need to buy a new one remove the trim and swop them over, now and again I think about buying one of these clips for my cars, but I'd be trying to get away with forcing it in under the trim instead of risking damaging the trim piece. I'd hate having to have a windscreen replaced!

Oh you were very brave to get Farmers to do that work, I would have trusted that job to one of the local VW Group Indies, which would probably involve a bit more travelling, AVW for instance in the future, though there are a few other garages that like to work on Germanic cars.

Having worked my entire life in avionics companies, well only one but it passed through a few owners(!), I have amassed lots of bits/lengths of heat shrink of many types, but am always willing to buy and have ready to try if and when the time comes - maybe more on my mate's classic SAABs than our VW Group cars, so far I've ever had to alter new cabling to get the lengths right. Edit:- well maybe the odd brake pad wear cable needed sorting out!

The dome nut, at least on my wife's 2015 VW Polo is painted body colour, so I have removed some of the paint at 2 points and covered it with Vaseline to stop it rusting and hoping that that layer of Vaseline will "heal" after I remove the charger crock clip - though I have plans to retro fit a "service -VE" in place of that dome nut, only issue is, I think that the dome nut is an M6 or M8 and the "service -VE" post which is plated to stop corrosion is either M6 or M5 or M4 - nothing that can not be sorted out with suitable sized drill and tap!

I've never spotted that Halfords stuff before, I suppose that I could add that to my kits of bits for repairing car wiring! That could even have been a factory repair I suppose, commoning up earths does tend to get sloppy in VW Group world - okay until you add water/moisture.

Any update on this, was this a VW Group dealership or a VW Group Indie or general garage that you took it to, and what was the price to repair it?

That is shocking, that sort of way of joining wires just can not work for long where there is moisture around. Have you ever heard of "atom tubing" or some similar name to describe a heat shrinkable sleeve, it is loaded or at least its inner surface is coated with a sealer that flows when the sleeving is shrunk using a small heat gun, and that is good for sealing the copper conductor. Edit:- maybe even "adhesive lined" heat shrink tubing, like this sort of stuff:- DWA-4.8/1.6 Adhesive Lined Heat Shrink (hilltop-products.co.uk)

Not having a MK3 Fabia, but a same age VW Polo, the bonnet release handle arc of operation on most if not all newer cars tends to get blocked by the door when it is shut or not open enough - this will be a safety feature I'd think. It has been said that in most VW Group cars that have the bonnet release action blocked when the door is closed, that you can get brutal with the handle and it flex outwards and so be able to be opened with the door closed, just how lucky you need to be to do that and avoid wrecking the bonnet release handle I can't say, so maybe best avoided! So the other plan might be to just start the engine and reverse out of that garage, open the passenger door and then open the bonnet, I've never worked out why Skoda and SEAT locate the bonnet release on the LHS or maybe even just on the normal passenger side, while Audi and VW have that bonnet release on the RHS or maybe just driver's side. Just another thing, it is always a good plan to connect a smart charger +VE lead to the battery +VE terminal, and the -VE smart charger lead to either the chassis point beside the battery or the cylinder head area.

If I'm correct the mechanical water pump belt is toothed and hidden from view and if it breaks it would only cause the temperature to increase, also probably breakage would end up be due to an issue with the mechanical water pump, so both would end up getting replaced.

I'm a bit sceptical about that comment, if your MY16 2015 1.4TSI is the one listed against your Octavia in "your details", you say it is an CZDA which is one of the EA211 family, so I'd expect it to have the mechanical water pump in the same position as the EA211 1.2TSI engine, ie at the "rear" of the engine driven of the exhaust(?) camshaft by a small toothed belt. The "front" mounted auxiliary belt is indeed multi grooved but it only drives other things like alternator AC pump and maybe nothing else.

That is another 1.2TSI 16V engine, in a Rapid, having suffered this fuel leak caused by sheared bolt, when the owner talked to their Skoda dealer and Skoda UK, the answer was "a know fix - £600 to you!" they had just had that car in for its service at that Skoda dealer and questioned if it was a "known fix" why it was not checked on that car while it was in for this service or any of the previous ones - no more words were spoken. I've suggested any/all of the previous ways of trying to get this money back, if they bother to go down that route I can't say. Skoda you and only you built these engines - shame on you for not bothering to accept responsibility, bad things can happen even in modern factories, but how they are resolved is important.

Oh yes my mate frequently goes there for a walk around, he tenda to mutter something about Arabs though, I'm sure that you will know why, maybe it is Saudis in particular.

I'm just trying to clear away some other reasons, seeing as I had the same thoughts while driving through Ayrshire on Sunday - maybe that road surface "brought out" bearing issues, for me time will tell! Fair enough, round about my way then, no noises from that Polo over "this" side - yet!

Aye shocking, but not as bad as the dead end diversions round about the Kingston Bridge at 23:00 on Saturday night! Not Ayrshire type top surface then - or maybe?

What brand of tyres are on it and roughly where do you live, ie to gauge outside temperature?

What age and mileage is our car also which engine and transmission? Also you have not fitted directional winter tyres recently have you? Edit:- I had a bit of that on Saturday, but there again I was driving my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI fitted with Alpin winter tyres that are directional, the noise only started when I started driving in South Ayrshire and vanished when I got back into Strathclyde area!

That is the recirc flap motor V71, for a LHD car with auto AC is p/n 8Z1 819 453B, so yes repairing or replacing that part will stop the "toc toc toc" noises and hopefully improve the air movement and the temperature of the air coming into the cabin area.

Switching off injecting fuel has been standard practise for many years at least for electronic fuel injection as it is easy to design in, my 1991 VX Cav GSI had that as did my wife's 1994 Ford Fiesta with the 1.6 Zetec engine, certain parameters have to be met, engine temperature , engine running above a certain RPM for it to be enabled and disabled just before normal idle speed so as to avoid the engine stopping when the clutch is dipped. I think that cars with Bosch K Jetronic mechanical fuel injection also had that built in, if so that would move it back to round about 1984 in the case of my Ford Orion Ghia Injection, always easy to check when these cars had fuel computers which mine had.

That "toc toc toc" noise sounds a lot like a flap motor hunting, ie it can not move to what it's positional feedback signal is the correct position - in some cars that noise gets called "the grandfather clock" noise. From the position in the car that you are hearing this noise, I'd think that it will be the recirc'ng air flap motor which in my experience does also influence air flow through the heater box, though as wino suggests the air temperature flap valve is the one that is designed to control the temperature. Can you stop the "toc toc toc" noise by demanding "recirc" - or even change that noise slightly, so that you could dismiss that flap motor?

That was what I used to consider to be the safe one, but I was reading about someone thinking that either their website had become not too handy, or their options for newer models seemed to be vague, so they had headed off to autodoc and that worked out well.