Phutters

Yes.

Don't know this for certain because I have a Karoq, but there's a setting in Carista that allows you to have the rear lights on as DRLs. I'd be surprised if you couldn't do this on a later model Superb too - the Carista website gives you a pretty good indication of what it'll do for specific models without having to cough for one and then send it back because it didn't do what you wanted. This is a separate setting to 'Scandinavian DRLs'. If you opt for that, the rear number plate lights are on as well. I've enabled the rears as DRLs on my car, not the Scandinavian version, and set the [adjustable] brightness at 75%. As others have said, I can see no logic in not having the rears as DRLs as well as the fronts. As far as I'm aware, my car has an arse end as well as a nose end.

In situ. The lesser of two evils, I reckon. It was a bit of a faff masking it off, and since I haven't got a garage I had to wait for a nice calm day. I've never used FullDip before - well, not on a car, anyway - but I was pretty chuffed with the results. No regrets at all. Good luck.

Do you want me to lend you a duster?

I'm glad our car doesn't have this. I don't feel as if I've missed out on anything at all. Judging by most of the posts - and not just on this thread - maybe it should be called Predictive Adaptive Uncooperative Inattentive Contradictive and Obstructive Cruise Control. I spose I'm just an old fart who'd rather do the driving himself.

A bit more frivolous tiddling. I reckon that's it. For now. Got rid of the piano black B and C pillars with overlays from EZM. Good, sturdy stuff, and very accurately cut. Highly recommended. They're sold to fit an Ateca, but Ateca doors are identical to those on a Karoq. The finish is identical to the roof rails, so it all ties together. No more inadvertent scratches and no more fingerprints. The last remaining bit of chrome (with the exception of the wheel centre cap detail) has gone too - the pretend exhaust trim has had several coats of matte black FullDip, and I think it looks much better for it. FullDip is the same stuff as PlastiDip, and the only reason for not using PlastiDip was to see what the other stuff was like. And the Turanza AllSeason 6s have gone to the great recycling skip in the sky. It's a long story. These are Goodyear Eagle Asymmetric 5s. If it gets really cold or snows I'll stay at home, light the woodburner and spend the time canoodling with Mrs Phutters instead.

We’re within a whisker of catastrophic overthought. Do what you think is best to stop it all falling off 👍

13mm. Put one of the studs in your pocket when you go out for some, and ideally get nylocks. Put a washer each side of the supplied bracket because the holes are oversize.

For what it's worth, I reckon that's a more satisfactory way to fit them. Apart from anything else, I wouldn't trust that geezer in the video - nobody with any kind of mechanical aptitude has thumbnails that long and can't get a nut on a bolt. Did you swap the ball-ended stud round so that the bonnet end of the strut sits on the outside face of the bracket rather than the inside face as well? It looks as if it might line up better that way.

Excellent. I forgot to mention that you got two. It just looks so much neater than the standard shiny effort, and, as you say, no more greasy fingerprints. Mrs Phutters has got a FIAT 500 clown car which has a semi-matt screen on the infotainment thing and it was that which set me off trying to find one for the Karoq. Dunno why they aren't all like this.

The Racingline TCU remap is what they call a 'dynamic' remap. The details are here. Tyres are Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6s. They are 245/40 19s. It's the alternative size for this car. The ones it came with were 225/45 Bridgestone Duelers. The wider section ones it has now do give the rims quite a bit more protection. I'm not convinced I'm making any real sacrifice in ride comfort with them on. It isn't a cushy ride for sure, but I wasn't expecting it to be.

In my particular case the ECU remap bumped the premium by round about five or six percent. It’s difficult to be more specific because there were other factors involved. The TCU remap didn’t affect it. As far as my fuel consumption goes, the difference is minimal. My semi-educated guess would be if you tootled round like my aunt Wendy you’d likely see a modest increase in mpg because the extra torque gives the engine a somewhat easier time, but there are an awful lot of variables. If I said I tootled round like my aunt Wendy I wouldn’t be telling the truth, and having spent a not inconsiderable amount of money on jammy dodgers I’ve no intention of leaving them in the biscuit tin. It’s not terribly helpful, really. Sorry 🙁

I do. Here you go.

In December 2020 we got this: Well, mostly. It didn't look exactly like that. It's had a few minor changes, and a couple of bigger ones. The minor ones are really just to make it a bit different; some are practical improvements and some are nothing more than trivial exercises in vanity. In terms of the way the car has treated us over the past forty eight and a half months it's done its best to be reliable, and bar a couple of very minor glitches (mostly infotainment-related, needless to say), it's succeeded. The first three and a half months of this relationship didn't go quite as well as we both had hoped. The car spent most of that time languishing round the back of the dealership with its discs slowly going rusty while it waited for a new rear diff. The original one made an interesting selection of unpleasant and unexpected noises on the way home from collecting it brand-spankers, and after a bit of a hoo-ha it turned out that the differential had quite a lot of swarf in it. And it sat there for weeks and weeks. I don't know, but I guess Covid had some bearing on all this. What did become clear was that there isn't a warehouse somewhere in an unremarkable town in the middle of Europe full of rear differentials just waiting to be picked off the shelves by a forklift driver wearing a woolly hat and a hi-viz jacket. The dealership were really good throughout. They lent us another Karoq for the duration, and did the best they could to get a new unit. There just weren't any lying around. Skoda UK were good too. I got regular progress reports from them, and they couldn't have been more polite and helpful. I don't know if the email expressing a modicum of disappointment that I sent to the Big Cheese had any bearing on this, but at no point did I get even the faintest whiff that I was being kept at arms length. Anyway, after weeks and weeks (and weeks) of the car not moving at all, it finally moved into the workshop in the February. I know this because I checked its location on the MySkoda app. Sporadically to begin with, but after a while I'm ashamed to say I became unhealthily obsessed with looking to see if it had actually moved. It's sad. Kinda pathetic. I called the dealership for a sitrep. They said they'd fitted the new diff, but a diagnostic showed that the steering wheel's touch sensor had gone west and they couldn't give it back to me with a defective steering wheel. Turns out there isn't a warehouse somewhere in an unremarkable town in the middle of Europe full of replacement steering wheels either. A couple of weeks later, we got it back. New diff, new steering wheel. All washed and ready to go. Because it took such a long time to fix, the possibility of getting a replacement car was briefly mentioned (not by me, I hasten to add), but the snag was there weren't any others in the country with the same specification. And it's not as if we were reduced to using Shanks's pony for months either because of the car they lent us. I don't really subscribe to the notion that one dud component - even a big one like this - makes the car a lemon, so we stuck with it. And I'm chuffed that I did. It's comfortable and quiet and because it's moderately pokey it's quite good fun to drive. You can't really hoon it round country lanes because the centre of gravity is higher than a regular car, but I guess that's what you'd expect. I can't be faffed with brim-to-brim fuel consumption figures entered assiduously on an Excel spreadsheet, so I rely on the app to give me a reasonable approximation of how may miles to the gallon it gets. Over the past four years it's returned about 34mpg. I'm okay with that. I didn't buy it for its economy. I love the seats. They are by far the most comfortable seats of any car we've had. No backache, no sore arse and no sore legs. In terms of build quality - particularly inside - I was a bit spoiled by the Audi A3 8V 2.0TFSI that this car replaced. The inside of that was just lovely. Having said that, nothing has fallen off this car, and there are no rattles. Not a one. It does everything I hoped it would before we bought it. Well, nearly. I've replaced the discs with drilled Brembos all round, along with their Xtra Line pads. This was partly because the original discs did suffer from the car sitting unused for yonks through no fault of its own, and partly because I'd always fancied trying drilled discs to see if they were really style over substance, 'cos they do look spiffy. Verdict is that they do bite a lot harder than the cheddar cheese ones that the car came with. A lot harder. And I got it remapped. Racingline OEM+ stage 1. It's gone from 187bhp to 230, but much more noticeably the torque has gone from 320Nm to 405Nm. And that does make a difference. It pulls really well. Last year I got the transmission control unit remapped as well, again Racingline OEM+. That makes a big difference too. Whereas before the gearbox did its damnedest to get into seventh in as short a time as possible, it doesn't do that any more. It picks its gears in a way which is much more like the way you'd do it yourself if you were driving a manual. And it's much smoother. Even when giving it some beans, you only really know it's doing its thing by watching the rev counter dip. Neither remap was cheap, for sure. Were they worth it? For me, absolutely. No regrets at all. Both remaps were done by the supplying dealer. They just happen to be Racingline dealers too, so it was sort of 'in-house'. There are one or two little things I've done to it which aren't as significant as those, but I think it's better for them. It's all massively subjective, of course. I thought the rear lights (the indicator and reversing light bit) looked a bit naff, so I put a grey Oracal tint on those bits of the lenses as well as swapping the wheezy and slow indicator bulbs for LEDs which snap on and off much more satisfactorily. Didn't do it for extra brightness, just so that they didn't look so last century. The wing mirror repeaters are now Kopacek sweepers, just because I think they look nicer, and the mirror caps are satin silver rather than the standard black ones. Nose badge is a Kopacek black and body colour job instead of the chrome and black original. The wing mounted Sport badges are no more because I thought they looked like things you win at a fairground by shooting tin ducks with a bent air rifle. The boot LED was utterly weedy so got replaced by a brighter pcb with 3 LEDs instead of one, though not the kind that Kopacek supply which you could play five-a-side under and costs a fortune. The door pockets were lined with a kit that someone else (Irfant, if I remember right) had used, and I put an anti-glare matte screen protector on the infotainment screen because it was horrible and shiny and constantly covered in greasy fingerprints. You just can't see them any more. I wish I could do the same with that awful piano black nonsense around the gear shifter and the aircon controls. Piano black is pants. It looks rubbish to begin with, never mind when it's covered in scratches two weeks later. That's it, really. Would I have another one? Not at the moment. This one is the mutt's nuts.

Dunno, old fruit. It’s been a lot more than ninety quid on those Skoda maintenance chart things that Mr Ooto has been posting for ages. A lot more. And that might not have included the filter either. If I could get mine done at a main dealer for ninety quid, I’d make sure I never forgot to send them a Christmas card.

I’m in almost exactly the same situation as the OP, though in my case it’s a Karoq 2.0TSI. DQ381. I’ve been pricing this up with a view to getting it done sooner rather than later. Oil and filter change at a dealership is going to be somewhere north of three hundred. The three quotes I had were all within a couple of quid of £330. Quotes from independents (none of whom needed to be asked if they would change the filter) ranged from £280 to £370 . For what it’s worth, those are not London or Home Counties prices.

Thanks Chris. Your car has bells and whistles that my pauper’s version doesn’t have, the consequence of which is that I haven’t had any dash warnings of impending disaster, fortunately. i just get this recurring when it’s scanned, and as I mentioned earlier, I’m pretty sure it means a new wheel:

Thanks Rory With hindsight the picture I’ve painted is one of a glass half empty rather than one half full. I’m not expecting to have to pay for the diagnostic because I am expecting the wheel to be replaced (assuming that is the likely fix) under the warranty. It was more a case of asking the question on the off-chance that somebody here had been in a similar situation. In answer to your other question, I did buy the car from this dealership, and that’s one reason for being more optimistic than the tone of the original post might have implied. They’ve done everything you’ve every right to expect of a dealership from day one, despite the car spending days four to eighty-six waiting for a very large and very complicated sub-assembly to be replaced after it made some horrible noises and broke. It wasn’t their fault that the new part took nearly three months to arrive, or that the first steering wheel sensor failure happened just after they’d put it all back together and were about to run it back to our place. Good blokes. Got Amazon to deliver the parts manager the biggest box of Maltesers you can buy as a thank you.

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. I’m not peterziherl, though I’m sure he’s a lovely bloke.

Hopefully I've put this in the right place. While it relates to a Karoq in this particular case, the affected part is fitted to other cars as well. The Karoq in question is a 2021 model year 2.0TSI Sportline. For the second time, the steering wheel touch recognition sensor has gone on the fritz. First time, in February 2021, the car was only three months old and was having a nice long kip in the yard round the back of the dealership while it waited for delivery of a replacement rear diff, so was right at the beginning of the original warranty. A couple of weeks ago Carista picked up another sensor failure (B17B8F2, for what it's worth), and as you'd expect the fault won't clear and reoccurs each time the car is scanned. As far as I'm aware fixing this will require another replacement steering wheel. The car has Skoda's extended warranty until November this year, so while there is no screaming hurry it obviously makes sense to get it fixed before this extended warranty runs out. Provided that the warranty covers it. Now I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't, but then I don't sit in front of a computer screen somewhere with my cursor hovering over the Y or N box. So the actual question - finally - is: Has anybody else on here had a replacement steering wheel fitted under the official All-In-One extended warranty? The dealership says that they will have to do a proper diagnostic to confirm the fault. I understand how that works, and the reason for it. It's still a little vexatious that they will charge an hour's labour for this diagnostic when it takes thirty seconds - tops - for Carista to do the same thing, but hey ho. If they approve a replacement under the warranty I won't have to cough for this, obvs, but they can't (and I wouldn't expect them to) say for certain that it would be approved before submitting a claim. They aren't being truculent - it's just the way it is. While I can live with the touch sensor gubbins not working because it seems sensible to hold on to the steering wheel while I'm driving, it would be nice to get it fixed for nowt if I can. Sorry for the ramble. I expect most of you haven't got anything better to do at the moment either. .

WHT 00 06 69 Heard music from down the street. Sorry if I’m a bit late to the party.

Absolutely. I'd thought about writing something but decided not to because it wasn't quite as polite as what you put.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the feel of my car has been utterly transformed by its aluminium pedals. Utterly. So much so that it'd be the very first thing I'd buttonhole any future salesman about.

A knee-trembler. I remember them. Sigh…

This might be of use to anyone thinking about changing their moderately hopeless Dueler HP Sports to something better. It goes without saying that the decision to fit all-seasons instead of the standard tyres - what to get, mainly - involved many, many hours of careful research, most of which was undertaken while sitting on the can. Comfortable, to a point, and no distractions. "What are you doing in there?" "Looking at car parts. Just looking at car parts." First thing was whether or not I should go from the stock 225/45 19s to the other 'Skoda approved' size for this car; 245/40 19s. Benefits were mainly getting more rim protection as you can see on the pics, and a greater range of offerings than the measly choice of 225 alternatives, as well as the fact that on average the bigger section tyres were cheaper. Potential downside was that most of the bigger ones were extra load 98s rather than the Dueler's 92 and the consequent implications for ride quality. Not that the Duelers were particularly noteworthy in this regard anyway, though they were somewhat better than the skinny 225/40s fitted to smaller-engined Karoqs with 19" wheels. I didn't want to change wheels. I like these Sportline wheels. Yes, they are vulnerable to kerbing damage, and their size means having low-profile tyres, but I can live with that. I bought the car because I liked the way it looked, wheels and all. If I'd bought something for purely practical reasons I wouldn't have bought this car at all. My heart ruled my head. Slave to fashion? Sure am. The Turanza All Seasons I did choose in the end are in the bigger (alternative) size for this car. Thoughts after a thirteen or fourteen hundred miles are as follows: The ride is a tiny bit firmer, but it's barely noticeable. Honest. Part of the dead-legs late night research involved what pressures to use in the bigger-section tyres, the result of which is dropping the pressures by no more than a couple of psi all round, and that probably helps. They aren't any noisier than the stock Duelers except on one short oddly-surfaced stretch of the M42 near Solihull, but since I don't go on the oddly-surfaced stretch of the M42 near Solihull very often it doesn't matter. The wet-weather braking is better than the Duelers, and the dry-weather braking at least as good. I'd had a set of Vredestein Quatrac Pros (225/45 17) on an A3 2.0TFSI before this Karoq, and there was a noticeable drop-off in dry braking on that car with them fitted so I had a yardstick of sorts with which to measure these Turanzas, and they are much, much better. It hasn't snowed (well, it did the other day but I couldn't be arsed to get the car out just to see how they were) so I can't say how they are in properly crap winter weather. Other than that I have no regrets about having spent a not inconsiderable amount of money on four new tyres when there was quite a lot of life left in the Duelers. I was lucky that National Tyres had a special on these Turanzas at the time though, which dulled the pain somewhat. So there you go. A proper no-reservations recommendation.