Camlobe

I cannot tell you what is better than the Ferodos, but: I've always had good experience with Mintex 1144's in the past, but that's years ago, and there is probably no commonality between what I had then, and what you'd get now. (Mintex are now part of the TMD group, along with Textar, Don and Pagid, and Mintex are difficult to find on the UK market these days. Also I haven't seen anything clear about how the pads relate amongst the various TMD products). I'm tempted by Pagid (see above, though), Jurid and Brembo (almost certainly the X rather the non-X pads). I think any would be, in some way, better than the Ferodos, but maybe at the cost of wear, dust, noise etc. I'll put up with that compromise in order to get brake performance that doesn't worry me at times. Really, I probably want bigger disks, but my insurance might want their pound of flesh, so if I could get decent performance with just better pads, that's my preferred route.

Yes, this is normal. I note that you have gone for the Ferodo Eco Green pads, which I have and don't particularly like. They are certainly ok-ish, and better than the Apex ones that were on the front of the car previously, but I'd like a bit more initial sharpness, and they don't give as much confidence as you'd like when you come to the end of a really hard braking event (but, as I say better than what was on the car previously). On the other hand, they don't generate much dust, so there is that.

Ok, I should have offered 'wet with fuel' as an option to 'covered with carbon'.

My theory is slightly different: If you get carbon on to the spark plug noses, it is awfully difficult to get a good spark, and therefore get the car re-started. Various things might work in this situation (to be tried with the battery fully charged if possible) . i) new plugs ii) an 'easy start' spray ii) a jump (tow) start iv) putting the spark plugs under the grill (!), with appropriate care and speed (difficult, particularly the speed bit) These can probably be combined, if necessary. it could also help to crank the engine a little with no spark plugs in, to ensure that you have oil pressure and that the hydraulics are all ready to go. Another thing that might help is to switch the ign on, flatten the throttle, and then try cranking. If it does burst in to life, give it a minute or two of more than 2000 rpm, before switching off, or you might have the same problem again. Good luck!

Keep in mind that most aftermarket aero parts are designed primarily for downforce rather than drag. Now, it isn't impossible that something does both, particularly if it reduces airflow under the car, but it is difficult (otherwise it would probably come from the factory like that, unless it was too vulnerable to damage, in which case it will be too vulnerable to damage for general use). And all this depends on the aftermarket suppler doing a competent job with the aero, and my impression is that they only really care about appearance, so they may not have done anything about testing aero at all. By the way, all the 'drag rises as this power of speed' only really work before flow becomes turbulent', so at lower speeds, which may not be the speeds where aero is really relevant. In any case, in spite of all the reservations, the cost of the part is always likely to be higher than any potential saving, and given the possibility that it may make fuel economy worse, it really doesn't seem to be a good prospect.

I am moderately convinced that the initial noise is because you haven't got oil pressure at start-up. Two things are likely to make that worse - wrong oil filter - correct ones will have the appropriate valving, and will probably have the name of someone known for making oil filters on the side, whether that be Bosch, Mahle, etc, etc, or someone else, or wrong oil. You should have a receipt which states what oil was used, and it isn't just brand and it isn't just viscosity: The oil should meet the appropriate VAG specification, and just because it says '5w-30' on it isn't necessarily enough. Neither of those should go wrong, but if the builder was careless, they could have done.

I always use the website Autobulbs Direct. Their prices are good, they have the Osram Nightbreaker bulbs (some variety of Phillips bulb often gets better reviews in Autoexpess's testing, but are usually significantly more expensive, and the Nightbreakers seem to me to be good enough, and clear improvement over standard ). There is a trade-off between intensity and bulb life, so you have to be a bit careful about which exact bulb you buy as the big manufacturers tend to have a selection of different trade-offs available. Also, 'plus 50% (or whatever)' bulbs tend to look a bit brighter, but not as much as it indicates on the box.This seems to be due to the way they are allowed to make claims - you can choose the distance that suits you best, and claim that your bulb is a certain percentage brighter there, which will not be the same as that percentage brighter everywhere.

For 1, be aware that some people 'disguise' an overheating engine by removing the thermostat, or arrange a leak in the thermostat. Did you buy this car from a dealer?

It isn't usually the disks. Assuming we are comparing steel disks with steel disks, the thermal conductivity is going to be very similar. They may corrode at different rates, which will affect wear, and if they are vented, the venting might be slightly more effective, but the pads are the big thing. 'Cheap' pad materials are likely to fade at lower temperature than better ones, and you can't always say 'Brand A is Bad, Brand Z is Great.. EBC, for example make four ranges of pads, and the cheapest, Optimax, are pretty poor. The colour ones (yellow, green, red) are better, but significantly more expensive. These days, with regulation 90, the initial coefficient of friction is constrained by law, if the pads are going to be used on the road. When you get to the point that there is hardly any pad material left, all bets are off.

The situation with brake pads is confusing. You need the 'PR number. This specifies the brake system, but isn't necessarily the same as the manufacturer of the pads, so you can have, eg, Bosch pads for a Teves system, or Teves pads to fit the Bosch system for a particular car.. In addition, the information in the boot on my car covered the brake system at one end of the car, and not the other, and that can also cause confusion, until you understand it. There is probably a significant difference between different suppliers (and there will often be differences from a single supplier, so Brembo make their ordinary pads, and also an X series) There are various parameters which will have more or less interest to you: Max temperature/fade Immediacy/sharpness cold temperature performance/need to warm up Dust Wear life (pads/discs) Predictability pedal feel Price and it is difficult to say what your priorities are, and something like immediacy you could have too much or too little of. In general when an enthusiast says a pad is 'good', they will mean a pad that doesn't fade under their usage conditions, and everything else will be secondary.

i) In general, German cars have 1 litre between min and max (and Germans don't bother topping up until the oil hits the low level, when they pour in all of the 1.0 litre of oil that they keep for this purpose). I'm not saying that this is a desirable way of going forward, just that its the way it is done in that culture. (And you can see a trace of this in the manual where they talk about topping the oil up once. This isn't totally meaningful if you don't know what volume that is...not that anyone takes much notice of that ) ii) With the dipstick (and I agree with you), you could try rolling it on to, eg, kitchen towel. If you are careful you can get a good idea of the oil level that way, although it is a bit stupid and not the most accurate thing in the world; Hey, design a part with really one function! Oh yes, everything works perfectly apart from reading the oil level, which is the one function the part was designed for. Ok, OK, I'll take that back, it was also designed to fit it a hole, but that shouldn't have tested the designers all that much. iii) Again, in general, you are, these days, you are warned not to over-fill the engine with oil. This is because, if you overfill the oil, there can be excess oil consumption, as the oil is burned off or goes through the breather system. This 'excess oil in the exhaust' can cause damage to catalytic converters and DPFs. Don't have those? Then it is less of a problem, unless you grossly overfill the engine, and the crank is splashing through it, worsening fuel consumption.

because of the link shortening issue, I installed a sacrificial copy of Firefox, which did work for me. I noticed the interior was very like an elegance. The reason for this seems to be that it is an elegance. Is that 10 owners? That looks high, even though the mileage isn't bad Spend some time with the service history and the MoT records to check that it all seems plausible. My first thought was that the price was a touch high, but I'm not really sure how much extra estates go for.

You've not been clear what you mean by 'these batteries'. If you mean AGM batteries, as in your later thread, then not all stop-start batteries are AGM, but Agm batteries are the better ones. The lesser stop-start batteries are less capable of taking the rather high currents without having their lives reduced and are rated for fewer cycles. (Err, AGM are also he more expensive ones, if you hadn't guessed) Changing from an AGM to an Enhanced Flooded Battery without re-coding would definitely shorten battery life, a little. Changing from an EFB to an AGM without re-coding probably does little harm to the battery, but may get a little less performance out of the stop-start system than it should, although the extra performance out of stop-start is quite small, so a small fraction of that is probably truly minute. One other thing that recoding does is tell the car that the battery is new, but there is probably little in that, until the battery gets to the end of its life, when it may do something, but hard to discern.

How much do you/(alternatively, did you) trust this garage? The obvious things seem to be spark plugs and faulty assembly of the timing gear Spark plugs could be fitting of the wrong grade of plug, or something as simple as getting an oily thumb print on the insulator. One of those is a bit easier to excuse than the other. I've not looked in detail, but I assume that it is possible to assemble the timing gear one tooth out. In a sense, provided the garage agree to fix it without cost to you, it isn't a great concern, although it would dent confidence in them, going forward and you might reconsider your use of them for future stuff.

Mine has little holes in the service history, and I'm not sure whether the plugs had ever been changed (80 k miles), so went for new Denso plugs at the last service. What does seem to have improved is that it has lost the tendency to hesitate a little from the first cold start of the day and for just the first 100 yards, or so. Not the worlds most serious problem, and it is a bit of a surprise that plugs seem to have cured it (I suspected 'coil packs', to be honest, so 'plugs' is an improvement)

I would second that. For some reason, it is usually the rears that have problems first, and it seems that it is an easy thing to overlook when confronted by all the electrickery that cars offer these days. If checking wheel temperature by hand, be cautious because they could be very hot.

I'd be a bit surprised if an L & K didn't have bluetooth. If there is a box/plastic case under the driver's seat, you probably have it, even if you don't have it covered in the manual/know how to use it, etc. If you wanted a Skoda head unit with sat nav, those are usually the ones named after explorers, etc. The route Phil-E has gone down has some interesting properties. An aftermarket android head unit will usually have GPS (and need some program (eg google maps) to turn that in to a fully-fledged sat nav. It may also have DAB (probably an external box, that may be included), and it will probably have bluetooth. Maybe even a reversing camera included (although watch out for the adverts that imply it has X, Y and Z, only to find out that you have to pay extra for those features. One of the big things is whether the unit is reliable; you seem to get a generous list of features for your money, but some of the producers/units are hardly paragons of reliability, so you will really want to know that at least one other person has had success with the unit. One other thing that is common with aftermarket unis is a subwoofer output, and while I believe that the speakers are the biggest thing holding a Bolero's sound back, if you want to fix that, a sub out would be a step in the right direction.

I saw something similar, if not exactly what you have (so that casts a rather unfavourable light on your Skoda dealer, if they know nothing of it, because something similar must happen to many people). - locking defaults changed; car locked when you moved off, so you were locked in 'till you pulled the key out; I really didn't like this. I had a look round the 'settings' in the menu, and played around with several settings, and now I've got a car that opens up on the remote (previously, only the driver's door opened). Unfortunately, I can't tell you in any detail which setting did what, but I poked around and set things where I guessed they ought to be, and the result was generally positive (the names of settings. are generally a bit obscure, and don't help as much as they could.)

Should have added that this is on an Octavia, and I bought the tyres from Camskills.

As it happens, I've got 4S2 tyres on. I can't give you as full a review as I'd like but: The car was on 16" Nokian Winter tyres before, and had got understeery, if pushed. I had thought this was the Nokians going off (the fronts did look a bit 'leaned on), but it is still there on the 18" Hankooks, so it is probably a suspension fault that I've got to find. I haven't yet driven them in sub-zero temps, so I don't know about that. i) I'l be a lot happier when the understeer goes away. I thought changing the wheel size was going to be the thing, but it wasn't ii) The change to 18s wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. While 16s are definitely more comfortable, you don't really notice on A roads/motorways, just slower roads in bad states of repair. In terms of noise, they are quite sensitive to the texture of the tarmac, with a coarse, open texture being noticeably noisier (but then, that's true of most modern tyres) So far, my initial report is that I like them, provisionally, but I'll know more when Winter comes around (The Nokian D3 tyres were hard, for a Winter tyre, and if these wear as well, I'll be delighted, even if that does mean I'm losing the last tenth of grip, particularly in winter) And I had decided I wanted to go all seasons, and saw the same review as you.It seemed to me, I'd lose a bit of summer grip by going to all seasons, and I wanted to compensate by going to a wider tyre. My second choice would probably have been the Vredesteins.

An unreasonably common fault is a leak in the water supply to the rear wash. Are you sure yours isn't that?

OK, I know this is quite an old thread, but... For those who use a pump, I tried my old pump and the pipe would not fit in to the dipstick hole on a 1.4 CAXA engine. Do those dipstick holes vary in diameter by engine type? The cheapest oil that I have seen that meets the longlife spec has been at Tesco when they've had the Redex oil on half price offer ( £8 for two litres, I believe...this is one of several specifications of Redex oil that is available, so you need to be careful, but it looks as if, if one is on offer, all are on offer, just not all that often) Beyond that, Opie have had Elf Sporti 9 at about £26 for 4 litres, but at least that was regularly available (just be aware that there is more than one variant, and only one is the '507 for variable service intervals) The Redex oil seems to go darker, faster so the Elf may be better, unless it is just how fast the oil is dissolving accumulated crud.

Yes, I have the same situation where the front PR code isn't listed in the book, or on the rear sticker, and it is bizarre. Quite how this is helpful to anyone, I just don't know. It would probably cause less confusion not to list either the front or the rear, because you think - at least I did, that one of the codes that you do have must be the front, because you can see the rear.

I know it is academic now, but I'd have ben a bit concerned about why the suspension had needed so much work. Shocks usually last quite a while, so that would have been a slight worry, and springs too. although estates are usually the ones that get the) 'carried a cement mixer around in the back' kind of abuse). The springs (corrosion) might have been a fail at the last MoT, and that can happen, without evident/particular cause, particularly in seaside areas. I'd have also wanted a look at the tyres/brand. As a fairly cheap car, you wouldn't expect 'top of the range', but you'd probably want to avoid 'no name/ditchfinders' just from a safety point of view And, bear in mind that if the tyres had been changed recently, that could have been legit/general wear, or it could have been an odd wear pattern due to suspension mis-alignment (probably covered up by the dealer fitting the cheapest tyres he could find). It didn't have the look of a car that had been to the moon and back, making the shocks a bit of a mystery, unless the miles were really high.

Afaik, the Brembo pads are likely to be in two series 'normal' and Xtra., the Xtra ones probably have a part number that ends in a an X (although you'd feel happier if the supplier listed that information directly for you.) This X or not X is unconnected with the PR number, and you need to stick with the listed one for your vehicle, unless the callipers have been changed, in which case you are in a whole world of confusion... At least, I think you can get both X and non-X parts in the common PR-code fitments, although inevitably some will be more difficult to find than others. Many suppliers don't make this at all clear.