fr1nklyn

My 2 cents are that @J.R.is right that many drain and fill the wrong hole as they are next to each other.. Second thing is, the noise and failure of these diffs is pretty common.. I’ve read a lot about them because mine does it as well and you will be surprised how unreliable component this is. Third bearings are also very common to fail and they don’t fail catastrophically, but just one of the layers wear out and that causes the noise. So traditional methods to determine is a noise caused by a bad bearing doesn’t always work, e.g. turning left or right to stop or significantly decrease the noise.

You don’t have drive hard for passive regens to happen. Car needs a steady speed at 1800+ rpm or something like that, fuel above 1/4 tank, coolant above 75 C and driving for longer time in order to allow the exhaust to reach the required temperature(can’t remember how much exactly). Those conditions which are usually met on highway driving. Mine does it at around 45-60 minutes of highway driving. But most of the time car does active regens due to city driving and like @MarkyG82 I’ve never seen the DPF lamp on even though it does regen on every 100-150 miles. Just leave DPF to finish the active regen when possible and change the oil frequently. Don’t think about it much

I don't think your DPF is clogged by your type of journeys, but on 200k km it certainly does regenerate more often which increases the fuel consumption with ~0,5-1L/100km. Again this isn't what you're experience as this isn't 20% consumption increase. I believe you know what "Italian tune up" means, you can try doing it

Unfortunately different documentation is distributed in different countries.. And there the confusion comes from in the international forums (my Skoda is in my wife otherwise I would give you a picture of my book 😛 )

It’s good that the belt has been replaced. If the pump was changed as well, that would be great! The interval in Bulgaria is 210k kms according to the manual of the car. Honestly speaking, last year the dealer said they have never seen snapped belt on this engines. (I think they said they had several 1.9 TDIs, but can’t recall) But the water pumps do fail every now and then. Sadly even the latest revisions still fail very often.. 😕 Local garage I really trust said the same.

It's 5 years or 120/130 or even 140k miles for UK; there is no specific time interval and 210k kms for rest of the European countries.. And less mileage intervals for dust-rich countries but I don't recall exact numbers. Anyway, I bet that cambelt is due on this car based on UK recommendations, but it's worth checking its service history.

I don't know exactly why, but if it requires rotation, there will most likely be a thread. If you force push it, you may damage that thread - that's my explanation. But I don't claim it's right

Don't risk not turning rear pistons while pushing.. If it's hard at the beginning, try the following: 1. Open the brake fluid reservoir 2. Connect a hose to the brake bleeder with the other end in a bottle with brake fluid - like on this image, I used mineral water bottle and drilled its cap 3. Now pushing back the piston should be easy 4. Keep an eye on the brake fluid reservoir while pushing back the piston because it may require topping up! Sometimes only opening the brake fluid reservoir is enough. But in this case, you may need to remove some fluid from it while pushing the piston.

Did you mean pushing it without turning it counterclockwise? This works for fronts, but rear ones need to be turned as well. The tool I shared and I have is very popular. The end which pushes the piston is two-sided - with smaller pins gap and with wider. If it doesn’t fit the piston, you turn it the opposite side. That’s it.

I use the same rewind tool from years which originally was bought for Audi A3 8L('01), then used on Octavia Mk1, Audi A4 8E and two weeks ago used on my Octavia Mk3. Looks similar if not the same to this one https://www.screwfix.com/p/hilka-pro-craft-brake-caliper-rewind-tool/4119r . But honestly I don't remember where I bought it from.

If you are talking about this one, it doesn’t meet any of the VW TL 774 G/J/L standards https://mannol-gcc.com/products_cat/operating-and-service-fluids/ Even if there is a yellow coolant meeting any of these standards, I would doubt that it’s exactly such coolant in the car. Saying this reminds me that sometimes coolant looks different color due to oldish plastic of the reservoir. So get so coolant in a cup if you can, and you will be sure. It’s never safe to mix yellow/green coolant with pink/purple one. Even though the color doesn’t mean anything these days, it’s still very common for the yellow coolants to be OAT where the pink ones are usually HOAT and these aren’t compatible.. Don’t try your luck. Get some coolant out and see is it yellow, if it is you decide to change it or to top up with some other yellow coolant.

VW coolant colors are either pink or purple. Your car is running with incorrect coolant. Do not mix yellow/green coolant with pink/purple one! You have 3 options: 1/ Recommended: Find a reputable place to flush your system and remove the silica bag from the coolant reservoir. Or replace the reservoir if its model doesn’t allow easy removal. Them top up with with G12Evo coolant. The garage which does it should understand what it’s doing because the coolant system of EA288 engines is complicated and cannot be fully flushed that easily. 2/ Good: Same as above but without removing the silica bag. This hides a risk the bag to tear/split in the system and block your heater matrix. Then top up with G13 coolant. 3/ Ignore recommendations and top up with whatever yellow coolant you find.

I also buy young second hand cars because of the price and life standard. One thing I would be concerned is the oil service intervals. The MK3 2.0 tdi has relatively weak oil rings and may have oil consumption due long service intervals. The second thing is the DPF which will be for cleaning/replacing - if not already, then soon. Not sure is it stick or auto: if stick, as mentioned already, have in mind that the DMF may need replacement; the DSG should be serviced 3x times for that mileage.

Maybe you filled in your account storage capacity of 1GB? https://www.briskoda.net/forums/subscriptions/ The difference between CUPA and CUNA is the emissions standard: CUPA is Euro 5 whereas CUNA is Euro 6. Maybe the latter's oil rings are more tolerant to longer oil change intervals.

I have experience with regular ATE pads, TRW ones and ATE’s Ceramic. The latter works best for me as regular driver with non-drilled/slotted rotors, plus they last long and produce less dust

And it's not only Skoda dealers, but all VW brands.. Not sure is the Haldex gen5 filter "not serviceable" for Volvo dealers as well?

@AndyO2 There is a set of seals(actually 2x o-rings for the pump and 2x bolts) which are good to be changed every next pump cleaning. Definitely not something I would change every time, but it’s good to the be changed every next time having in mind that the pump is removed and then refitted back. Just my 2 cents

Brown means "rust" usually. Or maybe just the expansion tank is old and/or a bit dirty and changes the color of the coolant Take a some coolant out and see it's actual color. From another forum: source: https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a8-s8-d3-platform-discussion-60/orange-coolant-just-fyi-2939621/

I used the following method of changing the coolant. So maybe you can use the same method to flush the system with distilled water? The car was up to work temperature and with heating set to max in order to have all coolant circles open and using a coolant meeting the TL-VW 774 L standard(like G12Evo), because I don't have silica bag in the coolant tank anymore. I did this on the 5th year because I don't plan to change my timing belt soon. Should be applicable for all Mk3 engines.

Looks awesome mate!

What happened then? Did you topped up some coolant and return back or accepted the offer? I guess not.. 😂 The labor costs a lot in CH..

Wondering how do you find the ride quality compared to Superb as I’m considering the opposite swap Also the driver’s seat and space seems to be smaller in Octavia, Superb seems to be more comfortable and roomy for me, not sure 🤔

I feel that whatever we tell you, won't be enough.. if you think the car is designed badly, maybe you got the wrong car. The inlet manifold would be removed if any issues has occurred. And believe me, I know what issues could occur because I had 3x 1.9 engines suffering from sludge and carbon buildup - sticky turbo vanes, EGR stuck opened, loss of power, etc. None of them appeared on my car for almost 150k km. No error codes regarding such issues.

I’ve heard/read about the same issue in VW forum - it was related to a vacuum leak in break booster vacuum hose and check valve. Some were reporting that pressing the gas pedal fixes the brakes. Hope this helps, sounds like a scary issue to me!

This ^^ plus the EGR isn’t an issue anymore like in the PD and early CR VW engines. Almost no failures or issues are reported about EA288 engines 1.6 and 2.0 in this forum. No need of a race pipes, intake manifold cleaning, etc. Blocking it won’t give you any performance improvements. Do regular oil changes, some “Italian tune up” from time to time and optionally a tank of premium diesel every 3-4 fill ups. EGR helps you get up to the operating temperature quicker which is already a bit slow process on these engines. And also decreases the engine wear due to the same reason. For the DPF, leave it to complete its regens when possible.