nta16

Depends where you get the battery from VW have their own system but if you have the tool you can do it yourself, it's what brought me to this site so details are here. Or if you have a relevant scan tool you can do it yourself, I had a site Member do mine as it was all new to me and I don't even have a (misnomer) 'smartphone'.

Get them to do a full load test and alternator test too if they do that just for the sake of it if it's free. IF it needs it now is a good time to replace the battery as the days get shorter and the weather gets colder. Most years the first cold snap highlights the weaknesses in car batteries (and home central heating systems) and the second cold snap breaks them (if the battery can't be fully recharged successfully). Unfortunately car batteries are one of the most oversold car parts because many no longer have the patience or time to charge them properly but on the other side modern cars are so dependant on them and work them hard that they don't last as long as they used to and are often best changed for new to avoid unnecessary problems and breakdown call-outs.

Yes sorry I didn't make my point very well, to put it plainer, the 'idiot lights' should not be relied on to the exclusion of using the human brain, the cars computer did show a fault but this was after my wife, who's not an idiot and an experienced driver and used to (over-priced and over-valued) cars called "classics" going faulty, had worked out there was a fault. I've always told her, if safe to do so to drive and not stop with a tyre that's deflating as she's much more valuable than any lump of metal. Luckily it was only a short distance from home and she has enough brain power, knowledge and experience to make the decision of what to do, get home, ring for recovery, abandon the car if required, it's insured.

Yes they should be, the tyres was my off tangent example of warning systems but sensors and wires are also in those areas. Something must have caused it to come on (whether it needed to or not, sometimes the computers are misled). eRoottoot is probably answering that now as I type.

e-Roottoot, TBH I can't remember what it was the tyre was flat when she got home. It was lifting a tyre 1" off the ground and it slipping from the centre before I could get a bolt in when moving the wheels around for the new tyres (I replace in pairs despite the tread left on the other) that twigged my back. F-ing wheel bolts instead of studs (so much for "German engineering"). I got about 20 minutes of sciatica that night when I went to bed and thought later how luck I was not to get more. . . . Two years later and my legs feel a bit funny and now my back is uncomfortable, sometimes just standing can be uncomfortable. I bought two screw-in rods to act as studs but too late the damage was done. F-ing wheel bolts. 😄

I feel a new battery might be suggested but do bear in mind unless it's the same battery fitted (and I think they're not available) you'll need to get it coded-in for the car's computers (or best to). Don't go for a cheaper battery, get a good quality and capacity. I got an AGM.

e-Roottoot as you know I'm not technical but I've seen videos of scan tools that can record such stuff but they need to be good and fast, so more expensive and perhaps up-to-date than dare I suggest some garages and Dealership might carry - but I don't know as I've never seen what they use. ETA: Your post beat me to what I was going to put. From what I've seen there appears to be on some cars (no idea with VAG) pretty wide margins before error codes are recorded. I know by the time my wife's Fabia showed a TPMS error it was too late and pretty obvious the tyre had deflated - more stating the bleeding obvious, which may sometimes be need for some perhaps(?).

By historic codes I meant after the service, if it went into limp mode sure that would throw up codes? Was the road test just driving it or whilst recording data on the scan tool? What were the conditions when the car went into limp mode, weather, electrical load, gear changing, accelerating, braking, whatever might be relevant. Do you know if they visually or physically checked the car over or just scan tool 'd it. A couple of weeks ago my wife's car said a bulb was out but when I checked it wasn't and back home no more dash warning, I change the bulb (new unused replacement bulb stored in shed didn't work which I've had before because of poor parts quality nowadays) and cleaned and all the other bulbs and connects just in case. but I've no idea what caused the warning. I'll just repeat, fully check/charge the battery and that's me out of ideas.

Don't rely on the dash to show faults as when they do often it's too late. Could be so many things as these computers and programs are so interlinked but I'd always start with having the car battery fully charged (or slow, low, long recharge off the car) regardless of the car starting and the lights seeming to be bright enough. The computers run on a 5v system but I've no idea how low the battery can go before it interferes with the computers. The garage should be able to read historic fault codes and make sense of them if they know what they're doing and spend enough time at it, if it went into limp mode surely there must be a fault code record of this and perhaps the triggers or at least other fault codes. Did the garage give you the scan read off full report (hundreds of lines long) to show the lack of codes? How deep did they go? Did they road test whilst recording with scan tool? (I've no idea how good or poor the scan tools are that they use but I've seen videos of scan tools that do no end and are very fast and in the right hands very good). If they didn't clear the codes a machine that can get to them should give clues - but then you need someone with the knowledge and experience to use that information to fully diagnosis the true problem. If it's a case the car battery is low then perhaps fully recharging it and clearing any codes (and any resets possible) might do enough for now as the garage have got nowhere it's worth a try. Is the car fully serviced and any recalls or attentions dealt with, have you gone further than the basic service schedule?. Is the car driven regularly and on longer journey journeys? I'm sure others will come up with lots of possibilities and it might be one or any but I'd always start with a fully recharged battery. Good luck let us know how you get on.

Let us know how you get on, could be different to what's been suggested. But never underestimate the effect of a battery in lower state of charge or condition on a modern car on the car's computers or programming even if it has sweet FA to do with this issue.

3 x 8 = 24 so I'll call it 3mm for pads as I'd struggle to see 2mm. The old rear drums on my car had the figures cast into them which I thought a great idea.

A simple and useful information and review video for potential buyers. There’s also lots of very useful information about the cars for potential buyers in the ‘Owner's Manual’ (Driver’s Handbook) available as a free viewable or downloadable PDF from Skoda – https://manual.skoda-auto.com/004/en-com/Models The simple and useful information and review video for potential buyers. - And other useful short information videos for potential buyers about the Octavia Mk2. - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHH-B9onXpOqSbufztgrEsE0U-QjwooWU HTH some, cheers, Nigel.

Yes but nothing with regards to millimetre thickness of front brake pads and discs - yet. 🙂 Though this might have been lost among my ramblings (but surely not(?)).

As if I'd know ! But the terminology application to current context doesn't seem right to me, but all explanations are beyond my comprehension, possibly due to head injuries with wrongly negotiating entrance to driver's seat through driver's door aperture - or I might have been a bit maths thick before that but I can't remember, possibly due to . . . and my memory isn't great either.

C'mon now neither of you have it right. 😂 Let it go between yourselves or at least load in a lot more humour to give the rest of us a laugh.

So I'm not the only one with a brain that's working against its body. Perhaps the repeated blows makes it more inevitable each time.

I'd have to do a H&S assessment first as the steering wheel has spokes with reducing slots.

I'm not sure that's entirely right, are you prepared to bet your house on it. 😉 I'm not one for defending the over-vain, and previous sycophant to I-didn't-know-they-could-stack-it-that-high fellow senior presenter, but I think of the likes of Jackie Stewart, a shorter man than even I, showing James May how to drive a TVR Chim round a track without problems shows your buttocks can brush the kerbstones as you cross the road and still see some of the track or road ahead. I have difficulty seeing and negotiating in lower cars, seats and longer bonnets but I'm not a good driver. At 5' 5" I have short legs and longer body so I need the Fabia's driver's seat near the pedals but on low(est) height setting and the steering wheel set high to see the dash. When I get in the driver's side I often hit my head even if the seat is back because my wife at 5" (only) has the seat at its highest setting. My wife has problems driving my car as her thighs, bellies and boobs all catch the 15.5" steering wheel, sometimes all at once, I can get my belly in as long as I don't want to turn my arms with the wheel too much, feeding thro' slows taking tight corners or bends.

Mode yes, but if you held a gun to my head tomorrow I'd still have forgotten again. When did all this "-ile" come in, used to be percentage or percent, now it's "our child is in the top 5 percentile of boastful parents". 🙂 Perhaps I was just too lower demographic to be exposed to such words. 😜

Not having a new car since 2008 (which was a GM Vauxhall disaster but that's another matter) I was rather surprised to find how much the computers had taken over even by 2015 which is my main concern as you can't beat the programmers who normally don't get enough info to do their part of the job fully. I've already panicked changed the car battery (too soon as a friend is still using the previous one) but this car needs to be reliable for my mental-health and blood pressure and my wife's work and social life. Another point - Dealership said front brakes pads are 90% worn (10% remaining), I'm in awe of their eyesight and experience as this was, as far as I can tell, only from the free visual health check, more impressive is the 50% worn on the drum brakes, how do they do it! If I borrow some neighbours callipers are there minimum figures for standard factory pads and discs thicknesses, or even displayed on some of the parts? As usually the only luck we have with cars is bad (to very bad) I wanted to get the car well set for the future now whilst we have some disposable income as it will be diminishing and restricted in the future, I've changed battery, transmission oil, coolant to be done, cambelt (before reading discussions, but with our luck), even had the air-con service, brakes will obviously be looked and fluid is changed every two years - is there anything else I need to do or budget for?

Hi, welcome, thanks for your reply. I did wonder about the phone mike but for some reason (can't remember what now) I dismissed it. The bar opening and even the square seem a bit large for a mike but I know nothing about bluetooth, when my mate mentioned it to me many years ago I thought it might be a a make of mobile phones. All these modern things but relying on ancient radio. 🙂

Yeah I used to know about averages, mean, medium, but I forget now can't even remember the third one there, and you make other good points about drivers and location. We got the car with 10k-miles on it and no real idea of it's real history and use, since owning it for the last 5 years my wife is just about the only driver and she literally goes out of her way to avoid roads with speed humps and looks out for potholes. But of course living in a second world nation with local multi-millionaires from surface-dressing contracts the roads can be a bit rough round here and some potholes make you wince as you hit them. My wife doesn't drive over speed humps at speed but I'd go even slower as I'm used to driving a car with a track that is narrower than the speed restrictions humps so I'm used to going very slow over them, I even went up a tyre size (155/80) on my car to to give a bit more tyre 'rubber' to the suspension, despite having robust local sports dampers fitted, to spread the shocks and vibrations from the road surface, or lack of it. With this thread I was more wondering if 2015 was a bad year for Fabia Mk3 front dampers for any reason and more importantly if replacement dampers fitted in 2021 will be as (potentially) short lived, I've no idea how old stock of dampers would be and there production dates. Coming from the world of very ****-poor and crap classic car parts I wonder how much of this abysmal manufacturing attitude had made it through to modern car parts manufacture.

Do bear in mind cheap modern digital multimeters can be unreliable and not exactly over accurate but if tested against a known test item reading then usually good enough as a guide. To measure earth generally just have the meter go from positive post clamp to any metal bit of car body or engine. A fully charged battery that is left to settle long enough or surface charge taken off by say turning the headlights on for a minute should read 12.7v (or 12.8v/12.9v) then going from 12.7v as 100% - 12.7v - 100% 12.5v - 90% 12.4v - 80% 12.3v - 70% 12.2v - 60% 12.1v - 50% 11.9v - 40% 11.8v - 30% 11.6v - 20% 11.3V -10% (above figures are from Ring battery charger instructions). Do bear in mind multimeter accuracy and that the computers run on a 5v system but I don't know how low the car battery can go before it affects the 5v computer system but there are other factors that could affect this so it might not be as low as most owners would think, even the car starting and lights seeming bright enough might disguise the problem.

6 years and 40,000 miles and both front dampers were leaking - I was expecting a longer life from them. I know we don't have the best roads but the car isn't ever anywhere near heavily loaded and not used for Rallying. Is this about an average lifespan or was 2015 a poor year for front dampers?

I've had a quick look but can't find anything, my (only) guess is sensors.