Dieselgate

I have the Goodyear's and am very happy with them so far. They certainly performed well in the snow in Germany in December, can't comment on the wear as yet as it's still pretty early days and I will swap them for my summer tyres around the end of April.

Thanks - so they don't change the filters as standard? Or they would do it as an 'upsell'?

Hello all. Quick question, does anyone know if the service pricing on the Skoda Online Service booking page includes all parts required and VAT? Particularly thinking of the Oil & Inspection service. I.e. fuel filter, oil filter, air filter, pollen filter etc As the price they are showing at my local dealer is quite a bit cheaper than I have paid at my local independent: £322.51 vs £398.76 Their price for the Haldex service is also cheaper. Ultimately I would prefer to stay with my indie as I trust them more to do the job properly but wanted to check I was comparing like with like before I go to them and negotiate on the price.

I had this randomly come on a few months back. It went off again later the same day and I never bothered to get it looked into.

A few possible reasons that I can think of (pure speculation, no facts to back it up with): IV more likely to be driven by company car drivers with less incentive to look after them properly. Smaller boot/less practicality. More complex - perceived higher repair bills in the long run.

My dad in law has one that is over 300,000kms and still going strong despite all the abuse it gets! Not sure if mine will ever get there but my current plan is to keep it long term so will have to see.

What potential issues are caused with running 'D' for the 4x4 system (or anything else)? I did probably 150 miles on this going back a bit (was rear axle). Probably at speeds of up to 75mph a good amount of the time.

Sorry - just catching up on this. The label in the engine bay says VW 504 / 507 0W-30 so that's what I used. It had a full oil change at a service a couple of months later but I didn't check what they used. Hopefully the right stuff! The stuff I put in was just 1L as a top up as the level was low.

Not sure how important it actually is but mine was supposed to be 0W-30 (as well as being VW 504 / 507) which I struggled to find for a while (eventually got a Shell product from Euro Car Parts) - there were heaps of 5W-30 around but not many 0W-30. But your car could be different - mine is the slightly newer 200 TDI.

I use VGS in Keston. Have used them for over 10 years on and off and generally been very impressed with them. They offer a local collection and delivery if you are fairly nearby which can be handy.

My Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons seemed to perform well in the snow when in Germany last week. Certainly felt far more secure than summer tyres. Went up a fairly long forest track (uphill) which obviously isn't treated/cleared and went straight up (and down!) with no spinning or drama at all. Was about 40cm of fairly fresh snow (just slightly packed from a very small number of previous vehicles).

Thanks all - I have just driven it home from work and after braking more harshly and often than usual it seems to have reduced the occurrence of the noise. I'll probably monitor it over the next few days and see how it goes. Having inspected the pads, there is definitely heaps of wear left. Probably a small amount of corrosion on the discs so that could be the issue. I can't really detect if it is front or rear / left or right unfortunately.

20mph is too slow. I used to be able to run faster than this (just not for long!) Heaps of cyclists doing more than this too.

Thanks - that's helpful. I was in Germany last week and driving in a reasonable amount of snow and ice so it could be that it needs grease. Is this a fairly straightforward job to do?

In the last few days my Superb 2.0TDI 4x4 has started to make a noise when braking. Difficult to describe, not too loud and only noticeable at low speeds. Normally I would assume it needs the pads checked/replaced but it was serviced only last month and they recorded the pads as being 8-10mm thick so certainly not worn. It's done 21k miles, mainly on motorways and I'm relatively light on the brakes. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Coasting definitely has benefits in the right conditions. We have a nice long and fairly steep hill on the motorway near us where if you take your foot of the accelerator at 65mph at the top you can sometimes be doing 78+ at the bottom. Needless to say you wouldn't have that if you left it in gear.

Quite - it will be put off for as long as possible as no matter how it is done you can be sure it will be very unpopular. It will be interesting to see how long it is before the fuel duty receipts start to drop off significantly, they haven't taken too much of a dent yet.

The big increase will come but we don't know yet what form it will take - i.e whatever form of taxation the government chooses to use to replace the lost taxation from fuel duty.

The one certainty about electric motoring is that it is going to get a lot more expensive.

Thanks - my intention is to see how blocked up it is at 30k this time and then adjust how often I get it done in future by this. Lengthen it a bit if it's still pretty clean, or shorten it if it's full of gunk. I'll probably get the gearbox done around the 50-60k mark I guess.

I guess a lot of it depends on driving style? Quite a few pictures on this thread show some very dirty filters with little mileage and some that look not nearly so bad with considerably higher mileage... Probably 90%+ of my driving is on motorways.

Car had first service yesterday at 18,500 miles (only oil change was due but I did a major service as that was showing as due in another 1,500 miles). Looked at the service manual that I downloaded a while ago and was surprised to see that they recommend the 4x4 oil change at 3 years with no mileage limitation - see below: I'm thinking to get it done at 30k miles anyway and see what the state of it is at that point. On a separate note - would I be wise to get the DSG serviced earlier than the 80k miles recommendation (which seems quite high)? I do 20-25k miles per year and probably looking to keep it for quite a while.

Got fitted up with Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons on Saturday and having my summer tyres stored at the tyre shop over the winter. Now to see how they perform over the next few months! Was pleased to see that the summers still had 5-6mm of tread remaining after 18,500 miles which seems pretty good to me.

I had it come on a week or so ago. But it went off again later the same day. Hasn't come back since in nearly 1,000 miles of driving so I've no idea what caused it.

Just not so quickly😉