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I've not used my car for just over 2 weeks due to the bad weather. I started it up tonight just to warm everything up to check everything is ok (-6°C ambient temperature at the time mind you); I don't actually plan to go anywhere until Thursday. The engine was a bit rough to start with but was soon ok, however the PAS pump was particularly noisy whining/whirring away - very noticeable from both inside the cabin and from outside the car standing a couple of feet away. The noise carried on until I turned the car off after half an hour. No warning lights and the PAS pump noise changed in tone as it normally would when applying a little steering movement, it is fairly noisy the whole time anyway to be honest but it seemed particularly bad tonight. Just a little worried in case it is a sign of a problem with the pump or is it just a cold weather issue? Cheers!

Yep the rear wiper blade is main dealer only or from an online VAG parts specialist like Jorily. As above, I think the Polo rear blades might be more readily available, but you'd need to change the arm for a Polo one first. A bit of a pain!

After just killing another kitten . Bosch Aerotwin retrofit blades are amongst the best and are presently on offer at Wiperblades.co.uk: http://www.wiperblades.co.uk/products/detail/bosch-ar533s-aerotwin-retrofit-flat-windscreen-wiper-blades-21-inch-19-inch/ Worked out at just under £20 and next day delivery for me despite the snow. Pretty happy with them although they get noisy and need replacing after about 2.5 years. Literally take 10 seconds to fit. Agree they look better too.

When that happened to me it was a bust water pump so be careful. If the car is having circulation problems in the cold weather, I'd be minded to test the strength of the coolant, make sure it hasn't frozen up anywhere.

I'd agree with the last two comments - if you take it in for suspension work like that, the garage should be re-adjusting the tracking automatically as part of finishing the job - to hand it back with dodgy tracking is dam right dangerous in my opinion as you can knacker your tyres as well as doing only half a job - I wouldn't use that garage again.

Now that the weather is getting colder, it is worth keeping an eye on one's tyre pressures since air pressure is inversely proportional to temperature. I was somewhat surprised to find that all my tyres were nearly 5 psi down today even though I check them regularly and they don't have leaks.

I've a pre-face lift car and I had the original L+R & R mirror switch. This broke and I've replaced it with the newer switch with the independent movement of each mirror. In either case I've no indication that the heating of the mirrors is linked to the heated rear window. I've read several times that the heated mirrors times out automatically like the rear window, I'm not sure if I've noticed that on my car as I normally turn the rear screen and/or mirrors off when they are clear rather than waiting for them to time out.

Many thanks for the information, I'll take advantage of that! I usually use V-Power unleaded in my AUB 1.4 16v petrol. It does make a difference - certainly a bit better acceleration and fuel economy (although I suspect not sufficiently increased fuel economy to make up for the dearer purchase price). The notorious surging tickover with this engine is less prevalent and overall it runs better. Just lucky that I don't do a lot of miles otherwise I think the cost would be more of a factor. I think anyway that this engine is meant to run on RON98 rather than RON95 and that this is the only way to achieve the nominal 100 bhp power rating.

I didn't and then had a water pump failure a few months later. :(

0 mph is a good cruising speed, doesn't use any fuel at all!

Maybe you need to buy an app to get GMT? Referring to the original post, I had the same problem on my car, the heat sink is held on by captive washers that rust through, not the best design by far. Got it fixed at a garage, think they welded them on or something like that. As previously mentioned, it is close to the fuel tank so I'd rather keep the heat sink where it is and securely fastened!

Or big empty round thing if the low fluid level light was on for that reason.

Cheaper from www.wiperblades.co.uk I have these and the aero/flat blades are better and look so much better than conventional wipers but mine have had it after a couple of years - they are now noisy and smeary. I'd have expected better longevity for the price. As above the rear blade is main dealer only, it just clips on or off from the centre and as such there are two ways of fitting it - an arrow points up I think to show you which way around - give it a try and if the new rear is smeary then try turning it upside down.

Mayonnaise around the filler cap is apparently not uncommon with this engine (mine has suffered with it even though it is in good nick and has been well maintained). Has the oil been changed regularly and do you do long journeys to warm everything up properly? Does the oil look normal on the dipstick and do you have excessive oil consumption? Does the coolant look ok in the header tank - level not dropping, not contaminated with oil, not over-pressurised when you unscrew the lid (with the engine cold and switched off, a little pressure is normal), no petrol fumes coming from the header tank? You can also take the spark plugs out to check the appearance of them to make sure they are normal. It is also worth cleaning out the breather pipe on this engine regularly. If you are still concerned then the only other option is to book it into a friendly garage to get a compression check done (which will also diagnose piston ring problems which is a known problem with this engine). Good luck.

As previously described, the thermostat won't be open when the engine is cold so you can't change the warm up time by physical means with messing with the radiator. One option at the expense of fuel economy is to drive in a lower gear and therefore higher rpm. Having the cabin heater turned to warm/hot also saps heat from the engine and leads to a longer warm up time. I'd say you are correct that a lot of cold/short journeys won't do the car a lot of good in the long run as the engine oil doesn't get up to temperature and water and other products of combustion can condense in it. Therefore I'd suggest going on longer runs on a regular basis to get everything fully up to temperature and evaporate off stuff from the oil. Otherwise get an inefficient petrol!

For a first car I'd have thought that a Fiesta or Corsa would be more economical to maintain. If you've got your heart set on a Furby then at the age you'll be looking at for £1500 I can't imagine they'd be much price differential between the different trim levels all else being equal. The Comfort gives you the front fogs, central locking, trip computer, front electric windows, heated electric wing mirrors and air conditioning which are all nice to have but are also extra things to go wrong. Engine-wise I'm not entirely sure if the 1.2 petrol and 1.4 tdi were available early on. Both would be the mostly highly recommended if you can afford them in terms of a compromise between refinement, economy and power. The earlier 1.4 mpi petrol is thirsty and the 1.9 sdi diesel reliable but slow by all accounts. The 1.4 16v petrol and 1.9 tdi are probably a wee bit powerful and more expensive to tax and insure as a first car. All of them have known faults, there is no escaping it! Diesels are usually a little dearer to buy and service so you need to do a certain minimum annual mileage to make the extra fuel economy worthwhile, probably around 10,000 miles. The key in the second hand market is to have some flexibility and try and pick a good one. Good luck!

I just hope that the people that insist on doing this "mod" inform their insurance company as it reduces the rear visibility and compromises safety margins.

How can you inspect the water pump condition? Surely you'd have to drain the coolant system and remove the pump to look at the impeller, by which time you'd need a new gasket anyway? Seems odd to me. After bitter experience with these VAG cars being made from paper mache I'd renew the water pump at every cam belt service.

If you've been driving around for any distance with nails in your tyres, knackered brakes and knackered wipers then I think a visit to Specsavers is in order too.

I don't understand the mentality of spending £1000's of pounds trying to turn a base model into a VRS look a likie. Why not spend the same money to get a VRS or a proper sports car to begin with?

I have a duff switch in my driver's door lock too, same symptons (apart from the alarm as I don't have one). I was quoted £80 for a new lock and I'd assume it'd be about the same on top in labour to replace as the door card has to come off and the window taken out to get to it. Every other car I've had the switch was separate and simple to replace :S

I got mine cheaper from ebay, I'm glad I did it but don't think it is worth £35. If the Polo one fits and is standard in the Polo then getting one from a scrapped Polo might be a cheaper alternative. I agree with the above comments that normal pop bottles rattle around and can even fall out.

You say the expansion tank is dirty - on the inside or outside? If on the inside then that would point more to head gasket issues as that could indicate oil getting into the coolant water. If the head has been off to deal with piston ring/timing issues then I'd be more concerned about the head gasket too in case it hasn't been put back together correctly. If the engine is over heating that concerns me - was the water pump replaced when the timing belts were last done? It might be an idea to get that checked and invest in a new thermostat and temperature sender. I one had the coolant system on mine pressure checked which you could pay to get done along with a general engine compression test. The otherwise poor running/surging idle is common with this engine - see previous posts of mine but principally you need to clean the breather hose and throttle, do a throttle realignment, run a few tanks of super unleaded petrol/redex and take it for a good hard drive.

I've had issues before with garage servicing and the local trading standards will be very interested to take this up on your behalf, they were very helpful in my case. They are part of the local authority so you should be able to find some contact details for them from your local council website or via a google search. If you've now got the firm evidence of the repair quote from the stealers and the invoice from the actual corrective work from the indy then you could copy those to Skoda HQ and make a complaint too - perhaps they may be more inclined to listen with hard evidence in front of you. Good luck!