timber

Technojock, good to know that you are keeping a watch on my (minor) problem. I served my apprenticeship at G & J Weir, Cathcart, in the year dot. Rejected a car near Dumbarton a few year ago, but later bought one in Stirling - not Skodas. Now firmly confined to Suffolk by age, infirmity and a mis-spent youth.

Thanks yet again Wino. You seem to be going to a lot of trouble on my behalf. And yes, I still have confidence in you! I'm not in the least qualified to comment on the whys & wherefores of VCDS codes; let's hope your further trial - or words of wisdom from other gurus on the forum - will bear fruit.

Sorry for the Long silence, Wino. I'm not getting the app etc - neither my son or I are likely to venture into this territory, a solution looking for a problem. Is next Saturday 11th still convenient for you - pm preferred? If so, please could you send me a private message with an address to briefly call at. I don't have satnav but do have a street atlas. Win 10 updates still a pain.

Many thanks yet again for your expert advice! My homework now to research ross-tech. Not too put off by costs if the kit would cover all our cars; Fords & BMW newish, Porsches 1976 & 1995. After dates debacle, little grey cells need lots of exercise - eg battling with Win 10 updates.

My clinic was 13th April (now 27th), how wrong can you get! Must go for an Alzheimer's/dementia test. Peccavi! Is the kit to make ECU changes - link wire & app for laptop? - expensive or difficult to obtain? Can the app be used for other marques? My son is deep into IT; we could use Ford, Saab, BMW and Porsche info. 11th MAY pm now pencilled in.

Thanks very much for your offer, Wino. Sorry for the late reply, I was due at a pre-op clinic for my "new" knee on 12th but have changed the date. Do you earn a living doing ECU programming? Please let me know, I was thinking on the lines of a bottle of wine! We don't use satnav, but I have a Street Atlas showing Mildenhall at 3.5 inches to a mile. Afternoon would be best if this suits you. Thanks again.

Thanks very much, Wino & Technojock. I'm located in the middle of nowhere about 12 miles north of Ipswich. Looking for a fairly near specialist Skoda/VW for servicing & cambelt now I'm too old to get under easily - used all genuine fluids etc, mileage only 49,000. I don't have any gear to interrogate the software but have a laptop (Windows 10 pro). Also a good Fluke multimeter. I do have scotchlock connectors, earth tags, soldering iron and a crimping tool. Is the 32-way connector readily accessible? The engine code I think is ASZ but will check. Thanks again!

Thanks again TMB. The Billingham area is I think much changed for the better since 1960. Our Fabia is red, by the way! Is it possible to contact Wino? I'd like to know if it's possible to supply an earthy signal to the circuitry (to disable the low level warning system) without having to take off the front bumper. And very preferably without breaking into the loom or other dubious interference with the electrics - an easily reversible fix would be best.

Thanks again TMB for the pics. I left Teesside in 1960, was brought up in Darlington and worked at ICI Billingham. We also bought the Fabia privately in Darlington in 2007 - a long trip from Suffolk but worth it to get a low mileage car. $1000 question, if I were to unplug the sensor, would the screenwash level warning light be always on or always off? $1001 question, where does the other end of the warning light wiring end up? The earthy side is shown by Haynes as brown/white, the "live" side as brown/purple. I don't mind losing the screenwash warning light, but would like to get rid of the buzzer sounding. A further mystery, Haynes doesn't list or show the screenwash warning light in the wiring diagram 12*26. Thanks, Sepulchrave, for your comment - and for correct spelling of arthritis! My hands are fairly OK; problems are a stiff back and osteo-arthritis in hips & knees; 3 artificial joints so far and awaiting a "new" left knee.

Thanks very much, TMB. I'll have a look over the weekend, but the arthrytis will still be there! Any other access?

My 2005 vRS Mk I diesel shows washer bottle warning light on even when the bottle is full. Not an earth-shattering fault, but a nuisance when the buzzer sounds just as I'm reversing out of a narrow garage door. Haynes manual 4376 wiring diagram section 12*26 shows the sender (item 66) as a variable resistor similar to the fuel gauge sender. Is this a mistake by Haynes? - I would expect just a simple switch. Haynes doesn't say whether earthing the wire shows bottle empty or bottle full. I don't fancy removing the front bumper to get at the washer bottle. Can I (now old & arthrytic) easily disconnect or earth the feed wire? The reference to a parts diagram (if available online) would be very useful. Thanks in advance, gents.

Hi Synchrosunlight Sorry, I can't give specific advice on your car, but I'm after winter tyes for my 2005 vRS and have a few general comments that might help. 1. Your insurance co. needs to know, although most will accept that winter tyres are not a "mod". They might sting you for a fee for a policy change, typiically £25. 2. I haven't been able to locate any official Skoda advice on winter tyre sizes, but my driver's handbook mentions sizes that will & will not accept Snow Chains. They are the OE tyre 205/45 R16, 195/50 R15 & 185/60 R14. 3. Car Bibles http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg4.html has a useful calculator for rolling circumferences, which shows your 195/65 R15's are very close indeed to my OE 205/45 R16's (a negligible 0.78% bigger). But the alternatives mentioned by Skoda are quite a bit smaller - 2.52% for the 195/50 R 15's, and 2.25% smaller for the 185/60 R14's. You would be going more slowly than the speedo reading. 4. There are quite a few other sizes which are "possibles" but they are not going to be the "official" alternatives. Mytyres offers a Continental WinterContact TS 850 195/55 R15 85H which I quite fancy at a rather hefty £77.30 each incl. delivery. 5. Winter Tyres tested by Which? attempt to put figures on performance and have thrown up Continental WinterContact TS 850 as "best" in quite a few sizes. Conti's own website shows there are TS 830, TS 830P, TS 850 & TS 850P treads in ascending order of performance/grip. The P's have asymmetric treads and seem (particularly the 850P) to be aimed at high power and/or luxury cars. The TS 850P has at present a small range with no suitable sizes for Fabias, so I'm aiming for a tyre from the TS 850 range, with the TS 830P as second choice. Having said that, general opinion seems to be that any reputable winter tyre would be a GOOD THING, particulary in icy Scotland 6. My driver's handbook acknowledges that it is permissible to relax the "speed" rating for winter tyres and so an H (up to 130mph) or T (up to 118mph) would be OK. For summer tyres the speed rating would correctly be based on the max speed of the car, even in our 70mph limited green & pleasant land. I had the same "OK to relax speed rating" from Conti's technical enquiry phone line. 7. BUT Conti's insisted that the LOAD RATING should not be relaxed. 8. I have found mytres (www.mytyres.co.uk) helpful in searching for suitable tyres, wheels and tyre/wheel combos. You may be able to get useful gen on rim width and offset (OS or et) for your car - the site accepts reg nos and both alloy & steel wheels are dealt with. Carbibles also has a calculator for the range of permitted rim widths for various tyres. Hope you get some specific posts on your VW rims. Good luck - it's a minefield!

Evening all! Thanks again for your further posts. It seems I should blame Euro setting me off down a difficult road. The stub end of the black plastic ferrule came out easily enough using a succession of drills. But thanks felicia 16v for the blow torch tip. And the h/brake cable with metal end fitted inside the alloy tube OK. There was indeed some corrosion inside the tube end, cleared using a 9.5mm drill in my fingers - the tube is nominal 10.0mm i/d. I'd mentioned the cable had an extra outer protective sleeve, which I thought was a Good Thing. But of course it would no way fit in the awkward clip 1H0609734F. The original cable had an o/d of about 9mm with an approximate hex of 10mm where it sits in the clip. The new cable is some 12.8mm o/d and the hex about 15mm. The two other clips (forwards along the cable run) are tight but can be persuaded open a bit. I'm not fully happy about the tightness, but the extra outer sheath is pretty soft. The local dealer mentioned an alternative clip 1J0609734 - again never supplied by them and no stock! Said to be for heavy duty suspension. However, I managed to find one in stock at Trade Parts Specialists (TPS) who are factors for the VAG group. Obviously the correct clip for that cable, though you need very strong fingers (or wide opening grippers) to fit it round the cable. Job done! Wino gave above the means to identify what should be on a particular car when new. But of course your car may have been "modified" by some meddler like me! Advice is to stick to original fitments and order in a new clip beforehand; 1H0609734F unless you have the HD suspension when you need 1J0609734. If changing to the bigger o/d type I would advise also getting the two other clips exactly suited to the bigger o/d cable rather than struggle with the existing - sorry I don't have the nos. The vRS has some new tyres going on the front (now 39,000 mls) - standard size 205/45R16 W83 Continental premium Contact. Were Bridgstone Turanzas(?) from new, one more plus spare fitted (front) at 25,500 mls. When we bought the car (2008, 17,000 mls) I thought the handing quite twitchy for a fwd car with heavy-ish engine; changing the pressures to 34psi all round gave a good balance in my eyes. Interesting to see how the Conti's will compare. Please don't caution me about not having best tyres on rear; I prefer good fronts to clear water away - unless going sideways (joke). Again, thank you all for your posts. Happy Skoda-ing

Thanks again gents! trundlenut - I promise to be gentle with the tube, my first time with this job .... I originated somewhere near you in Derbys, security prevents me naming the town but later moved a few miles east to Worksop. My 4wd estate/hatch is a B*W 1 series. Great diesel engine and adaptive suspension, useful rear-facing camera but overall far too clever for its own good. I dread any future failures in the electrics. Ex demo from another dealer but supplied with a damaged rear wiper blade and wrong tyre pressures. Runflat system (no spare, boo hiss) which spots punctures by computing rolling radius. When I corrected the pressures a dire warning flashed up and I had to delve into the driver's manual to re-zero the system. Oh for an honest straightforward Octavia or Yeti! Wino - thanks for the refs - are they well known about in this forum? In the partscats, later dates for the cable assembly all show the same pic. I'd hoped for details of the later assembly - if it is indeed a change in the design, and not just a wrong part from Euro. My Euro cable is part no. 108441558 - "brake cable LH & RH VAG Ibizia Fabia Polo 06 - Disc". The Pagid Artikel no. is 84635; Bremsseil/brake cable; application Audi Volkswagen; L (length?) 1645mm I don't have the Skoda number. The online w/shop manual suggests fitting a new clip holding the cable to the axle - the one I found a b**std to remove (above). It has 4 small claws which should spring apart easily on fitting but which lock into the two coarse threaded studs on the underside of the axle (trailing arm) when you prise it off. I was lucky to get it off pretty intact and after a bit of remedial treatment it should be OK. Local dealer "has never had one" and (of course!) not in stock. For someone tackling the job with time to prepare I would suggest ordering one in. It is (I think!) 1H0609734F costing £1.23 + Vat Happy Skoda-ing!

Thanks very much Wino & trundlenut! Wino's Parts Catalog shows what looks like the parts as fitted new. Is there a later version, perhaps showing the tubes separately from the cables? I'll give the Pagid part number later. Is the Catalog open to all to see? Looks as if I plan to follow a similar method to trundlenut. I'll take care not to dislodge the tube - this might mean taking up part of the rear carpet. Like the sound of the 4 x 4 Octavia Estate. I'll give a final update soon. Again, many thanks!