mikel543

Yes you have to take the headlight unit out. its a right pain in the a**e. There is a plastic nut above the headlight unit which you undo and then it slides out. I think it covers this in the owners handbook somewhere near the back, but the instructions aren't fantastic.

High Intensity Discharge Light (Xenon) works by high voltage arc across a tube filled with Xenon gas, produces a very bright light that looks slightly blue to oncoming vehicles. Retrofitting these is quite controversial as by the letter of the law the lights need to be self levelling and have washers fitted. (Standard halogen lights aren't self levelling) After market HID kits don't address the above two points and you end up with a car that is at best is an MOT failure and at worst a hazard to other drivers as they get dazzled even on dipped beam.

Are you sure its the clutch that's screeching? I had a car that did this and it turned out to be the water pump drive belt was a little bit loose. Might be worth looking at the tension of the drive belts first as its much cheaper to sort out than the clutch.

I think aspman covered most of it. Other things to look out for are electric windows in the back (part of the jumbo box upgrade / option on some cars). Cruise control is nice if you do a lot of motorway miles, Maxidot computer is also a nice toy to have but isn't essential, its similar to the display you get on golfs and Ford Focus's, Mondeo's etc... in the middle of the dash. Also worth noting is that isofix mounts on the rear seats for child seats are standard. Finally when thinking about the price of fuel you need to factor in that the 2.0TFSI runs on performance 98RON fuel rather than standard 95 RON unleaded so factor the extra pence per litre for Super into you costings as well.

Bodge is right, the demist function on the Mk I was always a bit pants. I think it tells you in the manual to close all the vents as Bodge has already said. It was never fantastic in my Mk I and was like this from new, IIRC the dealer pointed it out when I picked up the car.

My mate and I were in the car park at work last week comparing our VW Group cars out in the sun. My 08 MK II VRS and his 57 Plate Seat Leon FR. One thing we both agreed on was that the Leon would look much better if its plain calipers were replaced with red ones like those on my VRS. Having a quick look at the two hubs through the slots in the alloys, the discs and calipers on both cars look identical barring the red paint job. Firstly does anyone know if they are the same? Secondly does anyone know where he can source the red calipers for the Leon from? Preferably somewhere online. He's got someone lined up to fit them so that isn't a problem, he just needs some pointers on where to look at getting them from and he doesn't want to mess around with painting the existing ones if possible. Thanks Mike

Hi & welcome to the forums. I have it disabled on mine (came from dealer like that) and the button by the handbrake still locks and unlocks all the doors manually. Mike

Happened on my Octy MkI as well. Went to the dealer several times under warranty. In the end the dealer reckoned it was the rear windscreen washer leaking water into the motor and causing a short. It seemed to stop after the final trrip to the dealer, although I got rid of it shortly after so I don't know if it was permanently cured.

Hi Although as a satisfied TDI driver it pains me to say this, I would agree with the majority on here and recommend that if I were you I would go for the petrol TFSI engine, given your low annual mileage and mostly urban driving. One thing to bear in mind is that the 2.0TFSI engine runs on 98+RON Super rather than Standard 95RON Unleaded and costs a few pence more a litre. But even taking this and the lower fuel economy into account it should still work out cheaper to get the petrol version. Mike

Hi I'm not familiar with the 3rd party systems that your referring to however, the Octavia comes with its own anti car jacking system which can be enabled by a dealer or someone with a VAG COM unit. This system automatically locks all the doors once the car goes over a certain speed, thus preventing car jacking when you stop at lights e.t.c.... IIRC in the event of the on board accelerometers detecting a crash it will automatically release the door locks. Maybe worth considering getting it enabled. Mike

Had this problem on my old Octy Mk I Elegance took muliple trips to the dealer to sort out (under warranty thankfully). Turned out to be water leaking from the rear washer and causing an earth fault on the wiper motor. Ask the dealer to check it out. Good luck! Seemed to be worse in warm weather an when I went over speed bumps.

When I bought my VRs TDi in March, the dealer told me that the car was on variable servicing and could potentially go up to 20,000 miles. However he said he'd be disappointed if it was that long before it came in for servicing as it meant it hadn't really been driven much. Basically if you drive it like an OAP you get the 20k servicing otherwise it may need servicing earlier depending on the oil quality. TBH I don't really mind how far it goes before it needs a service, I got a TDi VRs because I wanted to have a bit of fun (which I'm having ) while still getting some decent fuel economy, although current price of diesel makes me a bork a bit when I fill up. The way I see it is that every mile I do over the 10k is a bonus and I've had fun getting there. My last car an Octy Mark I Elegance was recoded by an unscupulous dealer to fixed 10k services, even though the vehicle code sticker specified variable. Hence I bought my VRs from a different dealer, incidentally the one who had pointed out that my original vehicle had been recoded and put it back to variable for me when I took it in for the tandem fuel pump recall.

Read in the paper the other week that Tesco standard derv is 5% bio-diesel straight from the pump. Also a law which came into force this month says that min 2.5% of diesel sales must come from crops. I think that the way the fuel companies are ensuring this is happening is to mix Bio-diesel with standard diesel. Now my starter for 10 is, will running my VRS TDi on Tesco 5% bio derv cause issues with the DPF? As soon as I found out I switched brands to Shell, but does anyone out there know if either shell V-Power or Diesel Extra is mixed with bio-fuel? See article below for where I got this from. Article is actually about Tesco using Palm oil to produce Bio-diesel and destroying rain forrests in the process. Tesco green fuel ‘adds to climate change’ - Times Online

Hi Like the OP I've got the retro fit sensors on my VRS, the reason I got the retro fit ones was because the dealer said that I'd have to wait quite a while for the factory ones and that there would be extra cost involved, due to a special offer expiring. In fairness to the dealer I went to they did point out that they wouldn't link to the radio and that they wouldn't be as good as the factory fit ones. I asked if it was possible to retro fit the factory ones and the answer was no as this meant changing the bumper and I also think there was an issue with the ECU. Also my dealer kindly painted them to match the colour of the car so that they didn't stick out like a saw thumb on the rear bumper. I can't see any of the workings on the sounder so it looks like the dealer I went to did a really neat job. As with the OP these sometimes go off randomly when reversing down a steep hill as they sense the road. However it isn't really possible to mount them any higher due to the shape of the rear bumper on the VRS. My mate has the factory fit ones on his VRS and his bumper is a slightly different shape with little recesses where the sensors go. The way I look at them is as an aid rather than relying on them for parking. I mostly rely on looking out the rear window and find the rear spoiler great for judging where the back of my car is with relation to other cars. I find the sensors quite good at short range and not so good further away from obstacles and definitely not as good as the ones I had on my elegance before. BTW they've already payed for themselves once by saving me from hitting a 2 foot high post which my local council stuck at the end of a parking bay with a nice sign on it saying I couldn't stay for more than an hour (nice one). There was absolutely no way I could see this out of the rear window when I was backing into the space as it was too low, so IMHO they were well worth the extra 250 quid. But if the OP is not entirely happy maybe he should go back and talk to the dealer. It sounds like his dealer didn't properly explain what he was getting and maybe he has some room for negtoiation there.

Hi Everyone this is my first post on this forum. I thought I would shove my two penneth in on the difference between Analogue and Digital tuning boxes. My understanding is that analogue boxes consist of resistors to con the ECU into thinking that the air being taken into the engine is colder than it actually is. Cold air is denser than warm air, therefore to ensure the correct air to fuel mix ratio the ECU injects more fuel when it thinks that the air taken into the engine is cold. The extra rich mixture in warm conditions caused by the analogue tuning box conning the ECU gives you increased performance from the engine. The digital tuning boxes consist of a second ECU which connects to the fuel systems and provides a more aggressive map to inject more fuel when the engine is under load. While the short term performance gain between the two methods may be similar the analogue tuning method is quite crude and can result in too richer mixture entering the engine under certain conditions. The result of this is that some of the fuel is only partly combusted due to lack of O2, which results in more carbon monoxide and soot being generated in the engine. Over time the extra soot can accumulate in the turbo charger and eventually cause the turbo to fail. Therefore IMHO the digital box is well worth the extra money when weighed against the cost of replacing a failed turbo. Mike