agentz

It's black on my metallic red Octy Elegance. I've got the black cloth interior so dunno if that makes a difference.

Great turnaround Simon

Very sad and only 63 :( http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_110419_01/Elisabeth_Sladen

Vacuumed the inside, cleaned the insides of the glass and cleared some of my work junk out of the boot. Then did a 60 mile round trip to my sons birthday party and then had to clean the outside when I got back at 7pm as there was copious amounts of bird poo on it :( Second cleaning in three days.

Excellent

Our local Tesco was the same - 135.9 for diesel when I went past yesterday, 136.9 today when I went past at about half seven :wonder:

Bought a pack of 36 Eurow microfibre cloths (40x40) in Costco at the weekend for about £13 They'll do fine for glass and wheels and the like.

Thanks for coming back to tell us what fixed your problem, all too often people don't come back for whatever reason and it makes trying to troubleshoot an issue tricky! Glad you finally got it sorted out

An Australian site published photos of a VW/Skoda test mule undergoing testing in Sweden. It was a current Octavia body with a Mk 6 Golf front end grafted on, a VW badge on the rear and a Golf interior with a few oddities. Talk about how to confuse spy photographers! http://www.caradvice.com.au/105897/skoda-volkswagen-mule-spy-photos/vw-skoda-mule-2/

I had a small crack and a few very small (less than 1") scuffs sorted out on the front bumper of my old titanium grey Mazda6 and the guy from Chipsaway made a cracking job of it. He came out to look at the car, drilled a small hole at the end of the crack to stop it spreading any further and then once I'd accepted his quote arranged a time to suit. Turned up exactly on time, reinforced the cracked area by heating it and sinking a fine mesh into the area, filled and smoothed it then sprayed. He also sorted out the four or five little nicks caused at the same time as the crack simply and quickly by using a liquid filler spread on with a razor blade then hardened with a spray, sanded, then sprayed. The whole corner of the bumper was then heated with lamps to cure the paint then it was given a very quick going over with a buff. Really, seriously could not see the repair afterwards. There's a piece of lacquer about the size of a 2p lifting off the front bumper of my other half's Seat Leon and I'm going to give the same guy a call and get him to come and have a look at it. I've heard stories of not so good jobs from plenty of other people though so unfortunately it seems very much on the franchisee in your area.

Just had my car serviced at West End and they were on the ball as usual Always friendly and helpful. Must remember to pop in tomorrow and pick up the touch up kit they ordered in for me.

Yup, 3.8 as willydog says. Just had my car (2.0TDi BK engine) serviced on Tuesday and it says 3.8L all over the paperwork.

It's very odd. Managed to find a few previous threads (thanks Google!) about this issue but not really any definitive answer. Seems it could be either the interior ultrasonic sensor is faulty, or the 'inclination sensor', or it could be a problem with the central convenience unit, or it could just have a mind of it's own. http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/164158-odd-immo-led-problem/ http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/64731-red-led-on-drivers-door-on-unlock/ http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/123605-red-warning-light-in-drivers-door/ I'll be asking my dealer in a couple of weeks, will see what they reckon.

Had a wee search around the forum and couldn't find anything.... The red LED on the drivers door of my 56 plate Octy II sometimes comes on solid, and stays on even when I unlock the car and open the door. I've got to shut the door, relock and unlock the car again to get it to go off. Only happens very occasionally, has happened three times in the last fortnight. As far as I can tell the alarm and locking seem to be working OK - if I leave a window open, lock the car, wait for a few moments then shove my arm through the window it will trigger the alarm. In fact, managed to set the alarm off last time I machine polished the roof of the car! It's just done it again - parked outside the local shop, popped in, grabbed a paper came out and the LED on solid. My next door neighbour has a code reader and has scanned the car and there are no codes present but not sure if his basic reader (a Gendan unit) scans the appropriate module. Any suggestions? Like I said, it all seems to be working fine, but usually in my experience a solid red light usually indicates a problem. The car is due a service in about 300 miles (not that it's given me a service reminder, which I thought it was supposed to do) so I'll be asking the dealer to take a look anyway but thought I'd ask here.

Nice looking car

TO be honest, I wouldn't bother with CS/Tech much longer, you've given them a fair old crack at the whip, have been more than helpful when they've asked you for further information. Try one of the following Chief Executive email addresses - pick your company... o2: [email protected] Orange: [email protected] T-Mobile: [email protected] Three: [email protected] Vodafone UK: [email protected] They'll most likely be picked up on my some PR drone, but they can get results, this issue has been affecting you and others for six weeks plus now. I had horrendous issues with Vodafone customer services a year or so ago, where they were constantly billing me for insurance even though I'd never signed up for it, and despite repeated phonecalls, and promises from CS staff, CS managers and customer liaison team that they would cancel it and refund the payments it took over a year to sort out. It would disappear from my bill for a month or two then would come back again. I eventually emailed Guy Laurence, got a very nice reply from a very helpful lady, and had a letter confirming that the insurance had been cancelled and I'd been credited in excess of £150. Good luck, and well done for tackling the issue - other people may just have assumed that they'd already be aware of it or that someone else would report it.

No rise for me again this year, this is the fourth year my salary has been frozen thanks to that beast known as 'Single Status'. In fact, come October I'll be losing between £140-£160 a month. The single status protection period finishes in October, and given that we've had a pay freeze, the salary that the post attracts won't have caught up with mine, so I'll lose about £60 a month because of that. Just before Christmas my employer announced that they are ditching their essential car user scheme, of which I've been on for the last 12 years. That's worth about another £70 a month. They haven't said as much yet, but I'm certain that they are going to chop the mileage rate they pay us from 40p/mile to something like 20p/mile, so right now that's worth about £15 a month to me, but it's likely the geographical area I cover is going to expand in April when three of my colleagues (out of a team of 7) take early retirement. Gotta love government service.

Thanks Tech1e My next door neighbour helped out with a spare battery he had, which saw minimal use in his last car and is regularly charged. Connected it up to the Leon, got it started but it was doing the surging thing again, meter alternating between 11.9V and 13.7V. Only ran it for 30 seconds or so and it took a fair whack out of his battery. He's very good with auto electrics, has a lot of experience. Reckons one of the windings on the alternator is shorting, causing the battery to drain, which has killed the Bosch battery fitted in the car. So, looks like I'm after a replacement battery and alternator. Was wondering how to get the car to the garage I've been using recently, which is about seven miles away. Checked and found that I've got RAC Option 3, which includes the 'at home' option so reckon the best bet is to call the RAC and get them to get the car to the garage some time next week. Thanks again for your help.

Hi everyone We've got a Y-plate Leon 1.4S with 73k miles on it and as you'd expect for a car of it's age it's starting to need wee bits and pieces done to it. The car has had very little use over the last four and a half months as my partner has been working away from home. I've been trying to take it out for a run about once a week but then we had all that snow before Christmas so that kinda knocked it on the head for a few weeks. After the snow had shifted and I was able to get to the car again I was quite dubious that it'd start, but it did, first turn of the key and only a few seconds of turning over. Excellent. Took it out for about a 15 mile run and all seemed well. Then we had more snow and temperatures below -10 so it sat for another couple of weeks. I went out and started it, and again it started fine but the battery warning light stayed on but it seemed to be running fine. Put my multimeter across the battery and was getting 14.1V at idle, rising to approx 14.4V if I took the revs up to about 2k, so it seemed like the alternator was doing it's thing. Took it out for a wee run, battery light stayed on the whole time, checked it with the meter again, still getting 14.1V at idle, switched it off and the battery seemed to be holding a charge OK, down to about 12.5V after an hour or so. Started no problem but the battery light still on. I did notice a slight noise coming from the general area of the alternator, almost like a very faint rubbing noise. Connected up the battery charger just to see what it did, and it charged for about five minutes then went in to maintenance mode. Left it like that for a couple of hours, battery seemed healthy enough. Started the car last week, and it started but it seemed to be 'surging' a little, battery light still on, but I noticed the dash illumination dipping a little - metered across the battery and it was fluctuating between 12.4V and 14.1V every second or so. Sat like this for about five minutes then settled down to a steady 14.1V at idle. Let it warm through, took it out for a spin round the block, about three miles, let it sit for half an hour, started it again and the same behaviour - voltage at the battery fluctuating again for a few minutes then steadied down. Went out to start the car yesterday and dead as a very dead thing, meter across the battery gave me 7.5V. OK, so the battery has died over the last couple of weeks. Stuck the charger on it just out of hope more than anything else, charged for about 5 minutes, got the voltage up to about 12V then the charger declared defective battery and shut off. OK, so now I've waffled too much to get to the actual question... about to go to Euro Car Parts to get a replacement battery, but do you think the alternator is also bust? Does the fact that a couple of weeks ago I was getting fluctuating voltage at the battery indicate that there's something up with the alternator, or could it simply have been a warning that the battery was about to die? We bought the car about 5 years ago and in the handbook wallet was a pile of receipts from the old guy who owned it from new, and amongst them was a receipt for a replacement battery and alternator at about 42k miles, if my memory is working. So the battery and alternator are both about six years old (it's a big Bosch battery). There will be a new battery in the car later today, and I'll see how it behaves, see if the battery light stays on, but am I going to have to fork out about £180 for a replacement alternator from ECP as well?

Not that familiar with the inner gubbins of washing machines myself but have in the past found the people over at http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/ to be a very helpful, knowledgeable bunch. Might be worth searching their forums for a similar problem, or posting over their for advice - a lot of white goods engineers post on there.

Hmm, might be different on the Octy (mine's got rear electric windows so can't nip out and check) but that's how it works on my other halfs Seat Leon and my neighbours Fabia. IIRC it took me a few goes before I found which direction I had to shove the ones in the Leon to get them to release. Sure someone else will be along soon with another suggestion

Cleared another three inches of bloody snow off it. Just been out and it's been snowing again! Grr.

If it's anything like other VW group cars then it's dead easy... There's a sort of collar around the handle where between the windy bit and the door card - it simply pushes to one side and then the handle pops off. It really doesn't take much force at all once you figure out which direction it needs to go in.

The washers work with the sidelights on my 56 plate 2.0PD Elegance too

So the roads around here have been pretty grim for the last few days, the M8 reopened this afternoon after being closed between J1 and J5 for 48 hours. My partner was driving my Octy yesterday and was driving within the conditions (dry, but a lot of snow at the sides of the road and about -9C). He spotted a taxi stopped ahead waiting to pull a u-turn but not quite in the usual position because of build up of snow in the middle of the road. He was only doing about 20 in 3rd and a fair distance back, came off the throttle, down to 2nd, needed to get off a little more speed, braked, hit a patch of ice and the car slid off to the right. Fortunately it got a bit of traction when the front O/S wheel hit the snow and he was able to get a little more speed down but the car hit the ice again and slid, slow-motion style back towards the nearside kerb and the front o/s corner of my car clipped the rear n/s of the taxi at about 5mph. The car carried on sliding ever so slowly to the near side where it embedded itself into a large pile of snow. The taxi (a Fiat Doblo) has a crack in the n/s section of his rear bumper. Details were duly exchanged and the taxi buggered off, leaving my partner to try and un-beach my car. It took him an hour, and the assistance of two policemen who were walking past (eventually) to dig the car out. Apart from a very small bit of damage to the front bumper and a buggered fog light my car seems fine. It seems to drive OK, there doesn't seem to be any wonky panel gaps, the headlight unit and headlight washer seem fine and it doesn't seem to have lost any vital fluids Anyhow, he phoned eSure, reported it and they have been on the ball as ever, the car is being picked up by John Martin Group Accident Repair Centre on Friday and they will leave a courtesy car (probably a biscuit tin on wheels) for assessment and potentially repair if they can get everything together quickly enough in this weather. I've attached two pics of my bumper to show just how minor it was, but I've noticed that the plastic that the o/s foglight screws onto is cracked - do you reckon that it'll probably be a replacement bumper job or will they plastic-weld it? Had the front bumper on my last car (Mazda6) repaired last winter after I clipped something while trying to avoid someone else trying to avoid an accident and it was a very good job. Apart from the damage to the foglight, the bumper and the plastic trim that covers the towing eye doodah, is there anything else I should be watching out for? Would it be worth my while nicking the car up to the local decent tyre place and getting the tracking and alignment checked out or would eSure/JMARC do it if asked? Don't think the car quite made it to the kerb because of the volume of snow banked up. Anyhow, my partner is fine, the car seems fine apart from a wee cosmetic blemish. My premium will go up next year no doubt in spite of paying for NCD protection and I've got £150 excess to fork out on satisfactory completion of the repair. Could have been worse given the state of the roads round here and some of the prangs/bumps/wrecks I've seen while walking to and from work for the last week and a half!