Mercurio

Passed my test in 1982, so this might take some time, but here goes... 1. 1978 Ford Capri II 1.6S - silver with black vinyl roof. Was planning to get an Escort but somehow ended up with this! 2. 1988 Fiat Uno 60S (1.1) - bought new after outbreak of common sense, but surprisingly entertaining to drive 3. 1990 Vauxhall Astra 1.7D (company car) - sloooowwww! 4. 1993 Rover 218SLD (company car) - with Peugeot 1.7TD engine. Massive improvement on the Astra - found out what it was like to overtake again! 5. 1995 Ford Mondeo 1.8GLS?/X? (company car) - got bored with the Rover after 70k miles so swapped with a colleague for this 6. 1993 Vauxhall Cavalier 4x4 Turbo (company car) - got my hands on this when my boss left and his replacement wanted something larger. Still fondly remembered and forgiven for losing all its water on the M5 one night. Stolen from outside my flat and recovered, but then management wouldn't let me keep it without secure parking, so ended up back in the Rover :( 7. 1991 Vauxhall Cavalier 2.0 GLS (company car) - change of job. Didn't do it for a better car! 8. 1996 Peugeot 406 1.9D GLX (company car) 9. 1998 Volvo S40 2.0CD (company car) - full leather and lots of toys but not a great drive 10. 2001 Honda Accord 2.0VTEC SE Exec - missed the heated seats last winter! 11. 2007 Skoda Octavia vRS 2.0TFSI - reminds me of the Cavalier Turbo

A further update. The owner as per the OP eventually managed to get Skoda UK to up their offer of a goodwill contribution to 50%, but that would have still left him with a bill for £750, so he ended up getting a local independent to take the unit off the car and send it to ECU Testing for repair. His car was off the road for ten days and the final bill from ECU Testing was £584 - much more than the £350 quoted on their website for this job on the supposedly similar VW Golf unit. Some story about the Skoda unit having other parts attached and requiring more labour to dismantle. His final bill including removal and refitting of the unit was over £700, so he ended up spending almost as much as if he had taken the Skoda goodwill offer and was without his car for 10 days to boot. The only consolation is that he has a two year warrantly from ECU Testing on the repaired unit compared with 12 months on a replacement unit from Skoda. He is one very unhappy Skoda driver.

Date & Time - Sunday 19th September 12:00 Venue - The Blue Boar, 259 Wroxham Road, Sprowston, Norwich NR7 8RL This is a good non-chain pub on the northern edge of Norwich with lots of options for the now traditional ice cream drive within striking distance . All welcome. Link to map here http://www.blueboarnorwich.co.uk/contact.html 1. Mercurio

September meet thread coming soon. Just need to decide between two possible venues.

BA Wheels in Norwich did a great job on my Zeniths

I suspect that more than a few of these profile views are people who meant to click on 'Go to last post' but hit the poster's username just below

I have Zeniths refurbished in Shadow Chrome (darker than The Wheel Specialist's Smoked Chrome) on my silver car. I reckon these would also look good on a white car - better than black IMHO

I was tempted by the VAT free offer to trade my 07 vRS petrol hatch for a FL vRS when my PCP ended last month but in the end paid the balloon payment to keep my existing car. I'm hoping for a couple of years of low cost motoring and it should still be worth enough in two years time to make me a decent deposit for a new car. The FL looks good, especially the Neptune alloys, but I think its just different rather than than better. Full leather would be nice, but there's always Seat Surgeons.

1. Stug 2. Blueriver 3. Static 4. Matt K123 5. Adman73 6. Silverback (maybe) 7. Stimps (maybe) 8. Mercurio

Dealer quoted £170 for this work on my colleague's car - sounds like 2hrs labour. I've suggested he gets a quote from a local VAG independent.

An update The owner of the car referred to the first post (2006 Octy Sport) has now been offered a 40% goodwill contribution by Skoda UK after being asked to take it into the dealer for further diagnostic checks. The dealer has not offered anything, which is fair enough as he didn't buy the car from them and its the first time he's had the car serviced there. He has rejected this offer as while the car is 1 year out of warranty it has only done 28,000 miles from new and has full main dealer service history, and is awaiting a further response from SUK.

Good to see everyone on Sunday and sorry I couldn't stop for the ice cream. It's day two of our road trip. 650 miles so far and we've reached Freiburg im Breisgau in southern Germany. The hotel has free wifi , so I'm catching up on Briskoda while watching Uruguay v Holland

From the FAQs on the ECU Testing website: Can you fit and/or remove my parts from my vehicle? We do not offer a removal and refitting service for the components we sell and/or repair, we are a specialised electronics laboratory and not a conventional garage. If you want to buy a component from us or have your own unit repaired then you will need to arrange for a garage/mechanic to remove/refit the unit on the vehicle.

Thanks to all for the responses. Even a 50% contribution to a £1500 replacement unit leaves £750 to pay, so a rebuild by ECU Testing for £350 plus the cost of getting the unit off and back onto the car looks attractive. Any ideas on how much labour is involved in removing and refitting the ABS/ESP unit? Has anyone actually used ECU Testing?

I'm posting this on behalf of my colleague at work who had his 2006 Octavia Sport diagnosed with ABS/ESP unit failure today. He has been quoted the full £1,500 for a replacement unit by the dealer. He didn't buy the car from the dealer concerned but it has a full main dealer service history. I've read the "Honest John's take on ESP problems" thread, but does anyone have any updates on success or otherwise in securing goodwill contributions for ABS/ESP unit replacement from Skoda? My colleague is aware of the rebuild service offered by ECU Testing, but is hoping for some ammunition to help him negotiate with Skoda before considering other options. Any information would be much appreciated.

Price was for a two year Skoda warranty. I doubt that coverage includes wear and tear items, but dealer had run out of leaflets so I'm not sure. I see Allams are now offering this for £499 with a free multi-point check if your car doesn't meet the requirement to have been serviced within the last 30 days. My dealer wanted £75 to do the check, but as I've had the car serviced there from new I'd have haggled hard to get this for free. http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/166448-extended-your-warranty/page__pid__2029454__st__0entry2029454 PS Does anyone have a copy of the Skoda extended warranty small print that they could post here to help those who may be interested? Unsurprisingly there's no information on the Skoda UK website

I reckon that my dark chrome wheels would look good on a white car if you are not sure about going for the full black.

My car is out of warranty today. I've gone for Skoda Assistance for another two years - mainly for the free European cover, as we are off on a road trip next week. I thought seriously about an extended warranty, but decided that I didn't have a spare £500 and that I was happy to take my chances with the ABS unit issue. My local dealer wanted £520 for 2 years extended warranty before any haggling, but couldn't supply a leaflet listing what was and wasn't covered!

Check out this thread http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/144062-not-so-gutted-now-my-new-fl-vrs-with-leather/page__p__1803197__hl__vRS%20leather%20seats__fromsearch__1entry1803197 Anthracite - good colour choice

Another variation on the dark but not black alloys theme - shadow chrome powder coated finish. I reckon these would look pretty good on a white car.

Several pics of race blue cars with anthracite and dark chrome zeniths in this thread (from post #30 onwards) http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/132096-new-colour-for-my-18-zenniths/page__st__20

I agree that the latest Chinese units look a better option than the Witsons that were around last year

If you're worried about fitting a Columbus to your car and getting it to work without assistance from a VAG specialist my experience may help. My Columbus retrofit was done by a local independent car audio specialist who had never seen one before with the help of the information I'd gathered from previous Columbus threads on Briskoda. My car is an 07 plate and the unit was plug and play, with no coding required. I didn't have Maxidot fitted at the time, so I can't say whether I would have got nav info displayed in the Maxidot without coding, but I suspect not. The Columbus was subsequently coded to the car when I had Maxidot fitted by Shark Performance. I can remember that Simbo had to get a Canbus upgrade to avoid a battery drain problem caused by his retrofitted Columbus, but that was after doing a firmware upgrade. If you decide to go for a Columbus and can find one of the earlier units like mine you may be ok. Many Briskodians have done Columbus retrofits, so it would would be worth asking on here how others with 56 plate cars have got on.

That's the same idea - dark grille matched to dark wheels on a light coloured car. Looks good.