EGC

We keep a set of lock-nut removal sockets. They do work, but you need to use them with an impact wrench. This is a regular problem for many workshops and not too difficult to sort out. You dont need to resort to hammering things on and chiselling at the bolt! Dont bother with the McGard type, they are weak, get the splined type instead.

This is quite common on a range of cars. Its due to the pad backing being a little 'undersized' for the caliper carriers and the pad can move about 1mm or so in the carrier. Often depends what brand of pads are fitted. We just had a Suzuki Swift this last week with the same problem. We'd sold it as a used car and owner wasn't happy. Changed the OE TRW pads for some Mintex - problem solved! No detriment to the braking though, so dont woeey about it.

I think it will fail the Taxi test is the light is on (its stricter than the MoT). We have had taxi drivers ask us to put the SRS light out and there is no way other than sticking black tape over it! Stripping down the intrument pod is not really practical, and if you undo any connectors the warning light will still stay on and another fault code will be added. You need to code read and the fault fixed. Common troublespots on these are the connectors under the seats and the clockspring unit.

The adjustment is at the handbrake lever end (nut on the equaliser bar). The return springs should not really be necessary. After some years of attending to these problems on various VAG cars I have come to the conclusion that the pistons are a bit tighter than they should be. We have had cars, year after year, that wear out their rear pads before the fronts...

I have been servicing/repairing VAG cars for many years. Sticking rear brake calipers are unfortunately a common problem and often difficult to cure. Generally they free up after a while with regular use, although the small calipers on the Polo/Fabia etc can go very sticky and need replacement. Note that the handbrake MUST be correctly adjusted (lever NOT on the stops, but just clear of it by the specified amount on both sides) - even VAG dealers get this wrong and the result is an 'overadjusted' handbrake that binds a bit. Strip the pads out of the calipers and thoroughly clean the slides, make sure the pads float free. Then put the rear wheels on a rolling road (MoT test station) and check for significant drag. Most times there will be enough drag to heat the discs slightly, but not enough to cause any real problem or show up on the RR.

The design of this unit appears to be a shock absorber mounted inside the tube which goes into the hub mount and holds the spring seat. Some rust has formed inside the tube, but that is not the cause of the failure. Judging by your photo (its not entirely clear) the ARB drop link has actually bent. This would require a huge amount of force, so its not surprising that the bracket finally broke away. I suspect that either the bracket is incorrectly located on the coilover unit (not high far enough up) or there was some kind of installation error that caused the ARB to 'bottom out' and so you had the weight of the car on the droplink, bending it and eventually breaking the bracket. Either way, it will require the coilover units to be removed...

If you need the factory parking aid sesnor front brackets then try 1ZO919485C We have bought these in the past. You can also get the dealer-fit brackets. Relies on the storeman being a bit interested in helping you.

Very nasty. That's the ARB (antiroll bar) droplink bracket by the looks of it. Great amount of force has been applied there - it looks to me like the droplink has actually bent slightly and the bracket then torn off. I suspect a fitting error, rather than a fault with the parts. PS - do not drive the car any distance in this condition. If you must move it, then drive it VERY SLOWLY. Not sure entirely what is going on there, and what is happening to the other side. Better if your fitter can come out to you and take a look.

We routinely get VAG cars in with sticking rear calipers. Its common on Golfs and Polos. Normally there is no pulling noticed. Owners invariably bring the car in because they've noticed a burning smell when getting out of the car at the end of a trip.

I wonder at the value of the test. The top few tyres are overall less than a few percent apart. On some of the individual tests the tyres are scored less than 1% apart. How do you (subjectively) assess a tyre to an accuracy of better than one part in one hundred? I am not sure its a meaningful and repeatable difference.

This car is FWD, so if you are sure rear wheels are scrabbling on pull-off then it could be a sticking rear brake. Put you hand (gently) on the centre of each rear wheel after a run and see if they feel hot. Should be no hotter than front ones. If it is a sticking rear brake doing this then one wheel will be very hot since it must be well sticky.

If the brakes were binding enough to cause the problems that described then the smell of brake linings would be very noticable after a few miles, and there would be smoke from the brakes on longer runs. We see quite a few sticking rear brakes on Otavia II, usually one side only sticks. Golf V etc and after a few miles there is a very strong smell and the wheel almost too hot to touch. It could be that engine power is down for some reason. We had a DSG Audi with similar symptoms and that turned out to be a problem with exhaust blockage. Vast majority of problems we see with rough shifts and wrong shifts on DSGs are down to the MU though. Obviously there is no substitute for actually seeing the car since a lot of owners misdescribe symptoms or dont tell you vital information.

Erratic changes points and rough changes are invariably due to problems with the MU. We see quite a number of these as the age/mileage builds up. 19k is quite early for MU problems, but hardly unheard of. Low speed judder on take-off is usually down to problems with the clutch packs. Probles with the DSG should not affect the brake pedal feel, not the grip at the rear. These are likely to be unrelated problems (if they are real problems).

Alternatively use the repair kit now available from VAG. About £140. You need access to VCDS though.

We are agents for a major warranty company (not WD) and offer their warranties with used car sales. Usually WD have a large margin built into their premiums, so you should be able to negotiate a significant discount over their online quote by ringing their call centre and haggling. Expect to get 25-30% off their headline quote. I would expect something like an Octavia vRS to be covered for dealer repairs and W&T for £240-300 a year.

I am in and out of different cars all day as part of my job. Mainly VAG, but also lots of other brands. You have to get things into perspective. It makes me laugh when I see people complaining that the vRS is not fast enough or doesnt handle. The vRS is averagely noisy, it is quicker than 98% of cars on the road and handles better than 98% of cars on the road. It does almost everything as well as a Golf GTI or A3, but with more room and for less money. As an all round package it is hard to beat. That is why I have one when I could have almost any other car (within reason), they make a great good to drive workhorse and the overall image reputation and residuals on Skodas are now strong (look at the auction prices of the ex-police Octavias). The FL version seems to be a little noisier then the preFL version, I think they removed some soundproofing to keep the weight down.

I hope the OP will not take offence at this post, but these Comtrend adapters should NOT be used. They were subject to a recall late last year due to an electric shock risk. These adapters were given out to BT customers (I had a pair) who were subsequently contacted and told not to use them, but to return them to BT in a free post-paid envelope. They were replaced (FOC) with a different type (black case and green dot on it). Full details of the safety recall are here: http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=29966&s_cid=con_FURL_powerlineadapter The OP may well still be able to get them swapped out for free by BT.

I dont know how much you paid for the car, but I think you are being overly negative. I work in the motor trade and we have been buying, selling and repairing VAG cars for many years. There are thousands and thousands of parallel import Skodas on the roads. Not to mention Golfs and so on. Almost every other Subaru we see has been bought in via Malta or cyprus. The game is that the UK car supermarkets put orders for UK-spec cars via Maltese dealers. Under EEC laws the manufacturers are forced to supply them. The cars come off the ship in Malta and are PDI'd before going back onto a ship and brought to UK. They are not used in Malta. These are fully UK spec cars and there is they are not in any sense different to the UK cars, although the warranty can be one year less, but this is irrelevent on a 3 year old car. We offer just the same price on trade-in as a UK car and these cars go through the auctions and book the same as UK cars of the same age. No body is bothered anymore once the warranty is expired. Skoda dealers, like any other car dealer, can offer whatever warranty they want. They probably dont take the Skoda Approved warranty because Skoda UK probably take 50% commission. CCP are good but not available to the retail customer, you would have to buy Warranty Direct or one of the others. Regarding the 4" scratch I think you have to be realistic that this is a three year old car. We see three year old cars with much worse, and even low mileage one year old cars in rough condition, some owners are very rough on their cars. One bonus of buying the import is that it will have been a private buyer, and they usually look after their cars more carefully than company drivers (run them in properly etc).

We are independent VAG sales/repair. We only do basic repair work on DSGs because of the complexity and difficulty of successful long-term repair. Clutch pack replacement is relatively straightforward. Mechatronic U replacement we would send to dealers and is not an easy job to get right. I would say 50% of mechatronic replacements are unsuccessful. A lot depends on the experience of the tech doing the job and the high turnover of techs these days means that you can get someone inexperienced doing it and balls it up.

Some of you guys living in fairlyland or what? Most of the units coming into the UK are nicked. It rife all across europe. I am in the motor trade and get offered knocked-off stereos all the time. They even cold-call the workshop and ask what we want and offer to come and fit it. These are mainly people with connection in eastern europe. Code cards are not problem. You can get software from Lithuania to set whatever pin code and serial number you want! Only 300 Euro and comes with the lead to the quadlock. --Link Removed-- You get templates for the code cards off the web and print on to a piece of card!! If you must buy one of these then do not pay cash. Only pay by check or card and make sure you get some kind of warranty.

I work in the retail motor trade and know from bitter experience that a lot of the 'used' and 'refurbished' stereos is in reality stolen goods. I still have a Merc unit on my shelf that we now know to have been stolen in Europe and made its way to the UK (Doncaster) via Poland. Unfortunately the police dont seem interested in looking into this. I bet nearly all the stuff coming in from eastern europe is stolen. If someone can show me a genuine source of so-called refurbished units then I would be very interested in buying some. I have numerous trade suppliers and no one has yet found, or even heard of, a supplier of genuine VAG ICE other than the going to the dealers themselves.

Firstly, if out of warranty you may wish to consider and independent workshop...... Secondly, its best to ring around. Remember that prices aren't actually fixed, there is always room for negotiation. Most main dealers near us are fairly quiet at the moment, so you may be able to strike a deal.

|You should be able to R&R the rocker cover at least once or twice without replacing. And yes, these harnesses can give trouble, the whole design is really crap and its a bit awkward to change them, hence the high dealer quote. Give me the old 1.9PD engine every time!

The used car market is reasonably healthy at the moment and we are finding that anything Diesel moves quite quickly. We just had an '03 Ibiza 1.9tDI with 74k on it that sold within 24 hours, and it wasn't particularly tidy or cheap either. For private sellers you are likely to achieve a good price and prompt sales using Autotrader's web-only 2-week offer. You can describe it very fully on the web and provide a good selection of photos. Provided its not recorded (e.g. on vcar) then I promise you that car will go quickly.

We tend to buy a fair number of used parts for repair, normally when owners are paying for repairs themselves and wishing to keep costs to a minimum. There is so much hookey stuff floating about now that we ALWAYS ask for a full receipt from the seller for higher value parts. This HAS to include their name and address (preferably on legit headed paper) and the registration and VIN number of the vehicle that the part was removed from. Where an item has a serial number (such as a stereo, gearbox, ECU etc.) then we ask them to include that as well. Any legitimate breaker will be prepared to do this for you. We keep all of this on file so that should the BiB come knocking we can show a paper trail for all the parts on our premises.