percymon

I'll get my car back lunchtime today, from now on i'll be adding some 'fuel additive with egr cleaner built in every 5k miles. If using only Shell and BP diesel still causes egr gumming up then a bit more additive can't be a bad thing.

I'm not endorsing their use, as I've not sued them myself, but there are EGR 'cleaners' in the form of an aerosol can that is sprayed into the air inlet. Wynns and Forte spring to mind as major brands. There are also fuel additives which claim to clean, or at least reduce, the build up ont he EGR Halfords / eBay search for egr cleaner throws up loads of options. I'm seriously sonsidering using the fuel additive every now and then, having just been lucky with an out of warranty replacement from VW

Well i can add to the list from a VW point of view.. today - my 1.6TDI (105) Mk6 Golf, 62k gentle miles, 4 months outside warranty - EGR failure - cost £990+VAT (part ca £500, 6hrs labour) - negotaited this down to £60 now , thank goodness !! also in the last 3 months i found these reported over on Golf Mk6 section of vwaudiforum (not looked at audi/seat sections).. Golf 1.6TDI - Nov 2010, 70k motorway miles - EGR failure - VW reduced cost as goodwill down to £160 Golf 1.6TDI B'motion - Dec 2009 - EGR fialure, covered by extended warranty 2009 Golf 16TDI - EGR failure (unknown miles) Common failure ? - well my dealer has the parts in stock, so that tells me something !

If one dealer doesn't want to discount / price match then there's another somewhere else that will When i bought my Mk6 Golf there was a four - six month wait yet i still got the first dealer to match a internet quote with any haggling at all. They could have sold the build slot very easily to someone else i'm sure. You can currently get 1700 - 2600 off a new Yeti, dependent upon spec (and thats only looking at one website)

Good that you are mobile again, but your current course of action has let the little scumbag off the hook entirely. You are also potentially invalidating your insurance by not declaring the accident to the police (not having a go, just some advice that you might want to check out)

I had the front seats out in the Golf, lying on the bare floor on my back peering up into the dashboard from below with a torch. Garden sprinkler running outside ! Remove the drivers seat, manouevre the carpet up and fold into the passenger side - run without carpet on the drivers side for a week to give you the best opportunity of investigation. You may be surprised how wet the underlay is - the wetness at the front of the footwell carpet possibly only reflects the downward slant of the car and not necessarily the source (I used to bail out the rear footwell with a jug every morning, even when parked on flat ground, yet the source was the scuttle area !) You could temporarily tape over the sunroof edges to isolate that as a source

Spiked chain will certainly deter them, and will take no more effort for a week or so on your part than writing to the school HM / governors etc. The worst damage that would happen to your property is to pull the wooden post out of its soil foundations. A few scratches on the rear bumpers will soon make them think, and then probably use your neighbours drive instead ! Community policeman/woman stationed in the street for a day or so could also help, but sadly its the mentality of the parents thats at fault. A large A3 laminaaed sign with offending registration numbers on posted outside the driveway might prey on the offenders mind, but most likely they won't take notice. I live at the end of a street that leads to the primary school - the school is now at capacity (ca 160 kids) and has parking for 30 cars and a drop off zone within the school gates. We have cars parked outside the house on the pavement every day but as we are rarely at home at 3:00-3:30 its not an issue to us (and the weekends and summer holidays are blissfully quiet ).

Firstly i'd suggest you establish whether the water gets in whent he car is driven or when stationary - I had a Mk3 Golf that i ciould drive in a monsoon without issue, but leave it overnight and i could have 2" of water in the rear footwell ! I traced it (after 3 months !) to a minute hole in some sealant between the inner wing and the scuttle - I could not believe it, as it just looked like a spec of dirt - it was only about 0.5mm across, so small you'd think water couldn't get through. Whent he car was driven the air flow pushed all the water from the wipers off the top/side of the screen, when stationary, the water ran down into the scuttle and then into the car via the fuse box to the right of the steering column. I fixed it with about £0.005 worth of silicon sealant !

What do you regularly photograph ? How much of the 18-55mm range do you currently use - mostly the bottom or top end or all of it ? How fast a lens do you want ? You could look at this.. http://www.parkcameras.com/96/Canon-EF-S-17-85mm-f-4-0-5-6-IS-USM.html which is a big step up from your current kit lens, but dependent upon use I'd also think anout a prime lens which will get you much better image clarity than any zoom lens.. 20mm or 24mm EF f2.8 - used ca £220-250 28mm f1.8 - used similar price all above 370-420 new - maybe cheaper elsewhere than this link... http://www.parkcameras.com/c/68/Canon-Fit-SLR-Lenses.html?fbrand=4&Page=1&fgroup=14 The difference in lens quality is noticeable, but a prime lens needs a bit more planning (or later cropping) and commitemnt from the user than the convenience of a zoom. Visit a local retailer, ask to try a few lenses on you camera, take images on each lens in the shop, or through the shop door and then look at the images when you get home. Most local camera shops would be happy to do this, if they aren't find another. You'll also find many will match internet prices, even if their shelf prices look uncompetitive.

The TPMS uses the ABS sensors to measure the relative wheel speeds against each other - you may have a dodgy sensor (water ingress ?) or a bad/loose connection. Given we've barely had a dry day I wouldnt be surprised if you have water ingress issue. I doubt your winter wheel set is outside the parameters of the system, even with non approved tyre sizes since it compares the speeds of each wheel irrespective of vehicle speed / wheel size.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how they do the tests, provided they do the same thing for every car - they should be considered as a comparison between one car and another, and not indicative of real world numbers.

what he said ! I only suffered this once, back in September 2005 - took 2 weeks to sort the refunds etc as i had to sign forms to remove me as the first owner on the V5 as I'd never officially taken delivery. Dealership didnt seem to have an issue selling it on somewhere else, obviously not everyone as fussy as me when spending a lot of money !

except of course they are in a lab on a rolling road so no wind resitance, and the surface friction of the rolelrs will be different to a road surface. I a;so wonder what they do for tyre pressures - Vauxhall handbooks actually give two different tyre inflation pressures (one standard, and the other , higher, for improved fuel economy). I can't remeber the specifics, but i was quite alarmed by how much higher the 'economy' pressures were, at a level that I'd consider to be nothign more than asking for accelerated wear int he centre of the tyre width, plus an uncomfortable ride and increased risk of damage from potholes etc.

What a pain in the backside - but firstly get a report to the police, as legally you should report ANY accident. I'd also be wary of those pictures - the legal requirement fot tyre tread depth is 1.6mm minimum across the central 75% of the tyre - i can't see the pics very well on this screen but they do look debatable. By all means price up parts but also get a bodyshop to quote - it can't hurt to know where a typical quote will place your claim against the insured value. On the subject of insurance I hope you have declared EVERY modification to them - they will find any excuse to wiggle out of paying anything and if an inspector looks at the vehicle he will note the fact its modified. Good luck

Officially you have to give the dealer three attempts to fix a fault before rejecting a car - doesn't make any difference whether they are hour long attempts or month long attempts. Separate items of fault don't readily fit this legal position either - if you have a Friday lemon of a car wih lots of issues it becomes more difficult to reject. Hopefully most if not all of your issues can be dealt with by an accomodating dealership, but remeber before they replace anythign under warranty they will have to have it sanctioned by Skoda UK (otherwise they don't get paid for the parts involved). I have successfully rejected a new car, but as i never drove it out of the showroom it was a little easier to argue the value of reimbursement !

I now have 50k miles on my 1.6 TDI 105 Golf. Anyone who wants to see my fuel records can see them on my fuelly account (well the last 35k miles anyway)... http://www.fuelly.com/driver/Percymon/golf I've never had the burning smell, and i've never had any shakes during regens - in fact other than seeing poor mpg on my normal commute about once every 20 journeys or so I'm not aware of any regen. I've seen a single journey best mpg of 76.0mpg, and several in the 70-74mpg range - all decent length country A road trips sticking to 50-55mpg or lower speed when speed limits dictated. My 27 mile commute is 24 miles dual carriageway and with the cruise set on 61mph (tomtom says this is 57mph for reference) and one a dry day with no stops at roundabouts/junctions i can see 65mpg, but with one or two stops it drops to 63,pg. Add in rain / wet road and these figures drop by 3-4mpg. My optional 17" alloys and 225/45/17 tyres are ridiculously heavy (thanks VW !), and when i swap to my winter steel wheel and 195/65/15 tyres I see 10% btter mpg on the same journey and driving style (two winters, one freezing cold, the other relatively mild have shown this consistently). I can't say i'm overly impressed - the price of fuel at it high started me driving a lot more conservatively and i've become a little bit of an economy junkie (coasting into roundabouts etc). I accept the car is a lot heavier than my previous 90bhp 1.9tdi Mk 3 Golf, but that car could do 55mpg being thrashed and had a lot more urge for overtaking on A and B roads. Overall, the Golf is pretty refined and hasn't really given any issues in the 50k miles (bar a high pressure fuel pump failure = breakdown) so I suppoe i shouldn't complaint oo much - but as with this engine in every other VAG model driving at or over motorway speed limits really kills the mpg, and lots of hard throttle use won;t see much better than 45mpg.

And Dunlop and Bridgestone obviously make special dodgy tyres just for Octavias , Golf and Passats whereas the same tyres on other makes n models are made differently and therefore don't create sawtooth and inner edge wear.

Guys - thought i'd add my experience of my Mk 6 Golf (with factory sports suspension and 17" wheels) as its a similar platform. Original Bridgestone RE050 (225/45/17) lasted 17k miles on the front, swapped them for Falken ZE912s which did 16k miles on the front and now a further 3.5k on the rear. The original RE050 on the rear started to give a faint drumming noise after 15k miles, and slight saw tooth profile to the tread blocks. Geometry checked by VW and found to be OK (they adjusted the front very slightly, but the rear wasn't far off the middle of the tolerance range). After 29k miles the rears (with ever increasing drumming noise as the sawtooth got worse) were moved to the front to finish them off - the noise was HORRENDOUS, 10 times worse than when on the rear axle, but i suffered them until last week when they were replaced with some Pirelli P7 on the front axle. The Falkens have been on the rear axle for 3.5k miles and already they show the same sawtooth as the Bridgestones did (so not limited to Dunlop and Bridgestones). These tyres will be replaced with another pair of P7s in the next week or so, but its clear the geometry settings are not right for even tyre wear. I check pressures at least weekly with a very good quality pressure gauge, not the usual Halfords rubbish. I believe Skoda amended the rear geometry spec for the Octavia - anyone know what the old and new settings are ?? PS - i also run a 195/65/15 winter wheel set and after 2 winters and 16-17k miles on the Golf these show no signs of sawtooth or any adverse noise - perhaps the more rounded tyre profile, narrower tread helps. This would seem to hold some credence since it appears to be only golf owners with 17 and 18" wheels that are seeing the sawtooth, standard 205/55/16 shod Golfs seem to be fine.

And my Golf will do this at around 65-70mph, air con on or off - steady state running is easy, its all the non uniform use thats killing the economy.

An update from me as a Golf 1.6TDI 105 owner as promised.. Car now a year old and 20k miles on the clock Just had second service, asked about fuel economy,ecu update and there isn't one (not for the 105bhp engine from VW at least) I also asked about an unofficial service bulletin about replacing the high pressure fuel pump (one Golf owner of same age has mine has had this done despite no complaints about his car), and again nothing related to my car and no acceptance there was a service bulletin. My mpg has improved steadily over the last few tank fills - which i'm putting down to the use of winter tyres (195/65/15) which presumable have less rolling resistance, or drag or fractionally favourable overall diameter compared to my summer 225/45/17 Bridgrestones. By keeping to 65mph on the cruise control (62mph on gps) for the majority of my 27 mile commute (90% dual carriageway) - i can get 60mpg on the commute repeatedly. In these colder days i'm more than happy to tootle along, although in the drier summer months its going to be a bit laborious. Past experience tells me driving at 75-80 costs me 7mpg on the commute so overall its a reasonable sacrifice in the colder months. I removed the tuning box for the service, the trip computer now reads somewhere near my calculated eonomy again. I've left the tuning box off at present due to the bad weather and its more aggressive fuel map. I can't honestly say my economy changed much from day one - i did longer quite A run journeys originally and at times i saw 70+mpg (without the tuning box), and that was driving miss daisy style, but i drove in a normal manner then 53-55 was the norm with summer wheels. I know people compare to other cars - i doubt the kerb weight of the Golf is much different to a Passat, and a Fabia II won't be far behind these days - the lack of inbuilt torque and the greater reliance ont he turbo assistance of the 1.6 engines is what kills the mpg in my opinion. If you want to drive at 80-85mph on the nmotorway expect 45-48mpg, if you want 60+ then drive slower !!

Well dunlop recently put health warnings on them, not to be used in cold weather (due to compound and tread design) so its really no surprise they are being withdrawn

I have to say i've also noticed occasional vast differences in economy on my commute. I accept that on a wet day i consistently see a 1-2mpg drop , but one in ten journeys, conducted in largely the same manner (28 miles, 26 of it very lightly trafficked dual carirageway, cruise control set to the same speed) does seem to throw an oddball (lower) figure. After 18k miles my apparent economy has improved, but in fairness i think this is down to my more leisurely driving style over the last 5-6k miles than any loosening or improvment in the engine. I've concluded that slowign up 5mph improves my overall mpg by about 3-4mpg, so on a roads i tend to keep to 55mph on the cruise and on my commute 67mph. Reasonably long journeys, and this restraint can get me almost 800miles from a tankful. Over on the vwaudiforum there is another Golf owner with the same car as myself and they consistently get 58-60mpg, but they admit to driving outside of the rush hour and being in no rush at all. When i queried my economy with my local vw dealer, they showed me their service managers car, which was used for virtually the same commute as me - if i believed internet forums that bigger engined 2.0 140bhp car should be doing 58mpg even when driven at 80mph, yet their car driven with reasonable restraint showed the long term average of 48.6mpg It seems most mosdern cars are similarly affected by poor real world mpg - every car forum has a vast range of fuel figures for the same car, but different owners and driving styles. A quick look on www.fuelly.com shows the same degree of variation whether it be a Toyota Yaris or a Merc S class CDI. If the OP is that adamant a new Yaris will meet the manufacturers claims then i suggest they get an extended test drive in one, and see what that reveals. And for what its worht Skoda's customer service seems to have gone the way of the vw parent company.

WRONG ! Virtually all tyres sold, either on new vehicles or as replacements, in the UK are Summer tyres, There are a handful of 'all-season' tyres available - Vredstein Quatrac 3 being a popular one, Goodyear do an all season too. Just check www.mytyres.co.uk website to see what your ER300s are classed as. I can tell you from experience Bridgestone Re050s don;t work in 2 " of fresh snow, but i don't expect a summer performance tyre too, in the same way i don;t expect my winter Nokians to pull 1g cornering in the height of summer. Some Dunlops have warnings on them not to be used on cold weather, yet Toyota and others continue to fit them on new cars. The sad thing is, some of those really cheap far east tyres are probably very inferior in compound and tread design, but because they are soft and have lots of grooves they work reasonably well in uk winter weather !

Very interesting thread. I've had my 1.6CR TDI 105bhp Golf for 11 months and 18k miles. I complained about poor consumoption at the first service, they found nothign wrong. My best mpg - 74.0, a 125 mile a road trip in light traffic at 52-54mph with the cruise on, and no more than 65mph on the 20 miles of dual carriageway. My commute is 26 miles, pretty quiet dual carriageway - if i do 75mph then expect the display to show 50/52mpg, but if i slow to 66-67mpg then i can get 60-62mpg dependent upon traffic and temperature. Since swapping to my winter tyresw (195/65/15), i'm geeting better mpg (2-3mpg) than on my summer wheels (225/45/17) I get the surge of revs as the anti-stall kicks in. I've never had a dpf regen that i know of, perhaps just because i do decent sized trips. VWs figures are measured on a rolling road in a lab, with little road resistance and now wind drag. All manufacturers do the same, you'll be hard pushed to get anythign like the quoted figures, but they are useful to compare btween prospectice purchases. Comparison to a Yaris is pointless - the Golf, and i assume the Fabia too, weigh in order of 1.5 tonnes, have a bigger frontal area, higher gearing and will use more fuel. The 1.6CR is no sporty engine, its designed for relatively gentle use. Yes it will rev to 4.5k rpm, and it'll accelerate to 70+ in 3rd, but that''s not the style its designed for. The old 1.9TDI engines had a lot mor ein built torque due to bigger cc, and whilst relatively aggricultural, were more consistenet in economy across a whole range of driving styles. My old 90bhp 1.9 Mk3 Golf would do 48mpg even driving it like i stole it, but even miss daisy style would onyl get 60mpg. I'm due a service again soon, so it'll be interesting to see if they do anythign this time round. PS - i'm also running a DTUK tuning box, great performance improvement, but it fools the mfd economy readout something awful (its now out by 10% to brim to brim calcualtions).

Take it somewhere else for tracking - sounds like thecamber or toe is out to me, If you drive enthusiastically around roundabouts you might see a difference from side to side.