paulski

Edit, I can see the tiny bulbs, I seem to remember they were called submarine lights, they are quite effective lighting just the gear lever, There was another in my SEL model in the cubby in front of the gear lever.

The two tiny LEDs on my MK3 cast light down onto the gear lever area, they are quite dim and can only really be seen when it's dark. Looks like I cannot see the bulbs I saw in my car on yours, so maybe they are omitted on cars with pano roof. If you're looking at getting to the "reading" light bulbs, the trim around them pops off, get a thin plastic trim tool or the like and tease it down. The middle thinnest area does flex (green arrows), but it not going to break if you just work gently to pry it down and the work towards the bulbs. My comments are from memory of 7 years ago when I changed all mine to Philips w5w LEDs, 4000k. They were very bright.

@chrisski battery will need coding in , in order for the car to charge it properly. My original battery (AGM) on my TDI was 9years old when it gave up, I have VCDs so swap was easy and battery cost £165 from Halfords for a nice new Yuasa.

Good to hear a positive outcome. I've always wondered how a caliper becomes stuck/seized over time..

Good for you letting someone know about crash damage in that car. It's actually quite hard to avoid even from main dealers. I had an Altea and after I bought (9k miles from new at main dealer) i realised it had had a new rear quarter and rear door. 😭 Thanks, yes the new buyer should be happy with it. I even had the aircon serviced every two years, not many bother, but to me it's got oil in it so it a mini engine 😀 that required looking after.

Been here a little under 7 years. Great forum, I'm sure I'll hang around still but I've moved my octy on now for a VW Tiguan. The Octavia was a cracking car, reliable too. I took it from 47k to 120k miles, and it really didn't disappoint. The only issue it had was the heater matrix, which I had replaced eventually after freezing hands in winter!! It will pass to a new owner with full service history (Independent Vasstechnik in Eastbourne who are just great with all VW group cars). I've left a note in the handbook for the new owner telling them about how well I cared for it, and all about the DPF regeneration cycles. Let's hope they find the Forum too.

@Breezy_Pete 5q3412014b is the part number for sure, Google search confirm a Skoda strut for 1.6 and 2.0 TDI Octavia.

@Carlston Front strut part number is 5q3412014b from looking at the stickers I can see on them, can they still come in the two diameters you mention with this part number? not had a chance to check disc size yet, but I have a vernier so can measure the strut diameter with that.

Diagram of coolant system on EA288, TDI engine, Simply Clever, or Simply Complicated 😆 EGR cooler has a matrix that can leak.

@Crash0090 many thanks, that's really helpful. Did you go for Bilsteins for any particular reason? Better handling or just price against OEM. The TDI will likely have different struts as it'll be heavier than a petrol.

My 2016 2.0tdi estate has covered 120000miles on mainly country roads and the ride is nothing like it was when first bought at 47k and feels a bit soggy. It's just not sharp anymore. Unfortunately I'm now jumping into a much less travelled (14k miles) SEAT Ateca SUV at weekends I bought my wife and the rides all nice and plush so mine feels quite bad compared to the SEAT😭 The front struts are not leaking, but has anyone replaced them at this sort of mileage and anything else at the same time, springs/top caps etc? And what about rear shock absorbers anyone had them replaced.

Fwiw, hopefully a regas will recover it. I have my AC serviced roughly every two years by an really good mobile independent. He checks gas weight, vacuums it out to remove any moisture, adds fresh PAG oil too as required. I do 12k miles per annum, use the climate all the time and it looses about 10% of the gas naturally between service visits. It's not leaking. Got my wife a 2019 Seat Ateca last year that only had 11k miles on it from new, full dealer history but AC had never been serviced, gas weight was at ~40% of what it should have been when he came to do service on it for mE. Best thing for any AC is use it regularly and service it, my cars now at 120k miles and the AC is still excellent.

I recently had battery failure on my original battery that had lasted since 2016. Fitting is easy 10 minutes at most. 10mm for battery terminals, 13mm socket on long extension bar for clamp on the battery tray. Yuasa AGM 096 battery from Halfords was £165 with a discount. I have VCDS software so my coding was free, £250 from an indy sounds about.

One thing to mention with Smart link, is to use a "decent" usb cable between the phone and car. Personally my car does not have Smart link enabled so not experienced this myself, however I've seen a good few posts mentioning this to be a bit of a weak point. Also I must mention that "live" traffic updates with built in NAV don't work now as the Traffic Master signal used for this was turned off, theres an icon called TMC with a red line through it. It affected other makes too not just VW group cars. Think it was April 2023 when it got stopped.

Totally get the tangible feel of a CD in a cover, unfortunately VW group moved away from that a while back. I really miss my 6 disc changer and single cd Sony headunit in my old car with the infinity speakers I put in the doors, it sounded very good. In my wife's car I find the sound a bit flat when connected via android auto, Bluetooth is better, CD much better. Sorry that we cannot offer any better options, they integrated so much into these infotainment units with functions to see service info adjustments to lights wipers etc, you cannot easily change it all out without loosing functionality you still need 😕