xman

Thermal shock from very hot water directly on a cold screen risks cracking, expensive if it does crack. If doing this method, fetch the screen temperature up gently, maybe use the heated element or blast it first with hot air from the heater.

Try turning the front roof lights to the off position (O) it may disable all roof lights including the rear as it does in my Superb iirc. A deeply discharged battery can often be rescued by recharging immediately with an external charger provided not too much time (days) have passed, and the battery was previously in fairly good condition.

I have a MY2018 Superb built in Jan 2018 with the CZEA engine. It came with this sticker on the slam panel so I would say 504.00 longlife iii oil is the safe option.

You are right, I didn't read it correctly, batteries are excluded. There is a dealer review section of Briskoda, pity many don't post their experiences on there, I myself too am reluctant to post much about the carp I've had to put up with over the years with my dealer lest they take umbrage. But a brief review gives others a chance to be prewarned

OE batteries, EFB and AGM batteries are all no maintenance types, no access to filler caps, usually a "magic eye" ** charge indicator. Even most standard batteries are like that. **maybe AGM batteries don't have a "magic eye" indicator Looks as if the labels have been removed, exposing the factory filler caps so no idea what it is. Complain to the dealer you bought it from. You are also covered by the Skoda Approved Used Warranty, batteries are not excluded as far as I can see. Skoda Approved Used Booklet pdf It may even be illegal to fit a battery that doesn't carry the standard plethora of safety warnings, CE marking and other information required by law.

Driving in the UK is not joy for me, its a necessary evil. When I'm alone in the car I just want to get home asap. UK service stations are grim places full of grim people and rubbish strewn all over. My morning coffee is served with breakfast at home. When with the wife on a long journey, she'll always prepare or pre buy some sandwiches and sometimes a flask of hot fruit tea for consumption on the move. She is the one who might want a quick comfort stop at about 2 hours, but a quick in/out, she hates the places as for some reason it seems often women's toilets can be horribly filthy unkempt places with stuffed or broken toilets or no toilet paper (we always take a roll for such an eventuality). Years ago we regularly travelled the full length of Europe to visit relatives. Usually about 600 miles a day. 2 days to reach destination, overnight stop in a nice hotel/motel. No point in hanging around German rest areas too long, they were usually jampacked and unbearably hot in July or dangerously cold in Dec. Hope to do that again once normality returns.........

I think the cheaper alternatives such as OBD Eleven, Carista, ELM27 etc will allow you to do this. Check on their respective websites, maybe other members can comment further. My MY18 1.4tsi SEL exec Superb came with a 59Ah EFB battery (Exide). I imagine that all petrol engined Superbs of MY18 onwards will be EFB types as OE. Some other members have confirmed that a good long charge has restored normal operation. There were a faulty batch of EFB batteries made by MOLL fitted, iirc around 2017, mostly replaced foc under warranty, there may be a TSB (tech service bulletin) relating to this. If yours is a MOLL, check with your dealer. If the top of your battery definitely has no markings, then it could be an cheap aftermarket one fitted to replace the OE, maybe a standard battery (ie not EFB/AGM) which is not a suitable type and incorrectly coded.

New batteries, EFB or AGM need coding in to prevent possible short service life

There must be some markings on the battery somewhere, on the top and on the (long) sides. Have you pulled the felt battery covers back? Before going for a new battery, try a long charge (min 24hrs, preferably 48++hrs) using a quality battery charger that has a maintenance mode (that keeps the voltage at approx 13.6 volts after the bulk/absorption pahase is complete). That should top off the battery, and remove stubborn sulphation. It should also resync the battery management system if its got out of whack with the true state of charge

When you have, on average, a 16 hour day including travelling, then adding a couple of hours (at best if you don't have to queue, or the charger is not working) is not even worth considering for "saving money" which I'm pretty sure he would not anyway. If he doesn't get to his job on time, he not only would lose the days pay, several hundred pounds, but could lose future work from the client, permanently, which could be 10+ thousands per year for ever. Live TV doesn't tolerate late arrivals because your transport arrangements are inadequate. He eats at work during his breaks.

I often see posts like this in EV threads, often saying a bladder will not withstand going for more than 2 hours without a relief stop, or sometimes even its dangerous to drive such distances in one day. Well, this year as most years I have made half a dozen journeys to Heathrow which is a 375 mile round trip. Total trip time approx 6.5 hours. Granted I stop twice, once at Heathrow for no more than 5 mins to drop off or pick up my son. Second at some horrible service stop (often Leicester Forest east) for a maximum of 5 minutes to eat SWMBO's sandwich and have sip of water, solely because SWMBO would be irate I didn't eat it because of my well controlled (by tablets) Diabetes. Even though I have prostate problems, I don't have the desire to even venture to the toilet during the journey. Fortunately my Superb has 800+ mile range so no need to use Motorway inflated priced services. BTW I have never seen a charger during my brief drive throughs at Leicester Forest East. However at one place somewhere near Bedford where my son insisted on buying a drive thru Starbucks something or other, as I drove out there must have been over a dozen or more chargers, the vast majority were Tesla superchargers and only one Tesla sat thete charging. My son does ridiculous mileages travelling to/from TV O/B jobs. No time in the day to stop for recharging.

Thinking more on GWP.....My old Alhambra had a leaky AC (common to all Alhambra mk1/2 models over 3yrs old). It would empty over a year and had to be recharged with 750g R134a annually. So an annual GWP equivalent of 975kg of CO2. It averaged around 50 mpg which is equivalent to around 150g/km In the last 3 or 4 years of my 20 yr ownership I only did around 2000 miles/yr which is equivalent to 480kg of CO2. So my leaky AC contributed over twice as much to global warming as my actual driving! Oh dear....

For information, R245fa GWP = 1030

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58011014

I looked up GWP and found it quite enlightening Global Warming Potential of gases are referenced to CO2 which is defined as having GWP of 1 Gas GWP CO2 1 R600a Iso Butane 3 R1234yf 4 Methane 28 R134a 1300 R12 (old Freon) 10200 So releasing 500g of R134a into the atmosphere is equivalent to releasing 650kg of CO2. For those old fridges and vehicles (pre 1994) that had R12 - a typical American car of that era had over 1kg, that released is equivalent to over 10 tonnes of CO2 Interestingly Mercedes Benz and VAG have developed systems using CO2 currently only on their top end models such as S class and E class. I wonder how expensive that gas is to refill?

Who said R134a is dangerous? The discussion is whether Halfords STP EZ chill is really R134a (as described by Halfords webite) and how can they sell it as such considering its illegal to do so.

OK so today I went to Kwik fit to regas our 2011 Octavia, so I will describe the experience and correct some of what I posted earlier. Background: Aircon had stopped working a couple of months ago, maybe longer. IIRC, it had been regassed just over a year ago, (could have been two), and back then it had zero gas in but came back to life after the regas. So I knew it had a slow leak and possibly may not work this time round. Today: The Kwikfit manager explained what they would do, asked me to hang around for 5 mins while they connected the (Robinair) machine and did a pre check. Informed me that there was no pressure in the cars system and advised that 9 out of 10 times it probably indicates a significant leak/fault. However he was perfectly happy to proceed on my instruction with the proviso he could not guarantee how long the ac would continue to work after regassing, maybe only a few weeks. After a further 45 mins, he broke the bad news that even though the regas was successful, the ac was still not blowing cold, for some unknown reason the compressor wasn't doing its job. Explained the car compressor is a continuous variable type, ie no clutch so it may be an electrical or sensor issue. Showed me the log on the machine's screen: 26g gas extracted 10 minute vacuum hold test succesful Succesfully refilled with 500g gas (didnt notice until later that should have been 585g but still should have worked) So given 2 options 1. Leave the gas in the cars ac , required if further fault diagnosis is to be undertaken (which kwikfit don't do). In this case kwikfit would have to charge the full £60 to cover the cost of the gas. 2. Recover the gas back to their machine in which case there would be no charge at all. He said I can come back anytime to refill it. So went with option 2, until I decide how to proceed. Took a further 10 mins to recover the gas and no money changed hands..... I asked if recovered gas is reused and he explained recovered gas is filtered and goes back into the machine's internal tank to be reused. This bit surprised me, so on that point I was wrong in my previous post, and got me thinking that maybe its a bad idea, depending on what cars it's been connected to previously to mine. There was only 1.5kg left in the machines 9kg? capacity tank, so theres a strong possibility the gas pushed today was a significant mix of recovered gas. Hopefully not ebay stuff from DIYers cars. But as these machines are ubiquitous, I guess thats a risk anywhere. Overall, a no hassle professional service, no upsell or pushing the cost option. Soon be autuum anyway....

2,000,000 miles isn't too bad....

Seems like Halfords may be breaking the law then Maybe someone here can report them...

The white glass fibre matted sleeve is part of the filter. Leave it on.

Should be amusing trying to get that through an MOT

It's illegal in the UK, probably in the EU and US too, to sell R134a or any HFC gas to the public or any garage that doesn't have certified equipment and technicians. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/selling-f-gas-or-equipment So this wonderful STP bottle is just some overpriced Butane (R600) plus the usual "patented" snake oil additives. Interested to see what the MSDS sheet says about the inflammability of the contents. Beats me why anyone would spend £50 or more for this DIY stuff (plus whatever tools you need) when for £60 you can pop round to your local kwikfit or F1 auto centres where they have a fully automated and certified machine that connects correctly to both hi and lo ports. Will extract any gas, separate any in suspension PAG oil and pull a hard vaccum, stop and wait around 30 mins to test for a leak as required by law. Any water or moisture in your system (inc dryer) boils off under a vacuum and also gets pulled out. If it fails the vacuum hold test, then you'll be told you have a leak that prevents them from filling your system and don't charge you a penny. If no leak, then it will fill your system with the precise weight of real new R134a gas as specified for your car, not recovered gas - that goes into a separate bottle that goes to a professional certified recycling centre. It also adds the same amount of new PAG oil as was recovered plus an extra 10ml. If after that, your aircon is still not blowing cold air, they will still not charge you a penny. Sounds like a better/safer deal to me. Alternatively tyresonthedrive.com (halfords mobile service) will come your house and do the job for £50 again with professional certified equipment and real new R134a gas, though if it fails the leak test you will still have to pay a reduced cost (not sure how much) I found this service excellent with the technician performing extra checks and reporting on on hi/lo pressure while the aircon was running. All will report how much gas was extracted if asked.

Dilemma solved!! I checked last night (Sunday) with a view to ordering 4 x Vredestein Quatrac 5 tyres, only to find that the price had increased by £31 to £140 ea inc delivery. Even with the £50 discount promotion for 4 tyres, I'm no longer interested. Guess I'll have to put up with the P7 drone for a while yet. I suppose the moral of this story is, if you see a really good price for something you know you want, don't procrastinate but act quickly. I've seen this volatility in tyre pricing before.

I think you miss my point, the oils they (with the possible exception of my dealer) use in either regime are all long-life oils suitable for variable regime. So its down to how they reset your indicator. Price difference between 502.00/505.01 oil and 504/507 oil is no more than £5 at trade level. 508/509 oil might be £5 more again.

If, as some have stated, the garage uses 504/507 or 508/509 oils as standard (dependent on engine and year) then the only difference between a variable interval service and a fixed interval service is the button they press on the diagnostic computer plugged into your car. However the buttons are different prices.