jonathan.tong

Skoda UK have a fixed price schedule for cambelt changes: I think my local "ex-skoda" charged me £489 for the cambelt inc waterpump.

For the record, I went with a Varta E39 (570 901 076) silver dynamic AGM battery from Tayna. I took it to my local dealer/specialist who fitted, coded and did whatever else they needed to do. Everything seems to be working just fine again - for example the stop/start started working again on the return journey, having previously stopped working. I think they charged me half an hour which I was happy with - and they kept my old battery which they also confirmed as faulty.

I've read all sorts of things all over the place so wanted to get my facts straight before I get too far. It's a Superb mkII FL 2.0CR DSG L&K with stop/start. I think I'll need an AGM battery and the Varta E39 (570 901 076) silver dynamic AGM looks like it fits the bill? Will it need coding to the car with VCDS or is it a "simple" replacement? TIA!

Isn't 3.0 bar above the recommended maximum even with a fully loaded car? I'd be worried that you're over-inflating so possibly reducing the amount of grip available to you. If your tyre wear is mostly in the centre, then I'd say you are definitely over-inflating.

Silly question - you *are* in D rather than S aren't you? The only time we've seen this behaviour on ours is when towing a caravan, again the DSG would stay on 5th but would move to 6th when manually selected.

It seems that the standard warranty only covers shocks for 6 months or 6,500 miles as they are classified as wear and tear items.

I believe that AFS only works if the headlight switch is in the "auto" position. The headlights should do a dance too when the ignition is first turned on and it's dark enough for the auto lights to come on.

FaceLift model. Wikipedia says that it was introduced in mid 2013, so if yours is a 2014 then it should be identical to ours. The heated screen is controlled by a new button (near the climatronic), vaguely similar to the rear heated window button, but "windscreen shaped").

odd - it was a standard part of the L&K package on ours. Thinking about it, ours is the FL model if that makes any difference.

you can clearly see tiny wires zigzagging down the screen - like the rear, but many more wires and much thinner. I find it a little distracting at night with headlights catching the wires, but the benefit of de-icing outweighs that.

We have a 2014 2.0 CR170 DSG L&K and it averages about 55mpg on the computer. This probably translates into 50-53 (about 5%) and that's reasonably confirmed by us averaging 600miles per tank of fuel. We've never used the park assist, but do appreciate the front parking sensors that are included. We also like the heated front screen, heated rear seats and LED lighting (I think not on Elegance). We don't like the 18" wheels (less supple ride) and would have probably spec'd 17" if we'd have known.

We don't have hill hold so use the handbrake instead (like a regular manual car). You can see/feel when the clutch is engaging.

We find the DSG on our CR170 silky smooth. As already mentioned, there can be jerkiness if pulling away sharply from stationary and this is easily solved by a rolling start before flooring it. Hill starts have taken some time to learn but in general are ok. We find that selecting S is useful if planning an overtake as, if in D, dropping from 6th to 3rd or 4th can be slower than you'd want it to be. Then reselect D when the overtake is done to return to cruising. We've also noted that when towing, our gearbox can unnecessarily hold onto 5th when 6th would be fine. Manually selecting 6th before going back to D fixes this.

A common thread is a thudding/thumping noise on braking when the fuel tank is full. For me that usually stops after a hundred miles or so.

So the battery has only had slightly over three years of use before dying?