chimaera

Unless winters are very bad where you are, maybe consider Michelin CrossClimate? Excellent all-rounder for typical winter conditions on these islands.

Pretty much. There's a lowline version too which doesn't have the control module - the main difference is you don't get the grid on the screen when it's active.

RVC install

If the bolts are hard to open, use the jack on the end of the wrench.

You're probably going to get caught on width rather than profile. The widest tyre approved for snow chains in any diameter or profile is 205 mm, so the 225 may well be too wide to avoid hitting stuff.

The 225/40/R18 size is not approved for snow chains so you'll probably struggle to find anything that fits. More info in the linked thread below.

When you did the timing belt did you use the correct lockdown tools and procedure?

Sounds like a smoky remap. Go back to your tuner and ask them to restore your car to the standard 7128 map to see if it improves things first. If it solves the problem then you need to talk to your tuner about a different map that will produce less smoke/soot.

It can be quite entertaining.

Water can get in through the heater matrix but I can't remember if it would end up in the driver's footwell that way. Water leaks in the Superb have been discussed lots around here so I'd suggest a search and start working through what others have found. It probably won't be a quick fix so you'll need some patience.

Do you have the sunroof option? Blocked drains are a common source of leaks. It's also worth checking the scuttle area for muck and dirt buildup that could be blocking drain points there.

What fault codes are present?

No it's engineering. Power and economy are not the only things that matter when you tune an engine. For the same result on those, a remap will be better and safer than a tuning box for the reasons I've outlined. And yes, a remap will give more than a tuning box because the tuner can fully explore the performance envelope inside the ECU while a tuning box can only crudely adjust fuel pressure and boost.

For difficult bolts with limited access for long wrenches, I've used a jack on the end of the spanner to get them loosened.

I have explained the difference several times by now.

The Greenline is going to be a good bit slower than your current car, it's only 105 bhp. It rides lower than the standard model so if you spend a lot of time on rougher roads you might run into some ground clearance issues, especially if the springs/dampers are tired. There's a good chance they will be tired on a car with that mileage, especially if they haven't been changed before now. Any of the TDI options are robust provided they have been maintained properly. You will see varying opinions on the EA189 emissions update but provided the DPF has been allowed regenerate properly when needed and the car is otherwise properly maintained it's not really an issue. EGR valves can fail after the update but it tends to be within a year or so of the update, so if the car has had the update check the service history for EGR replacement - VAG were replacing them FOC within a 2 year period of the update being done so there should be a paper trail for this. If you want proper integrated towing electrics, expect to pay £400-500 depending on the kit you get and whether you fit it yourself or not. This gets you deactivation of the rear parking sensors when a trailer is attached, towing mode on the ESP system, integration with the alarm so that the alarm will go off if someone unplugs the trailer while the alarm is set. Detachable swan neck is a nice touch too on the OE style towbar.

The Outdoor is already raised compared to the standard setup. If you go to the thread I linked a few posts back you'll see the data there for it. Check the build label for the front damping PR code - I would guess it's G57 which indicates 10 mm above standard ride height. There is another higher rough road setting which is 20 mm above standard but I haven't been able to definitively identify the component set for it. In the research I did, I came across 4 sets of damping PR codes: 1JA which is standard, 1JB which is listed as heavy duty, 1JC iisted as sports (also used by the Greenline) and 1JD listed as 'Higher Chassis' which is +10 mm. I'd hazard a guess that the heavy duty chassis might be the +20 mm setup but I'm not really sure - it doesn't share parts with any other setup. It's also possible that the heavy duty setup is the one they offer for police vehicles only and may not be available to regular customers. Assuming yours is the 1JD setup you have 4 weight range options available, and if you're going to replace springs and dampers, it's worth going for the highest. To get an indication of what's currently fitted, you can jack up the car and make a note of the paint mark colours on the rear spring. I can cross reference that with the front damping PR code and give you some better guidance then.

I think some of this is generational - we grew up with ICE cars around us, learned to drive in them, fawned over the nice ones from a distance, etc. My children I suspect will have a different view of ICE vs EV when they get to driving/car buying age. We have some emotional attachment to the idea of ICE because we have a lot of memories linked to them. I have had a Superb II CR170 Combi for the last 6 years (a manual for a bit over a year until it was written off in a collision and a DSG for the last 5) and I have to say it's an excellent car, fast, roomy and handles pretty well for its size and weight. But apart from the power delivery and economy, there's nothing special about the engine, it's up there doing its job but the noise it makes is nothing special - I'm aware there's an engine up there but that's it. It could easily be replaced with a hybrid or electric drivetrain and it would make no difference to the car, and I will be replacing it with one of those drivetrains when the time comes. I get out of the car and it's "good job car" but there's no longing to jump straight back in and go for a drive for the hell of it. Now some of this I can say because I have the luxury of also having a recently acquired Porsche 944, a car which would not be the same at all if it had an electric drivetrain. There's a real sense of occasion from the moment the starter swings over to fire it up, there's a fruity exhaust which lets you know it's there all the time, and once it's warmed up it performs the way only a highly strung petrol engine can, screaming up the redline then a pop on overrun at gearchange. I never get out of that car without a smile on my face, and that's just because of the car/drivetrain. I'll take the long way home just to drive it a little bit further and enjoy the engine a bit longer. A while back at a Cars&Coffee meet a few of us were discussing this exact topic, and one of the lads made an interesting comparison to horses. At one point, horses were every day transport for the masses one way or another, and most horses you saw were unremarkable working animals pulling carts or carriages or ploughs or all of the other things that required *ahem* horsepower. Horses existed for sport/leisure too but that was a marginal use case. Nowadays, ICE (and increasingly EV) have completely replaced horses for working purposes, and leisure/sport use is all that's left, but that's still there and is a bigger industry than it would have been a century ago. This is most likely where ICE will end up, leisure/sporting use and if horses are any indication it won't be going away any time soon.

I got KYB springs and shocks from a local motor factors, reasonable and good performance. You should replace the bump stops as well.

We've been through this, you're still wrong. I've linked a bunch of my previous responses here rather than typing it all out again for the hard of thinking. Bottom line, they pass bad data to the ECU which will cause it to run the engine outside of control parameters in a way that cannot be detected/accommodated/corrected by the ECU map. They are not as good as a remap from a competent tuner, which operates on real data and will run within the control parameters on the map put there by the tuner. This latter point is why you should seek out a competent tuner also - a bad remap is as bad as a tuning box.

While your mileage is low, if the car has done a lot of urban miles the suspension could still have had a hard life. Also, there's a fair chance the seals on the gas capsule in the shocks have leaked a bit over time and left them weak; this will also lower the ride height due to the loss of the spring assistance from the shock. I'd suggest you start by checking the ride height front and rear. I put together some useful information on this in the thread linked below. You can find the PR code for front damping on the build label in the spare wheel well or the inside of the service book.

It's not too complicated but it is a big job. I did it on the driveway in a few hours. There are 6 main bolts securing the subframe to the shell which need to be undone, along with 2 securing the dogbone mount to the gearbox housing. It's also a good idea to unbolt the ARB from the subframe and drop links before attempting to drop the subframe. First crack open the 6 subframe bolts - you don't want to have everything else undone before you find out you can't get them open and it will probably need a breaker bar Unbolt the dogbone from the geabrox and the ARB from everything it's attached to, then completely remove 4 of the 6 subframe bolts At this point you'll want to put a jack under the subframe to support it while you remove the remaining 2 bolts Once they're out, gently lower the subframe on the jack until you can slide out the ARB from the passenger side You can then use the procedure above to separate the two parts of the clamp and replace the bushes Reassembly is the reverse of removal Dogbone bolts and the 6 subframe bolts are torque + angle specification Subframe bolts are 90 Nm + 180 * Dogbone bolts are 50 Nm + 90 * When all this is done you will need to get the alignment checked Incidentally, on my car neither the rattle nor the creak were solved by this job. The rattle turned out to be a brake pad with a bent mounting tab (can't figure out how that happened). At this point I have replaced ARB links & bushes, springs, dampers, strut top bearings on both sides and the creak is still there. I'm guessing it's probably a worn rubber bush in the control arm but the car is driving very well and I'm leaving it alone for now. My parts budget is going on my recently purchased Porsche 944 at the moment which is a far more needy patient.

Ignition on the whole way through the process until the seat memory is stored, then turn off, remove key and hit the unlock button.

You may need to check permissions on your phone.

Could be worth removing the motor and seeing if the manual winder works then? After that you're probably going to have to remove the whole roof mechanism and go through it bit by bit to see what the problem might be. If you're mechanically inclined you should be able to track down the problem with a bit of time and patience.