BoxerBoy

It's very common. Though I'd say my discs look worse than any other car in the street. Skoda do fit rubbish. My first Kodiaq got 2 full sets of rear discs under warranty. This one has had one replacement set at the first service 11,300 miles - no argument - and I'll be asking the dealer to "take a look" at the second service in February. Mine look terrible right now because the car has been sitting 4 days in bad weather. I'll give the brakes a good workout soon to shine them up a bit.

My Bear is coming up to 3 years and is going for it's 2nd service in February. Oil change and a look over. Dealers don't do much more than that and call it a Service. Everything else is extra and called Maintenance. Utter shiite. But, I booked online and did tick a box to add a Maintenance item called Brake Fluid Change for under £60.

I noticed my Long Term consumption screen has a mind of it’s own so I now reset it myself whenever it suits me, whether that be monthly, every thousand miles or just using it like a Trip 2 meter for a journey. I’ve never seen a Skoda explanation for their logic.

I don’t have ACC. The Red Horror braking can still happen.

A bollard, railing, parked car. Is your collision sensor set to max or min sensitivity. The Red Horror symbol has appeared for many of us over the years. Unexpected and silly (on the part of the car). iI don’t suffer from spurious alarms these days with sensitivity turned down.

A few weeks ago I met the “unavailable cruise control”. Only once. Ever. And I’m in my 6th year of driving a Bear. Things returned to normal, I think after my next stop and start. Hope it was a once in a lifetime because my cruise switch is possibly the most used switch in the car.

I think you’re right to question the replacement of parts simply based on time & mileage. Especially at dealer costs. Condition based maintenance is the smartest approach and should be the cheapest way in the long term if you’re keeping the car beyond the typical 2, 3, 4 years renting deals. My car is diesel, but my motor bike plugs simply get taken out and inspected and if they need replaced the I pop the new ones in that have been sitting in a drawer waiting for the big day. We change oil on time and miles because most of us don’t have an analyser to tell us whether the oil is “good” or “bad”. It’s just pragmatic to change it whenever you think it’s convenient. Our Polo had 2 annual oil changes at the “man round the corner” with oil I bought online and a filter purchased from the VW dealer. Air filters, pollen filters only take a few minutes. Buy a spare. Inspect / remove filter. Replace if needed. Now Haldex oil and strainer is slightly unconvenient for a Quick Look, so again may be prudent to change and clean at your convenience. Not difficult for a spanner man familiar with VAG cars.

Another happy customer. A Classic RTFM question 🙂

I know I run a Kodiaq not a Karoq, but the song remains the same. 19” summers to 17” winters work a treat. OEM summer 7x19” with 235/50x19 Pirelli Winter 6.5x17” with 215/65 x17 Continental Just by looking at other Skoda models will show you the range of tyre sizes that suit. Or one of the many web sites will give you the info you need. My current rims are from Skoda, but I’ve used second hand VW rims and Skoda steel wheels on previous vehicles.

I ordered in November and last Monday (5th) I popped in to dealer and asked for my order number and a Build week. Salesman showed me his screen with my order details, but no Build week yet. Status is P - planned. When factory decide to process the order - SEL with several extras - status will change to Build week. But things can change constantly, as we found with our new Polo moving from November Build week to Week 4 in January. I’m expecting my Kodiaq in summer 2023. Sometime. Anytime. Current car lease will be extended till new one arrives.

Mine is “Fast Enough”. Start engine. Switch on all HOT buttons. Heater temp up high with fan up high too. Squeegee outside windows, with or without de-icer spray. Drive away. What’s not to like! Guess why I ticked the boxes for useful Extras on my next Kodiaq instead of £1,000+ Red Velvet paint - much as I liked it last time 🙂

Our Polo suffered from "squeaky rear brakes when reversing" early in it's life, but all is ok now. I never discussed it with a dealer. I think giving the brakes some good exercise occasionally does take the stickiness off them. And checks out your ABS at the same time.

I'm another long time entusiastic user of winter tyres. They do work (for me) and give great confidence in slush and snow. I swapped over our Polo 10 days ago, from 17" OEM to Continentals. Using pukka VW Polo 16" silver alloys. Today I persuaded my older lad to lend a hand for the back breaking part to give my back a rest when swapping over my Kodiaq wheels. Again using pukka 17" Skoda black alloys in place of the OEM 19" wheels. I had the car and wheels all laid out ready. All 20 bolts slackened off with breaker bar. All 4 locking bolts removed. Trolley jack and impact gun on standby. It took a matter of minutes to swap the wheels. (though a few more minutes for me to wash the removed wheels) As mentioned above, a second set of wheels and tyres shares out the burning of rubber and leads to an opportunity each year to shuffle the tyres as you wish. However - in 2023 I shall consider the use of 4 Seasons tyres on one or both of the On-Order cars that will replace the current pair. Why? The wheel changing exercise is becoming a bit more demanding on my aching bones and though I have room to store spare sets, I would appreciate getting some space back in my garage. And, with annual mileage less than it was 2 or 3 years ago, the rubber sharing numbers game is becoming less important to me.

I try to avoid using my car for silly short journeys - like less than a mile to my nearest Tesco. Today was the other extreme. A round trip of over 400 miles, mostly M74 and M6. Was a beautiful day, nice and dry with some sunshine thrown in too. Could have been miserable at this time of year. Probably the most comfortable day in a car ever. No big surprise, though I think my passenger was pleasantly surprised. Plugged in Radio Paradise and hit the cruise at a GPS 70mph. Relieved to see 40 mpg at the end of the day. I can’t see past a Kodiaq for it’s all round capabilities.

Tripped over an Auto Express article on the latest Enyaq VRS Coupe. Shocking tricks being played with real world performance some way behind the brochure headlines.

VAG and all others have got it wrong. They’re playing games. Arsoles! I don’t give a **** about 0.25 mpg, freewheeling is total nonsense.

Even if the trims were left in place, it’s likely that dirt would get in between the trim and the wheel and leave significant chafing marks in the long term. Would anyone remove them regularly to clean behind the trims? Unlikely. But hey, taking the trims off and on would also chafe the wheel paintwork. All in all, it’s one of the stupidest decisions the the builders allowed the designers to get away with. Let’s go back to the 60s or 70s when wheel trims were big business 😀 It is possible to keep alloys in fairly mint condition if you’re careful.

Apologies for continuing the digression, but it does refer to VWFS. My wife’s current Polo GTI is at end of contract and VWFS, well BCA actually, automatically offered it for purchase to save them inspecting and collecting. But, their price is in line with all the retail Polo GTIs online. So no quick profit to be made. BTW - was very easy online with VWFS to extend contract by 3 months with a few clicks as we await delivery of next car.

I reckon that’ll be a “Given”.

1. ECO makes the car very lethargic. Often at the most inconvenient times. Like exiting junctions, joining roundabouts, making an overtake. Not a driving mode that suits my smooth and controlled style. 2. Insists on freewheeling and giving you that out of control sensation whenever you hit a down slope. Which has to be countered by using brake or throttle as appropriate. Chasing yet he last fraction of MPG doesn’t figure in my driving. Half a century ago I was trained that freewheeling was very Bad Practice and only for the loons trying to beat the Mobil Economy Run fuel consumption figures. Utter nonsense from our 21st century car makers who are simply playing the economy numbers game using every possible tweak, sensible or otherwise. And some fall for it as being gospel. I’ve never seen freewheeling recommended by anybody promoting advanced driving techniques. I’ll maybe go double check in my old copy of Roadcraft. For some reason my car in normal Drive mode insists on dropping out of gear regularly, so I’m wearing out the LH paddle to kick it back in to whatever gear it was in. Obviously doesn’t misbehave in Sport mode.

Smaller wheels will be your friend. I won’t entertain 20” wheels or bigger, for ride and ££££ reasons, hence not ordered a Sportline (among other reasons). Was pleasantly surprised in 2017 when I found the 19” wheels & tyres gave a much better ride than I expected. The change to 17” high profile winter tyres is huge. Wafts along like a ship in the breeze. Which is where the DCC comes into play. ps - in almost 6 years my Kodiaqs haven’t touched a kerb and to give credit to my wife, the current Polo and previous Octavia didn’t touch a kerb over 6 years. It is possible to drive carefully. It’s an art.

Life gets even better and smoother when you switch off Stop / Start every single time you get in the car.

After many years since my first DSG box I’m unlikely to use anything else. Forget ECO mode. It kills the car. Forget Stop/Start. It kills the car. Flip flopping between Drive and Sport let’s you enjoy a gearbox setting to suit the road and your mood. Combined with DCC you can drive a “Different” car many times on every journey. With paddles of course.

I’m still coming up the EV Learning Curve and I’m not picking on Vredestein. Just using their web page info. 1. EVs are big heavy buggers - harder on tyres than lighter vehicles. 2. Hi torque off the line may be fun smoking the other guy at the lights, but is gonna burn more rubber than a less torquey car. 3. Less rolling resistance suggests less grip than a tyre with more rolling resistance. 20” heavy duty tyres ain’t gonna be cheap.

If he dropped the glovebox door, I suspect that the cogwheel that operates a rack and pinion in the RH arm has dropped out. It happened to me last week when I replaced the pollen filter. Drop the lid by pressing - very firmly - on the arm at each side. Check that the RH arm isn't floating freely minus the cog. Or the arm hasn't been refitted into the slot at all. ps - my fingers weren't strong enough to reach and press both RH and LH arms at the same time so I used a screwdriver in each hand to pop the struts.