BoxerBoy

Good luck with the gunk can and compressor. Please update us when you try it out on a dark night. I’m a Spare Wheel Man myself 🙂

I promised to drive my wife this morning. Gee, it was sub-zero. I by-passed her little frozen VW. Fired up my Bear and switched on all the HOT buttons. Ready to go in a few minutes. No de-icer needed. I love it.

I like to leave our light switches in ON position as I don't need the lights on and off as I reach or depart the vehicle. Days are short and nights are long so it's lights always on for a few months. But, the days are now getting longer 🙂

Difficult to help from a distance. Have you driven the car “briskly”, or attempted to, in manual mode to see if the engine will Rev up to maximum in a lower gear? And generally drive in an acceptable way. Most auto cars default to “eco” mode of driving with the aim to reduce fuel consumption, but it often turns out to be far too sluggish for some of us. I can only imagine any fault will lie within the gearbox change system or in the fuel control system. Running in manual will help separate an engine fault from a gearbox fault.

I'm on my third Kodiaq and never met any gearbox problems over 6.1/2 years. 30,000 miles on first Kodiaq. Fewer miles on No.2 and No.3 but no trouble.

That's £1,145 that can be saved and spent elsewhere 🙂

I often park at my door with the parking brake OFF. To stop the pads sticking. Especially when car will be idle for a few days. Not that I intend to play with my brakes in near future.

I wouldn’t stick a mount to the touch screen. Apart from blocking the view of things,I would be afraid of possible damage as it’s not built for the job - like a windscreen. (which is where my add-on satnav lives permanently)

Thanks for the feedback. My half century (+) of wheel changing without mishap allows me to skip the axle stand for the few seconds it takes to pull off one wheel and pop on the, ready greased, clean bolted replacement wheel. (Excepting this one where I paused for a picture) At no time was any part of my body under the car, at risk of getting trapped by a falling car. Do you carry an axle stand along with a jack and spare wheel? The picture angle misleads you. My 2x2 timber is securely placed on the reinforced jacking point on the sill. Definitely nowhere near the plastic trim.

Back to basics. Have the correct pads been fitted? All the pads I’ve met sit snugly and do not “rattle” up and down in the caliper. The spring clip usually just helps keep the locating pins in place. Springs aren’t “structural”.

Today was my first time changing wheels on this March ‘23 car. The winter wheels have been used on 2 previous Bears. I’ve never seen such messy wheel bolts. A mere 7,000 summer miles. A wire brush and some WD40 cleaned things up.

I'll second the extending bar. Almost essential these days for removing wheel bolts. Apart from the obvious - it's easier. And the piece of bent tin the car makers provide is rubbish. I carry one in each of our cars. Don't use all your strength on an extended bar for tightening though. Unless your under 16 🙂

Consider asking your local friendly mechanic to give your discs and pads a quick inspection. Won’t cost £160. If the pads still have plenty thickness then there’s no panic to get new discs and/or pads. Your friendly mechanic will be happy to oblige when the time comes.

It's common for a short push to change speed up or down by 1 mph and for a long push to change speed by 5 mph. On our Polo it it uses the Left / Right toggle to +-5 and the Up / Down toggle for the +- 1.

I tuck my motor bike away for the winter connected to an Optimate 4 charger. 8 years old and has fired up immediately every spring when it comes out of hibernation. Should work for a car too. Not that I’ve ever treated a car this way.

I moved to a 2023 model and also found my old spare 331 won’t fit the arm. But I reckon I’ll be able the remove the rubber blade part of the 331 and snap it on to the 2023 arm. I haven’t found a Bosch part for the latest car.

Jings! It’s only 150 mile round trip. Surely the car will do that on a charge.

ACC? Spawn of the devil 😀

"It's A Feature"

I’ve been running 19” OEM summer wheels and 17” winter wheels for several years, but if I was starting from scratch I’d consider moving to All Season tyres instead. Although full winter tyres do inspire much confidence. In fact I’ve just done that with wife’s Polo and have it booked in to local agent having ordered 4 Goodyears from Black Circles a few days ago. Being only 16” I was pleasantly surprised with the cheap-ish price with a 10% sale at weekend. I’ll be selling the OEM (noisy) Goodyear summer tyres in near future.

I tried it for 5 minutes on previous car, but haven’t gone near it on current car. I see no useful purpose in it.

There’s your answer above.

Yes - to first question. Don't know - to second question. ps - I’m on my 3rd car with powered tailgate and never had a hitch.

21st century cars need very little “Running In” special treatment. Simply don’t Flog It or Slog It. You can’t take a DSG car to the engine Rev limiter like we used to do with manuals many years ago. I always found it interesting whether a car had a hard or soft cut out at the Rev limit in lower gears. Similarly, a DSG will drop a gear when it wants do. Unless you’re over-riding manually. Just load up and enjoy the drive. You might want to check the fluids occasionally just to make sure it’s not using any. I like to check fluids and tyres quite frequently on any vehicle “new to me” then less frequently once I get to know how the vehicle behaves.

I concur.