bigman1976

I don’t have a trailer but my car did come with the tow hitch. I’ll investigate and see if there is a setting which I’ve inadvertently changed.

This week, I noticed that I hadn’t noticed the blind spot assist flashing in for a while. So, I delved into the settings menu through the steering wheel and turned it on, along with the rear traffic warning system. The blind spot monitoring lights in the mirrors lit up and worked perfectly for the remainder of my journey. When I arrived at work ans put the car into reverse, a warning message flashed on the dash saying they were unavailable and when I went back into the settings the boxes were unticked. This is happening every time I put the car in reverse meaning I have to turn both on for every journey. It’s nothing to do with the personalisation feature as I only use one key and it always recognises it when I get in the car. Has anyone experienced this before and is there anything I can do to resolve it?

Afraid I cannot help as I have no working knowledge of filters but am interested in tang information people have too!

It cost me £650 all in. That repair of the dents along with painting the rear door and rear wing. They’ve done a great job from my point of view - it’s an area with a lot of angles and lines which isn’t easy to repair, I’d imagine.

I got package with Chemical Guys Hex Logic pads and Meguiars 105 and 205 pads. I honestly think that p, no matter which pads and compounds you’re using, it’s about having a go. Some will constantly changing the kit they use aiming for perfection but for me, getting any kit and working on your technique is key. If you call Clean your ride or wherever you are looking to buy from, you can get advice from them.

That’s a good list of kit you have. Can’t wait to see how you get on! That DAS6 Pro kit is what I started with - it’s a great polisher to get started with.

Welcome. May see you on the Superb forum!

Welcome!

Hello and welcome. Hope you sort your car.

Welcome to Briskoda.

Welcome!

Good luck with your project.

Welcome. Briskoda is a fantastic forum so you’ll find lots of helpful people who’ll give advice.

Classic. You’ll get plenty of admiring glances in that. Enjoy.

Welcome! Sounds like you’ve got yourself a beauty. As a former owner of a race blue Mk3 Octavia VRS, I think you’ve got the best colour, by far. Enjoy.

👋

Hello! I suspect you’ll find all of the advice you need on here. A great forum.

Welcome!

Update 2 On Friday, I collected my car from the bodyshop and, fair play to them, the repairs seem to be invisible. I’ve not yet been out to wash it but I cannot see any mismatches in paint colour or overspray or anything like that. I’m really impressed with what they’ve done. Needless to say, I’ve made sure it’s parked out of the way of the neighbours cars. Especially Luke’s.

Firstly, have a look at the detailing section of the forum - there’s a lot of good advice there. There’s also detailing world website which is amazing but quite daunting initially. Your list of kit is comprehensive. I’d agree with Bap33 in as much as you need some form of “mechanical” decontamination (clay bar/mitt) as well as some chemical decon products. I’d think about your routine as being split in 2: you have your regular maintenance work and also a full “deep clean and polish”. For me, the deep clean and polish is done once annually as a) it takes up a lot of time which my wife is reluctant to give me and b) good techniques should make it redundant. My car is a daily driver so it’s not perfect and being OK with small imperfections is key to remaining sane IMHO. I have a dual action polisher (Carbon Collective Hex15) which is great along with a DAS6 Pro (which can be used with both 3 and 5” pads so is best for beginners or as a standalone machine). I use green Chemical Guys hex logic pads as they work well on Skoda paint. With these, I use Sonax 04-06 single stage polish which isn’t the cheapest but is very good to work with as it will remove swirls but also finish to a great gloss. Others will have their own preferences. The actual act of polishing is relatively straight forward and “safe” as long as you are sensible. Have a look on YouTube for Junkman2000 as he did a seminal video on polishing. There are thousands of other guides out there (Forensic Details is another good channel). Once you have polished your car and made it look fantastic, you’ll want to protect it. I use Gyeon CanCoat which is a “light” ceramic coating which is easy to apply and should last 6 months or so. I top it with Garage Therapy Sigma (their range is fantastic) which should last for 3 months and is amazingly glossy. Then it’s a case of the classic 2 bucket method every so often to keep it looking ship shape!

Congratulations on the new car. The Lifeshine kit will do a job for a while in as much as it will provide some protection. I suspect it’s not vastly different from Autoglym Extra Gloss Protection but in my experience it’s not a long-lived product. In terms of new products, it depends if you’re thinking wax, sealant or ceramic type products. I have been using Gyeon CanCoat which is a “lite” ceramic. The gloss levels are great and it will last around 6 months per application, more if you top it up with a QD after washing. There are also ceramic style, Si02 sealants from companies such as Meguiars (hybrid ceramic wax) which supposedly give similar levels of protection but are more like sealants in terms of application. Then you have your traditional sealants and waxes! For me, it depends what you’re looking to achieve regarding longevity.

Thats a good idea. I’ll make certain I get some “after” shots for my records.

Quick update. I put a note through the letterboxes of the local residents asking if they had seen anything. I mentioned the times it could have happened and that it was a silver car. Had 2 knocks on the door. First was from one neighbour who thought, like I did, that it was my immediate neighbour who has a silver Mercedes. He did say his initial thought was it was Luke, a youngster whose car is junk but who hadn’t been around. The next knock was from Luke and his dad. It transpired that he had popped home at 1am to get some “baccy” and that he’d backed into mine on the way out. He said he checked his car when he got back to where he was staying and couldn’t see any new damage and assumed mine would be OK. He didn’t tell his parents but when they read my note, they asked and he confessed. So, he’s going to pay for repairs (£650) in cash as don’t want it going through insurance (he recently drove into/over a motorbike parked outside too) which is fine with me. He seemed contrite and apologised and I felt a little guilty as he’s young and we all dropped the ball when we were youths, but, I think (hope) he’ll learn from this. The body shop repair will be essentially invisible which is good. I’ll know it’s been repaired but it is just a car at the end of the day. I promised my wife I would remember that!

Having recently posted by Superb after 2 days of detailing, I’ve had some, um, numpty (trying not to swear) hit my car whilst parked outside my house. Of course, they didn’t have the balls to leave their details or knock on my door. Most annoyingly, I think it was my next door neighbour as the paint transfer is silver like his car. Sadly, he works away and isn’t around (he left the same evening as the damage occurred). Likely looking at a large repair bill or insurance quote.

I like that a lot. I know mods are subjective, but I think you have done a great job, especially the wheels. The only things I would do different are to have badges where the background is body coloured and I wouldn’t have fitted the wind deflectors. But, like I said, 👌