BigJakk

Not with the car at the moment, but essentially my phone contacts are all on my Google account. Each contact on the phone has one entry, e.g. 'Dave' - on the phone Dave will have one telephone number listed and also a WhatsApp call icon. In the car , when I ask it to 'Dial Dave' it will bring up that contact with a message 'contact has multiple numbers' (or words to that effect) with two identical phone numbers listed within the contact. I haven't set up any default numbers etc. As I've never had this issue on any other cars. It's definitely related to WhatsApp as uninstalling that application or denying it access to contacts on the phone makes the problem go away (unfortunately not practical for my purposes) Hopefully I've hit upon a fix above but I'm not holding my breath.

So, interesting update - having done a lot of googling I found a few things squirrelled away on the XDA forums that suggest that WhatsApp has difficulties with contact telephone numbers where there are spaces on the number e.g. '01234 123 345' I've been through and edited all of my contacts to remove the spaces - e.g. '01234123345' The Huawei contacts app wouldnt allow for this, I had to use the Google contacts app to update the details on my Google account. Having reconnected to the car a couple of times there no longer seem to be any duplicate contacts, although I am wary that at some stage WhatsApp will re-sync and it will happen again.

I've had the pillar trim off a couple of times, once for a dashcam and once for a panoramic roof leak and the clips are infuriating. I found the easiest way to get the off was to leave the clips as they are in the A pillar rather than try to unclip the trim. Then to try to pull the trim upwards and off the clip, then once the trim is removed the clip spring can be compressed and the clip just removed from the A pillar. From a Golf forum it seems these are 'security' clips apparently intended to stop the pillar trim turning into a lump of shrapnel in the event the curtain airbag deploys. I get the need for them but dare say they're a touch over engineered like many things on newer cars These were refitted by the garage after the sunroof job and judging by the remaining clip haven't been fully seated all the way back into the plastic slot on the trim piece. Must have worked it's way free over the last couple of months and rotated just enough to drop into the hole as soon as I dared to lay eyes on it!

Top marks, never thought to try a different vehicle prefix. Ordered a spare just in case too. Thanks again folks

Thanks chaps, Unfortunately the access into the A pillar is tiny, none of my needle nose pliers are slender enough and i do have a telescopic magnet but its too wide to get in there! Its so annoying as i can see the thing in there as well! I've ordered a flexible slimline magnetic pickup tool in the hope i can fish it out - dont mind not having the pillar trim on for a few days if i can retrieve it - knowing my luck if i just replaced it it would start rattling loose! Thanks for the part number - push comes to shove i will just replace it, oddly googling that p/n there are loads of american sites sell them but i cant find any UK based at all (not even eBay) so may be a phone call to TPS or god help me the dealers. Cheers

Hello again folks, Come out of work tonight to find my nearside A pillar trim loose, when I've had a look one of the clips at the top of the trim piece has come free from the trim and has of course proceeded to fall into the cavity of the A-Pillar itself I've given up on trying to fish it out, it is lodged part way down however i dont have any tool small enough to get to it and even then it would then resemble a very sweary game of operation trying to hook it back out through one of the cut outs in the pillar. As such, does anyone know what the part numbers are for these little blighters - i have had a google but have struggled to find anything matching. Picture attached if it helps. Thanks (again) in advance

Hello Folks, Wonder if any of you can help with a bit of an annoying issue with the infotainment on my MkIII Octavia. I personally cant get away with touch screens while driving due to the lack of physical feedback, i find them distracting and much prefer buttons or voice control. I've been using the voice control to make calls however I've noticed that with a lot of contacts it will say "The contact has multiple telephone numbers", forcing me to then have to use the screen. Looking at it, it seems that all of these contacts are people who also feature in my Whatsapp contacts list. Removing Whatsapp from my phone solves the issue, however this isnt really an option as I used it a lot for work stuff. Phone is Android (Huawei) if that helps any. Bit of a nuisance given my 14 year old MkII with a £90 parrot kit could make calls quite happily with no such issues. Thanks in advance

Im not an expert on the head units, so I've taken a photo of the software info:

I've got a Mk3 now - updated signature but must have forgotten to change my profile. Definitely has Canton, head unit looks like this (not mine, just a google image search), i thought that was a bolero but may be wrong:

Its not a constant issue, only very occasional - it only seems to really be highlighted by speech rather than music and then only at certain pitches of voice. I'll try and get a recording of it and upload it

Hello All, I listen to a lot of podcasts in the car and have noticed the last few nights quite a bit of distortion coming through the front centre dashboard speaker which seems to be really prominent when playing speech and at certain frequencies of that speech. I've had a fiddle with the various settings, reset the equalizer to flat 0's across the board and reset the fader to dead centre, I've also disabled the front/driver focus as well as canton surround. The aux and bluetooth volumes are set to medium although i have left the subwoofer at 8. This seems to have helped but hasn't eliminated the issue entirely, wondered if i am missing anything in terms of settings? The head unit is the billy basic Bolero - it has a few daft issues (reguarly forgets where it is in a playlist etc) so im guessing its on quite an old firmware - i understand this cant be readily updated without a trip to the dealer though. Cheers

Bizarrely the ECP website doesn't bring that one up when you search for 'Sump Plug' on my reg. - although it brings up a list of 'Universal Items - May not be suitable for your car'. Found it by searching on the part number though - cheers!

Hello Folks, Looking at doing next months oil change myself - have ordered oil and filter however motor factors couldn't advise on a new sump plug. I know not everyone does, but i prefer to fit a new plug every change and wondered if anyone new the OE part number or the required dimensions for a third party plug? Thanks in advance!

Yep, mine is an estate too - I think hence my initial confusion over the directions in the workshop manual. it'sa bit annoying that those are the only details in the workshop manual (i.e. no details specific to the estate) however I have no idea when that version of the manual was published. As per my posts above, I've found that greasing the rails the roof moves on and the hinges seems to be what is required - makes sense really, metal on metal contact - roof operation is now noticeably quieter and smoother. Keeping on top of the drains and the rubber roof seals is also just as important.

So, Just to cover the issue i had with my roof leaking. I had only owned the car a couple of days having bought it from a really good mate. My drive has a bit of an incline and after a heavy downpour I found water in both foot wells and traces of water emerging around the bonnet release in the passenger foot well. The Octavia 3 is very well put together and the interior trim is a bit of a pain to get apart, but removing the A-Pillar trims i found water travelling down the A pillars so knew it was coming from the roof. I checked and cleared the drainage tubes as above to no avail - unfortunately my trim tools wouldn't allow me to drop the headliner and i didn't really want to get into that on my driveway, so booked it into a my local VW specialist. I wet vacced a couple of litres of water out of the carpets - they didn't need lifting, been there done that before on a fiesta and it would have been a nightmare, fortunately this coincided with a little two day heatwave and I managed to get it well dried. Shampooed the carpets with some biological washing powder, hit it with a steam cleaner and then air freshener and everything came up well with no nasty pongs. My local VW place were spot on - stripped the headliner and water tested it, confirming that water was getting in from the roof. They acknowledged this wasn't their usual work and suggested i contact Skoda for any recalls or TPI's for a known issue. My two local Skoda dealerships were totally useless and said there were no known issues. In the meantime my VW independent had been in touch with a friendly bod at Audi Technical who had found a TPI directly linked to my VIN for a panoramic roof fault - sums up dealerships for you IMO. The TPI related to the seal between the bodywork and roof failing, leading to body corrosion - they could find no evidence of any corrosion but suggested it may be worthwhile as the roof would have to come out to replace the seal and this may allow for a thorough look for any further issues, so i asked them to go ahead. In the meantime i spoke with a fellow member on here who had a similar issue and had DIY'ed it, having removed the roof and found that part of the boding has failed and needed renewing. Funnily enough, when i went back to my garage, they also mentioned that they had water tested the roof out of the car and had found the bonding had failed between the roof and the plastic tray which it is supposed to be bonded to. They renewed the bonding, water tested it on the bench and there were no leaks. They then fitted the new seal, refitted the roof and water tested on the car - no leak. Touch wood a couple of months later there have been no issues - I regularly check the carpets for damp and have whipped the a pillar trims off a couple of times since to find it bone dry. I cant say exactly where they have bonded, however when lubricating the mechanism the other weeks i noticed a couple of spots of tiger seal or similar just ahead of the wind deflector hinges - this 100% wasn't there before the garage did the work, so it seems a good shout for the location of the leak - i have attached a couple of images should it assist anyone. Hopefully I never have any more issues and don't need to learn anymore about these panoramic roofs - hopefully what i have experienced will be of use to some of you though. Cheers folks

Just as an added point, yesterday while using the roof i noticed that the actual back and forth motion along the runners was nice and smooth from where i had applied the grease, however there was quite a noticeable groan when the actual panel first lifts up. There are two hinges/arms at the front and rear of the moving glass panel on both sides - this morning i have given these a little squirt with some silicone lubricant, being careful not to get any on rubber surfaces. Having left this to work its way in, this seems to have cured the noise and the roof is moving smoothly in all directions. In future i would probably use a dry PTFE type lubricant rather than Silicone spray as i understand this attracts less dirt - however i didn't have any in the shed but did have a can of silicone spray, for a one off application I think it should be okay. One thing i would say is a lot of people on the 'net seem to advocate the use of Vaseline or white lithium for lubricating sunroof runners and mechanisms - to me Vaseline would be a big no-no because the petroleum content will attack any rubber. Likewise my experience of lithium grease on bonnet and door catches is that it attracts a lot of dust and dirt and if not removed and reapplied regularly tends to clag up eventually leading to sticking. In the interest of completeness and trying to put everything i have found in once place, over the weekend I will post details of my water leak, diagnosis and fix -- bit busy right now though, screaming newborn!

Not necessarily something 'I would change' but more of a grumble - the right hand drive conversion on the Mk3 seems to have been a bit more awkward than the on the MkI and Mk II. So we now have a fuse box that's requires removal of the glove box rather than simply removing a dashboard end panel by the steering wheel. This is a right faff solely due to the soft close glove box door hinge which is a menace to get in and out without breaking. There's also the issue of the center console where the cup holder is now on the drivers side, rather than the passenger in the old car - which means when i want to remain hydrated and change gear I have to un-naturally hook my arm over my bottle of fizzy pop! First world problem, i know! 😆

I encountered a few people who had just temporarily sealed it up with gaffa tape while trying to deal with their leaks - It looked a bit 'obvious' if im putting it kindly and I imagine this is temporary at best - although also saw one person who had used helicopter tape for the same job which i would imagine is a lot harder wearing and a more permanent solution. There's also several youtube videos out there of people sealing up sunroofs with sealant although that seems a bit extreme to me. If you were to try and seal it I would first look into whether it is possible to disable the roof by yanking the fuse etc - last thing you would want is the roof being accidentally opened by someone when its been sealed shut 😬

In my experience, car problems sadly tend not to fix themselves - they just trick you into thinking they have and then crop up again when you least expect - thus becoming an 'intermittent problem' -- which is an even bigger pain to diagnose! My understanding is that these coolant systems are meant to be 'sealed' - as such the level shouldn't drop at all under normaloperation. Likewise when mine leaked, there was the odd journey where the level didn't seem to drop - getting my hopes up, but it would eventually drop again before long. I would keep plenty of spare coolant in the car to hand and keep regularly checking your coolant levels (remember to check at cold) if you need to continue using it before getting checked out.

I've read a lot of negative reports since the buyout and name change to Racing Line. If your in the North East/Yorkshire area I would recommend BigFish Tuning in Stokesley did both of my previous petrol VRS' - I did 3 and 5 years and approx 50k miles on both of them without any issues, reasonably priced. I considered having my current car done and when I contacted them they were quite open about the limitations of the clutch/flywheel on the diesel VRS where I imagine others wouldn't be as open about it if it thought missing out on a sale.

I had two coolant leaks on my MKII VRS - one saw the coolant dropping reasonably quickly (needed a little top up every 40 or so miles) - this was due to a leaky thermostat housing and was evidenced by water marks around the adjoining pipes. The second time was a very gradual drop in coolant, maybe needed a top up every week or so - from the topside looking in i couldn't find any tell tale trace of any leaks at hoses etc. Turned out to that the water pump was weeping slightly - i would never have been able to trace it rooting around the engine bay. As per above if there are no tell tale water marks obviously indicating where its coming from, i would be getting it booked in somewhere.

My research into my problems took me through a lot of BMW and MB owners websites - it does seem that although the sun roof's for all three marques are manufactured by Webasto they are a particularly troublesome on VAG cars. In most cases this seems to be down to the way that VW has designed and routed the drainage systems, them clogging or the pipes coming loose. However there are a number of issues reported of roof frames twisting and distorting and needing a full replacement. I know leaks are pretty rife on the Yeti and apparently in the states there is an ongoing Lawsuit against VW over Panoramic roof faults on the Golf Mk7. Never again for me folks!

In my research i found a lot of people seemed to think that the Krytox has to be used for all aspects of lubricating the panoramic roof parts (including the metal parts and runners) however looking at the workshop manuals i don't think this is the case and that the Krytox is intended for the plastic and rubber parts. I also read that Krytox has a background in diving equipment but my father in law does a lot of diving and said he had never heard of it and the stuff they use is cheap as chips - which makes me think Krytox may be for even more specialist applications. While i used the expensive VW recommended stuff this time, it was quite messy and awkward to apply accurately to the rails. The fact its also a paste leads me to think, as you say, that it will capture dirt and grime which isnt good for metal-metal contact. I would wonder whether it would be thick enough too that if applied it to any moving mechanisms it could clog them. With that said the stuff i removed appeared to be the same stuff and is presumably six years old and hadnt clagged up with dirt and dried in the same way that lithium type greases would to do in my experience. I've seen mention of the Wurth 2000 aerosol stuff and may be tempted to get some next time i do this - i assume its a dry spray lubricant? I wonder if this would be better on moving parts as you wouldnt end up with a thick residue being left behind? Thanks

I have the same roof on mine by the looks of it - i basically gave the tray and roof panel a bit of a clean with soapy water, cleaned out the runners/rails which run down the side length and then reapplied fresh lubricating paste to that areas and ran the mechanism to work it in. Likewise it seems a bit different to that pictured in the workshop manual so i didn't venture any further with moving parts etc. I then applied gummipfledge to all the rubber seals, particularly the thick inner seal/weather strip and also the harder more 'plasticky' seal around the glass panel and the roof themselves.

Do you use the GPL-105 on the metal runners as well as the seals then? It is interesting that the Octavia manual makes no reference to the seals but the Leon/Golf ones do - perhaps the Octavia procedure has been updated since. I know part of the TPI for the repair on mine was to replace one of the outer seals - in extreme cases water can trap between the seal and the roof leading to corrosion (thankfully not in my case). Regarding the Krytox, when i contacted DuPont's UK reseller they explained that on the face of it Krytox isnt really designed for this sort of application - it was only when they started receiving equiries from car owners that they looked into it and confirmed that it works as a rubber rejuvenator/protectant. It is important that people note that Krytox contains PFPE (not PTFE which is cheap as chips in comparison) - there are other PFPE lubricants but most don't seem suitable for our purposes. Finish Line do a PFPE lubricant for bicycles however this reportedly doesn't work well on roof seals and whilst half the price of Krytox is also half the quantity - so a false economy. Reports on Fluorofluid suggest that whilst a lot cheaper its nowhere near as durable - the suggestion being it doesn't have as great a concentration of PFPE in it. Your experiences with the Zarox sound positive though and i may give it a whirl if the gummipflege doesnt work out. On the subject of gummipfledge there also seems to be several versions - each slightly different. The most recommended are the Nextzett and BMW OEM stuff (which may not be produced any more) as these are water based, others (such as Sonax) apparently contain Silicone which apparently (contrary to what i always thought) may not be the best thing for rubber in the long term.