DBT85

Off to have a look at a 280 L&K later today. Anyone able to tell me what size tyres are on the 19"s?

Out of interest, since you put that litre in, how much mileage have you done and how much more have you added, if any? I got my 2010 L&K from Allams in 2012 and its now drinking oil at an alarming rate, though only a 1.8 and at 88,000 miles.

The 1.8 tsi l&k really is nice. I love it. Sadly I had to spend 3.5k getting the dsg refurbished 6 months ago and in the last 2 months oil consumption has jumped markedly. I'm not sure I really want to drop another 3k to fix it. Seen a few superbs advertised but since I want an estate petrol, my options are far more limited. There's a nice looking 2.0 l&k from 2012 with 28,000 on it for sale, but I know little about the 2.0 tfsi engine. Also, people kept choosing cream leather. Grrrr.

Having a look at a few Superbs in the coming days (Currently have a 2010 Octavia) and wondered what big thinsg one might want to be looking for in a 2010-2012 era Superb Estate? One I've seen which has caught my eye is a 1.8 TSI 4x4 with all the bells my 2010 L&K has which is nice. I know about the joy of the 1.8TSI and chocolate rings and chain tensioners already.

Does anyone happen to know when they stopped putting chocolate rings in the 1.8s? Anything i can look at on a new car to know?

I bought mine direct from Xtrons who have issued a pre paid return label for my unit which went back today. Hopefully tyhe money will be back in my account next week. I really liked having Waze and Spotify on the dash meaning my phone could just stay in my pocket and eliminate the chance of the police pulling me over sice I wouldn't be using the phone, but it not powering on was enough to put me off. I know I could buy a more reputable unit but I liked that this one fit in to the dash so nicely. For Now I'm back with Columbus and my phone. It'll have to do!

Sad to say that my PB96MTVAPL is going back. I've asked for a refund but if they insist I'll try a second unit. For the second time since having the unit it failed to turn on and despite trying everything else, the only way I could get it to come on was to pull the battery from the car. The reset button didn;t do anything no matter how many different things I tried. On top of that I'm still getting the stuttering when playing music back either via Spotify on the device, or Spotify on my phone and just BT to the unit. I'll make one final attempt on my way home in the morning with Spotify uninstalled and just BT to my phone, but I'm not hopeful. A shame TBH as I really liked the device and having Waze and Spotify there on a nice big screen.

No idea if you can change the size of the apps, not sure why you'd want to? Sound quality is good IMO but I'm still running the standard car speakers. I've never been one for that kind of faffing about. Radio reception isn't as good as on my Columbus, however, I'm only using 1 of the 2 aerial connections the car has where the Columbus used 2. I've also not given power to the little amp that comes with the adaptor which would almost certainly fix the issue. The Volume buttons on the unit are fine and work perfectly. You can also set a boot volume but I've not tried yet whether that means boot from cold (battery pulled) or boot from Standby which is what it does when you pull the key. At the moment I'm have 2 issues that are annoying me a little. 1) Waze is saying its lost GPS signal, but as soon as you open the GPS info app it all comes back instantly. Like, every time. Seems odd but I've not tried with a different app yet. 2) When playing music I'm hearing a stutter or pause every once in a while as if the unit is hitting a CPU bottleneck. This is whether I use the Spotify app on the device to play downloaded music, or if I use the Spotify app on my phone and play it via BT to the unit. Again I need to play a bit more to see if I can find the cause. I've always had Waze running at the same time and it seems to stutter at the same time Again, overall very pleased

Will do, I'll be using it twice a day for the next 10 days so if anything else comes up I'll be talking about it!

Similarly a happy update from me at least on power consumption. My car sat idle and locked for 5 days, car started perfectly first thing this morning for work. So the PB96MTVAPL isn't draining the battery. Getting the odd instance of my music freezing for a second and then starting again. Feels like its not getting enough cpu time while I have Waze in the foreground. Need to investigate a bit more.

I got this one and it works fine with Torque on my both my phone and my android head unit. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pumpkin-Bluetooth-Diagnostic-Interface-Scanner/dp/B017KIWRDC/ref=sr_1_5?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1492157301&sr=1-5&keywords=obdII

If it makes you feel any better @alextait I got into my car this evening to drive to work and the PB96MTVAPL did nothing at all. A blank screen, although somehow the BT was still connecting to my phone. Tried the reset, tried turning the car on and off. No dice. Once I got to work I left it 90 mins and went back and still nothing. The only way I could get it back was to pull the car battery and connect it back up, now it seems to be back working fine again. Obviously not something I can keep doing, so I'll have to keep an eye on it. I hadn't tightened the -ve terminal back down so maybe that didn't help, though for the life of me I can't think why, the car hadn't lost power and started fine. It's all tightened back up now so I'll see what occurs.

Since I can;t edit that post any more (bizarre by the way). I've disabled auto dimming based on headlights on or off. Waze already switches to night mode based on GPS data anyway and since that's going to be the screen that's on when I'm driving, I'm pleased with that.

Well had my first proper drive with the PB96MTVAPL today, 115 miles to work. As expected it handled everything perfectly. A very happy bunny! Might have a look at an anti glare screen to go over it as there were a few times where the outside brightness was occluding bits of the display. Also I need to have a look at the options for dimming when the cars lights are on. My car has auto lights and so even at 4 this afternoon my lights were on, dimming the screen. I think there is an app that can better control it but I need to have a look.

Yep @therevaround 8 minutes in you see the heating controls. Also just a side note, the screen doesn't actually cut off at the bottom like it appears, its just set about 5mm back into the radio so from that camera angle it looks cut off! @Redfab I have indeed disconnected the cars own BT unit, though nothing changes as a result of doing that other than it now doesn't appear on my Maxidot. Whether it is plugged in or not, you can still connect direct to the radio itself.

I can't recall how the Bolero does it!

I made a video of the Xtrons PB96MTVAPL radio if anyone wants a goosy

Just a couple of photos of the PB96MTVAP unit in place. The password for this radio is 126 to get to the settings. Though it is a different unit from yourself @T2000. Overall very pleased. The Spotify and Waze apps both work well, I can skip tracks from the steering wheel which is nice and the GPS is dead on. You can't remove a lot of the apps from the home pages but you can move them around or install a new launcher which would give more customisation. Sadly the unit cannot seem to receive audio from my Octavias built in BT unit. While I can use it to talk to people, I cannot hear them. This means I have to connect my phone to the radio and use its built in Mic, but that also means I can't control the phonebook from my wheel. Largely I'm only ever answering calls anyway so probably not a bit deal, but an annoyance. I have installed that hotspot app @alextait and it's working well. I paid the 70p and now when the phone connects to the radio the hotspot turns on and it joins the Wifi. The unit is fast to turn on (immediate) and I've had no issue with battery drain overnight. The loom it comes with has a little toggle thing that you're supposed to connect if you're not using the CANBUS. I think that is what would be needed to halt battery drain. My cars battery is a little low right now but that's from playing with it for 3 hours yesterday with the engine off lol. The unit is nice and fast to do anything, the sound from Spotify is great, the screen despite being a low resolution is much nicer than I expected. I'm used to my phones 1920x1080 5" screen but since this 9" screen is a few feet from your head it looks fine. I've not tried playing video on it as I'll never use that feature. For me this unit was all about having Waze and Spotify running on it rather than on my phone. As you can see, I think it looks quite nice in the car too.

I believe this is possible yes, though I've not wired up either USB so I can't check that. It can also pump video to the headrest screens if you have them I think. I need to get into the password protected menu today to swap the drivers side over as currently the doors think they other side is open. I also need to double check the phone options. My car has its own BT connection which still works, but while people can hear me, I can't hear them. Alternatively I can connect my phone to the radio and use it's BT connection, but I don't think I can then control it from the wheel, which is what I would really prefer. Need to have a fiddle and see what's what.

It's really quite simple, the pain is just getting the wiring to stay out of the way when you try to put it all back. As with every radio I've ever done, there is ton's of room in the dash, none of which you can get the huge connections through to use, so you jusst ave to faff around until it all goes in. I've just done mine. 3 cables (GPS, Aerial and main loom) to put in the back of the radio and one has to connect to the car loom. Well my PB96MTVAPL is in. No pics as the sun was in exactly the wrong place by the time I finished. Overall very happy with the unit. There is no SD slot at all, but it does come with 32GB of storage which should suit me fine as it's all I've ever needed on my phone anyway. As I said above, pluggin it up was easy, getting all the wiring out of the way was a pain in the knuckles as always. Got Spotify and Waze on it no problem and both running well and concurrently. Can also use the forward/back buttons on my wheel to change tracks in Spotify which is nice. Something the car with its BT connection can't do with my phone for some reason. Unit seems to actually switch off when turned off, but I've taken a note of the battery voltage so I can check it a bit later. My phone loses the BT connection with the unit about 5 seconds after you pull the key. More bits later!

Any non live sat navigation will have its limitations, it's why I'm getting rid of the Columbus. I use Waze exclusively because it's so damned good. Tethering to my phone is no issue for me. My 9" octacore will be here tomorrow.

Yeah I red some bits on here about people swapping to 5w40 and after a bit more hunting around on Audi/VW boards I found a lot of suggestions including from mechanics to go with 0w40 or 5w40 that meets the spec. Managed to get 10l of Mobil 0w40 for £63 delivered so even if it does still drink some, I won't care as much as the price is reasonable.

Ahh ok, so using some oil, but not a huge amount. I've been contemplating a catch for mine as its been drinking oil for a while but with no visible signs at all, probably 400-450ml per 1000km (2.25l in the 3406m/5480km since I started actually tracking it properly). I've been using Castrol 5w30 FST LL though and have only been properly logging since the start of Feb. Will be doing a filter and oil change in a few days and swapping to Mobil 0w40 which will hopefully drop the consumption. At first I was worried about having the chocolate piston rings that are an issue on our cars. I hope the scope can show you a shiny set of valves! Any chance you have a compression gauge? A relatively young block should be nice and tight and be useful for a baseline for me to look at when I test mine. So much info out there about the ea888 but its almost all about the 2.0 in the US, not our 1.8s.

That is a slightly older unit that has a 4 core cpu and Android 5.1, the PB96MTVAPL I've ordered is an 8 core android 6 version with a slightly higher screen resolution. As for 3g/4g, its just a dongle that plugs in via USB. While I can't say for sure, I wouldn't be surprised if just about any 3g/4g USB dongle works. Its one more thing I'm not concerned about as I'll just be tethering to my phone anyway.

Looked at my L&K on stock springs on the way out tonight and it looks like its on stilts compared to these :( So much room.