Just recieved my new liquid gauge. Looks great! I bought the vent kit, which means I need to get the driver's side vent out.

Haynes manual = Carefully prise the vent out of the housing using a small flat headed screwdriver.

Easy! Er....no!:confused:

Has anyone managed to do this easily? If so, could I have some guidance please? I've tried prising from all different angles and so far all I've managed to do is pull the front face off the vent in the lower right corner (Which now won't clip back on correctly so will probably have to be glued). No matter what I try the vent won't budge and I'm in danger of knackering it. I even took the screws out of the bottom half of the dashboard to drop it slightly and removed the plastic panel above the fuse box. When I did this I could get my fingers behind the vent housing to help push, while I prised with the other hand. Still no joy!!!!

I'm at the end of my teather and coming to the point where I'm just going to break the vent to remove it and buy another one (probably at great expense from Skoda).

If anyone has any pearls of wisdom to help me it would be much appreciated. I'm hoping it's just me doing something stupid!

See if you can get the light controls out, then you might be able to get your hand or a tool into the hole to push the vent from behind as you lever it up from the side. I snapped a vane on my passenger side one and replaced it with a new vent, I do remember it was a bit of an ar*e to remove it, I think by the time I got the old one out it was pretty much destroyed New vents go for about £11-12 on ebay.

If you take off the cover for the fuses you can take out a couple of screws and remove the fuse panel that should give you better access.

I took out the passenger side one and it was a complete pain to get out. IIRC there are four clips, two top and bottom. You could try something like a paint scraper with a really wide blade.

If you can feel around with a small flat screwdriver and find each of the four clips then try and press the back of them down so they're hard against the vent, then pull that particular corner of the vent out a little so the clip clears the dash surround, repeat carefully with the other three clips and then you should be able to get the vent out.

As you release each corner, wedge it with a piece of cardboard.

Cheers everyone for your assistance. I'll give it another go!

Yep, agree with Fordfan, I have used creditcards in the past and seemed to work quite well,.

Finally I've sorted the vent situation out. Thanks to all for the advice regarding the four clips and methonds to try and release them, it gave me something to focus on.

Basically it was still a hell of a job getting the vent out. In the end it came down to sliding four thin pieces of metal i had knocking around (thinner than a screwdriver) into the areas where the clips are and fishing around to see if I could release them. This did not work in itself. In the end it was a combination of this and brute force with a screwdriver that got it out. The result was: one clip springing off down into the dashboard (recovered later) and all but the top two fixing points for the vent front face were knackered due to screwdriver damage. The latter meant that in order to clip the front face of the vent back on after putting the liquid gauge in, I had to glue it on with a hot glue gun.

The vent went back in with no trouble and the wires were easy to tidy up with cable ties. Not had a chance to play about too much with the gauge yet, but it seems to be working fine. Overall I'm well pleased.

pictures please!

Not the best picture in the world (my phone's not great), but you get the idea fom it.

Looks good!

looks great!

That does look good Mine is mounted in the vent too but now summer is approaching I am missing the vent a little. Saying that my aircon isn't giving 100% at the moment so when thats sorted I should be ok.

That does look very good.

I'm still trying to come up with a way of mounting one of these that doesn't mean ripping the car apart, losing a vent or having a big gauge pod somewhere :(

That does look very good.

I'm still trying to come up with a way of mounting one of these that doesn't mean ripping the car apart, losing a vent or having a big gauge pod somewhere :(

I was thinking along the lines of this Parts4vws.com and Parts4Audis.com - Blank DIN Panel

It's a genuine vw part but dont know if it would fit the octi.

Was thinking along the lines of dropping the radio to the lower position and fitting the LG using this.

I was thinking along the lines of this Parts4vws.com and Parts4Audis.com - Blank DIN Panel

It's a genuine vw part but dont know if it would fit the octi.

Was thinking along the lines of dropping the radio to the lower position and fitting the LG using this.

That would be perfect. Infact with the gap being a standard DIN size that should do the trick. The cubby hole has a lipped edge so those clips should latch on to that.

Bad news! Going to have to try and get this vent out again! This time without knackering my liquid gauge.

Reason is that the gauge is supplied mounted in a black plastic panel. The gauge is mounted to the panel by simply being glued to it. Sat in the car yesterday and noticed that one side of the screen was further in than the other!! Basically it looks like the glue has sprung from that side!:weeping:

Has anyone else had this happen? My only thought is that the sun coming through the side window has heated everything up and the hot-melt adhesive used has softened and sprung.

Not happy! Mind you, I guess it may be an opportunity to send the gauge back to get the software updated to the latest version!

Fire it back up to me and if its the heat glue that has softened, ill put a few dabs of araldite on it while updateing the software.

Can it be user-updated? As when I finally do buy one it will be quite a long distance from you

I'm afraid not.

Thanks for that freegeek. Much appreciated. Hopefully I'll have a go at getting the vent back out this weekend.

Excuse me for being stupid! but what is the gauge for?

No worries just found it on SWG, does it just plug in or is there some extra wiring needed?

Just plugs in, you get the cables you need with it to plug it into the OBD port under the steering wheel.

Finally I've sorted the vent situation out. Thanks to all for the advice regarding the four clips and methonds to try and release them, it gave me something to focus on.

Basically it was still a hell of a job getting the vent out. In the end it came down to sliding four thin pieces of metal i had knocking around (thinner than a screwdriver) into the areas where the clips are and fishing around to see if I could release them. This did not work in itself. In the end it was a combination of this and brute force with a screwdriver that got it out. The result was: one clip springing off down into the dashboard (recovered later) and all but the top two fixing points for the vent front face were knackered due to screwdriver damage. The latter meant that in order to clip the front face of the vent back on after putting the liquid gauge in, I had to glue it on with a hot glue gun.

The vent went back in with no trouble and the wires were easy to tidy up with cable ties. Not had a chance to play about too much with the gauge yet, but it seems to be working fine. Overall I'm well pleased.

Looks very Nice there. I have the standard Turbo gauge in mine in that position, but now thinking:Dl