Just had a looong session on my car. While our sunday roast was spending hours in the oven. Roast is ready, car is done. But while the potatoes are getting done by missus, I better write this up.

So, after yesterday's session, which focused on finding out the reason for my sporadic brake failure (hard pedal approaching traffic lights at red!), and the subsequent discovery of several gallons of water in the bulkhead (!), and the worry of a potential massive bill of replacing the servo, today's session focused on removing the pollen filter housing and sealing it up with some clear silicone.

As it happens, this job happens to have been done before, there were ample quantities of black silicone applied, but I decided to remove all that and clean up and re-apply. The seal itself had a rip running along its length so at some point I will have it replaced before winter, but in the meantime I have drenched it in silicone and I'm sure it will hold. I moved the ripped side of the seal onto the side away from the wing, where most of the water flow happens in rainy weather.

While I was at it, I have come to realise just how poor the design is. The lip on the bulkhead onto which the pollen filter housing sits could have been a few millimetres higher, and water would never get in there. With the current design there is an over-dependence on the integrity of the seal, which is where the problem lies. Luckily, the area in the "hole" was all dry, but the seal was saturated with water, and porous, squeezing it showed this quite clearly. Pollen filter was very dirty, although supposedly the dealer changed this on the last service 3000 miles ago, there is no way it got done. So a quick trip to Halfords, and got a new Coopers one for £5 (on trade card). Then I realised the importance of the plastic piece bridging across the filter. If this gets dislocated water pours straight onto the filter! Ridiculous. But before I realised that, I actually managed to break the locating edge on the LHS. So put a lot of silicone there to hold it in place.

Then attacked the headlight misadjustment I had, the drivers side light catches on the grille. My suspicions were that something wasn't quite reassembled correctly when the timing belt was done 3000 miles ago by a main dealer. Then I found two screws loose which hold the front frame onto the wings, this allowed the whole front frame to wiggle left and right! Dealer negligence on the job. But quite happy to charge £700 for the privilege.

It is better now, but still not quite right, so I will be taking the bumper off to investigate next weekend. I am sure I will find some other loose and/or misaligned components.

While I was at it, I thought I'd take the beauty cover off the engine. One of the A/V mounted bolts wasn't there, but the other three were fine. When the cover was off, it was obvious that the fourth A/V rubber had snapped in half, maybe dealer over-torque (?) maybe not.

Then had a look at the glowplug cables as I was doing the homework for the planned glowplug change as I have a lumpy cold start/smoke problem. The found that one of the glow plugs wasn't even connected, and corrosion had set in! Maybe disconnected when the timing belt was changed (?). Turbo feed pipe (oil) was a bit oily so I brake cleaned it off, and will have another look in a couple of thousand miles to see if this is a slow wetting or a proper leak, but doubt this is serious. Pleased to see that the removal of the inlet manifold for an EGR de-coke is seemingly an easy job, so once I have the courage and the time, I will have a go at this. As well as cleaning the EGR valve which seems relatively accessible for this job.

Finally I have to get the radio reprogrammed, as removing the battery has encoded it, but not sure where the code is, is this written anywhere in the handbook?

Sorry for the long post! Minor "rant" and lessons learnt!

is this similar to a Passat in that the pollen filter housing has a rectangular seal underneath between it and the intake?

if it is I did this recently on a friends Passat and I used a 1cm sausage of Dum Dum Gum which sets on the outside, forming a skin, but stays pliable inside so it never dries out.

it might last longer than silicone.

Would you care to name the dealer who pulled the front and changed the belt on your car? Whoever did it seem to be guilty of breathtaking incompetence and handed you back a car which would fail an MOT on headlamp alignment.

The Superb is precisely the same as the Passat in all details, good, bad and dangerous. If you put a slave battery in the boot connected to the power socket, you avoid losing any settings. Insulate the positive leads on the vehicle battery when you remove it - I use a plastic glove.

I hope "the lad" did the bodywork and someone with an ounce of care and skill changed the belts - otherwise you may be in for a surprise...

rotodiesel.

Would you care to name the dealer who pulled the front and changed the belt on your car? Whoever did it seem to be guilty of breathtaking incompetence and handed you back a car which would fail an MOT on headlamp alignment.

The Superb is precisely the same as the Passat in all details, good, bad and dangerous. If you put a slave battery in the boot connected to the power socket, you avoid losing any settings. Insulate the positive leads on the vehicle battery when you remove it - I use a plastic glove.

I hope "the lad" did the bodywork and someone with an ounce of care and skill changed the belts - otherwise you may be in for a surprise...

rotodiesel.

It was Marlborough Skoda in London.

I hope the very important bits have been put together well!

If you go to their section on the Forum you'll see what I found when I went to look at a used Mk1 Superb there.

Why not add your findings to the list?

rotodiesel.

Edited 5 April, 201016 yr by rotodiesel