He's a hero though for fitting me in so quickly and letting me leave my car there, he said its in the special long term corner, hinting at a certain silver fabia that may have spent some time there!!

Which silver fabia was that?? Lol. My car spent so long there it paid rent....

I can see a lot of 2nd hand panel filters ending up in the classifieds

or on ebay after this. :wonder:

Standard filter on a gtb2260vk here.......darkside will not warranty the turbos unless you're running standard filter! They showed me some pictures of vnt17's ran with k&n's.....enough to put me off my tea!

Crikey mate must have been bad!

Time to go back to standard filter then - anyone want to buy a Green Cotton filter? lol

Crikey mate must have been bad!

Time to go back to standard filter then - anyone want to buy a Green Cotton filter? lol

Yeh I will buy it if you throw in a spare turbo

Popped in a new paper filter today, only done 10k / 8 months on the last one and the difference is certainly noticeable, What is the service interval for the air filter as the last one looked pretty grubby.

I can definitely see why people just stick to stock and replace regularly.

Popped in a new paper filter today, only done 10k / 8 months on the last one and the difference is certainly noticeable, What is the service interval for the air filter as the last one looked pretty grubby.

I can definitely see why people just stick to stock and replace regularly.

Believe it or not Skoda recommend changing the air filter every 40,000 miles!

Believe it or not Skoda recommend changing the air filter every 40,000 miles!

40K ???

You'd be lucky to get any air through it by then.

Wow. That certainly has me a bit concerned about the life of just about the most expensive part of the car. Think a trip to ECP or TPS this weekend for a standard paper filter might be in order to replace my K&N, as I don't know how often the previous owner cleaned it and I don't want my turbo looking like the one in the top picture.

edit - Anyone know offhand what a paper filter costs from TPS? A Bosch "OEM" filter is £12 from EuroCarParts and I can pick one up on my way home tonight. I assume these are paper and made to the same standard as OEM so is it worth going out of my way to visit TPS?

Edited 16 September, 201114 yr by gavinchappell

OEM filter is very cheap, i change mine every 5k because its just so cheap lol. It's like 7-8 quid i think.

I'll just grab a Bosch one on my way home from work then, £4 isn't worth the hassle of queueing to get across town after I pick my daughter up tonight when ECP is virtually round the corner from her mum's. People seem to regard them just as good as an OEM paper filter anyway.

edit - and then for the challenge/pot luck of whether I can get into the airbox with the strut brace on...

Edited 16 September, 201114 yr by gavinchappell

edit - and then for the challenge/pot luck of whether I can get into the airbox with the strut brace on...

Haha if its anything like an Ibiza mate - good luck!

I'm guessing exactly like an Ibiza, same airbox, same strut brace....damnit. Maybe leave it till its next service, I don't fancy loosening the bolts on the strut brace/shocks since I don't have anywhere flat to axle stand the car!

You can slacken the lid enough to slip an aftermarket filter out - but not enough to get a standard one back in especially if the standard fabia filter is like the ibiza one - which is like this?

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=skoda+fabia+vrs+air+filter&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbm=isch&tbnid=ujQg5GKpbpWX7M:&imgrefurl=http://www.jorily.com/catalog/index.php%3Fmain_page%3Dproduct_info%26products_id%3D356&docid=5elZoqZSvDWnLM&w=760&h=1144&ei=dk9zTpifDYGw8QOn6e3_DQ&zoom=1&biw=1344&bih=819&iact=rc&dur=125&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=94&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0&tx=65&ty=39

Yeah, that looks about right for it to be honest, going off the picture on the ECP website. Meanwhile I've reserved two Bosch paper items while they were 30% off (minimum order of £20) so they're about £8.50 each. Pick those up on my way home and have a go over the weekend, when I had it serviced after buying it I did ask the guy to clean the K&N and he didn't mention having any problems but maybe he managed to open the lid enough to remove/refit it. Will see how it goes

Well to update the thread, I have been in contact with the Turbo Centre UK who have been recommended to me.

They will supply either a standard brand new PD150 turbo for £540, or they will do me a hybrid PD150 for £630. I have got to ring them again tomorrow to go through the details. Pretty sure friggerpants had a hybrid from them and was happy.

The old turbo is useless apparently and will be sent back to Garrett when I purchase the new turbo on an exchange basis, hence the cheaper prices than the likes of TD will charge you. Used TD last time round and wont use them again.

Si

surely thats a no brainer hybrid

Well to update the thread, I have been in contact with the Turbo Centre UK who have been recommended to me.

They will supply either a standard brand new PD150 turbo for £540, or they will do me a hybrid PD150 for £630. I have got to ring them again tomorrow to go through the details. Pretty sure friggerpants had a hybrid from them and was happy.

The old turbo is useless apparently and will be sent back to Garrett when I purchase the new turbo on an exchange basis, hence the cheaper prices than the likes of TD will charge you. Used TD last time round and wont use them again.

Si

Yup, good lads there :-). I believe they still offer a 2 year warranty as well!

Certainly looks like I will be joining the hybrid camp! As long as it will run OK on the mapping that is currently on there, cant afford that as well at the moment!

Mapping should be OK. I ran a hybrid on stock mapping, then the VT5 on the VT2 mapping. Was OK, but it neeed refining to get the most from it. Really with a hybrid you want to be requesting a little more boost.

You can slacken the lid enough to slip an aftermarket filter out - but not enough to get a standard one back in especially if the standard fabia filter is like the ibiza one - which is like this?

I managed to take my k&n filter out and replace it with a oem one, without taking my strut brace off, when I decided I couldn't be bothered cleaning it and was easyer to just replace an oem one. I got the k&n one for nothing anyway so didn't loose out on any pennies

Edited 17 September, 201114 yr by armstrong21490

I had to take the brace off on the airbox side. There's no way the lid was coming off otherwise, even far enough to get the thinner K&N filter out. I think I might do it again long term and shorten the back lug which might make it easier in future to just slide the lid off sideways rather than it "hinging" upwards and hitting the brace.

It's done though, naff design for the brace IMO, since it fouls various covers on both petrol and diesel Ibiza "hot hatches", it makes you wonder why SEAT Sport bothered! Although I bet it's put plenty of extra half hours of labour charges onto servicing bills over the years...

Odd. I have no problems at all getting the air box lid off and out to replace the air filter, with the SS brace still in place

Well yippee for you but mine didn't seem to be going anywhere. Probably even worse now, the rubber edge on the Bosch filter I bought seems slightly thicker than the K&N it replaced (another reason I'm glad I changed, now I'm wondering whether the seal on the K&N was adequate) so I dunno whether that's going to make it tricker next time. Time will tell though!

Gonna clean the K&N off with lightly soaped water later but don't have any oil for it as I've never cleaned it, wonder if there's a much of a market for used filters after this thread

After 10 days of having no car, I finally got it back this afternoon!

Feels a bit more sprightly than before it went in, not an absolute night and day difference though. Certainly less soot in the mirror than before, and this turbo makes hardly any noise at all. The last one made a loud whistle from day one. Lets hope it last's longer than I keep the car for now....

Oh and for anyone still in two minds about aftermarket air filters, just stick a standard one back in and save yourself the hassle my wallet is now very light

Si

so did you go hybrid