Silicone vs Lithium grease for door locks / hinges etc - what do you use? And Skoda, grease your Roomsters better!

Hi

I noticed silicone rather than lithium and/or urea grease used in the Roomster. For many years, I have been using lithium grease spray in door locks of my Octavia and Superb, with very good results.

Is there any tangible benefit of using silicone grease? I know non-silicone grease can eat plastics, but at least on the previous Skodas all these plastics (in door locks etc) have been oil-resistant. The only time I had trouble with grease, it was actually silicone spray that "ate" into rubber engine cover supports and part melted them.

I do use urea grease on plastic-plastic interfaces, e.g. gear lever joint.

Opinions? Horror stories? Please comment.

Very happy with our new Roomster so far, except for a few minor details.

One consistent theme around the car is that the Skoda greasing crew decided to skip grease in most usual places, except 1 side of each door lock (not both sides) and copious amounts of copper grease... on the underside of engine cover mounts. Must have been 20g+ copper grease there alone, not sure why, perhaps that's the only place the boss checks

If I had not noticed at time of purchase, the engine would have been fouled up after a few drives, similar cover on my Superb has never been greased yet pops in/out as required without problems.

Further checks: Roomster's tailgate lock-dry, gear lever-dry, bonnet lock-dry, half lubricated door locks.

The theme of "skint on grease" continues with fluid levels - power steering fluid level correct, but at the bottom mark on partly warmed up engine, and after topping up, the slight PS noise I could hear disappeared. After that, I'll check also gearbox oil level when I put skid plate on.

Other than this "lubricant deficiency", the swapped around seat heater switches (already swapped back), and the non-working glove box light switch, the car is very good for the money - as it should be with a Skoda Hopefully I saw off most of the niggles.

Glove box switch is a console off+armrest off job, so rather than having the car ripped apart at dealership I fixed the problem by putting 1.2W LED in. The rest of in-cabin lighting are upgraded to LEDs anyway. I actually bothered to measure locked car glovebox light current, 1mA with the LED light, so LED won't discharge battery any faster.

Edited 14 May, 201214 yr by dieselV6