I suppose another advantage of staying Skoda/VAG is I can use some of the parts off my current car and transplant them.

 

Which helps a lot when it comes down to cost to change.

 

Best option for me is to return my car back to standard (as much as possible, probably leave the clutch in). Sell the parts on/transplant on to another car and sell the car as standard.

 

Or turn my Octy in to a 4x4 project.

 

The deciding factor is cost and the main issue is the price of buying a yeti or alternative (S4/S6). I would imagine for a decent spec/year yeti and the mods you have its going to be around £20-£25k? Which opens up a lot of options.

 

Those MPG figures do look unbelievable. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that in reality running the mk2 octy at stage 2/2+/3/K04 on a spirited drive I can get single figures  Would never achieve 40mpg more like mid 30's on a run and more like 15-20 round town so looks like you achieve at least 10mpg more whatever the driving style. That's even more justifiable compared to an S4/S6.

 

Is the Yeti really that good in the corners????? That's my biggest concern coming from the Octy which with all the mods is a very well planted car (not great in standard mode I might add, too much understeer).

 

Looks like I have a good enough reason to test drive one

Test drive one! Just do it for gods sake!   

 

Dont get me wrong on the mpg btw, if I want to see single digit figures its easily achieved but its insanely economical for what it is when youre not in that sort of mood!

 

 I was offered 18k for mine last weekend which sort of got me thinking seriously... Ive had a p/ex price of £14600 (so stripped to standard) which was mainly due to mine having all the factory options (except for the tow bar) and ive spent around £5,500 having all the work done by Shark Performance and the cars initial rrp was 28k iirc so an offer nearer 20k might have got me in the mood!     So yes, decide if you want a fully loaded one or a more basic one (forgo the leather and panoramic roof for the lightest one possible if you dont want luxury aswell - im afraid I couldnt do this!) and id say the above figures are what you are looking at to get it done properly. Good luck  

Ive got the 105pd L&K estate for the luxury and economy.

 

This is my car that needs to be practical enough for the family to use for the odd day trip and my business trips around the UK but fun when I want it to be. Or as you put it "when in that sort of mood"

Beti's just had her seventh oil and filter change at you ripe old age of 38,000 miles/3.5 years!

 

So breaking that down further....  thats:

 

• 20 minutes to remove the steel undertray (part of the original rough road option pack before they substituted it for a plastic one!) and its 14 bolts/screws
• 20 minutes to remove the sump plug, drain the oil, remove filter, replace with a new filter, replace sump plug, fill with 4.5 litres of VAG's finest long life oil...

 

AND

 

• 20 minutes to replace that bloody steel undertray!!      

 

Having said that, theres no doubt its been a worthwhile investment looking at the scraps its gained. Its certainly done its job well and the underneath of the car is spotless with no signs of corrosion anywhere.

 

Protection and safety always takes some extra handling and time 

Apologies about the state of the alloys but most of that was due to the brake bedding in process...

Looks close doesnt it?

Theres actually 8.5mm of clearance at the closest point!!

does the calipers fit straight on or are there any adampter brackets to be fitted

You have to buy the carrier kit - around £200 from vagbremtek.

So, now an interesting development and the first negative of my Yeti ownership experience in the three and a half years I've had her.

 

Ive often read that people have had issues with their panoramic sunroofs leaking into the foot wells of the car. However, ive never had an issue with water ingress and Ive even tried to make it leak in the past (being in warranty then!) with the use of a hose! The car has also been parked up in absolutely torrential storms in the last coupe of years (one was so bad that it almost trapped us in Altea, Spain by causing multiple landslides across the mountain roads below where we were staying!) But whatever conditions we've hit, the cabin has always remained 100% watertight.

 

Therefore, you could probably guess how surprised I was to go to the car recently and see a few drips down the inside of the passenger foot well below the A-pillar. Thank goodness for the deep sided rubber mats!  Admittedly, the rain over night was probably the longest and hardest we'd seen in years in the UK but I was surprised none the less! I removed a couple of internal panels to see if I could work out exactly where it was coming in.

 

First I removed the dashboard passenger side end panel - I found a series of drips running down from above so that meant I had to remove the passenger side A pillar trim, higher up.

 

 

This now gave me a clear look at the passenger side sunroof drain (in red) and the surrounding area. The drips were coming from higher up but I wanted to spend some time trying various methods of clearing any blockage before removing any more internal panels....

 

I tried different methods of clearing any blockage but I was concerned I could possibly cause more issue if I caught the rubber drainage duct internally with something too hard or from just being too aggressive.

 

 

 

It was clear that there was certainly dirt and gunk built up inside the channels BUT when I poured water into the sunroof surround to test, most of it was appearing fairly quickly at the external drainage hole (the hole by the door hinge). Even though most was coming straight through and into the outside world.... there was still some dripping freely down the A pillar, internally into the cabin. So I carried on looking further up towards the roof...

 

 

What I saw (and really didn't like) was the use of black cable ties directly onto the flexible rubber drainage pipe. The one at the top of the A-pillar appeared to have been done too tightly from the factory. Ive pulled the drainage channel down very slightly in the above photo so you can see the mark it had made. It was squeezing the rubber drain tight and restricting its flow by probably 30%. So, was this the problem? 

 

Well it certainly wasn't helping but the actual problem could be found still further up towards the sunroof surround...

 

Having removed the rubber door sill slightly as well as the passenger interior grab handle and sunvisors from the roofs interior, I could just see up into the void between the interior roof skin and the sunroof surround.

 

 

It looked as though the white connector on the end of the red drain channel was the part actually leaking. To me, it felt as though it had too much movement on the end of the black sunroof drain channel connector. 

 

So at this point I decided Id done enough investigating and hatched a proper plan to resolve not only this specific issue but to also ensure I wouldn't have the issue in the future... from either this or one of the other three sunroof drainage outlets. Over the course of the next three evenings I stripped the interior roof skin out so I had full and unhindered access to all four of the drainage outlets. Once done, how much effort did it take to see if my gut feeling was correct? Very little is the answer, the drainage pipe came away from the black connector far too easily for my liking.

 

 

My plan:

 

• Remove each of the drainage outlets from the four corners of the sunroof frame surround.
• Clear out the drains properly by use of compressed air and cleaning agents that were kind to the rubber.
• Reattach the drain connectors with a specific waterproof sealer and adhesive.
• Cable tie the connectors to ensure a 100% watertight refit.
• Fully test for water tightness before refitting the internal trim panels.

Just clearing out the drainage channels made a massive difference in how quickly water emptied from the sunroof surround to the ground via the four drainage point (front two by the door hinges, rear two out the back by the top of the tailgate).

 

After my second evening, I ended up with this...

 

 

Four connectors, all with waterproof sealant internally (very carefully done to ensure that none made its way to anywhere near the actual inside of the red drain pipe) as well as externally at the top of the white connector to the black sunroof frame surround and lower down on the underside of the white connector where it met with the red drainage pipe. Then I put a cable tie in place to ensure it was clamped tight. I wasn't taking any chances and wanted to do a proper job to save me any further issues in the future.

 

Result: Problem cured and unlikely to happen again due to it being a better solution than the factory did imo and everything back together perfectly with no evidence of water ingress issues - mainly due to catching it quickly and resolving it within a couple of days. I can only assume that the heat and cold must loosen the connection between the hard plastic sunroof surround and the slightly softer plastic white connector over time. Trust it to finally 'let go' six months out of warranty but I'm happy with the fix.

 

 

Result: Problem cured and unlikely to happen again due to it being a better solution than the factory did imo and everything back together perfectly with no evidence of water ingress issues - mainly due to catching it quickly and resolving it within a couple of days. I can only assume that the heat and cold must loosen the connection between the hard plastic sunroof surround and the slightly softer plastic white connector over time. Trust it to finally 'let go' six months out of warranty but I'm happy with the fix.

 

Great report Lee...

 

A suggestion: this is very much hidden in a sub thread now. It will be of much more use to many more peeps of you were to make this last post a properly tagged and labelled thread of its own.

Extremely thorough Lee, not that I'd expect anything less

 

Really glad you've been able to nail to source of the issue too.

 

Can only agree with Johann; I'd cut and paste this into a new, separate thread - then get it 'stickied'

You have to buy the carrier kit - around £200 from vagbremtek.

thanks for that, 

 

good write up on the drainage tubes

I can now confirm that the above work was a worthwhile use of my time! Lots of rain, not a drop of water inside.

 

Im also going to be swapping the wheels over sometime either this weekend or next (so the winter rubber is ready for the lower temperatures).  

 

Had a message from a fellow Yeti owner also regarding wanting to do similar things to his Yeti and I thought I'd cut and paste my reply here - may be interesting reading for a slightly wider audience. He basically asked what id do again if starting from scratch and what Id avoid changing if there was a next time round. I just thought it was an interesting angle so here goes...

 

K04 Turbo conversion - Read more about this earlier in the thread but yes, its great. No downsides and many upsides. Economy on cruise is immense but does like to drink when going for it (but what would you really expect?) The fact is it gives the car a Jekly & Hyde character. Its there when you're in the mood for it but doesnt penalise you when your not. Would I do it again? YES

 

K04 Stage 2 (consisting of ITG intake and Miltek 200 cell sports cat and 3" downpipe) - made a far bigger difference than I was expecting. Having had an Octavia VRS Mk2 as my last car at stage 1, stage 2 and then stage 2+ on the standard K03 turbo, improvements die off as you went further. The law of diminishing returns. I expected simlar with this upgrade but didnt factor in that whereas with the Octavia I was running the nuts off a smaller turbo at each and every stage, with the K04 now in place on the Yeti I was actually just giving it more of what it needed to perform at its best - the ability to suck in more air and get rid of the gases more efficiently. The big change here was the reveability high up in the range and also turbo spooling was improved lower down. Would I do it again? YES

 

The turbo conversion was obviously the most costly part of what I did so have a read up in my project thread re the Shark Performance stage 1 remap. Ultimately, this offers better value for money and transforms the rather laid back attitude of the standard 1.8tsi factory map, especially in the higher gears! If I bought a 1.8TSi of any description, the very first thing id do would be to get it loaded with Shark stage 1 software - it transforms the performance and improves economy on cruise.

 

Porsche NQSBBK - Without doubt a great value upgrade. If it was a track weapon I'd be going bigger purely for the heat dissipation qualities a bigger disk would bring but for fast road use, even 'extreme' fast road use (going for it on Austrian passes/Italian mountain roads for example) its very capable indeed. However, I'll be looking at DS2500 pads to replace the M1144 Mintex pads when renewal time comes around. The main draw of this setup was its price/performance ratio it offered, the fact I could use standard 312mm (£37 a pop for Pagid) and the quality, rigidity and lightness of the Porsche caliper. Plus a great refurb through brakecaliperrefurbs.co.uk Would I do it again? YES

 

H&R adjustable anti roll bars - Very good but as standard its setup pretty well on the handling front. Ive swapped between them and adjusted between the stiff and softer setting and its amazing just how much difference this makes on the road. Would I do it again? YES

 

Polybushes - This is the compromise I was trying to avoid with this vehicle. They detract from the positives of the vehicle in a few ways. Having the natural compliancy in standard rubber is advantages on the Yeti imo and whereas they are all round beneficial in normal ride height vehicles, I don't think they work well with the standard dampers/spring combination Would I do it again? NO

 

Sach Organic Performance Clutch - its firm compared to normal but this is a requirement of the K04 conversion really. A few people in the trade have suggested theres better alternatives (mainly due to having a lighter action) but its not a problem to the affect it takes away from the driving experience in any way. Its happy in traffic - something thats previously killed my paddle clutches in 10k miles on previous cars running at this sort of power/torque level!

 

The final question related to who I had to do the work on the car and would I choose them again?

 

Shark Performance - Yes. With no doubt, unequivocally, unreservedly, beyond any shadow of a doubt YES. For not being pushy in the pre sales, not feeling the need to say 'do you know how big we are' or 'I heard that XXXXX (competitor) is having problems' etc - something I heard from each of the other companies I initially phoned and spoke to. The customer is King attitude and being there for you just as obviously after they've taken your money as before. Nothing is too much trouble, they know what they are doing (Mark is a fantastic mechanic with 25+ years experience with Mercedes) and do it very well. The little things count ie Ben running around looking for cardboard and not wanting to let me leave with the standard component parts rattling around in the boot 'just incase it was to damage a bit of internal trim' and putting himself out, his social plans on hold and opening up on a Sunday to accomodate my heavy shedule. Would I do it again? Do you really have to ask?!

very detailed review, and exactly what more users (meself included) should be doing! glad you noticed such a big difference with Stage 2 bits, told ya!

Nice work and really interesting to read. And I'm sure that will be helpful to quite a few people, especially those who are wondering what can be done to a Yeti!

nice write up

good idea also to document your mods and whether you'd do it again. good idea for a sticky i think.

Mine would be pretty short;

bilstiens - big mistake, glad i took them off.

everything else - awesome

I need a trip out in yours Rob - see how well your current suspension setup works

nice write up

good idea also to document your mods and whether you'd do it again. good idea for a sticky i think.

Mine would be pretty short;

bilstiens - big mistake, glad i took them off.

everything else - awesome

Why were the Bilsteins no good? Ive never yet regretted buying anything with a bilstein label on! My PSS9's were great.

Why were the Bilsteins no good? Ive never yet regretted buying anything with a bilstein label on! My PSS9's were great.

I thought the same, and all the research i did beforehand i thought it would be a slam dunk going to for the top of the line bilstiens with damping adjustability. Problem is although you can adjust the damping the spring rate is always the same and it's a pretty firm spring for a road car. Although the b16's had 10 settings, the softer settings just leave the car underdamped vs. the springs so could be crashy and a bit floaty also - not great. If you go for the mid-to-high damping settings it's awesome on a smooth road/ banzai mode and would be fantastic on a track, but way too hard for a daily driven high miles family wagon.

If you did track days and a lower road mileage it would have been fine, but for the my type of use the H&R's are much better.

I need a trip out in yours Rob - see how well your current suspension setup works

welcome any time matey. shame you're so far oop north

Cheers Rob - not any southerly trips planned either, that I can see!

What a great thread. I only wish I'd found it earlier, to make the buying process that bit easier... just a couple of questions for now, what make & size are the ARB's and where did you get them from? I assume you don't need new droplinks or uprated mounts for the bars, but do correct me as I'm a newbie to Skoda.

What a great thread. I only wish I'd found it earlier, to make the buying process that bit easier... just a couple of questions for now, what make & size are the ARB's and where did you get them from? I assume you don't need new droplinks or uprated mounts for the bars, but do correct me as I'm a newbie to Skoda.

 

They are H&R ARBs for a VW Golf and a direct bolt on.  No other parts required.

edit - as per above answer, beat me to it.

Just to be specific the ARBs are for the Golf Mk V R32; need to remember that the rear ARB has to route over / around the rear diff.

Guy

sent from my Sony Xperia Z1

... so basically anything intended for a Mk5 Golf (or equivalent Audi, Seat, Skoda) should fit the Yeti (except that I should beware the Haldex)?

 

Or, to put it another way, in terms of modifications, what would be the first thing you do and the first place you go to do it?

No, specifically as Guy says, the awd haldex equipped R32 mk5