Evening all, as title, going to attempt to change the thermostat in my Vrs, I've read that the alternator may need to be taken off, would this be the case? I'm hoping it doesn't :-)

I didn't take mine off but they are quiet fiddly, you best off with a good selection of quater drive sockets and extensions, give yourself a good hour if you have never done one before

Yep, please fit a genuine Skoda one too. And get some coolant as youll lose some.

Its fiddly but is doable as mentioned with some long quarter inch bars, universal joint and some patience

I need to do this job too, however I have always previously completely and changed coolant on other cars. Is the octy easy to do without a complete drain down?

Also how much is a genuine stat, I got quoted 12 quid from local dealer but the bloke did say he wasnt sure if that was for the stat or housing

I think its around £15 from memory. You will only lose a small amount of coolant if you are fast enough. Get the rubber O ring too and handy to have a bottle of the correct G12 coolant in case you lose any.

About to go at this myself aux belt is worn so I'm goin to loosin off the alternator while I'm there. Liverpool-lad, What's so great about the oem thermostat? I'm all for genuine parts but just want to know have you had a bad experience?

One from GSF (topran) went bang after about 6 months, tosh. Genuine one has been fine now for a couple of years.

becuse its such an awkward job, Mine took about 1.5Hours of swearing and dropping the bottom stat housing bolt (left the alt on).

If you fit a cheep one, its a copy of the VAG part and tend to fail sooner. pay that little more, get a better fitting part, dont have to worry about changing it.

Just my 2-penn'orth, to save the hassle of dropping the bottom bolt behind the alternator (it WILL happen!) I shoved a rubber glove into the gap the second time I fitted a new stat. If the bolt does fall between the block and alternator (like it did the first time!), you should be able to move it up and towards the near side of the car with a bit of flexible wire (I used a computer tether (coated wire) as mine was head down and wedged between the block and the alternator. Jam a bit of tape or paper in the 10mm socket to hold the bolt until it bites.

 This has been the final bit of over a month of Head Gasket denial! (The perfect storm of a hot day, jammed thermostat and a caravan on a steep gravel track caused a minor fail which got less minor over the following year!) New rad, waterpump, thermostat BUT finally, tracked down the problem to the HG. Hope this is the end of the overheating under load!

Bring on the summer!

 

Nice easy job this in my opinion.

I changed the stat, backflushed the cooling system then refilled with the pink stuff all in less than an hour. Stood back and wondered what the fuss was all about.

Theres no need whatsoever to remove the alternator.

access to this is what makes the job difficult - I got my mechanic to do it as I didn't have tools that allowed em to get a grip on the housing bolts