So it's been a great 22 months with the Superb. Apart from a problem with the coil pack (fixed promptly and free of charge of course under warranty) the car has been faultless. It's now time for prepping it for the BCA inspection... 

 

I finally sourced a brand new mirror (£220) for the entire unit vs. £300 for the glass alone from Skoda! The only other damage is a deep scratch to the rear door handle cap. I'll consider putting that right before the inspection.

 

Other than that I've got some scratches on the plastics from loading a wide range of weird and wonderful objects into the boot. The rear discs are mega scored too. Car has done 34,000 miles. Probably should replace the rear discs before the inspection. 

 

Today I noticed a leak of water from the rear of the engine. I'll mention it when it goes into Skoda to get the work done before the inspection. I did think it was odd though. Coolant is about the only thing I could think of. 

 

Would I do it all again? Without hesitation. The only gripe I have had is the utterly woeful standard lights. Everything else has been just fine. The replacement (Golf R estate) arrives in December. I'll let you know how the inspection process goes. 

The "leak" could that have been the a/c condensate discharge.

I wouldn't bother with the rear discs, unlikely to get picked up on inspection.

Recently had my 3-series picked up and inspected by BCA...

 

I had some rear damage where someone hit me (couple of minor indentations from number plate of their car and three or four minor chips where paint had gone down to primer) but got this fixed prior to inspection, stone chips on bonnet touched up with left over paint from rear fix, and a relatively bad scuff on my (diamond cut) 19" alloys that I didn't want to attempt to fix.  Also had a failed Xenon (started off being pink, then flickering but by time of collection it didn't turn on and after a few seconds would put error message on dash), the A/C wasn't controlling quite right and the night before I reset the infotainment only for it to come up with a oil service due in 150 miles (pretty sure it wasn't due before reset).  Finally the front tyres had come up as a warning on the MOT as tread was a little worn on the outside edge. 

 

On arrival the BCA chap spotted alloy in my initial walk around with him and said it might come up as a charge.  I offered him a cup of tea or coffee to help it not be over the limit and he laughed, politely declined and so i left him to it.  He spent 30 mins walking around the car, taking pics and videos.  Finally got a knock on the door, he says only one thing came up which was the wheel as he suspected.  Goes onto his touchpad to show me the charge........ £51.  Couldn't believe it!  Finally a reasonable charge for loss of value for the car, rather than cost to repair when we all know they won't do that for auction.  Was amazed nothing else was called as an issue.

 

Asked what I needed to do about the charge, he said BMW would be in touch but don't chase them to pay as they might write it off..... Two weeks later and I've heard nothing so will be keeping my fingers crossed!!

 

In summary - I wouldn't rush to fix all those things you know about    I wonder if I could have left the rear damage on mine and been charged less than the £300 I paid to fix it!

 

 

Edited 21 October, 20178 yr by nicklouse

When the Octavia went back in April there was a scuff on the front wheel that was above the Leasing Guide size.  E-mailed Alphabet a photo 2 months before it went and they confirmed it was chargeable and quoted less than the cost of me getting it fixed.  When the inspector came he picked it up but said it was not chargeable :-) - don't know which guide he was working to.

 

There were the usual bonnet chips on a 2 year old 35k car, any that looked too bad I had touched in (using Vauxhall metallic black since that is the touch up stick I had).