prepping for summer.just put new rubber on the rims and back to garage

Edited 14 February, 20251 yr by IulianE

Sanatate! You are preparing for summer and we here wait for a "siberian cold"wave! 😬

 

In any case, I should also start to get ready ....

6 hours ago, Colin170CR said:

Lots of smoke out the back for a bit I suspect. Or is that not a thing anymore with all the cats & EGR's etc?

Well nothing noticed on the way back home. I don't think there's much wrong with my engine TBH, it's just that I saw the Redex on offer in Lidl and was inquisitive enough to buy it.

I've seen a few additive comparison videos on youtube over the years and for the most part they do seem to show a slight improvement in economy and, when checked before and after on a rolling road, torque & bhp. 

The latter I'm not fussed about but if I could squeeze a few more mpg out of it I'd be happy.

15 hours ago, leolito said:

Sanatate! You are preparing for summer and we here wait for a "siberian cold"wave! 😬

 

In any case, I should also start to get ready ....

 

 

 Hello neighbour! same cold here,already started to snow.

Had a full service and Haldex oil change / filter clean today. Brilliant service as usual from Wheelbase in Hersham,  Surrey. The 280 has now covered 52k and the original brake pads are at 7mm front and 4mm rear, so they’re getting changed soon. 

Edited 15 February, 20251 yr by numskull

Today I have been mostly spending £1,400+ on this year's MOT, service (including Haldex and brake fluid), road tax and some shiny new front wishbones. 

 

It had it's first 'real' MOT fail in 9 years due to the rubber bushings in the wishbones having completely disintegrated and unbonded from the metal. I say 'real' as I think I had one that failed due to a headlight alignment issue which was then corrected immediately.

 

I'll also be getting new discs and pads in a couple of months.

 

All that for driving around 4,000 miles a year. I must be mad 🤡

 

Oh, and tonight I'll be off to CostCo to fill up with petrol as I'm down to my last 40 miles.

3 hours ago, unclerichy said:

Today I have been mostly spending £1,400+ on this year's MOT, service (including Haldex and brake fluid), road tax and some shiny new front wishbones. 

 

It had it's first 'real' MOT fail in 9 years due to the rubber bushings in the wishbones having completely disintegrated and unbonded from the metal. I say 'real' as I think I had one that failed due to a headlight alignment issue which was then corrected immediately.

 

I'll also be getting new discs and pads in a couple of months.

 

All that for driving around 4,000 miles a year. I must be mad 🤡

 

Oh, and tonight I'll be off to CostCo to fill up with petrol as I'm down to my last 40 miles.

I guess I've got some of this to look forward to?

Mines at 64k miles but 🤞never yet failed an MOT yet. Famous last words. 

Like you I do a similar low annual mileage because we tend to default to my wife's EV for daily duties. However, after a week or so of driving the EV for a couple of weeks I get the urge to jump in the 280 for a blast up the local dual carriageway to get my fix of analogue motoring a bit more BHP than the EV has got (about 160bhp more). After that the 280 goes back on the  drive for another few weeks or until we need to do a longer trip than the EV can manage.  

Cleaned it for the MOT as obviously a clean car automatically means pass

Me too. But more so that it hadn’t been done in such a long time. Although MOT Friday so bonus if that helps. 
 

Carpro Retyre cleaning the tyres

 

Plenty of Iron Fallout to get rid of

 

Carpro’s Lift to pre wash, Reset to clean up, IronX to get rid of the iron, TarX to get rid of the tar spots.

 

Finished article; Carpro Hydro2 being my LSP of choice. Will do for now.

 

Edited 19 February, 20251 yr by travs
Repositioning

It's the wrong thread. It ain't "The Superb III picture thread"... 😁

BTW Nice job!

12 minutes ago, Bap33 said:

It's the wrong thread. It ain't "The Superb III picture thread"... 😁

BTW Nice job!

I did wonder if it was a bit extensive for here. Merci, it was long overdue, believe me.

I sincerely believe you. I had a 'Metal Black' Audi A3 Sportback Mk2 15 years ago... No black/dark car anymore, ever! It's so disappointing to spend hours making an intensive clean and then discover it's full of swirls once it catches a sun beam... 😱    

 

I wasn’t completely comprehensive as I need to give it a polish and then I’ll ceramic coat it to keep it in good shape for a while…just need to carve out the time to do it. Yesterday was perfect weather - overcast, 6 or 7 degrees, hardly any wind. Have to hope for another unicorn like that

@travs My MOT is Friday too as everyone’s happy on a Friday, another extra on making it pass

 

Tbh nothing wrong with my car and only driven it about 3k miles since last MOT 🤪

Drove my Mk3 to the car wash (Karcher) today (only a quick coarse cleaning instead of a fine detailing). I was quite happy to get its original Moon white color back. 'cause of bad rainy weather, many miles and a lack of time these last weeks, it had slowly turned into mucky 'beige-ish'... 

 

7 hours ago, Bap33 said:

Drove my Mk3 to the car wash (Karcher) today (only a quick coarse cleaning instead of a fine detailing). I was quite happy to get its original Moon white color back. 'cause of bad rainy weather, many miles and a lack of time these last weeks, it had slowly turned into mucky 'beige-ish'... 

 

Do you know if they use deionised water? That would be great to spray on a citrus prewash, leave for a few mins, jet wash off and then not need to touch the car to dry; just drive off. Easy clean in 10 minutes.

Yes they do. It’s more or less What I did. But it was so mucky. That it´s not perfectly clean. It’s not like good hand wash with 2 buckets.

Car passed MOT, grand total of 2819miles between MOT’s 

 

Last year I had bang on 2k miles between MOTs 😂

3 hours ago, Danoid said:

Car passed MOT, grand total of 2819miles between MOT’s 

 

Last year I had bang on 2k miles between MOTs 😂

Same. Clean car, Friday. Done. Slightly more miles between but meh, I can't take it with me when I 'go'

Now the 280 has covered 52k, @Travs  and I replaced the original spark plugs today and we made a bit of a shocking discovery. So the socket plugs on the coil packs are an absolute PITA to get off…. but that’s not the issue! What we found was the tube through the head with the spark plug at the end, and  shrouds the stem of the coil pack in cylinder 1 and 4, contained a fair amount of dirty engine oil; tubes on 2 and 3 were fine. So when the plugs came out the oil disappeared into the cylinders. I estimate there was probably 2-3mm of oil down there. One thing Lee (Travs) did find was that none of the plugs were particularly tight in the head, and certainly not the 30-33nm to which they should be torqued. We cleaned the tubes with MF towels, installed the new NGK R sparks, torqued to 33nm and the car started immediately on the push of the button. 
So can anyone shed light on what the cause of the oil contamination could be? 

5 hours ago, numskull said:

Now the 280 has covered 52k, @Travs  and I replaced the original spark plugs today and we made a bit of a shocking discovery. So the socket plugs on the coil packs are an absolute PITA to get off…. but that’s not the issue! What we found was the tube through the head with the spark plug at the end, and  shrouds the stem of the coil pack in cylinder 1 and 4, contained a fair amount of dirty engine oil; tubes on 2 and 3 were fine. So when the plugs came out the oil disappeared into the cylinders. I estimate there was probably 2-3mm of oil down there. One thing Lee (Travs) did find was that none of the plugs were particularly tight in the head, and certainly not the 30-33nm to which they should be torqued. We cleaned the tubes with MF towels, installed the new NGK R sparks, torqued to 33nm and the car started immediately on the push of the button. 
So can anyone shed light on what the cause of the oil contamination could be? 

Did you check to see if the cam cover was leaking ?

4 hours ago, UndertheRadar said:

Did you check to see if the cam cover was leaking ?

There was no sign of it leaking. At the cam cover joints in the coil pack tube, the red sealant was visible and appeared to be intact. 

I’ve seen the sealant running into the tubes, but the cover leaking into cylinder 1 and 4 is reasonably common. VAG in a lot of cases worded it as internal seepage and wouldn’t cover it under warranty. 
happened frequently on the 1.8 tsi as well. Normally caught on during a plug change or when it was bad enough to cause a misfire. 
These coil pack pullers are a lifesaver for removing those packs. 

Edited 22 February, 20251 yr by UndertheRadar
Extra information

Removed a 12" stick which was stuck in front of the nearside rear wheel and which sounded as if a spring had gone everytime I went over a bump in the road. Sometimes look for the easy solution!!  At least it saved me a trip to the main dealer to sort out the intermittent grating noise.

1 hour ago, UndertheRadar said:

I’ve seen the sealant running into the tubes, but the cover leaking into cylinder 1 and 4 is reasonably common. VAG in a lot of cases worded it as internal seepage and wouldn’t cover it under warranty. 
happened frequently on the 1.8 tsi as well. Normally caught on during a plug change or when it was bad enough to cause a misfire. 
These coil pack pullers are a lifesaver for removing those packs. 

We didn’t find pulling the coils themselves bad at all; but unplugging the connectors is about as frustrating as it gets and sorry to say I broke one of Rob’s. It still clipped into place but several bruised thumbs, swearing and YouTube videos for technique meant the job feels like a pig just getting to the plugs.