Octavia 3 VRS TDI 184 4x4 with many extras

[varaderoguy]

Car is now booked in for an intermediate oil change next week.  We've started running our cars on Hydra International Fuel Adatives which seems to have made a MASSIVE difference.  There are two reasons: Fuel Prices have shot up recently and that Super Diesel is REALLY expensive - where as adding in your own Fuel Adatives is considerably cheaper.  Other brands are available.  All our cars initially run really roughly - then clear themselves and we are now getting average 55-60mpg on long runs for the Diesels.

 

Some odd-stuff happening here with the DQ250 box.  Its getting better - unexplained, but the lurching clutch issue is getting less severe.  I suspect this is down to the Mechatronics clutch actuator.  I've ask our Skoda dealer to apply a firmware update to the mechatronics.

[varaderoguy]

Car is going in tomorrow to be fettled by WES. An Intermediate oil and filter change to be done. Clutch actuator is iffy I've asked WES to apply the latest firmware but have been told that isn't possible as it is running the latest firmware that is recommended. Sigh....

 

My view is that if the actuator is not playing nicely, it will be a new mechatronics unit. Failing that, it's bespoke DSG firmware from the likes of APR. 

[varaderoguy]

Some good and less good news from the "Car that keeps on giving".

 

The gearbox diagnostics went back to Skoda tech.support.  I have had two reports back - one from the service advisor saying that things were slightly out of kilter, but not enough to warrant any work on the gearbox - and another from the chief tech at WES who is reported that what Skoda HQ actually said to them was - the car needed a new gearbox!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WOW.  This is now on my own back - the car is mine and I should have walked away when I spotted that the gearbox was not serviced at 40k.  My warranty is null/void for the gearbox as it wasn't serviced at the correct interval.

 

Okay; we are now down to one fault with the gearbox - and this is to do with the mechatronic clutch actuator.  The car is going back in on Tuesday this week and it will be having a wheel alignment performed (because its never had it done and I think this is causing all kinds of handling issues) - at the same time, the chief tech is going to put the car onto ODIS and get it to relearn the gearbox settings from scratch.  A reset of the gearbox didn't fix the jerky nature of the car, so I am hoping that a proper relearn (that will readjust the clutch settings and give me info on how much clutch there is left) will help.

Edited 4 July, 2021 by varaderoguy

[HeavyMetalRich]

That's a bit of a blow. Any ideas what you are intending to do about the gearbox then? Would a rebuild not solve the issue(s)?

[varaderoguy]

4 hours ago, HeavyMetalRich said:

That's a bit of a blow. Any ideas what you are intending to do about the gearbox then? Would a rebuild not solve the issue(s)?

I am not giving up hope.  I will await to see what the realignment of the gearbox achieves (and a wheel alignment).  Worse case: new mechatronics unit and clutch/DSG.

[varaderoguy]

Good news - the wheel alignment kinda fix the poor handling so I'm almost there with that one.  The gearbox was also recalibrated and so far (touch wood), the gearbox seems to be a lot less jerky.

[varaderoguy]

Car seems to now be fixed - however, sadly - life curve-ball has been thrown at us, so the car is now up for sale.

[HeavyMetalRich]

Aww that's a crusher, especially after getting all that work done to it.

 

Hope everything is ok and good luck with the sale if it comes to it. 

[varaderoguy]

Dear all,

 

I think I ended this thread very prematurely.  I was in a bad place with the VRS (and hence it got put up for sale and I locked the posting), but what a difference of two weeks makes:

 

1) Since we last spoke, the car has been back to West End Skoda in Edinburgh twice to get the steering geometry sorted.  First time, the car's steering geometry was massively out.

The second visit corrected the steering geometry, so we now have a car that is steering straight and true.  The Michelin CrossClimate+ tyres have bedded in and now seem to be running well on the car at 38psi.

 

2) The car's MPG after an oil change (at WES), went through the floor.  I went from 50mpg down to 35mpg.  The car seemed to run really hot.  I was convinced that the oil was not right.  The oil was standard Longlife LE3 VW 504/507 oil.  To change the oil, I have an oil sucker.  The CUNA TDI engine (184bhp) engine uses 4.7l of oil (with an oil filter).  I was convinced the oil was bad.  When I mean bad, the oil that came out was severely burnt (after 500miles).  It smelt like a burnt barbecue and the oil was literally smoking after you had driven.  Not good.  The oil temperature got to 112C - too hot.  The solution was worrying and simple: the car was overfilled by the garage (by about 300 - 400ml).  If you look at the dip-stick, the top mark of the dip-stick shows oil level at the top of the dip-stick marker.  What I didn't see until I checked it today - was the skinny part of the dipstick just above dipstick marker was wet with oil.  Basically, the engine having too much oil was causing it to cavitate.  The oil was pressurised - the engine used more fuel to get past the overly pressured engine block which caused excess heat.  I have a theory on how this happened which I need to explore with the garage first.  

 

I removed 4.4l of oil and replaced it with 4l of new oil.  The Engine is now transformed.  I am now back to 48-50mpg.

 

3) To get over the glitchy power delivery, I have implemented the Audi power delivery mod on Module 44 (Steering module).  Basically, the steering module looks after the throttle pedal.  Did you know that all Skoda/VW/Seat cars have a time based power delivery mechanism as opposed the Audi Direct Input method (ie what you press - directly correlates to the power of the engine). Its no small thing to say that this has transformed the performance of the car - the engine has stopped fighting the gearbox; it is now wonderful to drive.  My husband has gone from hating the car to loving it.

 

I now have a really good VRS.....the loving relationship is back....I'm now loving it again.

Edited 18 July, 2021 by varaderoguy

[Genoa1893]

On 18/07/2021 at 20:27, varaderoguy said:

3) To get over the glitchy power delivery, I have implemented the Audi power delivery mod on Module 44 (Steering module).  Basically, the steering module looks after the throttle pedal.  Did you know that all Skoda/VW/Seat cars have a time based power delivery mechanism as opposed the Audi Direct Input method (ie what you press - directly correlates to the power of the engine). Its no small thing to say that this has transformed the performance of the car - the engine has stopped fighting the gearbox; it is now wonderful to drive.  My husband has gone from hating the car to loving it.

 

I now have a really good VRS.....the loving relationship is back....I'm now loving it again.

 

Sorry if it has perhaps been requested one million times, but is the mod for the VRS like this one? 

 

[varaderoguy]

That's the one. Yes....it really makes a difference.

[Genoa1893]

Thanks a lot, and kudos for your VRS!

[EnterName]

On 22/05/2021 at 17:02, varaderoguy said:

For those of you who are interested, here is the spec of the car from erwin

Vehicle-specific+information-modified.pdf 101.58 kB · 25 downloads

What an epic spec!

[Genoa1893]

On 23/07/2021 at 09:29, varaderoguy said:

That's the one. Yes....it really makes a difference.

Tried this afternoon,

I found that linear behavior for throttle pedal was already configured.

 

I got errors I could not clear when I tried changing the front assist to Audi suggested by the video, so I rolled back to the original one (for ACC) while keeping the audi mod for the engine and no errors...

 

I also configured increased traction, disabled the rough road "optimization" and set XDS to aggressive w/no errors.

 

Driven gently, it's hard to spot the difference. I could not yet stomp my foot, but so far so good.

[Genoa1893]

Driven as usual, it's waaayy better

[varaderoguy]

So it time to close this thread for the final time. I managed to sell it to a company in Rochdale who were very happy (I think they had a buyer for it). If the new owner is on Briskoda and they purchase SK67 OCT, please get in touch.