It's been a long time, but

[CRC]

...... I thought I'd just add an update for old time's sake.

 

I still have my 2006 Skoda Superb Elegance 2.5 TDI manual which has given sterling service for the last 12 years or so.

 

I realise that it's quiet on here now and I assume that that's because there aren't that many Mk1s stiil out there .... a quick search on E-Bay revealed that there are no 2.5 manuals for sale, and only a few 2.5 autos which a few traders are asking silly money for. I suppose that most of the 1.9 TDIs were "taxied to death", most of the 2.0 TDIs succumbed to the dreaded  oil pump drive issue and that most of the 2.5s were autos that succumbed to the £2.5k issue that any automatic box will cost to get fixed these days, and any 2.5s that didn't get auto box problems and moved onto vey high mileages probably succumbed to a VP44 issue.

 

Mine is still only on 118k miles, and is going like a good'un.  Changed the cam belt, water pump and thermostat last weekend ( last done 67k miles  and TEN YEARS ago), and couldn't see / feel  any wear in any of the components - belt looked good, all tensioners fine, water pump fine but the two auxiliary belts had seen better days (they were original and had never been changed)  and three of the deflection idlers on the auxiliary belt side need changing as they were starting to show signs of noise / roughness.

 

Even better, the car flew through it's MOT a few days later with no advisories.

 

Checked the pump timing with VCDS after the engine had warmed up, and it had changed from the 2.4 degrees BTDC that I'd had measured before the cam belt change to 0.4 degrees BTDC after the belt change. VCDS says that it's "in spec", so tried it and think I'll leave it there as the engine starts easily, ticks over very smoothly and seems to have a bit more "grunt and growl" than it did before. There is no noticeable smoke at all and the the MOT emissions test stated that there was "no value to measure", which I assume means no smoke at all.

 

Things I've done to the car over the years

 

Bilstein B4 shock absorbers - about £30 per corner on average.

Bosch discs and brake pads - about £30 per corner on average.

New front spring after I hit the mother of all potholes on a dark, rainy night.

New strut top mount as I think the impact from the pothole messed with something in there.

Two new drop links - trying to find the noise that was eventually pinned down to the strut top.

 

Great car that's worth almost nothing these days,  but really good to drive still. 

 

 

[soulmover]

We still have ours. It's an 04 1.9 manual and has climbed her way to 175 thousand miles. Usual repairs and service items but otherwise she soldiers on. Just back from the Lakes and frankly I wouldn't of wanted to drive anything else. As you say virtually worthless these days but with regularly servicing I don't see why I can't double the mileage. Everything is still stock, I had planned on uprating the suspension but didn't bother in the end deciding to do it when everything is worn, but it's still as tight as drum and still lusty when you you plant the foot. It will do for me, so there is at least two still about.🙂

[Carloski]

Perhaps they are not on ebay because people are keeping hold of them, I don't wish for anything any different.  I've had mine from new, 59000 miles - series 1 - 09 Reg. 2.0 tdi 140 Comfort - no fancy optional extras.  I call it my 'classic car', the design is after all more than 20 years old.  Unlike a real classic car I don't have to endure unreliability, oil leaks, slow performance, etc.  But it has had its problems, mostly related to towing the caravan all around Europe (Croatia, Italy, Alps, Spain, etc.).  Few manufacturers seem to include to towing in their design consideration these days, not unless you go for a gas guzzling 4x4 that is.

Problems - 1.  Dropping into limp mode when trying to accelerate with a caravan in tow, in third gear to join the motorway - most embarrassing when the truck in lane 1 has just flashed me to come out, only for me to put on the hazard lights right in front of him!  The problem turned out to be that the turbo was 5% up on pressure, but I was repeatedly assured that this was insufficient to cause limp mode.  These assurances however took no account of what that pressure might have been when I had a caravan behind me.  Eventually in the interest of road safety I opted for a new Garrett turbo, however they must have damaged it when fitting it because on the road test it blew up and blew oil all down the exhaust.  Attempts to clean the exhaust failed to stop oil from dripping from the tail pipe and so I was offered a free professional clean, but with the environment in mind I opted for a full replacement after market exhaust system instead - the garage went half towards the cost.  Total cost of all this was around £2000 but I consoled myself with the fact that many motorists pay that as they drive their new car off the forecourt, my car has averaged £1000 per annum depreciation over the 12 years I have owned it, so it owes me nothing.

Problem 2 occurred whilst towing in 40+C near Le Mans.  With hindsight the alternator must have been red hot, servicing the car, air con, caravan fridge, etc.   My first sign of trouble was when the 'not charging' light came on.  Inspection under the bonnet revealed the belt tensioner pulley hanging off and I only just managed to get the car to a garage.  It turned out that the overheated alternator had stuttered, this threw the belt which snatched the tensioner pulley along with its support bracket off the engine block.  10 days later and 1600 Euros lighter we boarded the ferry for home.

Problem 3. This year we have towed up to the north of Scotland, west of Wales, Norfolk and Cornwall and all has been as it should, except in Scotland the central door locking went awol - 2 hour round trip to Ullapool for a spare fuse, but it soon blew again.  The fault was with a short on the boot latch, this is again related to towing, because whilst the car has done less than 60,000 miles, I reckon the boot lid has had at least 150,000 miles of use!

Economy is second to none, 55 mpg solo and 35 mpg towing, I don't know of any other car that can match that.  Our other car is a 2014 Honda Jazz 1.4 and it cannot compete with the Superb on mpg.  MOT's show that my emissions are minimal which leaves me with 'one thought for the day' - If the government are so concerned about the environment and emissions then why not have a sliding scale of road tax dependent upon the actual emissions produced during the MOT (rather than the theoretical emissions according to the model)?  This sliding scale would ensure that it was uneconomical to keep running a car with a worn/faulty engine, whilst at the same time rewarding those motorists who keep their vehicles well maintained.

[CRC]

Our other two cars are a 2003 Honda Jazz (great car, love it to bits) and a 1999 Porsche Boxster for sunny days, and frankly, the Honda and the Skoda leave the Porsche a long way behind in terms of reliability and build quality .... the Boxster goes well enough, but I always get the impression that it's going to break down, though in reality it never has.

 

Both the Superb and the Jazz give you that warm, comfortable feeling that tells you that the car is going to look after you ..... odd really, but that's the way they both feel.

 

I believe the 2.5 V6 was voted "Towing Car of the Year" at some time in its history ..... though mine has never been fitted with atow bar

[Breezy_Pete]

@CarloskiRegarding emissions in relation to MOTs and vehicle excise duty; different emissions.

 

MOT measures a limited range (different for diesel engines and petrol) of pollutants which does not include CO2. It only looks at emissions that cause poor air quality and health issues, particularly in urban areas

 

Road tax/VED is/was based instead on CO2 outputs to encourage manufacturers to make, and drivers to buy cars that contribute less to climate change through CO2. CO2 output levels are directly proportional to the fuel usage rate of the vehicle; but they aren't a toxic air quality problem.

 

You can ace an MOT test with a massive, inefficient  vehicle despite it using vast amounts of fuel and emitting correspondingly earth-scorching levels of CO2, but it doesn't make it environmentally friendly, it just means MOT doesn't measure CO2.

 

Since you are driving an older vehicle that has excellent fuel economy (hence low CO2) and the car is producing less than the limits of the other pollutants that MOT does measure, you can be pretty happy that you are doing a good thing for both local/urban and global environments though. 🙂

Edited 25 October, 2021 by Wino

[Tdi1.9]

I suspect the stricter MOT diesel emissions about three years ago caused many of our cars and similar passats and Audi's to be scrapped.  The cost of changing new clutch and dual mass flywheel could also easily cause the scrapping of an 'old' car with low perceived value.

 

I bought my '05 1.9 comfort about 9 years ago. It was hard to find a car that hadn't been taxi'd to death, but I managed one with just over 100,000 miles  for £2500 and has now covered 156,000 and is going fine.   I did a cam belt kit a couple of weeks ago, together with water pump and auxiliary belts new front brake pads and a service.  Because of the low mileage in the last couple of years I left the cam belt change for 5 years rather than the suggested 4. It still seemed in excellent condition.

 

Out of interest, when I bought the car at 8 years old it was of course in need of a cam belt, but despite bills stating a new belt kit in 2009, the belt tensioner I took out in 2013 was dated '05 and must have been the original.

[dsolds]

I had 2 of the series 1 Superbs, both Edition 100's. First was a 1.9PD manual which went on to see 240k miles. replaced with a 2.5D Auto which also did a stack of miles. My only gripe with the Mark 1 was lack of an estate body option so about a year back I traded to a Mark 2 estate 2.0d Elegance.

 

Maintenance is not that bad all things considered, certainly not an expensive car to run as long as routine maintenance is done properly. I do find it strange that people are unwilling to do a clutch and flywheel though. Just because it costs more than the perceived value of the car is somewhat irrelevant. The real question is, what can you replace it with for the same money?

[CRC]

There has always been a debate raging regarding when cam belts need to be changed, and I think a lot of it is driven by fear and, to an extent, greed. On the V6, the milage interval is stated as 80,000 miles and in Europe, that's it - no time interval.  In the UK, somehow it came into being that all VAG engines should have their cambelts done every 4 years, though there was a big suspicion that this was due to water pumps with plastic impellors on higher revving petrol engines failing due to the bonding between the plastic impellor and the metal shaft failing.

 

Some manufacturers suggest 10 years or 120,000 miles, and to be honest, judging by the condition of the belt and tensioners that I took off that would seem perfectly reasonable to me as I could detect no wear in anything. The belts will age due to UV, but as it's pretty dark down there behind the covers, that's unlikely, and the most likely cause of failure is failing bearings on the tension or water pump casusing friction on the flat side of the belt.

 

The cam belt change on the V6 is no picnic, and in the past, I've been quoted between £600 and £1000 for the job, and this time, all up, I reckon it cost about £230 in belts, rollers, pump, thermostat etc and that was after getting a very good deal on components when the chance arose. There are no labour charges in there, and by the time the job was done, I reckon it took me about two days, but there was an awful lot of checking and double checking going on to avoid those costly " oh **** moments". 

 

The pump timing is very important to get within spec, as many a VP44 pump has been suspected to have gone to that great scrapyard in the sky due to a botched cam belt change, as, if the static timing is too far out (as set on the elongated holes), the suspicion is that the internals of the pump have to work overtime to get the correct advance and retard and it self destructs.

 

Still, all done now and here's to another ten years or so of happy motoring