Hiya all, I put 112k miles on an '03 SDi and was impressed with the old Octavias reliability and ruggedness. Always wished the SDi was a TDi 90 instead.

 

Wish was granted last September when I came accross this '05 TDi 90 that was irratating the garage owner as his son had it laying in his yard for too long. Offered 200 quid for it on condition I got the tax book before money was exchanged. It was heading for the crusher. What swung it for me was when I seen uncracked factory windshield. Got it for 200 and drove it home with no brakes! Of course I had a friend in another car as an escort, am not that bad. Personally I don't give a hoot about flashy cars and finance is 'agin me religion, car finance vs beer, obvious winner. So I've been working on this ALH engined Octavia and got her through the test in May. Sold the trusty old SDi, hope its never scrapped and ends up a farmard donkey.

 

Anyhow I believe this yoke may be one of the last ALH engines Octavias. Registered Sept '05 and I see on parts listings that October '05 on they had the PDi engine.

 

Its classic spec but has electric windows and that pain in the neck rem central locking with deadlocks. Colour coded handles and mirrors. So is this a crossover I wonder? I know a couple of guys that has '05 TDi Octavias and they are per the old 03 SDi, manual windows and so-on. 

 

Anyhow this car has been sprayed and none the worse for it. Waxed it and the gleam of it is like a 3 year old car. Having lots of fun codding young fellas, ''aye this is the latest shape Skoda'' you'd be suprized how many bite! 🙂

 

The Octavia 1U2 is probabbly the most reliable and long lasting car ever built or ever will be built. The MK2 is a good car, just not as tough as the 1. So I was always harping on when the subject of cars and thier expense came up, you'd be better puttong money into something golden era (1998 technology and build) rather than something 10-15 years younger that will only cost a lot more to maintain.

 

I just don't like 2010s cars, pointy dashboards, too much electronics, weak engines, they are just annoying. Also the steel on VW group yokes has not been right since end of MK4 Golf era. Octavia 1 vs MK4 Golf. Take a look at the metal behing their respective bumpers. Octavia is the daddy. Oh and pre-PD engines are flexi-fuel 😉

 

So got it into a friends yard, a field, and 'tore into her' nose off gear box and manifolds off, wings off and back brakes completely removed, rotten and banjaxed backplates.

 

Re-lined the clutch plate, 176k miles a wise move before it disintegrated and then takes the DMF with it. DMF was fine - well wasnt getting one anyhow! Yes of course I wire-wooled the pressure and flywheel surfaces. New driveshafts - cheap J&R as fine so long as you put more grease into them. Gas struts, new front springs. 55 notes for a new cat/downpipe - handy when a much cheaper E2 cat will fit and saves bother welding, then welding again. o/s wishbone, set of front wheel bearings, radiator, fixed a leak on the oil filter tower, cleaned out the EGR muck, fixed front electric windows and completely re-built the rear drums including back plates.

 

So I practiced what I preached. Last time I change a clutch in a field though.

 

Right so noe 5k miles on this scrapyard special. As expected with a yoke snatched from the jaws of the crusher a couple of new faults. Had to chance the n/s hub and them damn deadlocks. Despite greasing and oiling the mechanisim when I did the window runners the passinger door is become a pain.

 

So a couple of questions.

 

1. Is this a crossover?

 

2. What is best way of removing the alarm and dead lock system?

 

3. If i rid her of the EGR (yes i know it needs re-mapped) would it be of much advantage?

 

Thank you kindly. Fate has decided I am to spend 10 years of my life in a red Octavia 1. Wouldnt drive anything else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Octy 1s in taxi spec were still available until (IIRC) 2011 in certain outlets, and the standard taxi spec motor was the ALH.  As far as I understand there were no changes to the models after the mk2 came out so if that holds any mk1 from 2005 onwards would be the same.  Worth some checking on the parts catalogues to verify this.

 

For a nigh on 20-year-old car she's looking pretty good! Mucho elbow grease on the polishing, no doubt

 

Thank you Mike. All of the late '05 onwards MK1 I've seen have the PD engine but you are probably right. I see 'POLAND' cast on the block so its likely they sent the tooling for the older external pump engines eastward about 2004. Whats interesting to me is as time and technology progressed the continued 1U2 Octavia became a late 1990s bubble as everything else got a lot more complex. As I said this Octavia was re-sprayed at some point. Irregular welding on the n/s inner guard and the wee bracket that locates the wing front is galvanised and un-sprayed, suggests it was hit on the n/s corner. Chassis legs are fine and the car is not 'crabbing' in any way. Pot luck, its a shiny old bus. Wasnt that much elbow grease required, just Turtle Wax Radiant Red. I reckon the deformed n/s hub (bearing carrier/knuckle) was something overlooked when it was repaired. 

 

Nothing wrong with the AXR PD engines, just they tend to need a DMF and can be a bit on the thirsty side. Here was a bit of lunacy, thats the last time I replace a clutch (plate) on the beaten earth! Oh that was a whole load of fun on a day without work.

1 hour ago, MikeTheThinker said:

Octy 1s in taxi spec were still available until (IIRC) 2011 in certain outlets, and the standard taxi spec motor was the ALH.  As far as I understand there were no changes to the models after the mk2 came out so if that holds any mk1 from 2005 onwards would be the same.  Worth some checking on the parts catalogues to verify this.

 

For a nigh on 20-year-old car she's looking pretty good! Mucho elbow grease on the polishing, no doubt

 

 

pretty sure the post 2005taxi special was a 100ps pd tdi eather than the ALH? 

i qouldnt say crossover, maybe when factory ordered as a classic some requested the couple of extras, or as a runout buold they just fired them on as a bonus to use up the parts bin. 

 

the egr delete, thats hard to know as rrally depends on your driving and a bit of luck.

fir the deadlocks - ebay chinese pattern mechanisms are perfectly fine and about 20-25 quid each, and easy to swap if you can open the door  :D

 

 

One nicely saved Octavia there 😎

 

Gaz

Yeh I reckon so, AXR from 10/05 on. You can tell an Octavia 1 that was made after the MK2 began production by the badging. When the Oct1 was the only one in town (pre-04) there was the engine and trim badge on the boot and 'classic' or 'elegance' badges on the wings. The metal on my old 03 SDi was a bit better I reckon although 05 06 07-09 MK1 are still a solid well rustproofed body. Seems they were at their very best 01-04. PDi is a good engine but I'd say the best out of the whole lot was the TDi 110 (the red 'I') . 

 

Now is the last chance to nab a half decent 1U2 before they all dissappear. Salute to Skoda. The 1U2 ended all the jokes. A pride car, I have never seen a car as well built as the 1U2. Take the bung off the outrigger and a semi-set type of sickaflex cones out - a bentley wouldn't be that thoroughly rustproofed. Also compared to the Golf 4 the Skoda has a stronger body, as I heard a Taxi driver who was never off the road in the 2000's say ''ye always walk away from an Octavia'' A Golf driver will require an ambulance. That RSJ behind the front bumper and 2 foot of crumple before the engine block, then a substantial bulkhead and pillars. You'd need to go toe-to-toe with a Volvo before coming out 2nd best.

 

One thing of note about the old communist 'joke' rear engined 1940's tech pre-VW Skodas, did you ever see a rusty one? MK4 Golfs and Boras were a well built strong engined cars. They rust. The Octavia doesn't. Bicycle pump with waste oil mixed with old gear oil. Take off the sill bungs and fill it. Take the rear bumper off and kurust the seams then the oil mix. Another 10 years. Easy. One last land mine to dodge is the rear shocks. The top mounts bolts sieze. Change them before the shock rusts thru and do not attept to remove without heat and good soaking with WD40. Its better a rear suspension is a simpe beam axle because good shocks do all the work for you instead of too many links. Another thing, take a look at the rear underside of a MK5 Golf/Jetta - legs rotten. Then look at the same section of an Octavia 2, still solid. Skoda make a way better car than VW. Czech tanks. I work abroad often enough. Was in Bulgaria and Romania in Feb-March. Roads there full of 1990's yokes taken from Germany, NL or France. Every single Oct1 you see is the straightest looking yoke on the road.  

 

I vaguely remember a bar stool car conversation from about 2001 when the MK4 Golf was King. ''Octavia? But sure the Skoda steel can't be right on them'' Ha ha hahahaha, no idiot, the VW steel was not right! The Skoda steel and rustproofing would last 30 years! Poor mans Bora. Pity they don't have a VW badge - heard a story of a guy who wanted to put a VW badge on the nose of an Octavia! Oh aye? Ye want the rust that goes with it?

 

The Oct1 should not be scrapped. There never will be a car as well built, tough, long lasting with excellent engines made ever again. Takes 17,000 tons of carbon to make a new car. Should be a green grant available to renew these things.

 

Oh and one last thing about ''they are the same as a Golf 4'' The rear axle and brakes are Caddy, not golf. The brake shoes are the van spec' and did you ever hear of rear axle deformation on the Octavia? I got a couple of 1990s UniPart shoes for nothing from eBay. harder old grey lining. Rear brake imbalance was 1%. One %.

 

Skoda made a joke out of VW. Fair play to them. If ye have the space, save a Skoda. If you don't in a few years time you gonna regret it as it will take a grand to get any car thru the test.

 

Skoda Abu!

 

My 1999 B5 Passat had the 110TDI (AFN) in it.  Great car and would probably still be around now if I hadn't sold it.  I drove it some five years after selling it and mused what a muppet I'd been to let it go.  Very similar car to a Mk1 Octy.

 

G

Aye is there is a decent bodied 110 Octavia 1 about I'd be interested. Fire a new clutch plate, shocks, springs and wheel bearings onto them and you got 100,000 miles of only changing the oil and brake linings. Car finance, go to h.....

 

And yes, you might have guessed, I do own a classic car, a 1975 Hillman Avenger. They were the best of a bad lot of their time too.

 

Right, enough musing, grass needs cut.

3 hours ago, mac11irl said:

pretty sure the post 2005taxi special was a 100ps pd tdi eather than the ALH? 

Happily bow to your superior knowledge   I was going on a something I was told some time back but haven't verified since.

 

No bother Mike, your a singer by that name?! Its not so much superior knowledge, rather bitter experience. Been working on 4 different Oct1's this last couple of years and was driving the SDi since 2015. Just one of those daft things goes thru me head, is this a crossover - bit like the last couple of months of MK1 Avenger production in 1976 they all had the sexy twin round headlamps - anyhow! as far as I know after 10/05 they were all PDi 100 AXR. So there was about a year or 18 months after the MK2 hit the streets that the MK1 still had the rock solid ALH. I guess after the MK2 started the TDi 110 ceased, there was a PDi option since 1998, just would have been the more expensive models. Was a PDi 130 6 speed on the MK1's as well. Suppose plenty of post MK2 MK1's were sold privatly as well. 

 

The black one in the picture, you see its nose on the left, its late '08 and is an AXR. A friend bought it. This guy drives like a teenager and is thru the ditch more often that a badger. Other cars he had, Mondeo, Avensis and so-on cost hin 500 after ditching them, the Octavia cost a scratch and dents! So he loves them old Skodas. Got him 2 more, an '05 TDi 90 which i put a radiator into for him and fixed the back brakes. Wheel cylinder, handbrake cable and set of shoes. The black one was another of his impulse buys. Looked at it for him, listed needing a steering rack. Needs also a DMF. Only 135k on it and there is always something strange about a scrapyard yoke, its seatbelts were badly chafed at the buckle. Frustratesd auld clergeyman was driving it. Indicator stalk bits poked out of it and the RHS of the steering wheel scrunched down to the steel. As if a witch was driving it. Anyhow took a set of seat belts off another red '05 TDi I was stripping.  Loos like a clergyman that '08 and has a GB  reg, last three letters being GOJ - really! Seatbelts and column switches were a crown of thorns alright! Leads to another God joke. Rock solid ALH, Allah! Gods own Engine! 

 

Ahh long meandering story short. Another friend who runs a piece of crap Audi A6 3.0 TDi Quattro - real nice but too much to run - is looking for a scout. Told him a MK1 with kilen springs on new gas struts is as good as a scout, anyone in NI who is looking rid of a MK1, let me know - don't be greedy! 

 

But yeh, as a mechanic buddie says, all those s****y BMWs or Benz or Audi - up on the ramp all a piece of scrap. Engines with jumping timing chains - scrap. 250 greyhounds for a wishbone - scrap. 800 to replace a clutch/DMF - scrap. Euro VI, 2x egr valves, cat and then DPF + electronics that would bamboozle NASA - SCRAP SCRAP SCRAP. 

 

/..run away, just as fast as you can..fly away..I should have turned around and ran../ That line in a song about sums up what happens when the summons light comes on on a 2012- car. SCRAP. POISON TORTURE. Save an Oct1, petrol or Diesel. Right kappy motoring I've rambled on enough.