Octavia Rear Caliper Carrier

[Big-b]

Having just had the joyous experience of changing the rear discs on the Octavia 3 vrs I thought it may be helpful to others to share some pointers on this job.

I have years of experience working on my own vehicles, on the drive, and as competent diyer always like to in advance of tackling any job, especially now in the era of the interweb, do my research as to what’s involved and whether this can tackled at home.

So, having watched various videos and read the posts on forums I decided to do this myself. I was concerned about the carrier bolts but with the correct xzn m14 bit and the right technique, pinched from a video, these were removed without too much drama. Now the burning question as to whether replace these stretch bolts or reuse as I had seen various theories banded about on the forums. Each to their own on this but I decided to replace as recommended by the Skoda workshop manual and torque to 90nm + 90 degrees. My theory being that Skoda aren’t recommending this just to be a pita it’s a safety issue and just good practice to follow their direction after all they’ve spend millions developing these cars I haven’t. I read on one post that a Skoda technician said they just tighten these bolts up good and tight! Wow, glad to see the hundreds of pounds spent on labour charges was money well spent on guess work. I’d be giving that garage a body swerve as they fail to follow Skodas recommendations!

Heres a personal experience of incorrectly replaced/torqued bolts. Previous car was a mk2 vrs limited edition. It was in a Skoda garage for a new strut. The next day as my wife pulled into the drive she heard a clonk from the front of the car then came into the house with a sheared bolt in her hand explained what happened and asked if this is important. Too right it is and on inspection turned out to be strut to hub bolt! Phone call made to garage resulted in a pickup truck within the hour and car returned same day with many apologies. I quizzed the service manager on this bolt, which I had since read should be replaced, and was told it “looked alright” so was reused. It may have been over torqued or was due to fail but after pondering all of this I dread to think what may have happened if this bolt had pinged off while hammering down the motorway and nobody knew!! Another garage to avoid.

I also read on one forum that a guy boasted about never using a torque wrench but just does all his bolts up good and tight.  Note: avoid being on the road when this guys out in his car! Bolts have a varying range of torque settings to make sure they are not over stressed or are tight enough. Guess work and “good  and tight” just won’t do when your wheels fall off.

So whats the moral of the story? Especially on critical components of a vehicle.
-Research the job in hand.
-Buy a torque wrench.

-Replace bolts that are recommended to be replaced.

-Research the specified torque settings.

-Sleep well, safe in the knowledge of a job done correctly.

[ApertureS]

Sorry to tell you this, but on 90% of the rear setups you can slide the disc out without removing the carrier.

 

but yes if you do remove it, replace the damn bolts! They are called torque to yeild bolts - and doing some research on them is quite interesting.

 

After the angle is done the bolt deforms beyond its elastic range to its plastic range causing permanent elongation, if you went to reuse it again there is a good chance it will snap as it’s already stretched once.

 

now the crux is, if you know the exact length the bolt is down to a few thou you can measure it and see if it’s stretched beyond reuse or not, the spec for a £5 bolt isn’t going to be available as you simply replace it, but a bolt costing £500 will be checked for stretch and reused if within a set spec.

[Big-b]

On mine carrier defo had to come off. So replacing stretch bolts on a critical component, ie braking system, was a no brainer. As it would be where else required like the hub bolts!

[T07]

1 hour ago, ApertureS said:

Sorry to tell you this, but on 90% of the rear setups you can slide the disc out without removing the carrier.

 

 

sorry to tell you this, but the Vrs is in that other 10%

[Big-b]

Not a chance on my car. Pad carrier is tight to the disc. Maybe on other vrs models??

[RoddersUK]

I had to take the carriers off on my vrs to change the disc.

 

I don't think new bolts cost much, certainly not going to skimp on them.

[Gazchant]

Looking at changing my discs in the next couple of weeks, although my VRS is 9 years old, it's only done 56k miles... but the last 3 MOTs have all had advisories for disk wear front and back. Thinking that 4 years might be pushing it... 

Looking on the 'net there seems to be 2 lengths of bolt listed - 65mm or 77mm, I don't suppose anyone knows what length a 63 plate VRS needs do they?

[RoddersUK]

Have you looked on lllparts.co.uk

[Gazchant]

no, Ill look now, thanks. had been looking at 123spareparts and onlinecarparts.