My wife bought her brothers Superb Mk iii a couple of weeks back against my advice. I just got a feeling and decided against it without even driving it. She took it a quick spin and bought it straight away. It lay in the drive while we sorned the other car and got insurance etc and then I took it for a run after it had sat about a week. First turn of the wheels and it felt all wrong. Clearly a brake was sticking and as it had sat I decided to drive round the block to see if it freed itself. IT felt sluggish and not as nippy as my MK 2 Superb estate. After about 3 miles I turned for home and hit a pothole taking a tyre out. Nursed it home and it lay in the drive while I sourced smaller alloys to change the ridiculous 19" ones it came with. Booked the garage, changed the alloys for 18"s which was all I could find local and it sat for another week. Started it to go to garage and it just got started and flashed a start stop warning. Anyhows the garage just cam back and it needs new discs and pads and a rear calliper. That will be another week before they could do it as they are struggling at the moment. Drove it home and dash was warning after warning, ABS, start stop, etc etc. So I have another week and a battery that is low or goosed. I ordered a smart charger as my old one was not going to do the job. I got this one after a bit of reading and hopefully it will turn up tomorrow or Sunday. 

The question is should I pull the battery out to charge which is what I always have done or leave it in place. If left in place do I disconnect the negative terminal and attach the charger to positive and an earth point. Lastly does the radio etc have a code. The radio is the standard one with the 2.0 tdi 150 se executive. The car came with no booklets so I don't have a code. It may be under the passenger seat but the little compartment will not open so who knows. At least it was cheap but I will end up paying what I could have got another one for possibly an estate which I favour and I doubt I will trust it for a long time.

Looked through the infotainment manual online and it doesn't mention any security codes. Still a wee bit unsure if I can take the battery out the car to charge with the 5Ah charger I am getting. and the car will recognise it when replaced and hopefully back to a good charge

Personally I’d leave the battery in place and charge so that any permanent live systems stay on. May be other considerations that others will state though

Leave the battery in place. With the ctek you’ll get an M6 eyelet quick charge, put one of the terminals on the positive and the other on the chassis in the post below

 

 

The rear discs being crap is very common, caliper failure not so much and will be fairly pricey I imagine.

 

Get that sorted and the compartment under the seat sorted and hopefully you’ll start to like the car.

 

It’s always horrible getting a car when your gut is saying don’t, but hopefully that’s the only issues you’ll have with it

What’s the mileage on the car? What’s the rest of the car like, so the interior and bodywork like?

The Christmas tree lights on the dash could also be caused by a failed wheel sensor.

 

I’d be very sceptical that the caliper needs to be replaced; ask them exactly how it’s been damaged. 

Thanks all, I'll try and find out more about the charger to see if I can charge in situ. It looks like it is 5Ah so less than 10% that the manual states is a slow charge so sounds feasible. 2016, Mileage is 98K, I had booked a full service and timing belt as no evidence of that and needed a service. Local VAG place doing that. The inside and bodywork is in good order but the panels are definitely misaligned in places. MOT history says crash damage early in its life but it was never written off. He only charged £5500 so it was a decent price if it didn't have all these early issues.  

I'm stuck with it now and I'm hoping once the teething problems are out the way it will be as good as my Mk 2 which has required a couple of springs, front discs and pads and a few tyres in the 50K I have done

Garage said caliper was fried. When I came back from teh short run I could feel teh heat from that wheel from over a metre away. I have a good relationship with the garage so I am inclined to trust him.

@wookie67070   When work is needed i recommend.  http://autohausedinburgh.co.uk

 

23 minutes ago, Rooted said:

@wookie67070   When work is needed i recommend.  http://autohausedinburgh.co.uk

 

That is who I have booked the full service and Timing Belt with so great to hear

No codes needed for the radio. It's all hard coded and only a dealer system can change it.

3 hours ago, Danoid said:

Leave the battery in place. With the ctek you’ll get an M6 eyelet quick charge, put one of the terminals on the positive and the other on the chassis in the post below

 

 

The rear discs being crap is very common, caliper failure not so much and will be fairly pricey I imagine.

 

Get that sorted and the compartment under the seat sorted and hopefully you’ll start to like the car.

 

It’s always horrible getting a car when your gut is saying don’t, but hopefully that’s the only issues you’ll have with it

Just read that thread, really useful particularly as it is the charger I bought being described. Looks like it is charge in situ, normal charging and positive to positive and negative to charging point on body. I now have to work out if I can run a cable safely and how I get it in the engine compartment with the bonnet closed.

16 minutes ago, MarkyG82 said:

No codes needed for the radio. It's all hard coded and only a dealer system can change it.

Cheers, I read that about another Skoda model but great to have it confirmed. Thanks

9 hours ago, wookie67070 said:

how I get it in the engine compartment with the bonnet closed.

On mine, theres a small ( vertical) gap / where the drivers side windsceen cowling ends towards the wing- near the bonnet hinge, just enough gap to squeeze an extension cable into when the bonnet is open.  Then when shut this cable runs back wards under the rear edge of the bonnet a few inches before curving over the rear lip of the bonnet and down to the front tyre. 

 

Like this:

 

14 hours ago, travs said:

Personally I’d leave the battery in place and charge so that any permanent live systems stay on. May be other considerations that others will state though

Another trick I've seen is to use a jump pack (such as those sold by TopDon)  to connect to the car side battery leads to maintain enough voltage to keep all the little background tasks running whilst you remove the battery to do something with it externally.

Hmmm wonder if you changed the battery like that would the car even detect the battery had been changed  and thus not require recoding?

11 hours ago, wookie67070 said:

Just read that thread, really useful particularly as it is the charger I bought being described. Looks like it is charge in situ, normal charging and positive to positive and negative to charging point on body. I now have to work out if I can run a cable safely and how I get it in the engine compartment with the bonnet closed.

I’ve yet to buy a ctek but I need one, my cars a 2016 and original battery and seems to be on its last leg which is about right for the age, but I want to make it last longer with a ctek if I can.

 

The supplied M6 eyelet quick connect is too short to make it useful, but ctek does an indicator light which is 10cm longer than the supplied one, so I’m hoping it can be put somewhere so you don’t have to keep opening the bonnet to connect all the time.

 

Be good if it was like 1m because you could move it near the bumper and connect that way

1 hour ago, Shuggyboatsuperb said:

Like this:

 

Really helpful, thanks

On 29/03/2024 at 19:49, wookie67070 said:

Garage said caliper was fried.

Sorry, but what does “fried” mean? This is a standard VAG rear caliper, used on literally dozens of VAG models, not a £75,000 Red Bull F1 unit (yeah, that was fried!). 

3 minutes ago, numskull said:

Sorry, but what does “fried” mean? This is a standard VAG rear caliper, used on literally dozens of VAG models, not a £75,000 Red Bull F1 unit (yeah, that was fried!). 

He said there was so much heat it had ruined the calliper.  No idea how but I was so sick of talking about the car at that point I took his word for it. To make matters worse my Mk 2 started playing up today. Christmas tree dash which looks most likely to be an abs sensor. I think I probably need to invest in a VCDS now I have two VAG cars with over pretty high mileage. Not my week

Battery charged today and seemed to work ok. Car started as you would expect but warning lights all the same. I didn't drive it though so maybe the wheels need to turn to see if a reading is being gathered so keeping everything crossed I haven't got two cars with the same issue. I'll do a voltage test on the battery and then repeat later in the week to see if it is losing power to any great extent sitting in the drive

VCDS turned up today. Plugged in and pretty much every code had an error. Had a look through and most seemed to coincide with the same mileage the battery warning came on. Cleared them and only left with 3 non of which are a big issue, radio, memory seat and air con. At this point if I can drive it round the block after tomorrow's calliper, disc and pad change I will call that a win. In other news the MK 2 looks like the rear left ABS sensor has an intermittent fault which hopefully won't cost too much to remedy.

The saga continues but hopefully reaching a conclusion. Car crawled into life this morning and within 50 yards the disco had again started on the dash. It made it to the garage and a few hours later the phone went. Needs an abs sensor and rear bearing on the other side to the calliper being changed. Mechanic said he reckoned that was the reason for the disco. Gave them the OK to do it and am now another £920 lighter(rear bearing, rear calliper, abs sensor, change brake fluid and rear discs and pads. The car actually drove far enough to warm up properly for the first time and on the way to fill up with fuel the tyre warning light popped on again. May well need a reset as there wasn't an error message but the tyres were fine. Rest on the display and keep everything crossed. Tomorrow it is in for a new timing belt and a full service so another grand out of the bank balance. I have spent more on this car in the garage in 10 miles or so than I did on the MK 2 in the first 50K miles of ownership. If the MK 3 comes back working fine tomorrow it is on to the abs sensor of the MK2 next and fingers crossed warning lights will only come on pre ignition for a long while. Hopefully the consumption is along teh same lines as the 54 average I get out the Mk2. The Mk3 seems to warm up far quicker but is nowhere near as good on fuel when cold, perhaps it is using fuel to get warm quicker. Feature I like best is the ECO monitor. I'll definitely be trying to beat my initial score of 82

44 minutes ago, wookie67070 said:

Needs an abs sensor and rear bearing on the other side to the calliper being changed. Mechanic said he reckoned that was the reason for the disco.

What do you mean reckons?? Could he not fully diagnose it to be 100% sure of the failure?

 

Out of interest why did it need a wheel bearing? Did they check it and diagnose it as faulty, if so - what was actually faulty about it?

45 minutes ago, wookie67070 said:

Feature I like best is the ECO monitor. I'll definitely be trying to beat my initial score of 82

The ECO score is utter nonsense, my previous 2.0 tsi Kodiaq would give me 100% despite only achieving 24mpg.

40 minutes ago, ApertureS said:

What do you mean reckons?? Could he not fully diagnose it to be 100% sure of the failure?

 

Out of interest why did it need a wheel bearing? Did they check it and diagnose it as faulty, if so - what was actually faulty about it?

He said it had mechanical errors shown on a fault scan and that was confirmed when he looked at the bearing. He showed me the bearing and teh circular strip running round it was only there from about 4 o'clock to 12 oclock

Edited 4 April, 20242 yr by wookie67070