I've a MK3 Octavia VRS (110K miles) with corroded rear arms, and need to overhaul the rear sub frame. I'm thinking of blasting/powder coating all parts with minor rust marks and replacing rear arms. I'll need to replace the bushes, as the LHS wheel has major rubbing on the inside.

A couple of questions:

1. Does anyone know where to find the exploded diagram of the rear sub frame showing all Skoda part numbers ?

2. What are the torque settings for these bolts?

3. Is there any benefit moving from OEM bushes to Supraflex Poly bushes? It's for road use only.

4. Anyone know of a kit of parts, decent manufacturers etc..

Any help much appreciated.

Pretty much everything you need is here:

Skoda Octavia Mk III 2013 Workshop, Service, maintenance & repair manuals downloads inc VRS - Hypermiler.co.uk

And it is much nicer to use than the Haynes Book of Lies (which we dont have anyway).

Stretch bolts on the sub-frame so you really shouldnt reuse the very expensive bolts....ahem.

With the cost of Poly compared with standard I couldnt see any real advantage, other than ease of fitting so I stuck to Febi.

I bought a press about 5 years ago and have spent an awful lot of time wondering how I managed for the other decades of fettling.

Was going to do my old 08 plate but gave up as the bolts were solid and didn't want to risk snapping them or breaking anything internal. Been trying to spray with releasant but difficult to get to. Not sure if once removed it needs realigned? I was going to mark up the original position and try and replace the same. I ended up replacing arms and a few bushes and waxoiled the rest. You will need the concentric bolts that adjust the rear camber and will have to get a 4 wheel alignment. I used FEBI and got the correct parts via FEBI parts finder.

Alasdair

One thing about powder coating, the points where the assembly gets "hung up" never gets coated in my experience of getting alloy wheels powder coated, so make sure that you examine it when you get it back and add protection to that/these points - the same for an least Lesjofors road springs, I sorted that out before fitting them.

The annoying thing about that with alloy wheels is, they are typically hung up with hooks passing through the valve holes - so you can end up with leaking valve areas!

I've had a set of 4 used alloys powder coated for use as winter wheels, they all failed at the valve areas starting at maybe the 4 or 5 year point in time, so, to beat that and provide myself with a winter spare wheel, I bought a used 5th wheel, that meant that I handed in 4 wheels with tyres and a single 5th wheel - tyre to get bought later. That was when my suspicions wrt what the root cause for the leaks were found to be true, so that 5th wheel ended up getting the still stripped back to alloy slot/groove painted before getting a tyre fitted to it. Now 2 winters later, the first tyre is losing pressure very slowly, if the valve area fails a "bubble test", I'll get the tyre off, then I'll tidy up the valve area and then get the tyre back on - instead of asking my local tyre place to check/clean the area and fit a new valve along with sealant - which never worked in the past!

10 minutes ago, rum4mo said:

The annoying thing about that with alloy wheels is, they are typically hung up with hooks passing through the valve holes - so you can end up with leaking valve areas!

Had similar problems. Leaking at valve. I got the tyre service to rremove tyres and tidied up valve hole and used a black sealant which has been brilliant. Been two years now and no probs. Sealant is rubber like and does a great job. Pic of what I used. Its also excellent if the rims are a bit coroded.

My local "good" independent place guy just mumbled something about the valve hole being a mess, so I think that when and if he added any sealant, it would be to a crusty hole - no cleaning/preparation getting done then and a dollop of sealer on the valve before yanking it through. I think that that place is now just my nearest tyre place, no more, matching beating others on tyre prices and good service used to be their game, now it is just mainly car servicing, just is life!

Seeing as you have mentioned rims, a friend's wife has a maybe 2009ish Micra, one wheel started to lose air slowly but intermittently, in a sort of "its okay" for a month, then needed a bit of air, then complete deflation so handed the wheel into a tyre chain place, rim resealed now it should be okay, that worked for a few months then same again, "all good" turning to complete deflation overnight! Time for another visit and this time "wheel rusted through at a lot of points at the weld down the rim centre line" so he drove back along and sure enough "game over" for that steel wheel, getting a replacement for that Micra was not too easy either, now he is waiting for the next wheel to go the same way. Quite unusual that I think, or at least I've never heard of that happening to a steel wheel in the past.

Edit:- I attempted to get some rubber grease into the area around the valve, just as a feeble attempt to keep salty winter water away from these areas.

Edited 26 June, 202526 Jun by rum4mo

Many thanks for all the information! I'm going to start work once this heatwave has finished...

Regarding powder coating wheels, I've had some history: I previously owned a 260z with original maglite wheels: the oxidisation caused air loss around the wheel/tyre interface, and kept on deflating over a couple of weeks. These were skimmed and no problems thereafter. Currently running a TVR S3 on powder coated wheels (same oxidisation problem) and no air leaks.