2008 Scoda Octavia 4x4 TDI (RRP)

3L3M3NT

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2008
Location
Sturgeon Bay, WI
TDI
04 Jetta GLS TDI, 04 RTDI
It seems like winter has started here as well, minus the little warm up we had yesterday and today. I can imagine now with winter tires you'll really be looking forward to what the car can do once you get a decent amount of snow. I'm sure having slightly taller tires will help a little bit with clearance.

I'm looking forward to seeing some new pictures of your car busting a path through the snow. :D
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
Still not enough snow to cause any excitement but that's nice for a change, makes my job easier. :)
Really happy with the taller tires, been getting 37-38 mpg with studded tires, if I did the math right when calculating the difference in tire size. Seems like the odometer reading didn't change when I calibrated the speedometer for the larger tires so the distance reads 2-3% too low.

 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
Despite the Skoda Octavia mk2 being based on a mk5 Golf there are some areas that differ quite a bit. The boot space is one.
Here's how mine is laden most of the time:
*chainsaw
*snowshovel
*jumper cables, tow line and misc tools in the black box
*clothes and istruments needed in my work as a forester. Blue box
*a box of flagging tape¨
*snow shoes
*first aid kit
*50l backpack
*an axe
*misc small stuff
In the summer an insulated cooler for food and water.
All this with room to spare!

 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
No new pics but it has rolled over to the 300k km side :)
Have some service planned, rear diff, haldex and timing belt to start with. I'll change the t-stat too, I think the temp was a bit too low last winter.
 

casioqv

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2015
Location
California
TDI
2009 Touareg TDI
This is such an incredible car, I also wish we had something like it in the USA. The Touareg TDI is the closest thing, but is comparatively big, complicated, and heavy.



It's not a skid plate but it does add protection to the fuel lines and the floor itself from stone chips and such.

On my TDI Golf I always worry about that fuel cooler... it seems extremely vulnerable, and could lead to running out of diesel in a remote place if punctured.
 

Quade

Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2019
Location
New York
TDI
Jetta Highline TDI
Skoda Octavia is one of my favorite car. I love to see your car but can't find its picture. Please share its picture.
copymachinereviews.com
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
This is such an incredible car, I also wish we had something like it in the USA. The Touareg TDI is the closest thing, but is comparatively big, complicated, and heavy.






On my TDI Golf I always worry about that fuel cooler... it seems extremely vulnerable, and could lead to running out of diesel in a remote place if punctured.
Yes, the Octavia is much smaller than a Touareg, it's basically a mk5 Golf, which is good when we have one of each. I only need to learn how to work on one to fix them both :D

The fuel cooler location is nuts, I have thought about making a steel skid plate that covers it. Even better would be to relocate it to the front or maybe the firewall area...
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
Skoda Octavia is one of my favorite car. I love to see your car but can't find its picture. Please share its picture.
copymachinereviews.com
Photobucket ate my pictures, there are some in the last pages of this thread. More pics to come :)
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
Took some pics of todays tinkering with the mighty Skoda, sorry for the low quality, my phone is showing its age...
First a comparison with our mk5 Golf, a bit unfair since they aren't on level ground. I may set them up on a parking lot sometime for better pics.

Then I went on to mount my cabin heater on the side of the centre console panel. That's pretty much standard up here, everyone has one, they are in series with the inline coolant heater and gets power from the same outlet.
I removed the side panel to check that there weren't any wires behind it. Apparently I didn't get a picture of the mounting hardware :rolleyes:



Lastly a picture from the source of an water leak I've been chasing for a while. I get a puddle of water on the trim inside the door opening after heavy rain and thought it was from the door seal but today I found out that it came from the inside of the door card! :eek:
Drilled out the rivets on the bottom of the inner door panel and found that the seal was in pieces. Did a temporary RTV sealant fix and called it a day.
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
Did a bit of a new-year service:
*oil change in rear diff and Haldex unit
*timing belt
*t-stat
*RH side droplink
 

bobt2382

Veteran Member - TDIClub Contributor
Joined
Aug 1, 2009
Location
NJ
TDI
2010 CW GOLF 4DR 6MT TDI
Nice idea. Never seen those before. How "warm" is the cabin when you get in to drive? Nice to see its treating you well!

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Then I went on to mount my cabin heater on the side of the centre console panel. That's pretty much standard up here, everyone has one, they are in series with the inline coolant heater and gets power from the same outlet.
I removed the side panel to check that there weren't any wires behind it. Apparently I didn't get a picture of the mounting hardware :rolleyes:
http://pics.tdiclub.com/showphoto.php?photo=133455&title=img-20191126-100221&cat=6834
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
The heater is 550W in LO and 1200W in HI setting so it gets pretty toasty unless it's really cold out. The coolant heater is 500W I think.
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
We've had the strangest winter, got some snow in november that only lasted a few weeks, then very mild weather until first week of march when we finally got some snow again. It snowed on and off for a few days, not enough to cause trouble for me and my Skoda!
Took some winter pics before it was too late, the last hooray of winter 19/20 :D


This morning when I started the car the airbag light didn't go off, I think this is the first fault I've had with this car. Other than the DMF but it made it to well over 250k km so that doesn't count. Read the code and it was an intermittant fault in the passenger side airbag, undid the connector and put it back together, cleared the code and the light went out. Problem solved, I hope. 316k km and counting.
 

3L3M3NT

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2008
Location
Sturgeon Bay, WI
TDI
04 Jetta GLS TDI, 04 RTDI
Our winter here in the Midwest of the US has been pretty strange as well. We had 4 or 5 decent snow storms that brought 6+ inches of snow, but usually a few weeks after the snow had come we would get a warm spell and it would melt most of the snow or it would melt the snow so it would have any icy crusty over the top of it.
I hate to be that guy, but who can deny climate change at this point in time with the abnormal weather we're having, the sea level rise, the fires going on around the globe, reefs dying off, glaciers melting at a faster rate than ever before, and I'm sure there are plenty of other things that are going on in relationship to climate change. I can remove this sentence if the OP wants me to.

Anyway back to TDIs... In that first picture it doesn't even look like you're dragging frame, so either your Skoda has a lift kit on it or it came that way from the factory or the last option is that isn't a lot of snow you were in. The second picture it looks like you were dragging frame the entire time you were on that path/road.

It's always nice when something like the airbag light coming on is as simple as a loose connection. Hopefully you can keep it going all the way to 500k km and beyond.:D
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
The winters are shorter and the summers are hotter nowadays...
It has a factory lift kit called rough road package with taller springs, steel skid plate, some added plastic pieces underneath and cast iron lower control arms :) I've replaced the tires with one size taller 205/60-16.
I think I have about 17cm (6,5-ish ") of ground clearance under the lowest point of the skid plate.
The drag marks in the second picture were made by someone else, but my car did touch here and there along that road though. Like a stone skippin across a lake :D
 
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nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
Picked up some firewood for next winter from a friend who's logging nearby.
The trailer looks rear-heavy but it isn't, the hitch sits a bit too high on the Skoda for that old trailer. It doesn't help that the trailer tires are one size smaller than they should be...I think there's about 400kg worth of wood on it.
 

bobt2382

Veteran Member - TDIClub Contributor
Joined
Aug 1, 2009
Location
NJ
TDI
2010 CW GOLF 4DR 6MT TDI
Picked up some firewood for next winter from a friend who's logging nearby.
...I think there's about 400kg worth of wood on it.
Nice! What type of tree are those logs from? TIA.
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
Decided to wash the car, spring cleaning :D
We had a mild winter, I wonder if that has something to do with the amount of buildup I had on it. Maybe they used more salt on the roads when the temps often were just a few degrees below or over freezing. I think I need stronger chemicals or a large chunk of clay to get the body clean. The engine cleaned nicely though!


 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
I have had some problems with the outside temp circuit, it would start to drop and show -34C even when the ambient temperature was 20C. Didn't think of it as anything else than an annoyance but now that we got our first "hot" day (after a long winter 20C is really hot!) it became more than that, when the indicated temp is below freezing the aircon doesn't work!
There were 2 identical temp sensors on my car, one where it should be, beside the fog light, and another in the centre of the grille. After a lot of testing and stripping of the tape on the main harness I found out that one of the sensors had it's wires cut and left in the harness. The other sensor was a repair.
Had to undo all of the tape until I found the spot where someone had done the repair. It was really close to the firewall and done with crimp connectors and since I couldn't get to them for a good test for continuity I cut the wires :eek:
Soldered the wires from the other sensor to the stubs and taped the harness, hoping that there was a bad connection in the crimp connectors.
Mounted the sensor in the lower grille beside the fog light and replaced the air filter, mounted the battery and went for a test drive. Success!
Ambient temp showed actual temp and the A/C kicked in, it only managed to cool the air down to 12C but knowing the condition of my condenser it was OK, 12 is cooler than 20.



I had another fault too recently, I got a fault code for charge pressure too low and it turned out to be a lazy N75 valve. Easy fix once I googled it :)
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
The fault code for charge pressure was not helped by a new N75 valve, after a few weeks it was back. After testing it in measuring group 011 the OFF-boost was about 1000mbar and the ON-boost was only 20 mbar higher, where it should be 80-250mbar higher. Checked the vacuum but that was OK, it turned out to be a sticky turbo.
My car being a 4x4 and having a DPF is very packed with stuff around the turbo, I can't even see it from below. I decided to do a Mr Muscle cleaning of it even if I don't like the idea of spraying chemicals in there without any control of where it goes.
Since I can't get to the turbo from below I decided to do it from the top so I removed the charge pipe and ASV and then the NOx-sensor and fed the hose from there towards the turbo. It took a few tries before I was sure it had gone where I intended and not just down toward the innards of the DPF.
After the cleaning and working the VNT actuator loose I performed the test again and now the pressures were 1000/1112 mbar, very happy with that!
I hope the fault code (think it was P0299) stays away now. No pics this time...
 

3L3M3NT

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2008
Location
Sturgeon Bay, WI
TDI
04 Jetta GLS TDI, 04 RTDI
Yeah, I'm sure it was quite frustrating not having any boost. It's great that you were able to figure out what was really going on and get it resolved, even if it was a PITA to get to. Yeah, it's definitely not getting any easier to work on newer vehicles.:(
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
Thanks guys, I find newer cars both easier and harder to work on. Some things are so easy nowadays with the vcds/OBD11 tools to check all sorts of stuff that needed a bit of work in the past.
I work in forestry and we had a fire so this Monday I was out fighting it all night and took this picture in the morning when the next crew came in and I could head back home.

.
.
.My rear wiper has been out of comission for a while, the gear was worn and was slipping. Found a cheap replacement part (probably 3D printed) and changed it today. Lets see how long it lasts.

 

3L3M3NT

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2008
Location
Sturgeon Bay, WI
TDI
04 Jetta GLS TDI, 04 RTDI
I guess it depends on what one would call old and what is new. I was referring to newer cars as 2007/2008 model year when more emissions control devices got implemented in to vehicles at that point and beyond.

I will agree that being able to diagnosis vehicles over the ODB2 port is a huge leap forward over vehicles that you have to troubleshoot with a repair manual.

Your rear wiper must get utilized a lot for the gears to wear out.;)
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
I agree, we got DPF's a bit earlier over here, but that seems to be a good breaking point between new/old. Actually the Golf mk4 was a "new" car to me, with ecu controlled injection and OBD diagnosis. I joined here when we got our mk4 Golf :)

The rear wiper shaft was almost seized in the housing so that's probably what caused it to wear like that. Or maybe it was frozen solid in the winter and I accidentally operated it (never do unless I know it's free to move). So the reason likely was too little use :)
 

BillSimonson

New member
Joined
Sep 3, 2020
Location
Chicago, IL
TDI
01 Jetta tdi ALH 4 speed auto
Thanks guys, I find newer cars both easier and harder to work on. Some things are so easy nowadays with the vcds/OBD11 tools to check all sorts of stuff that needed a bit of work in the past.
I work in forestry and we had a fire so this Monday I was out fighting it all night and took this picture in the morning when the next crew came in and I could head back home.

.
.
.My rear wiper has been out of comission for a while, the gear was worn and was slipping. Found a cheap replacement part (probably 3D printed) and changed it today. Lets see how long it lasts.

Nice job man. Long wear!
 

ThatBruceGuy

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 30, 2019
Location
Ontario, Canada
TDI
2015 GSW DSG
My Mk5 had a lot of "electrical gremlins" that couldn't be found or were related to harness wear, has there been any other wiring issues with your Skoda besides the AC circuit?
 

nokivasara

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Location
Sweden @ Lat 61N
TDI
Tiguan 4-motion, Golf mk7
I haven't had any other issues than the oil level sensor warning for low oil level when it's not.

I'm thinking of getting another car, still undecided as to what I need. A bit more ground clearance would be nice. Not sure if I like the complexity of newer diesel engines, but OTOH I haven't had a gasser as my daily driver for years. Will have to drive one to see how they are. It's funny how I started with diesels because they were simple, my first diesels were all mechanical IDI's, and now I think a gasser would be easier to work on. I need to research how much gassers have changed, I know there was some talk about direct injected gassers clogging up the intakes.
Still drive my Skoda every day though, and enjoy it!
 
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3L3M3NT

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2008
Location
Sturgeon Bay, WI
TDI
04 Jetta GLS TDI, 04 RTDI
When you're talking new cars, I honestly don't think it really matters which one you get, they're all pretty complex nowadays. Heck even gas engine vehicles have a DPF, EGR, and like you mentioned direct injection these days. It seems like you have to go with the vehicle that best suits your needs and has the best warranty.

I know this is a diesel group, but I hate to say it that electric vehicles might be the way to go if you're looking for efficiency if you commute everyday and can plug your car in somewhere while you're working. Especially if they can extend the range to 500-600 miles (800-965 km) on a single charge and cut the recharge time to 15-20 minutes, there would be people beating down the doors to get one imo.

Either way it's going to be a tough decision for you.
 
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