The old chestnut returns. In todays Telegraph Cars, HJ recommends that oil should be changed every 10K miles, presumably regardless of what type of miles i.e. town miles, motorway miles, urban miles. Personally I think there is a place for extended mileage service regimes. When I bought my Skoda Superb 1.9Tdi 130 PD nearly 10 years ago I discussed it with the dealer service manager. I was still working then and driving at least 25K miles annually. The vast majority of which (at least 90%) was motorway or major roads. Very little town driving at all. I bought the car to come out of the company car scheme and reclaim my mileage at the HMRC allowed rates, so it was important to get it right about service costs and balance the effect upon the car. The dealer was very good and recommended that with my mileage and usage the extended services made sense. I had to use very expensive long life oil in the engine but apart from that servicing costs were the same. The electronics used to indicate a service requirement about every 18 to 19K miles which was about every 8 to 9 months. I also bought a 4 litre bottle of the same long life oil for top ups in between.

To date the car has nearly 200k miles on the clock. It has been serviced as recommended. I have used about 3 litres of the top up oil. The engine is as sweet as a nut. Starts first time every time and does not blow any smoke except when accelerating hard. It has original exhaust, clutch, battery etc and all in all is a very good car still. On top of that I still manage to average nearly 50mpg. I also claimed over £65K in mileage money and spent about £37K keeping the car. Call me a silly billy but I think my situation tells a different story about extended service regimes. Horses for courses I would think.... Read more

Hello, had to replace my battery and unfortunately lost my radio in the process, after reading on the Internet I pressed 2+6 and got this, M177916 anyone kind enough to help me out with the code? Will save a trip down to the garage :)

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External mirrors and front windows work intermittently. Sometimes, disconnecting the battery and removing fuses before reconnecting battery and returning fuses works but tend to last only a few days.

Any ideas how to fix this?

The horn has recently stopped working and, if the car is unused for a few days, the battery needs recharging before engine will start.

Any help will be much appreciated. Read more

Hi, WRT Scotland, I have only ever been to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and in November will have an opportunity of a few days in Scotland. Would love to drive through some of the amazing scenery, stay in some lovely B&Bs, so suggestions of routes and suggestions of B&B,s

I will fly to Scotland and hire a car, so as well as route and B&B suggestions, I am also looking for suggestions alo for car hire, clearly November will not suit a convertible - was thinking of hiring a top spec Jag XF, so a lovely "drivers car" experience is sought all round.

Need to finish in Glasgow, but can start elsewhere (3 day break) ... Read more

My 2003 A4tdi has recently started showing a brake warning light on strt up. This goes out when I press the brake peel and dons,t come on again until the next time the car has been left overnight.

I initially thought it was down to the car being left on a slope but this has now been dis proved.

There is some mention on the forums of the fault being down to a poor battery.

The last time it happened I cured it by topping up the fluid. But the fluid is up to th filer level as I find it impossible to see the level through the master cylinder casing.

Grateful your help. Read more