Skoda Superb – big ticket repairs likely to come up? – help a car luddite

i know nothing about cars and always relied on having a company cars or having 3-4 year leases and getting a new car before anything major needs doing on the old car.

however the 4.5 year lease on my skoda superb estate is up soon and lease company is open to providing me with a purchase value (awaiting this currently). being a car luddite i’ve no idea what big / costly jobs i should anticipate over the next 3 to 5 years i would likely keep it for if i bought it

i know there are a number of Skodarists on here, so any indications of what i should expect or budget for?

car is a 20 plate delivered at the start of the pandemic (may 20) so just hit 4 years old. given it got little use over the pandemic and changes to my job post pandemic (WFH, less client visits etc) it’s only done 24,000 miles and max i will likely do a year now is c 10,000. car has been regularly serviced and faultless so far

TIA

Petrol or diesel? Manual or DSG?

Our 2.0 diesel Yeti has done nearly 116k and all it’s had is servicing and consumables.

Petrol or diesel? Manual or DSG?

yes, that would be useful info! – 2ltr diesel, manual

A 4.5yr old car you’ve owned (leased) from new, so know it’s history, and it’s done only 24k miles and been faultless? Sounds ideal for purchasing IMO.

At 10k max a year for 3-5 more years, might need brakes but not particularly expensive. Belts will possibly be the biggest cost.

At that age and mileage it’ll be fine for years to come.

If the price is right you’re always better with a car you know.

But being diesel try and avoid lots of short trips.

Two examples:

Mate’s ’67 plate seems very good.

’09 DSG gearbox clunky at comparatively low miles, otherwise good (but yours is manual and a newer model)

If its the same 2.0 Tdi 130 as my caddy, for me its been faultless even with the dpf. It’s had its first belt / waterpump done at 220,000 KMs and run like a sewing machine. It doesn’t do short runs and mostly for things over 200kms  per trip.

One issue I inherited buying the car was a failing EGR valve which on this engine is buried low down and the subframe needed moving. The cost for this was covered by a mechanical warranty. €300 for parts, €1000 labour and had to be done at a VW dealer with dealer prices.

What sort of driving with you be doing as diesel doesn’t do so well on short local runs….

Belts will possibly be the biggest cost.

Last year Skoda got rid of their 5 year/70,000 mile cambelt interval recommendation.

They now say it’s good for 180,000 or the life of the car.

This was announced just after I got mine done 😆🤬

I’d just run it to the moon and back. Budget for a full service including belts every 70k or so. Big potential failure could be dual mass flywheel and/or clutch. Get the whole lot changed when it’s due.

I’ve never had the luxury of a new car so I’m not scared of just cracking on. I’ll do easy DIY jobs myself and everything else goes to my trusty local garage. I have an oil change done at every MOT so I don’t have to think about it.

Last year Skoda got rid of their 5 year/70,000 mile cambelt interval recommendation.

They now say it’s good for 180,000 or the life of the car.

That’s quite impressive. My Ford ecoboom engine belt interval’s gone the other way. Originally 10yrs/150k miles, now revised by Ford to 6yrs/100k miles but even then many owners get them changed before that mileage. Just had ours done at 7yrs/30k miles and it’s not a cheap job.

I’ve been caught out by Ford’s wet belt before. It’s the only time I’ve ever totally nuked an engine. I’d only owned the thing for 3 hours.

Buying a 3-4 year old car with good history and taking it to 10 years old is the absolute best value motoring possible. Given that it’s a car you know and you’ll know yourself if you hammer clutches and are careless with potholes and kerbs – this sounds like an awesome option for you

find an independent specialist, keep on top of servicing and it could be the last car you ever buy!

Mostly a total lottery with them. More frequent oil changes than scheduled might help, as will ensuring DPF regen completes (not that I’ve ever noticed mine doing a regen). Ours was in good condition but not possible to inspect properly insitu, so wasn’t going to risk it! Owned from new and annual oil changes despite low miles.

YAY, new VW Transporters/T7s – the shared plaform with Ford – are coming with the Ford ecoboom 2.0 engine…

Only 10 years old? My 407SW is turning 20 next year and it’s been in the family from new, and in my ownership for 15 years.

Pretty much a random (and very low) chance of anything going wrong.

There’s servicing for expensive stuff:

*The cam belt.

There’s consumables that simply come down to mileage and your driving style:

*Brakes,

*tyres,

*clutch friction plates, etc.

There’s “things that tend to go wrong on most cars eventually because they’re moving parts that wear out or just have a finite life”:

*Dual mass flywheel.

*suspension bushes

*dampers / springs

*rusty exhausts

*wheel bearings

There’s “it might be your driving that’s done it but they could fail anyway” stuff

*DPF

*EGR

And there’s the completely random failures where something big dies and costs a fortune.

It also depends how picky you are.  A colleague is forever moaning about his car being in the garage getting fixed. In  reality 90% of it sounds like stuff I just ignore (it took me years to bother replacing an electric window switch with a £8 part, he paid £££ to have a dealer do something similar as soon as it went wrong).  There’s random bits of interior trim falling apart like the wing mirror stalks that I just ignore because the complete assembly isn’t worth replacing Vs just opening the window and pushing the mirror.

Stuff does go wrong. But you’d be very unlucky to have anything go wrong in  the first 100k, and still unlucky to have to pay out more than the equivalent of a couple of monthly payments before 150k.  The average care is now something like 12 years old, and there’s a lot still on the road at 20 years. And the people running 20 year old cars aren’t spending thousands maintaining them, they just keep running for another 1-5 years until something else goes wrong.

Last year Skoda got rid of their 5 year/70,000 mile cambelt interval recommendation.

They now say it’s good for 180,000 or the life of the car.

I’d double check that if I were you.

From what I’d read I thought it was only for the petrol engines and the diesels were still 5 year or whatever the mileage was. I may be wrong though.

i’ve no idea what big / costly jobs i should anticipate over the next 3 to 5 years

Nor do we. It’s a lottery. Your car has a service schedule – there are bigger jobs that will come up such as timing belt change and DSG fluid change, these are part of the service schedule.  My local main dealer charged me £350 for a timing belt last time, which is decent.  Your interval is probably 80k miles or something like that, but check.  As to what will actually go wrong – no-one knows.  But you will almost certainly save money overall by not paying the lease if you pay for repairs yourself.

If you’re worried about big bills your dealer will offer you a regular monthly price for all servicing and MOTs.

I’ve had a 2.0 tdi (150ps) in an 2013 octavia, from when it was 3 years old (and at 65k miles) to now where it’s just shy of 180k. In all that time it’s needed the following lists of bits beyond normal servicing and tyres:

• Timing belt (done around 80-100 k, got the water pump swapped out while they were doing it just in case as it only added a few £ to the cost)
• New clutch and clutch hydraulic cylinder (old cylinder leaked fluid into the clutch when it died; the dual mass flywheel is still the original part)
• New nearside front shock (not too surprising considering some of the lanes I drive down most days)
• New disks and pads at around 150k

As far as I know we’re still on the original battery (suspect they overspecced these on the early stop start engines) and everything seems to be running fine. The only other failure is the rear parking sensors but I can believe that has more to do with being rear-ended a few years ago than any inherent failure in the design/parts.

the buy price they offer will probably be fairly high – I’ve known a few people let it go then buy it back from the auction at a lower price when it goes through

If its DSG get the DSG oil changed now as a precaution. If its 4 motion, have a haldex oil change at the same time.  Again if it’s 4motion have the rubber donut coupling in the rear propshaft checked over.

If it’s diseasle and it’s done pottering miles possibly get it scanned with VCDS / Carista and check the DPF soot levels. I can’t remember what the values should be but there’s a “Measured Soot Level” and a “Calculated Soot Level” along with some formula for determining if its going to end up being a PITA depending on the difference between the two. An actual VW specialist will know or perhaps someone on Briskoda.

Battery probably has seconds to live. First frost this autumn will kill it. They appear to be consumables.

That is about it. Beautiful cars.  At that age you’ll escape the woeful VW infotainment abomination too.

My dad has a 2010 kombi which just refuses to die and my brother is on his second Sportline kombi: a 2.0tfsi running >400brake and more torque than a tractor. The Alfa’s just faster than it.

Would skod offer you a warranty?

edit: oh it’s manual. Depends how naughty you are then. Clutch abusing traffic light creepers can expect sick-inducing bills for DMF/clutch packs. Drive it properly though and they’re good for intergalactic mileage.

If you want a bit of peace of mind it’s worth looking at https://www.skoda.co.uk/owners/all-in-service-plan they occasionally run offers as I’m only paying £28 a month for 2 years, 2 services, warranty, roadside assistance and 2 MOT tests. Was worth getting as we have it on our other Skoda as well, there was a known issue on DSG mechatronic which they paid out on under the extended warranty when it failed, no questions asked.

24k, one careful owner from new, sounds perfect. Get a valuation from elsewhere so you have some idea when the lease company make their offer. They will lose money if it goes to the auction, so don’t be afraid to haggle, its a buyers market.

the 4.5 year lease on my skoda superb estate is up soon

Any chance of whacking it in for a big service and lookout at their expense before the lease ends? Are there any faults or imperfections however minor that they’re supposed to take care of while it’s their car…?

New clutch and clutch hydraulic cylinder (old cylinder leaked fluid into the clutch when it died

My mum had this on her Yeti. Slave cylinder leaked and killed the clutch. Slave was under warranty, consequential loss of the clutch was not. The slave cylinder sits behind the clutch pack on the gearbox output shaft. You have to basically separate the box and engine to get at it. VW tried to charge her the book price £500 for the labour to remove the clutch. Took more effort than it should have done to get them to back down.

I had an older version. 1.9 turbo petrol.  Probably must be the smoothest / quietest engine I’ve ever had in a car for me in my near 40 years driving.

Between 45 and 100k, nothing massive.  Just odd bits

New discs + pads you can expect, if they’ve not needed them already.  (The wear rates can vary massively across different cars.  I’ve just changed the front ones on my Kuga at 46k miles. Rear still have material left for another year or more.   Big brother has had 100k miles out of his pads and discs  on his Audi A4 ! (That’s a real exception).  I’ve had them at 20k miles on other cars.  Depending on how they’ve been, I did need new calipers top on the back of my Octavia as they were seized / absolutely wouldn’t re-wind (even with a impact tools).

Couple of brake pipes rusty eventually, small-beer costs there.

Some tyres, but that’s true for all cars.

Eventually the air con didn’t hold gas (again probably at 100k miles / 10 years). That can happen in all cars – the nature of air con.

At about 110k miles the clutch cylinder failed – dumping oil over the clutch. Dual-mass flywheel was still OK to re-use.  That probably cost £600-700 at a local garage to sort.  By far the worst bill I had.

Had a total engine failure at 130k miles. No idea why – was going a fine at 70mph on a 450 mile round-trip then suddenly just stopped and locked up then a disco-light-show on the dash (that was entertaining. Luckily the clutch slipped before the wheels locked up – may have been differentif the roads were wet).  Car was old by then, I scrapped it. Got the Kuga shortly after (which is not without its worries either as an owner, with the AWD elements having high price tags).

Me ? I’d not hesitate for 1 second before buying the car you describe and running it for another few years.

(Unlike the POS Zafira diesel I had once – I’d not touch another wirh a barge pole !)

I’ve got the same engine in an Octavia. Currently 10 years old and on 148,000 miles.

Water pump went at 75,000 miles, common issue but should be sorted in later cars/engines like yours. As mentioned above cambelt interval has gone up so no worries on that front.

Only non-service item was a DMF at 120,000 miles and I got the clutch done at the same time, as why not.

I have the same engine in a 2015 Passat on 124,000 miles and it still runs nicely and the DPF is only 61% full. Mix of short urban and occasional long motorway runs keeps it clear.

Ice said that now though so it’ll probably explode on the way home.

As mentioned water pumps aren’t the best so allow for that and get the timing belt changed at the same time as it’s right there.

The only vaguely sensible thing I’d like to add to the above is to do with fuel; those engines do seem to prefer branded fuel and better still, a regular dose of V-Power or similar to extend EGR life.  My garage tells me that  this is vital; they’ve very rarely seen one go past 100k without needing replaced, often fails at 50-70k depending on quality of fuel and whether yours has been unlucky enough to have the coolant leak into the sensor.  As it’s more recent, I’d hope that’s a non-issue for you on a newer engine.

My Superb: 10 plate, 2.0, 140ps diesel estate, bought as a one-owner, 42k miles at 6 years old.  Garaged, main dealer serviced and well looked after.  Currently at 104k; it’s still a brilliant workhorse.

Faults so far: That EGR at 94k; passenger side front electric window cassette changed when it failed.  Parking sensors.  A couple of LEDs inside.  A fuel hose up on top of the engine when mice chewed through it.  That was messy… But changed for free by the garage, as they were laughing so much.

Maintenance: cam belt at 70k. Discs all round in the last two years.

Pleasant surprises: Suspension links are already lasting well beyond what I used to get on previous Passats but cannot last forever… Same for coil springs.  It takes the same steel winter wheels as my older Passats, so that was a bonus too.  I’ve no plans to change it yet.  It’s paid for itself over and over, been to the Alps, all around UK & Ireland.  Still a joy to drive, tight, capable.

How do you know when the EGR goes?

How do you know when the EGR goes?

Engine management light comes on. By that time it’s often dead.

Rough idle, stalling, excess fuel use, lack of power might allow you time to clean it before it fails completely

Thanks. None of those at all yet on 124k although the previous owner maybe had it replaced, who knows.

EGR cooler failed on our caravelle. It ate all its cooling water.

I’ve had a 2013 Superb 2.0ltr TDI DSG since just before lockdown. Overall it’s been a great car.

Although all of the faults are age and mileage related. It was low 70k miles when I bought it, so had the DSG oil and filter changed, water pump and timing belt, and a major service all done straightaway. That was £700 at my local independent VAG specialist.

Since then a rear ABS sensor failed, total sensor shutdown, every light on the dashboard, but still allowed me to drive normally. It went through a patch where the DPF wouldn’t regenerate, turned out that the thermostatic valves on the DSG and main cooling system had both failed, not allowing the engine to get properly hot.

Except for those it’s just been the usual wear items. Services, brakes, tyres, and the front control arm bushes at the last MOT.

Its’s a lovely car and I’d buy another without a hesitation. OP yours sounds absolutely spot on for a keeper and run it until it’s old and dead.

Even if they give you a slightly high purchase price, the value of knowing the car and its history from new would be worth quite a bit in my view

thanks for the input all, a lot to digest. looks like i would be very unlucky to get caught with anything big then until c 70/80K miles, if not longer. given current millage, it’s likely that would see me through another 4/5 years at which point i’d likely be looking to sell.

just waiting on the price form lease co now.

thanks for all the advice

Whats the clutch life on the older Superb 2.0tdi?
A neighbour has an 11plate on 200k and says he hasnt had to replace it yet