Surprisingly difficult decision..tow car replacement

[majordad]

Diesel Cayenne is your answer.

[Anta]

I would say keep what you have unless change is really needed. 3-4 year old cars are £4-5k more at auction right now than 3 years ago. Purely just supply and demand. New car deliveries frustrated due to semi-conductors, approx half normal volumes. So people are having to run the return cars for longer while they wait…so less in auction. Add to that Cinch, Cazoo et al buying everything they can with deep pockets and you have the perfect market for expensive used cars. Great if you are selling or have a PCP balloon that suddenly looks cheap. Awful if you trading up big.

This follows COVID which killed off sales for a period… new car registrations down for a few years now so no likelihood of a big correction soon. Avg lead-times on new kit still 6 months.

All that said, if you are likely to dodge almost certain spend on old one and will keep the new one a very long time it will make a lot more sense. Inevitably as supply increases and used values drop some swapping regularly will be hit hard. When is the unkown!

[KS]

If you only need it to tow the Lola, then you've solved your dilemma. What's the point of throwing away all that extra money funding a replacement when the current vehicle is good for 180,000+ miles (regular oil changes, not a 'long life' service schedule...). Most people buy some tough old hauler to drag their race car around, using the money saved to fund their competition habits. Unless, of course, you have money to burn and just like to change for the sake of change.

If you want to save the planet, you shouldn't be driving a Boxster, a fire-breathing Lola or fixing smelly old motorbikes. As others have said, there's more pollution generated building yet another new car than is by trundling around in a fuel-efficient Skoda for a few years until either you're too old to drive the Lola, EVs are finally viable or hydrogen has become the norm.

In fact, there should be a moratorium on building new cars - there are plenty sitting around in dealers and at the docks, along with loads more used vehicles sitting doing nothing all over the world. So what if you can't buy the exact spec you want, or colour - remember when you only had a choice between 'standard' or deluxe? When launched you could only buy Golf GTIs in red, black or silver. Was that a hardship?

[911hillclimber]

Yes, see the arguments.
Had this Skoda from new, 8 years next July.

As to the others, indeed, so many guilty as charged for killing the planet, but non of us are going to get rid of them all just so others can run them!

I can tow the Lola at 32 mpg, I can cruise Wales at 48 and eek down motorways at 55, 60 being my all time best. Good for an old Shoda oil burner and 4x4 to boot.
My wife's Citigo does 55/60 no matter what, so we should keep that one!

I'd be happy if the engine was a latest spec VW unit, just have to buy some AdBlue stuff.

Take the point about the cars I've looked at and current market prices, but the deal has already dropped the price in the Skoda I saw yesterday.

It is £7K off list and 2.5 years old in 'polished primer' colour.
New, delivery is 8 months.

[sisu]

I would just service the Skoda, you have owned it and so you know the history. Without getting to man maths about it. I traded in our Tesla model S back for a better spec 2010 Q7 tdi that we traded in to save the planet 5 years ago.
You can tow with an EV but it is all a bit meh at the moment. The SportTurismo is great if you only have 2 people who ride a bike.

I bought a set of Airbags, bearings, shocks, bushings, discs, pads, gearbox, diff and oil from Autodoc when they had a 40% off deal. I bought all new bolts and nuts from the dealer as after 12 years rust on the bolts are an issue.
These are not crazy things to do, I dropped the rear subframe in one go, it is held in with 4 bolts and the ones that hold the shocks. The Skoda will be the same.
The Haldex service kit is £80 and they are in the Tiguan, R32 and a whole bunch of cars. Changing the gearbox oil on the Q7 is not rocket science either, you need a temp gun or an OBD2 reader as you need to read the temperature and level at the same time.
So now I have all new running gear, no squeaks or rattles and another 60,000 miles/5 years on the airbags. But that is just me.

[911hillclimber]

A niggle I have with the car is I'm not sure if the Haldex is cutting in or not.
There is nothing in the handbook about it as it is totally automatic in operation, no lights no switching etc.

Traction control light comes on when you get a touch of wheelspin/slip, but never sure ifit goes to 4x4.

I guess that's a trip to the garage which has a plug-in diagnostics.

The pump is an awkward job esp the routing of the loom.

Changed the small filter some years ago, full of crud. Where that crud came from is a worry. New filter and fresh oil went in.

[neilbardsley]

Keep what you have

Sent from my M2004J19C using Tapatalk

[sisu]

Buy yourself a bluetooth OBD2 plug from somewhere like OBDeleven for £60, as a stocking filler for xmas. Then download the app for a 2013-2016 Skoda superb 4x4 to a tablet or your phone. This way if you change the car you just need to change the app settings on your tablet/phone instead of it being stuck with a model specific tool. You can also use it on the wifes car too.
With this you can manually turn the Haldex on or off using the App. If it makes a noise then you are in business, if not tap the Haldex pump with a chief engineer and see if that loosens it. An oil and filter change is never a bad thing.
If it says that it is "on" and no noise then it is the pump, if it is not getting a signal back then it will send a fault code telling you it can't talk to the component that should be there. Check the plug for corrosion, spray CRC into it, clear the code and retry.
You can then drive somewhere and use your app to look at the fault, if it is after rain or something you have done then you can issolate it to that area or condition.
You can then use a multimeter to check you have a feed to the plug when you turn it on/off. If no juice then it is the loom or the component sending the signal, the gearbox ecu.

[Anta]

Buy yourself a bluetooth OBD2 plug from somewhere like OBDeleven for £60, as a stocking filler for xmas. Then download the app for a 2013-2016 Skoda superb 4x4 to a tablet or your phone. This way if you change the car you just need to change the app settings on your tablet/phone instead of it being stuck with a model specific tool. You can also use it on the wifes car too.
With this you can manually turn the Haldex on or off using the App. If it makes a noise then you are in business, if not tap the Haldex pump with a chief engineer and see if that loosens it. An oil and filter change is never a bad thing.
If it says that it is "on" and no noise then it is the pump, if it is not getting a signal back then it will send a fault code telling you it can't talk to the component that should be there. Check the plug for corrosion, spray CRC into it, clear the code and retry.
You can then drive somewhere and use your app to look at the fault, if it is after rain or something you have done then you can issolate it to that area or condition.
You can then use a multimeter to check you have a feed to the plug when you turn it on/off. If no juice then it is the loom or the component sending the signal, the gearbox ecu.

I know I am probably weird but with instructions like that I am gutted I don’t have a Skoda to diagnose! That sounds a great craic, like computerised Meccano. Good knowledge sir.

[911hillclimber]

There is an excellent Forum for Skodas, all models.
Posted the question there a few days ago.
Had a simple bit of advice:

From a senior VW tech,
wet road.
Full bold 'hillclimb' start.
If you get scrabbly wheelspin, yellow traction control on the dash and stunted drive (abs coming in) then the Haldex is nackered.

If the car simply sets off, all ok.

It is now guaranteed that the weather will be arid dry for ages...

[911hillclimber]

Did a couple of hill climb starts in the car on a wet gravelly car park, lots of front spin, traction control lights on, abs kicking in.

Looks like the Haldex pump is done for, or the controller. Needs to be plugged-in to see.

[Gary71]

As an alternative opinion that’s just the traction control kicking in as it should.

Turn the traction control off on gravel and have someone stood outside the car and see if the back wheels spin.

[911hillclimber]

On my test this morning, just the fronts span, nothing from the rear.
Will try again.

[neilbardsley]

Where did this conversation move from tow car to backup race car??

Sent from my M2004J19C using Tapatalk

[911hillclimber]

Found this lot in a service report by an 'iffy' AUDI specialist, Aug last year, and 62.4K miles

Intermittent Haldex clutch pump fail.
#011 Open Circuit.

Action taken, clean pump filter and oil.