AT6 OYEH! Reflex Silver T6 SWB Kombi with added ABT
- Thread starter John A
- Start date
. Follow a decent online guide and you'll be glad you didn't pay a garage to do it.
It's not the removing specifically I have the biggest problem with, it's the refitting.
I took it off myself to fit the headlights. They may have been old, but any plastic clips in the arch liners needed replacing and I had to replace one of the bumper support brackets below the wing, and even then I took it to my local body shop and got him to fit it properly for me.
I took it off myself to fit the headlights. They may have been old, but any plastic clips in the arch liners needed replacing and I had to replace one of the bumper support brackets below the wing, and even then I took it to my local body shop and got him to fit it properly for me.
Well, in the spirit of ‘how hard can it be….?’
And the culprit…..
Which is what I assume happens to a lot of them.
The MTC Motorsport hose kit comes with the connectors to the OE intercooler. These are made my Creations Motorsport.
So far I’ve got the Intercooler on and the right side connected.
I’m struggling with the left side now and don’t know if it would have been easier with the pipe disconnected. It’s still a tight gap whatever way you look at it.
Is there a clever way to get these things on?
And the culprit…..
Which is what I assume happens to a lot of them.
The MTC Motorsport hose kit comes with the connectors to the OE intercooler. These are made my Creations Motorsport.
So far I’ve got the Intercooler on and the right side connected.
I’m struggling with the left side now and don’t know if it would have been easier with the pipe disconnected. It’s still a tight gap whatever way you look at it.
Is there a clever way to get these things on?
There was no way that silicone pipe was going on to that sensor housing.
I took the housing out in the end to make it easier to fit. I tried heating it with the heat gun? I tried standing it in boiling water for 5 minutes, I tried a lubricant and I tried using a trim tool to get it over the lip of the sensor housing.
Absolutely no-go.
In the end I’ve assembled the new ‘cooler with the right side and throttle body silicone pipes and the old rubber pipe from the ‘cooler to the sensor housing. We’re back to driving really well again and it does feel a bit pokier than before, probably because there had been leaking boost for a while.
I definitely have some turbo noise - not like a leak, but I can hear the turbo spool up and on boost.
I don’t know if a) there’s something wrong with it or b) this is a combination of the new pipework and that I’ve cleaned and re-oiled the foam air filter. I hadn’t noticed that sort of noise before so it may quieten down once the intercooler fills up with oil again…..
Way back when, I had an Octavia RS that I took to ITG in Coventry and they used it to check the measurements for an enclosed filter induction kit. Their method for cleaning the filters was to flush them from the inside out with petrol. Effective but it leaves you with a load of useless, dirty petrol to dispose of.
I used the Pipercross cleaner on this - dead simple and I was amazed at how clean it left the filter as it was rinsed off.
I’d also forgotten I needed to clean it, so that’s 2 years of not very much dirt coming out of it.
Whilst I don’t rate these Giti tyres much, especially for wear, wet/cold grip and noise (just the important things then), interestingly I think the van rides better on these wheels than the ABT wheels.
I don’t know if they are a little heavier, but I felt like it was a bit looser over rough tarmac.
Anyway. Do I like bronze…?
Not sure.
Normal service has resumed - I think
Other than the spool noise, which was unexpected, there is no sign of a regen and the mass has increased within the range I'd expect for 2 return commutes to work (it's added about 7-8% to the fill level), plus high 30s mpg into the office.
MOT due mid-July, although if I do it on the anniversary of the last test, that will be 30 June and will also have a service.
Last MOT was done at 73,325 miles and I am now around 81,500 so we're either spreading out our driving across the cars or the miles I drive are definitely reducing. Might have to do a proper road trip.
I expect to get an advisory for at least the front pair of tyres as they are nearly down to the markers, but every month there is some kind of vehicle expense, as the following will demonstrate.
I took the Clio for a wheel alignment at Jamsport in Northampton and for some camber bolts to be fitted. I was told that it needed track rod ends, a bearing and to sort out the inner CV boot.
I paid £90 to get the bolts fitted and set upright, then on a return visit I paid £640 for 3 hours' labour, wheel alignment, a wheel bearing and a pair of track rod ends at 70 quid a piece. Labour is £75/hour plus VAT, which I don't object to as they have overheads and running costs, and it's a fair size with a decent workforce. I think I should have looked at bit more closely at the parts cost and I should also have asked about the track rod ends. I was told they had to get Renault items as there are different ones depending on the car - the track rod ends are all the same, but the inner tie rods are different depending on the brand of rack fitted. I suppose I can find out myself by looking underneath.
There is also a massive spread of cost of bearing depending on what you buy starting at £25 for a Febi item, £40-odd for an SNR bearing and over £90 for an OE Renault bearing. Yet to drive it hard enough to know if it's made much of a difference.
This comes just after having to replace the headlight washers, horn, clock spring, horn button and fix the headlights with some adjusters from an E39 BMW.
For a car that cost £1,475, it's had over eight times that spent on repairs, maintenance and track day modifications....
Oh and MOT due in September - it *might* just go through first time, this time...
I went to do a disc and pad change on the rear of the Skoda and couldn't shift the carrier bolt. There's no room to get an impact gun in there and the only way is to get the car in the air and get a vertical bar on it. More money, but wait, it gets better.
It turned out that, prior to my ownership (where it pretty much appears only to have been maintained by Skoda in Northampton, the locking wheel bolt on the rear NS had been cross threaded into the hub and it needed a new bearing. Maybe it could have been re-tapped, but as well as pads and discs, it had a new bearing and I sourced a locking wheel bolt. I did get a Whiteline ARB fitted at the same time.
I've still got the front discs and pads to do, but decided to get the most out of what's on there as they were only half worn - except it turns out that the lip on the front disc, as small as it is, has cut the wear sensor cable and that was the reason for the light being on, rather than the rear pads being totally worn.
MOT mid-August...
And then there's this....
This is a thread in itself and may come to life in the other VW section.
I bought a 'Dragon Green' 20VT car in 2020 - I say 'Dragon Green' as it was a long time since it had been that colour and had been rattle-canned in the dark and from about 600 yards.
The conversion was a total bodge and needed sorting. On recommendation, I found a guy in Nottingham trading as Retrobarne (Dave Vardy), who seemed to specialise in these things and had form having built a Rheila-inspired mark 1 Golf rally car. Over the course of 18 months or so, Dave and I talked about how best to rescue the green car and in the end the simplest solution was to take my neighbour's black one (pictured there) and put the 20VT engine and all of the good bits from the green one into it, and replace anything not so good.
I towed those cars up to Yorkshire (as by this time Retrobarne was no more and had become VRD Motorsport) at the end of January 2024 and, after I heard nothing from Dave ever again after Good Friday, the company who were giving him space to work ended up taking it on and finishing it off after they'd given Dave his marching orders. What I got back in July 2025 was a jigsaw with half of the bits missing and the bits that were there, were either not done up tightly enough, not fitted properly or shouldn't have been put back on the car because the rubber was all perished.
On the way to Camper Mart this year, I dropped it off with Hilton Performance Restorations (Hilton Performance Restorations) to assess and sort it out.
Much like the Clio, I'm in far too deep now to get out and I'll just have to suck it up and enjoy it when it's done.
Pictured here is the car yesterday, being taken for a custom hard-piped turbo intake. It's been 4 months, which is a huge improvement on the first 18 months that it was missing for and in that time, other than injectors, it's had almost every ancillary replaced. Any pipe or hose that carries oil, water, fuel or air has been replaced, as have the brake lines, injector cups. oil cooler, radiator, intercooler, downpipe, exhaust system, thermostat and housing, most of the sensors, top mounts, rear beam bushes. On top of that the wiring loom - built by the expert at VRD - was described as dangerous and a "fire waiting to happen", so it's had new battery cable through to the boot where it was relocated, the loom was rebuilt by Russell Swann in the North West. It's had a new washer bottle, header tank, diverter valve (when it came back to me it had no boost control and most of the vac system was either in a loop or blocked off), fabricated brackets to make things fit.
The TIP is about the last of it to be done and once it's on, the top mounts will go on and hopefully it can go and be mapped.
There ends the reasons for my inability to save money.
Other than the spool noise, which was unexpected, there is no sign of a regen and the mass has increased within the range I'd expect for 2 return commutes to work (it's added about 7-8% to the fill level), plus high 30s mpg into the office.
MOT due mid-July, although if I do it on the anniversary of the last test, that will be 30 June and will also have a service.
Last MOT was done at 73,325 miles and I am now around 81,500 so we're either spreading out our driving across the cars or the miles I drive are definitely reducing. Might have to do a proper road trip.
I expect to get an advisory for at least the front pair of tyres as they are nearly down to the markers, but every month there is some kind of vehicle expense, as the following will demonstrate.
I took the Clio for a wheel alignment at Jamsport in Northampton and for some camber bolts to be fitted. I was told that it needed track rod ends, a bearing and to sort out the inner CV boot.
I paid £90 to get the bolts fitted and set upright, then on a return visit I paid £640 for 3 hours' labour, wheel alignment, a wheel bearing and a pair of track rod ends at 70 quid a piece. Labour is £75/hour plus VAT, which I don't object to as they have overheads and running costs, and it's a fair size with a decent workforce. I think I should have looked at bit more closely at the parts cost and I should also have asked about the track rod ends. I was told they had to get Renault items as there are different ones depending on the car - the track rod ends are all the same, but the inner tie rods are different depending on the brand of rack fitted. I suppose I can find out myself by looking underneath.
There is also a massive spread of cost of bearing depending on what you buy starting at £25 for a Febi item, £40-odd for an SNR bearing and over £90 for an OE Renault bearing. Yet to drive it hard enough to know if it's made much of a difference.
This comes just after having to replace the headlight washers, horn, clock spring, horn button and fix the headlights with some adjusters from an E39 BMW.
For a car that cost £1,475, it's had over eight times that spent on repairs, maintenance and track day modifications....
Oh and MOT due in September - it *might* just go through first time, this time...
I went to do a disc and pad change on the rear of the Skoda and couldn't shift the carrier bolt. There's no room to get an impact gun in there and the only way is to get the car in the air and get a vertical bar on it. More money, but wait, it gets better.
It turned out that, prior to my ownership (where it pretty much appears only to have been maintained by Skoda in Northampton, the locking wheel bolt on the rear NS had been cross threaded into the hub and it needed a new bearing. Maybe it could have been re-tapped, but as well as pads and discs, it had a new bearing and I sourced a locking wheel bolt. I did get a Whiteline ARB fitted at the same time.
I've still got the front discs and pads to do, but decided to get the most out of what's on there as they were only half worn - except it turns out that the lip on the front disc, as small as it is, has cut the wear sensor cable and that was the reason for the light being on, rather than the rear pads being totally worn.
MOT mid-August...
And then there's this....
This is a thread in itself and may come to life in the other VW section.
I bought a 'Dragon Green' 20VT car in 2020 - I say 'Dragon Green' as it was a long time since it had been that colour and had been rattle-canned in the dark and from about 600 yards.
The conversion was a total bodge and needed sorting. On recommendation, I found a guy in Nottingham trading as Retrobarne (Dave Vardy), who seemed to specialise in these things and had form having built a Rheila-inspired mark 1 Golf rally car. Over the course of 18 months or so, Dave and I talked about how best to rescue the green car and in the end the simplest solution was to take my neighbour's black one (pictured there) and put the 20VT engine and all of the good bits from the green one into it, and replace anything not so good.
I towed those cars up to Yorkshire (as by this time Retrobarne was no more and had become VRD Motorsport) at the end of January 2024 and, after I heard nothing from Dave ever again after Good Friday, the company who were giving him space to work ended up taking it on and finishing it off after they'd given Dave his marching orders. What I got back in July 2025 was a jigsaw with half of the bits missing and the bits that were there, were either not done up tightly enough, not fitted properly or shouldn't have been put back on the car because the rubber was all perished.
On the way to Camper Mart this year, I dropped it off with Hilton Performance Restorations (Hilton Performance Restorations) to assess and sort it out.
Much like the Clio, I'm in far too deep now to get out and I'll just have to suck it up and enjoy it when it's done.
Pictured here is the car yesterday, being taken for a custom hard-piped turbo intake. It's been 4 months, which is a huge improvement on the first 18 months that it was missing for and in that time, other than injectors, it's had almost every ancillary replaced. Any pipe or hose that carries oil, water, fuel or air has been replaced, as have the brake lines, injector cups. oil cooler, radiator, intercooler, downpipe, exhaust system, thermostat and housing, most of the sensors, top mounts, rear beam bushes. On top of that the wiring loom - built by the expert at VRD - was described as dangerous and a "fire waiting to happen", so it's had new battery cable through to the boot where it was relocated, the loom was rebuilt by Russell Swann in the North West. It's had a new washer bottle, header tank, diverter valve (when it came back to me it had no boost control and most of the vac system was either in a loop or blocked off), fabricated brackets to make things fit.
The TIP is about the last of it to be done and once it's on, the top mounts will go on and hopefully it can go and be mapped.
There ends the reasons for my inability to save money.
I am still getting a bit of a boost squeak which would indicate a leak.
Does anybody know what measuring blocks on VCDS that would give data indicative of a leak?
The problem I've got now is me-related, insofar as I have convinced myself that it can't be right....
The hose clamps couldn't be any tighter but I think there is a very light oil mist on the clamp before the MAP sensor. This is the original hose that I had to reuse because I just could not make the silicone fit, so I don't know if it's old and perished or if I have damaged or bent the port on the intercooler slightly with all the faffing with it.
That means I am also running with the DPF app open and trying to compare with how it worked before the intercooler went pop.
These are sessions from some time in the past before the intercooler let go:
And this is yesterday and today:
I'm making some assumptions that \/ is the lower level or start value and /\ is the higher level, so in these last two sessions (these are all morning commutes to work) 1.8 and 1.2 g soot mass have been added vs the 0.6 and 1 g from the earlier sessions.
I am convinced that anything that effects the right volume of air (e.g., because of a boost leak) has an impact on DPF measurement and performance. These are tiny numbers, but the tolerances must be quite fine.
I also assume that differential pressure should never go below zero. At idle, when I got to work, it was 5 hPa.
My biggest concern is that, if I don't catch it soon enough, something will go wrong that will end up costing big money (eg., a new DPF) and that not solving the problem will just make it happen again.
Bloody thing. Looks nice though...
Does anybody know what measuring blocks on VCDS that would give data indicative of a leak?
The problem I've got now is me-related, insofar as I have convinced myself that it can't be right....
The hose clamps couldn't be any tighter but I think there is a very light oil mist on the clamp before the MAP sensor. This is the original hose that I had to reuse because I just could not make the silicone fit, so I don't know if it's old and perished or if I have damaged or bent the port on the intercooler slightly with all the faffing with it.
That means I am also running with the DPF app open and trying to compare with how it worked before the intercooler went pop.
These are sessions from some time in the past before the intercooler let go:
And this is yesterday and today:
I'm making some assumptions that \/ is the lower level or start value and /\ is the higher level, so in these last two sessions (these are all morning commutes to work) 1.8 and 1.2 g soot mass have been added vs the 0.6 and 1 g from the earlier sessions.
I am convinced that anything that effects the right volume of air (e.g., because of a boost leak) has an impact on DPF measurement and performance. These are tiny numbers, but the tolerances must be quite fine.
I also assume that differential pressure should never go below zero. At idle, when I got to work, it was 5 hPa.
My biggest concern is that, if I don't catch it soon enough, something will go wrong that will end up costing big money (eg., a new DPF) and that not solving the problem will just make it happen again.
Bloody thing. Looks nice though...
