[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by iTNerd

About the power bump to 170 bhp, I am seriously considering this diesel tunning box, which is plug and play, and cost around 40K - http://www.chipexpress.com/products/2098/.

I had a chipexpress box on my Safari which fellow bhpian hrag bought from me when I sold the Safari.

I found the box really good, and hrag agreed that it transformed his Safari without any issues either.

That said, why don't you just get the ECU flashed to the 178 bhp Yeti official map? Wouldn't that be a cleaner and safer way of getting a bump up?

Briskoda guys suggest putting on the Octavia VRS discs and pads with carriers after such a power upgrade. This is reportedly cheaper than going for the Brembos that come with the 178 bhp Yeti, and pretty effective.

[iTNerd]

Thanks. As for ECU flashing to 170 bhp map, I read somewhere, the turbo is different for the 140 bhp and 170 bhp variants. And won't ECU remapping involve higher risk than a piggy tunning box, especially when it is a skoda? For vRS discs, I don't think it will fit in the stock 16 alloys. Need at least 17" I believe.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by iTNerd

For vRS discs, I don't think it will fit in the stock 16 alloys. Need at least 17" I believe.

It could be because the Yetis abroad do come with 17" wheels.

[iTNerd]

Updating it after a gap of 3 yrs.. my Yeti had crossed 65K kms in 6 years. It is with Autopsyche for the past 2 days for Pete's stage 1 remap. There is a special offer going on on Pete's remap for just 13K and couldn't resist the temptation to opt for it, especially after the VW dieselgate 'fix' which rendered the Yeti boring to drive and mileage drop with louder NVH.

As they have to send the ECU out to Pete's cochin for remapping, yeti will sit idle in their workshop for 4-5 days. Eagerly waiting to try out the Yeti in its new avatar with the 175 bhp /400 nm torque!

[Behemoth]

Originally Posted by iTNerd

Updating it after a gap of 3 yrs.. my Yeti had crossed 65K kms in 6 years. It is with Autopsyche for the past 2 days for Pete's stage 1 remap. There is a special offer going on on Pete's remap for just 13K and couldn't resist the temptation to opt for it, especially after the VW dieselgate 'fix' which rendered the Yeti boring to drive and mileage drop with louder NVH.

As they have to send the ECU out to Pete's cochin for remapping, yeti will sit idle in their workshop for 4-5 days. Eagerly waiting to try out the Yeti in its new avatar with the 175 bhp /400 nm torque!

Good decision. The Dieselgate fix really subjugated the car (in my case the Laura as I had already sold my Yeti before that). The remap should help wake the beast up again! Surprising the Dieselgate fix reduced mileage, reduced power and also reduced torque, and probably only reduced pollution. But the downsides for customers were multiple. In my case, after the fix on my Laura, the DMF also failed within 500kms so I feel it does have significantly large imbalance too in the cylinder cycles than earlier (more jerky injection timing). Many customers in India as well as global have suffered due to this Dieselgate fix which VW applied.
Hope you get your fix "fixed" for good with this remap!!

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by iTNerd

There is a special offer going on on Pete's remap for just 13K and couldn't resist the temptation to opt for it, especially after the VW dieselgate 'fix' which rendered the Yeti boring to drive and mileage drop with louder NVH.

I avoided the dieselgate fix like the plague, staying off Skoda service centers ever since I kept getting repeated calls by Skoda as part of a very sustained campaign. The car is now maintained by a garage affiliated to the Code 6 guys.

If Skoda had shown similar determination and persistence with fixing their service network, they would've been a winner in the market by now.

My own 2012 Yeti soldiers on in its 6th year past 120k kms, still feeling pretty solid and well-put-together. The 2.0 TDi has gotten butter-smooth with age, and a Code 6 remap helps put the smile on the face when you flex the right ankle.

The big question is, what can replace this car?

[M35]

It's very well worth it, the remap. Try getting a K&N air filter as well. The difference need to be experienced
Drive safe

[iTNerd]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

Good decision.....
Hope you get your fix "fixed" for good with this remap!!

Thanks! So, today the ECU has been remapped by Pete's in Cochin and it has been dispatched to Delhi. So, just about a day or two before porting the new brain to the Yeti. Lets see if this brings my Yeti its mojo back!

Originally Posted by Steeroid

I avoided the dieselgate fix like the plague.....

The big question is, what can replace this car?

The Karoq naturally

Originally Posted by M35

Try getting a K&N air filter as well. The difference need to be experienced
Drive safe

Can you let me know which K&N filter fits the Yeti? And where did you source it?

[M35]

Originally Posted by iTNerd

Can you let me know which K&N filter fits the Yeti? And where did you source it?

Here you go - K&N 33-2865.I got it arranged at 3M car care, trichy road, Coimbatore. I think it was IPL motorway, Coimbatore.

[iTNerd]

Got my yeti with stage 1 remap yesterday. The drive is totally transformed now - free revving, lesser noise, instant power delivery when you need it. It's addictive and hard to resist from stepping up the gas pedal. I have not dyno'd the car so don't have the exact gains, but think it's in the range of 170-180 bhp/390-400 nm. Had not driven much to see any difference in mileage yet.

[iTNerd]

Yearly Service with FNG

Performed the routine yearly service outside of Skoda A.S.S for the first time (at WOW). Yeti has done around 66K kms. I switched to Liqui Moly 4100 5w40 TopTec (4.3 l) + Liqui Moly CeraTec (300ml) from the OEM oil for the first time, as there were tempting Diwali offers on Amazon. Got the oil for Rs. 3400 after discount, and the Cera Tec for Rs. 1900 something. Engine seems very smooth and I think the noise is on lower side too. I am happy that I went for performance oil + additive as I wanted to fully exploit and experience the recent Pete's Stage 1 remap done on my Yeti. It's been just a day and around 30 kms of driving, so will add my notes once it burns more miles.

I also changed the gear oil to Liqui Moly fully synthetic Gl 4+ SAE 75w90 and the yeti took almost 2.5 L of it @Rs 1650 per litre (Rs. 4100) which is on a expensive side. There is no mention of gear oil change interval in the manual and it is rumored that the gear oil is for life of the car, which I find it very hard to swallow, especially on a manual transmission on Indian condition.


Yeti Enhancements and Upgrades

There are certain areas where the Yeti lags behind, some with crippling inefficiency. As I am keeping the Yeti for the long run, I started researching on making it more relevant and interesting with the changes and demands of time in the form of new enhancements, gadgets so that it continue to pleases me. And all these, without burning my pocket too. To sum up, the upgrades or enhancements I intend to do are under 4 departments:

A) Power Train (to improve driveability, power surge and torque)
B) Lights (to improve lightings especially headlights)
C) Looks and Appearance (to improve cosmetic appearance)
D) Head-Unit (to support, Carplay, Android Auto, bluetooth and rear view camera)

I have done all of these with my heart content over the stretch of 3 months and now I can finally say, my Yeti is perfect in all sense (my perception of course) from the point of driveability, liveability, lighting and may be looks .

More coming soon..

[iTNerd]

I often visit my in-laws place at Meerut once a month. Being familiar to the road condition, it was a good moment to test the BEFORE and AFTER feel and experience with the new Liqui Moly Oil/CeraTec/Gear Oil combination. Covered a distance of 170 kms (return journey) from Noida to Meerut via NH34. Started the journey around Noon and took the Raj Nagar Elevated Extension Road (some 10 kms stretch). Lovely road and the yeti took in its stride gliding over the smooth, traffic less stretch. The TDI engine sounded much more refined, with a faint whistling sound to it, just like in my petrol VTEC civic. Idling vibration appears very less now and inside the cabin, the engine noise is comparatively lesser than before. However, I can't make out any noticeable changes in gear shift with the Liquid Moly SA 75w-90 synthetic gear oil.





What's more pronounced with the new Liqui-Moly combination is the FE, can see good improvement in FE for the total journey. Mind you, the Delhi-Meerut road at day time is the worst ever road to be, with narrow roads, bumper to bumper traffic, with farmers with their tractors transporting sugarcane harvest to factories, speeding UP state transport buses in zig-zag F1 style pattern, and add to that newly uneven repaired patholes. No need to mention the overly indiscipline people drive in UP! So, FE suffers to city condition like driving. I got a ~ 18 kmpl for a total distance of 188 kms covered during the up-down journey, a significant improvement from earlier journeys by around 15-20%.

Lately, for the past one year, the engine was running rough, hesitating and even stalling at time. And with more than 65k kms on the odo and suspecting some excessive carbon build up on the intake, I went for intake manifold cleaning along with the normal service. So, after disassembling the manifold, can clearly see significant carbon junk. Cleaned them with diesel. This should bring its lost mojo back and FE should improve.





And lastly, a peek at my Yeti up-close

[iTNerd]

Lighting Upgrade

The Yeti in India came with halogen dual beam H4 (High/Low) in single filament bulb on reflector. The more advanced AFS projector headlight was given a miss even in the top elegance variant. Some owners in TeamBHP did retrofit with the OEM ones, but the cost was not cheap (~ Rs 1.5 lacs). From the very onset of my ownership, found the stock halogen headlight to be just good enough for city driving and very poor on highways. Within the 5 years warranty period, I hesitated on upgrading to HID. Even I wanted to, it was not feasible as HID on reflector will be a disaster without a projector lens. Additionally, one has to deal with the dreaded 'CANBUS' error. After warranty period went out, only then started searching for alternatives, first with HID with projector lens but quickly decided to avoid it as I was not very confident on the effectiveness for the modded headlight unit casing to resist water/humidity/dust.

Then started the idea of fitting LED bulbs as the technology has matured to an extent. I sourced all my LED bulbs from AliExpress as it was readily available and price was affordable.

Headlight

The first LED bulb I tried had a ZES chip advertised at 25 watt each. The link can be found here.
It had no fans, but head sink with driver unit built into the base. Tried it on for a 2-3 weeks and found it marginally better than stock halogen ones. There was no clear cut-line.



Obviously the advertised 25 Watt/6000 luminous flux (Lm) for each bulb was a hogwash. It felt to be just around 1000-1200 Lm at most or lesser evidently. Disappointed, I tried searching for the perfect one again. This time instead of blindly buying one from AliExpress that has higher order numbers/ratings, I took my time to gather inputs from experiences of others, like the ones in TBHP lighting thread and from various YT videos. A very interesting one is '15 Brands LED Headlight Bulb Shoot-Out! Which one's the best?' from Headlight Revolution, where they tried and ranked popular LED bulbs in term of beam pattern, cut-line, intensity and spread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQF5ESBHLrw

In the above video and test, one of LED bulb that was rated highly and came second in term of luminous flux was the Supernova V.3 with a Philips luxeon chip which you can see in the video starting at 9:00 minutes. I remember seeing the exact particular Supernova V.3 bulb in AliExpress, albiet with a different name (TC-X, a russian brand). Upon digging further, it appears to be the same one, the difference only in branding for different regions. The Aliexpress seller enjoys a large number of loyal followers mostly Russian, and I decided to procure one (was not very expensive either at 40 USD) and got it within 3 weeks. What I liked about this TC-X seller is that the LED bulb listing does not mention any inflated readings of luminous flux, like others who mentions 6000 Lm or more for a bulb. This particular LED bulb I got is rated at only 2400 Lm each at laboratory test at 20 Watt each. However, at real world condition, the output is awesome.





It came with its own set of driver component as separate from the LED bulb. The build quality is excellent.





Notice the closeness and thinness of the filament sections (left and right) mimicking the halogen counterpart, unlike other LED design.



This LED bulb has no fans or head sink at the base, rather have flexible copper cooling belt design (passive cooling) and plugs directly into the OEM socket.

A pictorial representation of H4 halogen to this LED bulb



The Yeti's headlight unit has lot of room for the headsink or rather sink belts and the driver box to be accommodated. And after assembling into the stock holder location



And this is how it looks from the front



I also bought a H4 CANBUS error free adapter (Oslamp) before hand from Aliexpress, to bypass any CANBUS error or flickering.


Check out the low beam with clear cut line and strong beam pattern.



And the High beam is excellent too.




For a more clearer experiment, went to an unlit, secluded street.




And Fog light (h7) only




Low Beam + Fog




High Beam + Fog




From the front





Fog Light

The Yeti Fog lamp housing has two halogen bulbs - 1) upper uses a P13W bulb and 2) lower uses a H7 halogen. The upper P13W is used as DRL whereas the lower is used as fog light. For fog light H7 type, I guess any LED bulb would suffix but I went for CSP ones from AliExpress (Oslamp store), with passive heatsink at the base instead of fans.





I bought H7 CANBUS error free adapter too from Oslamp store along with the bulb. Unlike the headlight H4, fortunately, yeti didn't throw any Canbus error without the canbus adapter and hence installed directly to the stock harness. This is a blessing in disguise as the Fog lamp housing is already cramped and any additional external driver would have been a tight fit.

Just the fog light





So on a mere Rs 4000 bucks (including Canbus adapter), I got a good LED headlight replacement bulb that works really well with the stock reflector. The LED fog-light replacement bulb (H7) was hardly Rs. 1400 bucks and it supplemented my headlight in term of spread and lighting up horizontal stretches.

More on other LED conversions for DRL, Rear brake, indicators, reverse, license plates, interior cabin lamps etc. in the next post.

[iTNerd]

DRL LED Conversion

The Yeti's DRL takes a P13W type bulb, situated at the upper fog light housing. Finding the LED equivalent for this bulb is like searching for a needle in a haystack. This is because, the DRL is very picky on the wattage of the bulb and with LED ones, it instantly causes CANBUS error. Which means, a resistor needs to be placed to balance out of the low voltage/watt consumption of the LED bulb. And many voiced the opinion that using resistor defeats the very purpose of conversion from halogen to LED.

Anyhow, the first LED bulb (6000K) I ordered had 15 Sharp chips rated at 6-8 watt that put out some 850 Lm per bulb and 75W optical power. It came with additional resistors (external), but I didn't need to install them as there were no canbus error. May be, the LED bulb had inbuilt resistor.



The brightness intensity was just about OK. However, the bigger problem was installing it in its DRL housing. The diameter of the bulb was almost the size of the socket opening and hence, inserting it was a pain.



Brightness was a lower side and can't make out if it lit from afar. However, the good thing was, no canbus error was produced.



The build quality was so so and within a month of usage, one of them broke, probably because of the force used to manhandle the bulb to fit into the holder.

So started searching again for the perfect LED bulb for the DRL. This time, I got this LED bulb that has 28 pieces of Samsung chips with output of 1400 Lm and 140 watt optical power, almost twice to that of the first one. And it was half the price of the first one. Not complaining!



This second LED bulb had slightly smaller diameter and so installing it to the DRL housing/holder was much easier. The build quality was very good too.



And the brightness understandably is on the higher side than the previous one.





However, there is no escaping from the canbus error the moment it is ON. I had a pair of resistors from the previous bulb that were unused. So, installed them reluctantly for the time being and it works now without throwing any Canbus error.

Additional DRL LED strip

What I found out with the inbuilt DRL P13W bulb is that the resistors I installed (outside the fog light casing) to bypass the canbus error tends to get very hot and I am scared to death to use it all the time. As this inbuilt DRL can be put OFF/disabled from the Maxidot (MFD), I wanted a choice of adding a traditional DRL strip on the location where most cars have their foglight in the lower front bumper. In my Yeti, I choose to install the DRL strip into the upper portion of the black bumper one that has a hole from factory, perfect to route the DRL wire to the front fuse box.



I got this particular DRL from Aliexpress (with 8 LEDs on one strip) and this can be stretched or compressed to fit the length you require.



I then use a fuse tap to connect the DRL wiring to the ACC (fuse F14) located in the fuse box of the engine bay.



And here is the output:

[iTNerd]

BULB Types used in Skoda Yeti (pre-facelift)




LED Conversion of Rear Lights Cluster

All the rear bulbs (brake, reverse, turn indicator, fog and parking) are on CANBUS and hence procured Canbus compatible LED equivalents from AliExpress.



For Brake light, I got a pair of red one.
For Turn indicator light, I got a pair of amber one.
For Reverse light and Fog light, I got two pairs of white one.



LED Brake Light:




LED Turn Indicator Light:




LED Reverse Light:



All the output from these LEDs (brake, indicator, fog, reverse) are significantly brighter than the stock incandescent bulbs, with the brightest being the reverse lights. Its been around a month and have not faced any canbus error from the LED except when occasionally in stop traffic if I press the brake pedal for longer than a minute or more, an error appear in the MFD ('check rear/left brake light'). This error vanishes on next engine restart though.

For parking bulbs, it takes the normal W5W (T10) types. Tried 2 different LED W5W types from AliExpress that were advertised as Canbus Error Free, but unfortunately in both cases, error pops up. So, gave up and reverted to normal/stock W5W bulbs for now.

For license plates bulbs, it takes C5W (festoon 39mm) types. And it is the same case (i.e., error just pop up on the MFD). Fortunately, for this, I was able to code with VCDS to force out diagnosis from the CANBUS and hence no error is thrown in the MFD.

The coding for this is under VCDS > Cent Elect - 09
Enable 'License Plate Light w/o Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) [LED Light]'
Disable 'Lamp Monitoring (Cold) License Plate Lamps active'




LED Conversion of Interior/Cabin bulbs

Fortunately, all the bulbs in the cabin are NOT on CANBUS and hence, switching to LED ones was much easier. All the interior bulbs either take W5W (a.k.a T10) or C5W (a.k.a Festoon). Got both types from AliExpress.

Link to W5W (T10)
Link to C5W (Festoon)


Cabin: Front Interior Light:


Cabin: Rear Reading Light


Cabin: Door Warning/Puddle light


Cabin: Trunk light


This completes the lighting upgrades on my Yeti. Only left behind are the rear parking bulbs (W5W or T10), glove box bulb (C5W festoon type, but shorter one @31mm). Should be able to port them to LED eventually.