StevesTruck

It's about 2 years old.

Not too convinced on what Kia/Hyundai are putting out at the moment. My mate's got a Sportage and it's on it's second engine at <50k.

If it's EGR cooler, you might see signs of water, or more likely water oil mix, on the intake pipe after the EGR. Always worth doing a sniffer test for hydrocarbons in the coolant. 1.4's aren't known for head gasket issues, but it's worth ruling it in or out.

I've got no experience of the later Octavias, but I have been unhappy with Eurocarparts two "Own brands", Eicher and Brembo. The last few sets I've fitted have been ATE and I can't fault them. They make a lot of the calipers for VAG, so I'll trust them to do the discs and pads. Cheap as well, I get mine from PartsInMotion.

I can see where you're coming from, but to me, a spluttering cut out is almost always going to be fuel delivery. If a PD isn't injecting a cylinder under load, it's normally a pretty harsh misfire. Not sure what the garage scanned it with, but it might be worth seeing if there's someone by you with VCDS or a good reader. I'd almost put money on there being a saved code that will give you a clue. The alternative's going to be go old school and do a leakdown test, ideally do one with it running and one with it cut out.

Start with giving it a scan in case it shows one cylinder as faulty. Injectors on a PD aren't a trivial job. Did you look if the filter housing was running out of fuel?

That's the most sensible thing I've heard in terms of EV's in a really long time. Love the fact that they're recycling what could well be an end of life vehicle.

Haven't used them myself because I fix my own stuff, but Mick's at Low Fulney have always been really good with a mate of mine.

The limiting factor is although the wheel will go on the car, the hubcap won't clip onto some VAG steels properly. Don't know which end of Lincs you are, but I've probably got a few Fabia rims in Alford if you need one.

I don't think it's going to fix it, with it only being one wheel, but start by popping the vacuum hose off the servo and see if it releases, just in case it is the none return valve. I don't think it's going to be, but always do what's easy first. Realistically, it sounds like you've had a bit of a mare with it and had to spend a lot of time bleeding it through, so I'd probably drop the rear calipers off and see if they'll wind back at all. I'd imagine one's pushed out a bit.

It's easy to tell if it is lift pump/relay just open the filter up when it cuts out and there will be a low level of fuel in there. Any chance it could be an ignition switch issue?

I've got a Mk4 Golf one, not totally sure if they're the same or not?

If it feels right, it is right. I read a long time ago that 90% of the imbalance is in the rim, so if they left the weights on, it's probably close enough. I fit my own tyres and don't have a balancer. Tyres have a marking on to show their heaviest and lightest point, so I just line that up to where the old one was.

No so sure about "always" replacing discs with pads, as others have said, it depends on condition, but they look quite lipped and scored, so personally, I'd replace them.

Yeah, I bought one off them and it failed after a year. They said if I ordered another one they'd refund me when I sent my old one back in. Sufficed to say, they didn't, and the new one failed another year on.

Just put a bit of bar against the drum, between the spokes of the wheels and give that a belt. Make sure there aren't a lot of black cars in the area first.

Wouldn't worry too much about the brakes. 9/10 times giving it some beans and dumping the clutch works, if it doesn't, just give the drums a good clubbing. Unless it's the Volvo C30 I picked up years ago when I was delivering cars for a living. Back brakes were stuck stuck and I couldn't be arsed rejecting it, so I just gave them a lengthy noisy beating with the jack and wheelbrace. After which I realised I was picking the car up from outside the coop funerals head office/call centre.

I've done a trackday on far worse. But if you're keeping the car, it's going to want one one day, so might as well get it done when you can.

If gassing it doesn't work (any brand of ez start should work, I've used a can of lynx before), don't overcomplicate, there's only 4 things that make them run: suck, squeeze, bang, blow. Prove or disprove those to yourself and you're most of the way there. I couldn't see what the LED by the clock was doing as the engine was turning over.

Forgot it will be a real zetec, rather than a duratec. Great engines. Obvious question for the fuel pump not working. Have you reset the crash switch? Not sure on a focus, but on an escort, the immobiliser runs off the door locks and cuts the fuel pump, so if the car thinks it's locked, that could be it. The PATS runs off the key chip and cuts the ECU.

I forgot they even came out on an S-reg, I had an X-reg Escort.

I ordered one for a MK1 fabia about 5-7 years ago through a local locksmith ("local" Skoda parts counter is 40 miles away, he could read the key code and order it over the phone). It came from TPS ready to fit a few days later. It wasn't as cheap as a pattern one with a random key and he'd marked it up to RRP, but it wasn't terribly expensive. VAG lock barrels this age are pretty generic. I would imagine they just take an empty barrel off the shelf and assemble it with the relevant wafers.

You say that, but... it didn't work. Well, technically, it was a C-Max.

True, but it's very basic and doesn't always get on with talking to things. Don't get me wrong, on VAG, VCDS is great at what it does, but on anything else, it's not got a lot going for it over my £20 Aldi code reader.

VCDS is good, it'll do most things you could ever want to do on a VAG car, and there's a lot of support out there for it if you want to know how to find out how to do something, but, it's not perfect. It's a bit on the clunky side to use, not always intuitive and relies on other hardware - not so bad since you can buy the later wireless versions and use them with a phone or tablet , but I do have direct experience of being broken down and having my VCDS cable, but not my laptop. There's also the obvious limitation that you can't use it when your mate's Focus throws up a light. The Gendan and TopDon stuff is also good, but you need to buy the right version for the level of diagnostic you want to go into. The upside is, it's all on one package, pretty easy to use without bothering to read the book, and works on anything with an OBD port (ours cleared a fault light on a Merc LGV the other day).