StevesTruck

I'm 2 years in on a Halfords own-brand 096 on my 1.9TDI, it's been fine, potentially the best bit of the car.

Bosch batteries aren't great, if it's still in warranty, dive in quick and get another one. If it's not, give it a slow trickle charge. I've used Tayna twice and not been impressed. When I bought a battery for my Fabia the battery came, really carefully delivered in a box marked "this way up", opened it up and they'd put it in the box upside down. I'd have sent it back, but there was the whole "need to get to work" factor at play.

If you undo the check strap, you should be able to get the door open enough to get in with a long T45 bit. Can I ask what you're trying to achieve though because this hinge won't be easy to get back on or set.

That looks rather sketchy - where do they go?

They're very much not an easy one to take apart and put back together. If you can find a second seat back in the right fabric, that would be a lot easiest.

The starter motor earth's through its casing. It just has a big feed wire and a little one to drop the solenoid. Probably telling you stuff you already know, but bear in mind this circuit is unfused and live all the time, so disconnect the battery before working on it.

12.5 sounds low, but if she's been cranking it over for a while, that might explain it. Suddenly stopped is a weird one, they normally crawl on and die by degrees (mine's been on death's door for 40k miles). Are all the big (battery, starter, alternator) power connectors tight and clean? Will it push start? Is it getting fuel (pop the top of the filter off and make sure there's some in there)?

Probably going up to a mk5 Golf platform (mk2 octy, etc). We've got a Mk1 TT (mk4 golf platform) in at the minute that someone's swapped the clocks on, so that's immob'd out.

They don't have them,they use a magnet in the CV end. The fact it comes up after the car has moved makes me think it's a fault at a wheel, rather than the controller. More often than not, it's going to be a damaged flexi cable. If you can't scan it, go round these, check them for splits, use some contact cleaner in the plugs and check the sensors for dirt and damage. A scan will at least tell you which wheel to look at.

Pop the vacuum off the servo and see what it does. The none return valve in the vac system can go faulty and jam the brakes on like you said. If you take the hose off altogether, you should be able to blow through it one way but not the other.b

We've had a couple of cars in lately with key/immobiliser issues, and it's a bit of a blind spot for me. From my understanding, I can code a key in VCDS, if I've got the immob PIN, and you can read that from Hex dumping the immobiliser module, but what do I need in the way of hardware and software to do that, and where do I buy it from?

To be fair, I'd rather change the clutch on a 1.2 Fabia than a Volvo 740.

Check you've got the right bulbs in all the lights and they're in the right way round.

Assuming it's a 1.6TDI Yeah, one pretty dead and one just going over the edge, I'd believe. 4 seems like a stretch. If I'm giving it a guess without seeing the diagnostic read, I think fuel rail pressure sensor. I've just had a set of refurb injectors for £250+exchange off German ebay

Although I'll freely admit I paid Halfords to change one on a 1.9TDI Ibiza once. It was dark, ****ting down with rain, that corner of the engine bay in an Ibiza is way tighter than on a Fabia. I'd got a decent shirt on and I knew the boost hose was covered in oil. So yeah, sitting in the car in the dry having a coffee while he got soaked though and covered in oil, in the dark, 10 minutes before home time was probably the best £7 I ever spent.

I think the answer there is stand back and have an honest talk to yourself about what else it needs, or is likely to need. Or get someone who's not emotionally attached to the car to do that. £250's scrap money if you do it right, so if you weigh it in, you've lost nothing if you've got the means to get it there with the cat, battery and alloy wheels (if it has them) taken off, so you've lost nothing. But at the same time, if that's really all it needs.... cheap motoring..

I'm guessing it's the diesel filter that's in the way? If it's anything like a fabia. A long set of needle-nose pliers and a long, slim flat screwdriver will work where fat hands fail.

C+R Enterprises are in Nottingham and are good on VAG cars

It's the other way round, if you gently apply force, you're more likely to round a fixing than if you shock it. My normal method with sump plugs on vags is to put a ring spanner on, apply a tiny bit of pressure, then tap it round with a mallet.

As in the glow plug light? Believe it or not - Put some new brake light bulbs in and check your brake fluid is topped up.

If you're doing a general look for rust, it's worth having a look at the inner arch lips (especially if the foam blocks are still behind the arch liners), and the backs of the inner sills. My 06 has just started to get a little surface rust on the inner sills. Not bad for 16 years / 200k.

I'd go one of two ways with it. Give it a decent scan with something like VCDS, then get some live data on a drive (I'd probably start with fuel pressure, boost, injector quantity). Or It might be worth looking at cleaning your turbo, or at least having a feel at the actuator to see if it's moving nicely. It's not something I've done on your engine, but there should be a guide on here or YouTube. Any usual noises? Whining turbo, rough idle, misfire?

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/16471/P0087/000135 is well worth a read.

Petrol or diesel?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/bespokecarmats?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=YZ9sNdLcTOa&sssrc=3418065&ssuid=Ciw0HycsQty&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY I've bought from here for a lot of years. That long that the first time I used them was for a ford escort. Always been happy with them.