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It's located down the back of the engine & is hard to get at, 3 or 4 hours work. Cleaning will only delay the next failure. Plastic gears inside strip, you can get replacements from Tafmet & other companies, Google is your friend. Otherwise fit an EGR Emulator ( disables EGR ), if your conscience can live with your engine putting out more NOX.

When a car get run around town a lot, exhaust soot builds up in various nook & crannies inside the exhaust system. When the MOT tester does the smoke test, he floors it which blows out all the soot, which then gets measured with the machine giving a high soot reading. It's always best to give the engine a good thrash before the MOT & blow out all the soot. Get onto a fast open road, put your foot down in 3rd from 2000 revs & watch the cloud of black soot in the mirror.

There is a membrane inside the sensor between the inlet & outlet rubber pipe which measures the differential exhaust pressure. It must have ruptured & allowed hot exhaust gas into the sensor & melted it. You will need a new pressure sensor & adapted with VCDS.

Have you checked the drop link to the anti-roll bar. Can be noisy when worn on one of the joints.

" Say I drive 15-20 Miles, relatively short journey, DPF light comes on, Understandable. " I don't think that should be the norm at all. 15 - 20 miles should be enough to regen the DPF unless it is all driving at 30mph, & even then I think it should complete ok. Does the engine get up to temperature within 5/6 miles & the gauge stay at 90 while the engine is running? Have you checked for codes with VCDS while the Orange DPF warning is still displayed? If you are into DIY, I would remove both the Throttle valve & EGR valve & give them a good clean. Also make sure the plastic gears inside are not damaged or broken.

Assuming your car uses the same principles as my Superb, operating the clutch to put into gear should re-start the engine. May be your clutch switch is faulty. Can you start the car without depressing the clutch?

Did you thoroughly clean out the groove that the rubber piston seal fits in inside the cylinder? Usually some corrosion in there that stops the seal fitting properly. You should use only the red rubber grease & brake fluid as lubricant when fitting. Other substances can cause the rubber to swell.

" 1) Clock and trip mileage reset themselves; " In previous cars I have owned, this can be the first indication that the battery is on the way out. When the car is started the voltage drops low enough for these to reset themselves. Check the battery voltage after the car has been standing for a day or two. Should be 12.5v or above.

The ECU uses the DPF pressure sensor to estimate the amount of soot in the DPF. Perhaps your DPF pressure sensor is faulty & giving false data back to the ECU.

Looks like there should be a fuse in position 18. Generally if you can see a metal metal contact at both ends of the fuse holder it should have a fuse in.

My son's car, which is now the wife's car, ( Passat 2l CBAB ) had the throttle valve fail a few years ago. While failed ( butterfly fully open ) it wouldn't do a regen, regen warning light up. I looked at it & found, apart from all the black gunge around the butterfly, the electronics under the plastic cover were full of black ( electrically conductive ) engine oil. This had run down from the EGR & entered the electronics via the butterfly spindle, you couldn't make it up. I fitted a new one as he lives some way away, otherwise I would have tried just cleaning it all out with brake cleaner, took it for a run & it immediately did a regen & has been fine since. My current car has nearly 200k on the clock, had the emissions update before I bought it unfortunately. Although I didn't have any problems, thought I was probably running on borrowed time so fitted the above to be on the safe side. The throttle valve on badly gunged up valves sometimes stick shut, resulting in a no start situation. ( As happened with my other son's Tiguan ).

I think you will need one of these if you want to disable the EGR. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/11-EGR-AGR-Emulator-Simulator-Plate-for-VW-Audi-Skoda-Seat-2-0-TDI-CR-II-Euro-5/183869556154?hash=item2acf7ac5ba:g:OaAAAOSw-DRdHK14 The EGR should be tucked away at the back of the engine, in a rather difficult to get at location. I'm fairly sure that during a regen the butterfly on the throttle valve needs to partially close, this then limits the air flow into the engine/ exhaust to keep the temperature as high as possible. So eliminating that butterfly may give you DPF problems.

Going off subject very slightly, but oil related. Back in around 1976 I bought a Ducati 860 motorcycle. It was a 90 degree air cooled in-line v twin, ie the front cylinder pointed towards the front wheel & the rear cylinder pointed towards the sky. I had it from new, & at about 7k miles I took it to a motorcycle rally at Zolder race circuit in Belgium. I took it around the circuit for a few laps, then returned to the camp site where it was running like a dog, misfiring & wouldn't tick over. Checked the valve clearances & the rear cylinder clearance was massive, so the exhaust valve wasn't seating any longer. I limped the bike back towards home, got back to home soil before the engine expired completely. Returned it to the dealer where it was repaired under warranty ( omitted to tell them it had been on the race track ), new valves & possibly guides in the rear cylinder. Was told by the dealer that it should be run on straight 50 oil. So seemed obvious to me that the rear cylinder wasn't getting cooled properly. I bought an oil temperature gauge & fitted it to the sump plug, it regularly recorded 150-160 centigrade in road use & used Filtrate straight 50 oil from then. At 12k miles exactly the same thing happened with the rear cylinder again, & thanks to the 2 year warranty ( very unusual in those days ) it was again repaired under warranty. I sold it soon afterwards, & guessing 150 centigrade is getting past the maximum temperature that oil will protect the engines moving parts properly. Presumably the oil temperature at the valve guides would have been way above this.

If you look at this from Ross-Tech, you will need to get a code read from the old one by doing a VCDS scan, before you remove it. https://forums.ross-tech.com/index.php?threads/17194/ Once the new one is fitted, write the code from the old unit into the replacement with VCDS. You may also need to do some basic settings on some modules , again using VCDS.

One on eBay for £80:- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-AUDI-SEAT-SKODA-AIRBAG-SQUIB-RING-SLIP-RING-ANGLE-SENSOR-5K0953569C/333747313753?hash=item4db4e3dc59:g:w7cAAOSwDAZffz3p

Although it seems to be a different engine, you might want to look at this post from the Fabia III section. Different engine but same problem.

Here are a couple of similar threads :- http://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/171109-Smell-related-to-DPF-Regeneration http://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/183502-Getting-gassed-out-Turbo-to-DPF-connection-leaking Everyone seems to say that replacing the band & gasket should be an instant cure. I would say, get the turbo to DPF connection perfectly clean & square to each other. Get the connection done up tight before tightening up the DPF to engine bolts. The last think you want is inhaling diesel particles, especially when you have a DPF fitted to remove the harmful stuff. Best of luck fixing it & let us know how you get on.

Simple, just need to scrape off the largest bits of crud. Then use small brushes with solvent like brake/ carb cleaner to get it back to shiny. There is a large air pipe held on with jubilee type clips at both ends that has to come off. Once you have this off put some rag in the air pipe so nothing can fall into there. Then remove the 3 torx type screws holding the throttle valve to the inlet pipe.