J.R.

Not an encouraging sign and unlikely to be from a loose or corroded terminal. OTOH I cranked my MK1 several times for up to 10 minutes trying to purge the system when I had fuel sensor problems and ran out a few times (before I learned how to bleed injectors and the pump), one time the starter was smoking so I stopped and it carried on functioning for years in the future so the factory fitted starters can be remarkably robust.

If you think its the right thing then indeed it is the right thing for you, peace of mind is a valuable and comforting commodity.

He is not wrong regarding an engine running at high revs and under load, you have literally milliseconds to react and minimise any damage, thats on the assumption that the light has come on for oil starvation, usually cornering or braking on slick tyres. Glimmering at mid range RPM under little load could be survivable if shut down quickly. All of which is of little consequence to the people that would drive around for days weeks or even months ignoring an oil light, although to be fair if they got that far it was probably a failed switch. You can get higher pressure switches, I have used 15psi in the past, they give you a little bit more of a chance especially if you notice them glimmering, manufacturers would never fit them because they will illuminate at tickover with a hot engine, made worse with a worn engine, thinner or older oil etc. Modern Skodas have 2 pressure switches high and low which trigger warnings at different RPM thresholds which is a lot better. Oil pressure guages are a thing of the past, too many scary readings for the uninformed to hassle the dealers with, even the water temperature guages on VAGs fudge their readings for the same reasons.

You really should not have wrapped insulation tape around the as yet unbroken exposed conductors, the insulation has hardened and fractured and now all the movement is within the small section of exposed copper, they will all fail one after the other and I include several that have not yet cracked, the red beside the plastic conduit looks like it has an easier ride then the others. The soldered wire will probably fail again and could even be the first, soldering embrittles the copper and makes a solid non flexible portion exactly where it has to cope with movement. You should either pre-emptively or at the time of the next failure replace all the wires in the joint making the soldered connections some way back on both sides in the area of no flexing.

Above 100°c the already very small difference in viscosity becomes even smaller. Do you really believe that the difference between 15 Centistokes and 18 Centistokes at 100°c is going to kill your engine? All the oils will fail to give adequate protection beyond 170°c, I have found this out to my cost on the track but most drivers will never get anywhere near that, they will all however experience low temperature starts where the majority of engine wear occurs hence the introduction of multigrade oils. If like me circuit racing or like you driving at 5900rpm through the gears on mountain roads then its understandable to choose the best oil for those temperatures, most peoples engines will never experience that but all engines suffer the majority of the wear after cold engine startups and for most people that should be the deciding factor on oil choice. I'm surprised that timing chain wear would be more significant or important than main and big end bearing failure if an oil does not perform.

I got the belt routing incorrect but could feel when I released the tensioner that it was not as before, it took a lot of head scratching to find the correct but not obvious to me route. It was only when @Breezy_Pete posted some photos of the right and wrong belt routings on another engine that I was able to see and understand the difference, the difference being the much reduced torque being able to be transmitted to the alternator pulley which is why it sounded to me likely to be your problem. The alternator is under its maximum load in the first few seconds after start up, I'm fairly certain from your description that is where the slippage is coming from, you could disconnect the wiring plug to be 100% sure

Well done you! Its a very well produced product dont you think?

Did you replace the alternator pulley with a new one of the correct type with the internal one way sprag clutch? Alternator pulley should spin freely in one direction and in the other you should feel it take up the drive of the rotor and have more inertia. Do you have the belt running in the correct path? It's quite easy to refit it on the wrong path which looks to be correct and to be the only way of fitting it but is neither. The correct path will have it driving the alternator pulley through 180° of contact, the incorrect way has a lot less contact and the tensioner will have less reserve travel.

Torsion value is challenging to adjust isn"t it! Its so so easy to knock it way past the small correction that you are trying to achieve, did you get any false "spot on" Zero values when you accidentally knocked it outside of the reported values? There are 3 zero values for torsion value, one is spot on, the others are outside of limits and usually the engine will not even start. It is not a VCDS parameter on my 2.0 CR TDi which I am quite pleased about, one less thing for me to screw up.

A blow out is either a catastrophic puncture or a tyre that has overheated and had a catastrophic structural failure through running at too low a pressure or in very rare cases like my tipping trailer through exceeding both the load and speed ratings for a sustained period. I doubt that a higher speed rated tyre would help you in any of the above except the last and there are very few of us that would willingly put themselves in that situation. Blow outs were a frequent occurrence before the introduction of tubeless tyres, I suffered a blow out on a tubed trailer tyre and don't wish to repeat the performance, I read a 60's Readers Digest article on the new invention of "puncture proof" tubeless tyres, they were not puncture proof in the way we think of a puncture now but back then a puncture when driving could be catastrophic, they described a test where the vehicle drove over a plank of wood with nails sticking up and the tubed tyre deflating immediately and the tubeless one "self sealing" in their words around the nails and deflating in a slow and controlled manner giving adequate warning to the driver to slow to a stop safely. Well that would have worked with 1960's drivers whose senses had a connection to their vehicles responses, that has by and large been lost on todays generation who have never known anything other than driver assistance systems.

Then an emoticon would have been appropriate, I too read it at face value.

I doubt your vehicle has a compressor with a clutch but others can advise. First thing to check is the refrigerant charge level, it may simply need a recharge, it may be leaking from the drier in the condensor, the pressure sensor may have failed through corrosion which usually then leaks the refrigerant gas, usually there are witness stains and the connector may be corroded. The compressor modulating valve may have stuck or failed. The shear plate on the compressor pulley may have broken. All these are regular failure points and are far more likely to occur than compressor failure, that is very rare indeed and unless the mechanic has definitively diagnosed that as having failed, and you should ask how, then I would not waste my time and money on a new one. Heater problem is likely trapped air needs bleeding after head gasket replacement, was it working OK before?

Given that there is a garage involved the first thing would be to ask you if you are 100% sure that these parts actually need replacing and will resolve the problems that you have? What are the problems and symptoms, history of faults etc?

The tyre sizes will also likely be shown on the printed sticker inside the fuel filler flap (assuming the Fabia has one), whilst that is not definitive proof like the CoC it is a good quick visual reference to show to the guff parleurs!

TheClient usually posts very good advice and I hold him in the same esteem as yourself, both people with a lot of current, relevant hands on experience to share. Its a human nature thing, I have noticed some posters when challenged become extremely verbose and diversionary rather than just accepting their advice can not be backed up, one in particular is dreadful! In my country is illegal to fit any tire other than those sizes homologated for the vehicle, the Gendarmes or the insurers dont give a flying 4x unless its clearly dangerous or has caused an accident, the poor CT testers have to do the enforcement but there is no gain for them as they are not allowed to do anything other than test, no repairs, tyre fitting etc. The tyre fitting places make a fortune from it and frequently lie in doing so insisting that 2 or even 4 tyres are fitted after a puncture, that an identical make, type and size of tyre cannot be fitted on its own because the tread pattern has changed and that all 4 must be replaced etc. Something interesting that I learned regarding the tyre ratings is that the maximum speed and load, lets say 160mph and 690kg is not continously rated at those figures, it has to support that load at that speed with the correct pressure for 10 minutes (not certain of the time) on the test rig without going above a maximum temperature. I have a 2500kg tipping trailer still on the 30+ years old OE fitment tyres which are 95/93L rated, 93 being the applicable one for twin axle, so 650kg x 4 at maximum 75mph is deemed safe for a maximum of 10 minutes. Given those tyres have regularly carried double that for 30 years and have impressive sidewall cracking its safe to say there is a big margin of safety, I only travel a maximum of 10 miles laden and at slow speeds, I would not take it on an autoroute journey even unladen with L rated tyres, there is no question of their load carrying capacity, just one look at them tells you that, they look like dumper truck tyres but it was a bit of a shock to find their 75mph speed rating knowing that it is only for 10 minutes. Please check the 10 minutes I quoted, it may be longer, also what temperature bearing in mind what the ambient temperatures might be.

You could have almost certainly cured the problem by aggressively deglazing the discs but its not for the faint hearted, something to remember when your new discs go the same way, not if but when! Had you given more details like shudder through the steering, worse when braking lightly I would have suggested it, now it seems to be too late.

I know you didn't say it, it was as a warning to others because I have a new and unused coupling with identical fissures bought in error thinking mine was failing, it was a very good image and I am unable to post photos to the forum.

I heard that Santa Claus was real.

Never a good idea to spend good money on bald tyres that were removed close to 20 years ago assuming that you could find them and that they havn't been recycled.

The coupling shown in the photograph is in fact in perfect condition despite what you would think to be severe cracking.

Braking wobble presumably through the steering, if not then what is wobbling? So if steering then almost certainly a front brake disc problem, the rears do very little work and whilst likely to corrode they would never get hot enough to warp in normal use. Using force yes but when a disc distorts through heat it is stress relieving, there are many more stresses from uneven cooling of the casting on a ventilated disc to a solid one. The forces are effectively built in.

3 thou is very little and could easily be caused by less than scrupulous cleaning of the mating faces on assembly. I presume the wheel was removed to have access for the dial guage, were the wheelnuts refitted for the run-out test?

I read that several times before it dawned on me you were referring to a "jump lead" starter cable 🤔 I thought you meant the main 12v starter cable and could envisage the results of a massive short circuit, relieved when I saw you had specified connecting it between battery negative and the alternator bracket, no short circuit but no engine start either, it certainly could not cut out in neutral 😄

The answer to your question( with the underlined part replaced by "standard tyres") is yes, that is exactly what I have done for 47 years and in doing so learned to drive according to the conditions. I bought some winter wheels and tyres when I was in the Somme because people died in their vehicles on main roads only a couple of kms between towns during the snowstorm of 2007 (I think), your chances of getting a breakdown recovery outside of hours are virtually zero even in normal conditions, I was pretty much autonomous in all ways having survival gear in the car (needed once!) so winter tyres were a logical step. They may have been good in snow but we never got any, what I do know is that they were appalling dangerous ditchfinders whenever there was rain, so dangerous that I removed them and since then have kept the winter wheels on standby ready to change them if snow is expected. I didn't bring them down here but a set of new VAG steel wheels with new winter tyres came up very cheaply (€100) and I bought them to extend the time before I have to replace my current standard tyres now down to the TWIs. I will fit them when the average temps fall to 10°C but only to see if the recieved wisdom about that figure is actually correct, because I know darn well that there is barely any reduction in grip on my standard tyres, if they are noticeably better at that temp and not dangerous in the wet then they will stay on till spring, if not they are coming off.

Nonsense is my middle name! I can see my efforts to appease you by speaking of the majority in the UK and making special mention of yourself was to no avail.