J.R.

Possibly along the lines of "how the other half live" 2 seater. Porsche Cayenne 7 seater Kodiaq for taking daughter to university and taxi-ing son and his friends around A detailer to clean the cars............ If you knew better than to say that then it would have been better to remain tight lipped.

Thanks for that. I was taking issue with the assertion that anyone "fitting" said towbar would be breaking the law. The secondary issue is the use of it to tow and I agree completely with your analysis, the only risk of a prosecution would be in the case of a serious accident but I think unlikely, I would be more concerned about my liability were my insurers not to pay out to the 3rd party. I have in the past fabricated my own towbars for newer vehicles when none has been available that carried a similar hypothetical risk but unless they were made of loo rolls and sticky back plastic, were they to fail or Plod see them wobbling around there was no practical risk. I even had Towsure make a one off towbar for my Suzuki SJ410 jeep FOC in return for them using the vehicle as a template, they even bless them did it to my design (stronger and no underhang) as I used it for offroad competitions and needed to snatch tow. I cant recall if they ever put a conformity plate on it, it was 1988ish so perhaps before the requirement, in any case the manufacturers self certify their equipment. Its all protection and paperasse for the benefit of the manufacturers.

And end up being taken for £588 or £968 for a new alternator! The OP is making the sounds of a willing victim.

Replace the canbus gateway with a later revision and code it to recognise the installed modules on your vehicle. All info needed is on Ross Tech website.

Yes wheels have to be removed, at least the first time just to be able to locate all the hidden fasteners, I have loosened them and pulled them back to access other things without removing the wheel, they might just come out with the wheel in place once you know where the fasteners are and they have already been undone once.

I must have misunderstood the above and still do.

I've had wing liners out several times and both wings removed, no foam strip between them. There is a foam moulding that (I've just popped out to have a look) on both sides visible under the bonnet that is an extension of the sealing of the rear of the bonnet from the plenum chamber, it goes under the wing mounting flange and gives some support to the middle horizontal strip of the wing, no sealing so I think it was extended to that form because of NVH during testing. Its way above the wheelarch liner and you can feel it with your fingers through access holes either side, it would never get wet or trap water in that position. When I put my car back together I did a lot of headscratching over where and how to fit those two foam mouldings.

Do you believe that VAG make sub assemblies like that in their own factories? They make next to nothing, perhaps engine & powertrain components in dedicated factories, maybe bodyshells close to the assembly line, everything else comes in from their suppliers on a JIT basis to the assembly line including for sure the heater vent assemblies.

Unless they are a known failure like the sliding sleeve waterpump which in any case does not affect the cambelt then I have far more faith in the factory fitted items even after 1/4 million miles than any aftermarket parts even those claiming to be OEM. And I put my money where my mouth is, when I replaced the cambelt at 225000 miles on my MK1 Octavia TDi that was all I changed, the job cost £8

It is not illegal to fit a towbar to a vehicle irrespective of what weight limits are specified in the CoC. If I am incorrect and you know of such a law then please post it.

That is not the windscreen seal but a seal to close the gap between the trim and the glass and/or body. The screen is bonded to the bodyshell, if water is getting through it needs removing with a hot wire and rebonding after removing all traces of the old sealant, that is very time consuming and most windscreen companies will only do what they can in a certain amount of time which often compromises the new sealant. Do you have a panoramic sunroof?

Essential to reregister the vehicle in another EU country.

I want to believe that my 2015 2.0 TDi common rail cam belt is still fine after 125K miles, it looks fine from my visual inspections, I took the MK1 to double that mileage but then it really did need changing. Has their recommendation now changed for vehicles of all ages and engine series both petrol and diesel? I always though that the belts on the PD engines had greater loads than the others, are they also now said to be 15 years and 150K miles?

They are both incorrect, either ignorant and ill informed which is perhaps understandable hence acceptable or looking to milk you which is not.

No I would use it as it is with perhaps a thin smear of grease to help it squidge and allow you to re-use it of you have to drop the sump again? I would say that it will seal very well, with that design the rubber only needs to be slightly proud and its very protected against overtightening. If when you remove your old sump you find the same gasket plus sealant and it looks like factory fitment then of course do the same.

Silence reigns I'm pleased to say!

Do you think they care? I like them drain my oil with a suction pump although certainly more diligently, I have never encountered sludge build up when dropping the sump on a modern engine using modern detergent oils with regular oil changes.

First thing is to question your rock steady belief, if you look at live data under the 140kph you will see that the temperature guage is made to read 90°c over a large range of engine temperatures, I expect you will see that your car is gradually overheating even at those speeds. You have an overheating problem, probably one of the thermostats or the sliding sleeve on the waterpump, others who know more of your engine will be able to advise, the non linear function of the temperature guage is giving you a red herring (tricking you).

That was my feeling also, they make far more money scamming people on oil & filter changes, aircon (not) services and the obligatory "brakes 75% worn" game without having to use any skilled labour and with very little risk, they cant even forget to refit the oil drain plug because they dont even remove it but of course continue to bill the customer for a new one. I suppose the "technician" could forget to refill the oil and wreck the engine like when they drain the diff instead of the Haldex, is it any surprise that they deny the Haldex unit has a filter? As sure as eggs is eggs they will drop the requirement for Haldex oil changes when they count the cost to them of the vehicles they have screwed up and had to pay for which is a small minority of those they did.

It sounds like the traction control system activating on my MK1 Octavia when I pulled out across a wet or greasy junction provoking minor wheelspin, the MK2 did not do the graunching juddering but simply cut the power which was much more dangerous. I dont know what the Yeti would do as being 4x4 it has never yet lost traction. Assuming you were not booting it I would suspect a problem with the NSF wheel speed sensor, the system thinks the wheel is spinning because its getting an anomolous high revolution signal. It then tries to brake that wheel (very severely) against the torque being driven through it to transfer the drive to the other wheel which has traction. If the wheel was spinning it would work without any real drama, that it wasn't spinning causes all the graunching as its applying a braking force to a wheel which was transferring torque and will now be being dragged along the road by the other driven wheel against the pulsing braking force. That was not supposed to sound definitive, its just me advancing a hypothesis.

I mistakenly bought an aftermarket Cat once, I dont think it had any precious metals within it. Definitely good used rather than new aftermarket in this instance, there is a complete disincentive for any manufacturer to make one that actually functions correctly if it puts the cost up, people will always choose the cheapest in the absence of any other info.

You are very unlikely to have fried any modules, the most basic thing even on the simplest of circuits is to protect against reverse polarity connection. There may be other fuses that you are unaware of or even fusible links within some of the major unfused cables usually the ignition system, others with access to circuit diagrams will be able to advise you.

I'm glad to have given you something pleasurable to do today if you are up in the morning and thank you for teaching me a new acronym although its not one that I will use. Too long; didn't read: (used, especially online, to introduce a summary of a lengthy text.) (used as a comment, usually considered rude, on an online post, text message, etc., that is thought to be too lengthy.)

Look for the obvious first, split vacuum pipes where they are pushed over barbed fittings.

And not a single one of them issued to my French number plate, in some ways I regret selling up in the UK last year, I really wanted some ULEZ tickets to add to my parking ones, speed cameras, Dartford Crossing etc. But like the latter 2 the ULEZ NIP's wont even be sent out to drivers of vehicles registered in other EU countries but that doesn't stop them from accounting for them as unpaid, I reckon £200 million of the alleged £250 million are foreign vehicles & trucks. Maybe not so for the ULEZ but definitely likely for the Dartford crossing.