J.R.

Your battery or vehicle is not going to know nor care which battery lead has been disconnected or both of them or what order it was done in. Of course not, the electrical system will be dead. This seems to be your latest obsession, you would save a lot of forum space by typing RT(F)M.

I agree and I strongly disagree with this:

How did you squeeze them into the childrens mouths?

You want to let your car drive itself while you take your eyes off the road to adjust air vents, have I understood that right? Words fail me I can adjust the drivers side and both the central air vents on my Yeti (and all the previous Octavias as well) without taking my eye (singular) off the road, I can operate all the vehicle controls in the same manner thanks to 100 years of safety improvements and ergonomic design, all gone out the window now with the LCD tea trays slapped on the dashboard and peoples desire to look at Twitter, Fessbook or whatever while on the move. I dont even have my phone connected to the vehicle, it came with the Bluetooth set up and the replacement head unit also has it, I stop to make a call and if there is an incoming one I will stop later and ring them back. I always set the satnav at a standstill and only look at it with fleeting glances, the larger 7" perhaps display is better and safer than the Tom Tit unit I had before, the only problem is the standard radio fitment is not shaded well enough from the sun, it has only become a problem since moving further South. OK, I understand now, you have to use the touchscreen to adjust the airvents and cant do so safely while driving so have to use the auto-pilot or stop, that is bad design and a major safety risk.

All the front shut lines between bonnet, headlights, wings and bumper rely on the correct alignment of the crash beam, that was why I finally accepted defeat and replaced mine, I just could not get them good enough. Even with the new crash beam I had to slot the holes to get the gaps to my standards. Its an easy job, you just need to make some temporary support for the cooling pack (radiator, intercooler, AC condensor and fans) so the hoses dont get strained while you remove the old crash beam and fit the new. Alignment of all the panel gaps takes a lot of patience but thats what sorts the good mecanos from the lazy.

Its called a crash beam and should have the towing eye attached to it, I got a very very cheap pattern part one for the Yeti when I got fed up straightening the old one on my 12 tonne press, it needed a bit of tweaking for the holes to line up but nothing major and IIRC I had to drill a hole for the outside temperature sensor. Between the crash beam and the plastic bumper there is an expanded foam impact absorbing filler, these do a superb job and are practically indestructable, my vehicle had hot something hard enough to bend the crash beam and deploy the dashboard airbags and seatbelt pyrotechnics but was completely unmarked and the bumper only had minor scuffs and scratches, its still on the car 3 years later unrepaired other than a polishing of the scratches.

Actually it was the most pertinent and sensible answer here given that nowhere have you said that you have checked and the oil level is correct, just that it was serviced at X miles. A low oil level will manifest itself as oil starvation on inclines. MarcusJohn was absolutely correct, check and confirm the oil level first on level ground and then others can diagnose knowing that the basics are satisfied.

Nobody is knocking people who pay into pension funds, I'm glad to see that you did not miss the opportunity to tell us yet again that you earn over £100K per year.

Thats pretty much where the drain is, you only see the water if you move the car a few feet after it has been running with the aircon on, like when I open my gates to drive into the property. So long as its not filling up the car footwells if its getting to the ground it is draining, who cares what route it takes?

Now I know that you live on a different planet or are on a wind up. I was pretty sure before with your constant references to paying 7.5p per kwh for your electricity just like how much you earn and how much you put into private pensions every year but now I am certain.

I have lived in several flats and maisonettes etc none of which had driveways but all had "off street parking" either close by or a couple of minutes walk, off street parking being parking areas often with allocated spaces the highway ends at the concrete strip across the entrance. Nearly all of the thousands of new build homes being thrown up around the village near Gatwick where I sold my house last year after 35 years have these communal parking areas only and they start at over £500K, probably more now, a couple of hundred grand more gets you a postage stamp concrete front garden with true off road parking where even a small vehicle overhangs the pedestrian footpath. It is inconcievable that the majority of UK households have off street parking in the sense of a driveway to their property.

20 minutes is all that it will take but opening the bonnet to measure the battery voltage will wake up many of the systems anyway rendering it pointless, ditto leaving the bonnet open beforehand unless you close the latch to fool the vehicle that the bonnet is closed then lock the vehicle normally and do the test after 20 minutes. Also you would have to have put the current meter in series with the battery before locking the car and the central locking will likely blow the multi-meter fuse on the 200ma range and the 10 or 20 amp range is not going to give you the accuracy you need for an expected sub 30ma current.

Are you registered blind with a self driving car or do you never venture out of middle class areas? Just look at any council estate and you will see the few homes that could have their front gardens converted to parking were done so decades ago, that is the few homes fronting onto a road with a deep enough front garden and nothing more than a narrow band of grass between the footpath and the road who can get permission for a dropped kerb. That knocks out all the terraced houses, all the houses facing pedestrian walkways, any house near a junction or on a curve or bend, all the flats, all the tower blocks, yet many of these are already counted as having off road parking because there will be communal parking areas with often allocated spaces but no way to connect a charging point to the drivers house as it may be 500m away with many other dwellings along the way. The stats may say that the majority of homes have off street parking which anyone using their eyes would realise just can't be true but it doesn't follow they can erect a charge point and cable it back to their dwelling.

So only need a small 3 kWh battery to tide over the few peak hours. Thanks for the reasoned reply, your figures are much more what I expected, off peak rate expensive (nearly double the peak rate cost in France) hours already restricted to 3 hours, it was 8 when I was on Economy 7 and we have 8 hours in France. Day rate double what I pay and then there is the penalty of the 3 hours of peak rate at 3 times what I pay let alone the standing charge that seems much higher than what I remember them being when it was billed transparently every 3 months. So you could charge one or two EV's for 3 hours at what 7kw? paying 20.39p per unit and get shafted for the remaining 21 hours a day. I am struggling to reconcile this with Lol-Lols 7.5p per unit or "almost free or even be paid to take it." I too get penalised for having an off peak tariff, the standing charge is maybe €1.50 more per month and I have to pay an extra 1 ct for all the daytime units all year round for the priveledge of having off peak hot water and storage heating for 3 months of the year, it's still just about worth it for me except the hôtel and my apartment are empty and I only used the heating for one week and hot water for maybe 3 in the last year.

My best ever work and tow vehicles were 1990's Sierra Estates especially the 2.0 4x4 one, they all had self levelling rear dampers or it may have been a seperate strut, Boge strut rings a bell, and its a real shame that nobody seems to make them now. Externally they didn't look any different but you could overload rear end with tools & materials until it was on the bump stops while static, drive it away and as soon as you hit any bumps it would jack itself up to the normal ride height & the overall spring rate increased.

Carlston will be along with the definitive spring and weight load details. For myself I used Grayston helper springs on my first Skoda (the same as the Mad springs) and higher weight range springs on my last 2 Skodas, they are much preferable in my opinion and you also have several to choose from. I have consistently carried very heavy loads and towed very large overloaded trailers with sometimes very significant noseweight and the rear of the vehicle heavily loaded, the suspension has been fine and the unladen driving experience better than before in my mind. On the Octavia 2 the rear ride height was slightly higher than I expected, only to the height of a Scout 4x4 model but had I looked through all the data that Carlton gives I would have realised & would have fitted complementary front springs.

The average household figure of 8kw a day sounds low given you estimate a heat pump heating system at between 24 and 72kwh per day, winter months only of course. The 8kw will be the households with a gas supply, the very thing that is being phased out (new gas boilers etc) in favour of heat pumps and thermodynamic hot water cylinders. How many hours will it take to charge your Zoe battery on wheels which is going to heat your house? I suppose you wont be able to drive anywhere in it during winter without your house getting cold and using peak rate electricity, will we see scrap EV's littering peoples driveways and front gardens in future being used as energy stores? - The doasyoulikeys will soon thin those out!!!!

Good point but it is still Fugly and I doubt could be anything but.

How many hours a night do you get at the 7.5p rate? How many amps can you pull during that time? Deduct electric heating and hot water load how many amps does that leave and crucially what range would that give an average EV? Perhaps answer for the average household to make it more meaningfull And finally how long do you believe you are going to get X hours per 24 hours cheap rate at 7.5p per kwh? Most people wont have that tariff available to them, is it available to new customers? And I bet by getting that tarif you are paying significantly more for the already very expensive by EU comparison daytime electricity. Is the standing charge any higher? I have read all your postings with interest and I know you have done your utmost to minimise your daytime consumption but could Mr & Mrs Average achieve the same thing with a 2.4 car household heated by say an air to air heat pump given the maximum current rating of a domestic supply?

Without going back through it again I'm pretty sure it was claimed that in the time that it took for the passengers to embark, and you can bet your life that will be an exaggerated time ie a full busload disembarking and a full busload embarking, that enough energy would be taken on board for the next 2km. Practically whatever charge can be taken on to augment the existing autonomy the further these bus routes can go from the depot or main charging point. I think the video was a Deepfake though, the charging probes were the Penisouruses from the film Flesh Gordon!

Learned a lot more today. Pulling the plugs from each individual sensor gives a fault code of wiring circuit (or something like that) so both sensors are being seen by the controller with the wheels not moving. No resistance was measured on the good RH sensor so that is a false piste. The good sensor reacted to me waving a magnet at it 👍 so that is a good diagnostic tip. Conclusion is bad sensor on LHS, magnetic ring is not visible on the 4x4 model so is probably better protected against foreign bodies and corrosion, new sensor ordered, cost €13.90 inc delivery, it will be a cheapo pattern part but we will see. The fault code that comes up without turning a wheel is 01325, comms failure from TPMS module which is within the ABS module, I am hoping that it has simply stopped communicating as it no longer has any LHR wheel speed data, I am hoping with the new sensor it will relearn the wheel speeds and start communicating. We will see, in any case the sensor replacement is the first priority, I will test it with the car in the air with VCDS initially.

That is a contradiction in terms. Did you order the vehicle with the rough road package? You speak of the driving conditions where you live so surely you cannot be surprised that it has a higher ride height and aesthetics should be low down on the priorities. It sounds like your dampers are shot TBH, the spring rate might be fine with correct damping.

Weird that they would have gone to the trouble of plating, filling and respraying the hole only to stick the vent back on top of it! Interesting re the arch roller, does the paint flake when you use it? I have found that the paint on earlier Skodas was remarkably tough and resilient and has rarely flaked when I have beaten out smaller dents against a rubber dolly. Well actually a rubber sanding block!

So what was holding the roof vent on if the hole had been plugged? Was it stuck on? Maybe after the filling and paint repair the rubber seal line bled through the new paint so they stuck the vent back on to hide it? What is that tool for in the wheel arch, is it to roll back the arch return lips to give more clearance or does it flare the arches? It looks like a specialised piece of kit or are you using it not for its intended purpose?

The shock may have dislodged some rusty flakes which in turn stuck to the magnetic ring, or it may have cracked the ring or flaked some of it away if its rusty, by all accounts it can just be seen from behind the disc dustcover.