J.R.

I think you are actually the person to answer your own question, one that I have often asked myself. When the one way clutch on a freewheeling pulley fails the belt jerks a little and the bearing makes a chirping noise, I had suspected that fitting a solid pulley would not create the noise and you seem to bear this out. Drive belts always jerked with the acceleration/decellerations of the crankshaft before the freewheeling pulleys were brought in, unless they caused the alternator pulley or its mountings to come loose (like on my all steel X/flow engines) I cant see the need for you to change yours after all this time, it would be a solution looking for a problem and introduce a potential unreliable component. If you can see considerable flapping of the auxiliary drivebelt and it looks like it could cause problems then fitting a freewheeling pulley would eliminate it.

Understood, thankfully the homologation restrictions are not really an issue in the UK (but a major one in France). Plenty of choices out there.

From mainly your comments on the thread about the French regsitered car and the lack of homologated tyres, mine has 215/60 R16 tyres which I thought you said were better, given the deeper sidewall it makes sense to me that they would be. I was probably mistaken thinking the Greenline size was not a common one, my speculation (were that the case) would be that they may become difficult to find and hence more expensive in the future. The more wheel/tyre sizes homologated the more choice an owner will have in the future, I look to keep my cars for 10-20 years which means a lifetime for this one, future tyre and parts availability is important to me, not so for someone changing their car every few years.

Indeed, that is what I usually do with the sacrificial fastener after removing the first few threads to act as a guide.

Indeed, the fastener has been subjected to a torsional load well beyond the Torque/Tension limit concentrated at the weakest point of the fastener, the transition of the rolled thread and the plain bolt shank, this is where an overtightened fastener would shear but from a tensile loading in a non cross threaded fastener, in this case it will have been a pure torsional loading which 10.9 spec bolts are absolutely not designed for, if it had gone beyond the elastic limit there will be surface cracking at the thread junction, this combined with the cyclical bending load of the suspension is the definitive recipé for fatigue failure.

Equally no need to call people names, we are all adults here and contributing to the community to help others.

Cross threaded and greased. Indeed myself included but I always realised before any significant damage was done and correctly refitted the fastener or a new fastener, only if the thread was stripped would I have resorted to a helicoil which being a machinist I knew how to do. As you had asked if you should use a helicoil as well as a tap & die (the latter is for male threads) I (correctly as it turns out) made a judgement of your knowledge and capabilities, I realised you might take exception to the comment but I was trying to save you from yourself, given your confidence in your final "solution" and especially the "LOL" I was not successful. What is more important is that others would not follow your lead believing it was the correct thing to do.

To anyone else reading, - that is absolutely not the way to deal with a cross threaded bolt especially on a safety related component.

I editted my previous posting: Editted, I meant Oscaro and not Autodoc, perhaps you should try them?

There is a thermostat, removing it may help alleviate the sleeve problem. Did you remove the connector when the engine was cold before your test ride?

The transmission losses are consequent but not as much as a permanent 4wd. If you have ever watched a rolling road run with a coast down to measure transmission losses you will see that they are 15% even on a FWD vehicle. When the Haldex is not engaged the engine has to drive the bevel gear and propshaft against the bearing and windage losses in addition to the aforementioned losses. The rear wheels instead of rotating on a double row ball bearing are rotating a driveshaft and a crown wheel and pinion, the power to overcome those losses is produced by the engine and transmitted via the front wheels. Arguably at a constant speed on a dead straight road the transmission losses would be no greater with the Haldex 100% engaged than with it disengaged, in fact probably less due the the inefficiencies of driving a pinion from the crownwheel. For me the 4x4 is worth the extra fuel consumption and essential when I am towing loaded trailers across my bomb site like terrain. I think the Greenline was compromised in many ways to achieve the CO2 rating, the one most people complain about is the lack of suspension compliance with the wheel and tyre size and that the other (better) wheel and tyre sizes were not homologated, it could be that in the future available tyres for the Greenline will cost more.

Why would they be even remotely interested in a 4-8 year old second hand vehicle? However if what you say is true then surely the last thing you would advise is have a Skoda dealer replace the tank.

Not needed and likely to cause even more problems for someone who can cross thread a bolt.

13mm hexagon would normally be an M8x1.25 ISO standard thread. You dont normally retap a crossed thread, too big a risk of the tap following the crossed thread and breaking especially if it is Chinesium. Usually a new bolt held concentric when tightening will usually thread straight, you can ease its passage by removing the first few threads by machining or grinding/filing to make a spigot to lead the thread, then you can fit a full threaded bolt.

It is not pressurised or actuated by a solenoid piston its the water pressure from the pump that moves the actuator against the return spring, the solenoid allows the water to flow to the actuator. As it should return under spring pressure giving it the good news with a hammer & drift may release it, it depends how crudded up it is. When you order anything over the counter from a motor parts shop if you walk behind the counter to see what they are trying to hide from you on their computer screen you will see that they are ordering from Autodoc and putting their margin on top of the price you could pay yourself. Nothing arrives during May anyway. Editted, I meant Oscaro and not Autodoc, perhaps you should try them?

Correct, its worth giving it a try when cold before turning on the ignition, it may have retracted during the night. Water pumps will be available in France but nobody wants to do any work, order anything or commit to anything in the month of May, there are so many bank holidays where people faire le pont (not work the remaining days after a public holiday) that effectively its a month where nothing happens, next day deliveries take 4 weeks. Even when people have to work they will attend but do nothing, of course most of them are still (not) working from home.

I very much doubt that your mechanic will be able to disable the immobiliser, he probably is not even aware of it. Ther will also be the issue of the mileage recorded on the 2nd hand cluster being different to that on the ECU. I had my cluster repaired while I waited at a place on the south coast, might have been Portsmouth. These places usually do a very quick turnaround, repairs only take 10 minutes and they are sending out and recieving 100s of units a day. Going the second hand replacement route is going to give you loads of grief and expense.

1st world problem that amazes me! Clean the throttle valve body and inlet tract, its probably completely choked by schmoo from the constant EGR activation after the emissions "fix". Once done your MPG and throttle response will be way better. The EGR inlet stub can also be realigned to reduce the build up of schmoo, I bit the bullet and fitted an EGR emulator/simulator.

Make to break is not switch terminolgy, you meant to say N/C = contacts normally closed and opening on activation, in this case opening of the bonnet. It probably did as its linked into the low oil warning light system, it will not be an apparent courtesy light switch but built into the bonnet catch, if you look closely you will probably see the connector and wires, the microswitch may be faulty with age. And on that subject! This is incorrect, the courtesy light is triggered by recessed door closed switches at the bottom of the B post, these are protected by a grommet and operated by an Acorn projecting from the door. The "door open" indicators (which should really be called "door not latched closed) are triggered by microswitches inside the lock mechanism and are a frequent failure point, you can either replace the lock which is very cheap or dismantle it and replace the microswitch, - even cheaper, - or clean the contacts - no cost!

Just 4 seconds of muted speech and no video for me. Not sure what a video of a pointed shaft would show anyway unless you were stabbing someone with it!

I quite agree, yet another company trading on their (once) good name to sell cheap pattern parts carrying their name and packaging. I'm a Bosch Fanboy when it comes to mains and battery power tools, for a long time now they have been made in Malaysia then China but always to the strictest of Bosch quality standards, when people talk of cheap rubbish coming out of China I use Bosch as the example that it does not need to be so if a company wishes to continue having a good reputation for quality. It's a crying shame that another division is treading the path of so many other once quality brands that were bought out by companies wanting to capitalise on their reputation by selling the cheapest products they can source and to hell with quality, its Bosch as a whole who will get the bad name.

Best just to ask for any old filter out of their stock, the odds of being given the right one are higher!!!!!

Any prizes for guessing what the reaction was from ECP! 🤣

Sorry to hear about the lockpick but I am not surprised. Good luck with the rebuild, I hope you dont find any other nasty surprises. I take it you still have not gained entry to the vehicle through the doors? Is there a possibility that the hidden key might still be within the vehicle?

Shows how long since I did any TIG welding, I could not recall the torch details. I can sort of see the logic of using one to heat a seized bolt or whatever using an arc welder in that the tungsten is not likely to transfer as a weld bead but is that a common practice? I always used oxy-acetylene but no chance of getting any hooky refills for years so I handed over all my cylinders, I've seen induction heaters and I have some special arc welding rods for broken off studs intended to weld a nut to them to remove once the weld heat had done its stuff, if a TIG electrode could do a similar job I'd like to learn how.