J.R.

I started it for you and nobody else after all your postings regarding how unfairly you believed you had been treated by your and other insurers after the no fault claim for the damage to your Skoda Superb. I watched the video and thought of you.

Be careful what you wish for. After being so dogmatic with them, questioning their honesty (I'm sure you are correct) they may well not use their traditional Loctite when replacing the bolt because you are a customer who wants things done by the book and coincidentally their torque wrench may malfunction when they tighten the new bolt. Having seen the catastrophic results of incorrectly tightened crankshaft pulley bolts too many times I would not wish that on you, I wholeheartedly agree with Petes preceeding posting.

Maybe not but as I only have insurance when its a legal obligation and only the basic tiers risques on my vehicle I am not concerned, I do this because French insurers will try and wriggle out of any claim no matter what, they have to indemnise a 3rd party.

Sorry I dont know the answer to your questions other than thinking that to have a Canbus network there must be a master controller on my vehicle called the Canbus Gateway. Once you get to this level of faultfinding it pays to purchase VCDS, with that you would see exactly what has been going on and there will probably be fault codes to guide you, paying a dealer to do this is very expensive and most will do no more than give you any fault codes shown, as a diagnostic tool it has far more capabilities than that but is only as good as the person using it who will not have the same investment in the vehicle and desire to solve the problem than you have.

My last car was the same as yours but 2 years newer, pretty much the pinnacle, it was all downhill from there The extra complications and inherent problems with the MK2 Octavia were probably worth putting up with for the better specification and features over the MK1, my Yeti despite being the same platform has the later EU5 engine which to me is definitely not worth the troubles it brings, it is smoother and a better engine but the EGR and DPF are the killer. I would never entertain anything EU6 with Adblue etc.

Not of any particular interest to me, I will never register or insure a car in the UK again, but thanks anyway.

I would say that the Canbus network is not shutting down and that of the modules remaining awake the radio is taking the most current but any one of the others is higher than what the correct quiescent consumption should be. Normally the culprit is a retro-fitted Chinese head unit but this does not appear to be the case for you. It could be that disconnecting the radio or any of the other modules will in itself not allow the Can network to go into sleep mode as it wont have recieved the had off signal, which is the problem with the Chinese head units, if that is the case it makes your faultfinding even more difficult, u might have to delete the radio from the Can Gateway Installation List so that it stops looking for it. On my MK2 Octavia the solution to the Chinese head unit Canbus problem was to fit a Gateway controller with a later revision number.

As your car has failed the CT on the "faisceau feu de croisement" and they have told you verbally to fit headlamp deflectors then that is what you have to do if you want a CT. You say that they go down a bit, if they are not the self levelling nonsense then maybe adjusting them lower might get them through, the tester has a line above which there should be no illumination on the dipped setting. You say that you have 2 months to sort the light problem (CT contra visite) but you are obliged to register the vehicle within one month (make application) although in practice nobody is going to know that you are not a tourist, as you have said insurance is the issue. "Nearest Skoda agent very slow to respond to my request for assistance with this" - welcome to France!!!!!!

You said you did not understand what I said about the Malus so I explained, don't shoot the messenger! I'm sorry I have no experience with LED and/or matrix headlamps, I bought RH dipping (LHD) headlamps to fit to mine, the originals had all the mounting lugs broken in the write off accident so it was no hardship.

If you have avoided the TVA then good for you, do you have the quitus fiscale yet? You will have to pay the matriculation taxes including the malus, the €1648 is a lot lower than it would have been because the vehicle is over 4 years old.

And if you think that €1648 malus taxe is a rip off (and indeed it is) its a fraction of the maximum malus they would impose on a Turbo-Nutter-B*****dMobile of €90000 plus equally eyewatering regional taxes.

I registered the Yeti post Brexit. - Actually thats not true, it was after the referendum but before the leaving date, I did not have to pay TVA, if I did I would not have brought the vehicle over. The malus is paid on first registration in France even on second hand vehicles that may have already paid a big Eco charge on first registration in another country. You will need to get a quitus fiscale from Les Impôts and I'm fairly sure you will have to pay French TVA on the value thy assess which will be the ridiculously high French valuation. I have done a simulation for the worst case cost of first matriculation, I do not have details if your vehicle so picked a 2.0 TDI 4x4 which has the highest WTLP CO2 rating of 169, yours may well be less, the cost may be higher or lower according to your departement, I used where I now live which is one of the higher ones, I registered the Yeti in Les Hauts de France which has lower taxes. Here is the estimation, I'm sorry if I am the bearer of bad news! Coût détaillé des différentes taxes Y1 - Taxe régionale : 424,00 € Y2 - Majoration véhicule de transport : 0,00 € Y3 - Malus CO2 et TMOM : 1 210,60 € Dont : Malus CO2 : 1 210,60 € TMOM (taxe au poids) : 0,00 € Y4 - Taxe fixe : 11,00 € Sous-total arrondi à 1 646,00 € Y5 - Redevance d'acheminement : 2,76 € Y6 - Taxes à payer : 1 648,76 € It was the French government site, here is the link so you can do your own calculation https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.service-public.fr/simulateur/calcul/cout-certificat-immatriculation&ved=2ahUKEwi7m66iioqLAxXiVaQEHWfVKLUQFnoECAkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3SvsYbq_Q-gxbWf0lkNJOg There are some English speaking Facebook groups for registering vehicles in France, I think they will confirm that TVA at 20% will be payable on the French value of the vehicle. If it makes you feel any better you are not alone, I brought over my Lotus Elan restoration project in 2005 but because I did not register it before Brexit when I eventually do I will have to pay TVA on todays French value of a car I bought in 1997 for £3500

You forgot the next ice age which every day we get one day closer to. I think it is forecast for the 12th June 2029. I'll get me coat 🫢

With even the most reliable cars a minor problem which should be a relatively easy fix often ends up with repeated dealer visits lots of money spent and a huge frustration for the owners, if you look at the reviews from the best to the worst makes the unhappy punters are telling the same story. The new cars are just a vehicle (pun intended) to sell finance and the after sales service is all that you could expect of a door to door insurance salesman. There was a time when the Skoda warranty and dealerships were so good that even if you were unlucky having the problems sorted was a pleasant experience, lo,g gone now and I dont think any brands are better. If you are not able to do your own repairs and servicing then I reckon the best strategy is to buy the most reliable make (Japanese or Korean) and keep your fingers crossed to minimise contact with the dealership. Maybe there is something to be said in the above instance for buying on PCP or whatever its called and chopping in every 3 years, you could just poke up with the problems handing them over with the car when you lease the next one. Its probably far less stressful to accept something does not work or malfunctions than trying to have it put right by the dealers because it is your vehicle.

All of my 2.0TDi Skodas had 027 batteries fitted from the factory, I chose to pay the small premium for the 096 but would be happy with an 027 on a 1.4l TDi engine.

Repeated often enough it becomes received wisdom. Not invalid, an insurance policy issued and not previously cancelled by the correct procedure will always be valid for 3rd party risks, they could choose to try their luck by refusing the claim for damage to the insured's vehicle, if they had changed the engine and suspension, if it was dangerous and they could claim that it had contributed to the accident they might well do but it could be challenged in the courts, the decision would be weighed against any possible negative publicity but for "any sort of accident" not involving towing - mmmm..............

Agreed neither of us know what the official line is regarding this bolt and that the OP will choose to do whatever gives him piece of mind.

It's probably me missing something really obvious, the injectors are to the side (front in engine bay) of the rocker cover on my 2015 2.0TDi, or so I thought 🤔 I will have to go and check now.

The valve cover can be removed without removing the injectors can it not? any cam lobe or rocker damage will be apparent, the valve heights and clearances can visually reveal bent valves. It costs nothing but a little time to look.

There is a lot of unsubstantiated pseudo science trotted out about stretch bolts with the aim of selling parts at inflated prices. They are tightened to within the elastic limit but not to yield, if that were the case they would neck and either break while being tightened or from the additional service load. You can tighten and retighten a fastener within its elastic limit infinitely, it will always return to its original length when the load is removed, waisted bolts are used so that precise torque-tension can be achieved with a given torque + angular rotation. It started 43 + years ago when Ford started invoicing for sump plugs on CVH engines claiming that the threads were stretched on the old ones, an M20 thread going into an aluminium sump 😄 As long as the crank pulley bolt was correctly tightened I would not be concerned. If you want to observe what really needs to be replaced and what doesn't watch the works race and rally teams when they do major repairs between stages or races, see what they replace other than the failed component.

Not calling someone arrogant when they explain, as requested, what BTB stands for would go a long way towards "rubbing along" together.

Pushing it in the direction of engaging a gear, meeting some resistance but not engaging the gear is what I was warning about and a scenario where a rattling DMF would become quiet. I dont know a lot about Fabias but if the 1.4 diesel does not have a DMF then it could be gear chatter which afflicts certain VAG gearboxes when a DMF is either replaced with a plain flywheel or was not fitted as standard in which case they call it a feature!!

You never fail to amuse with your verbosity to avoid ever saying "ok that wasn't correct but.............."

Dual mass flywheel rattle 100% from the description, there is no "alignment" to misalign when fitting a clutch release bearing and a noisy one does not fit with any of the symptoms. My money is that either the DMF was not replaced with the clutch or the new one has failed. Do not do that, you are wearing away the friction area of the synchromesh baulk rings, a couple of seconds of that abuse equates to 100000 miles of wear from normal gearchanges using the clutch.