J.R.

How does removing the voids from the dogbone bushes allegedly improve handling?

Links and Rechts I know in German from ordering headlights and other car parts!!!!

Many roundabouts are still priorité à droite the most famous being le rond-point de la place de l'Étoile à Paris, if there are no markings or signs it is PàD, in a legal sense its not a rond point but a carrefour à sens giratoire, it will look like any other roundabout to an unwary visitor or anyone but a local.

That only happens in fantasyland, they have far more important things to do, do you know what the fine is for not having an alcotester? Zero, Nada, Zilch! How many people have been prosecuted for not carrying a gilet jaune? Same answer. Laws don't need to be enforced in France because 99.9% of the population will be compliant, 15 years after the politicians mates filled their boots selling gilet jaunes some people still have them over their seat backs for fear of being stopped. Shared but only with the UK giving up the details of registered keepers to EU countries, not the other way round in the case of France, I dont know aboy the other EU countries, the situation is unchanged since before Brexit but the UK could choose to not disclose the info. Its not Franglais and its the wording motorists will see on the signs, its described in subsequent posts, it doesn't really translate (in terms os its importance) and is a good example of something that you should not try to translate.

That is not a PàD but either a Stop! or a Cédez le Passage! (give way) if it has lines, it is a changement de priorité and will probably be accompanied by a sign saying just that, the reason for the change will be that the previous PàD was not recognised by too many drivers and there had been accidents. This is not having a go but I am going to use your words as they describe the ignorance of PàD to most foreign motorists very well and I include myself in that, it took me several years living here for it to finally sink in an all its detail and even now I still get caught out. "you're happily driving along the riverside road when suddenly one of the side turnings coming out of the town centre has prioité à droite" That is exactly what people do, they assume that because they are on a straight main road that traffic from side roads have to give way, that is not the case, nor will you have a sign telling you to stop as you mention above (that wasn't a PàD), you have to slow down and look very carefully at every single road joining from the right for evidence of a solid white line telling them to stop (which will likely be worn through and practically invisible) or be able to see their Stop! sign 25m before the junction which most of the time is obscured by trees or buildings. If you see any of these then you can continue without slowing down and being prepared to do an emergency stop should a vehicle or cyclist take "their road" from the right, because having priority means it is their road, you may be on a large Route Nationale long and straight, a Roman road but if the single farm track on the right has priorité then your road effectively ends with a Stop! (but no sign) at that junction, think of it as you joining another road on a bend of infinite radius at a tangent which of course is geometrically impossible. PàD applies everywhere unless there are signs indicating otherwise, even I rarely notice them and when I do the danger is I may have missed the second one showing the end of the deristricted zone, you have to drive constantly watching for any roads to the right and trying to see if they have Stop! markings or signs, in towns where there are buildings right up to the footpath & you know that its a PàD or cant see the markings you have to slow right down to walking pace to avoid an accident when a car hidden from view takes their priorité and 99% do unless they have in the past been T-boned by a holidaymaker. I am blind in the left eye, on some junctions where I take my PàD at an acute angle I cannot see if a vehicle is approaching and going to griller le stop I just say Inshallah and drive straight through without even turning my head like most French drivers do.

Yes, not a single one of them will give a flying Four-X 😆 whether you have any stickers at all or what they display. It's simply something that people who like to worry and jump through hoops become obsessed with. Same goes for spare bulb sets, beam deflectors, reflective gilets, breath test kits, spare eyeglasses, speed alerts on satnavs etc etc etc. Sticking to the speed limits especially the average speed camera areas, now that is something worth being concerned about. Priorité à droite, now that really is something to be very very aware of, at best it could cost you a lot of money, at worst a wrecked car, hospitalisation or worse still yet that gets so little attention compared to silly rules that are never enforced.

I can just make out the 1 above the l/100km reading meaning it is not an instantaneous reading but the average over the journey, it would be indisputable if you had taken a second photo showing the journey distance on the left instrument with the same readings on the odometer on the right. The Octavia 1 will not read above 99.9mpg, I would get that every day over my 10km journey going to my language lessons in Grenoble from the chambre d'hôte in the mountains, a lot less on the return journey in the evening 🤣 I could get mid 70's on leisurely B road journeys, my best ever was 84.8mpg so I do believe your figures are achievable but not everyday on European roads, my other record was 13mpg during 15 laps of the Croix en Ternois race circuit! That was flat out acceleration all the time aside from braking so I reckon is pretty much the minimum other than on a chassis dyno.

There is a reason why void bushes were invented and adopted. There is a reason why rubber to metal "Silentbloc" bushes were invented and adopted. There is a reason why after more than 100 years they are still used on every new vehicle on every articulating suspension joint. Using polybushes on a road car is like stepping back 100 years, more in fact because the solid bushings back then had lubrication nipples.

He hasn't been able to start retracting the piston. I have been winding them back for 30 years now without ever needing to open a bleed nipple, I would only do so if the old pads were worn out and the master cylinder reservoir had been topped up to the brim. In fact i would not then unless I had misplaced my suction syringe.

You can tell if it is plane or warped by sighting along a pair of machinists parallel bars like proper old school carpenters would do with winding sticks. Also lapping with machinists blue on a surface plate.

What is wrong with me still listening to the Bay City Rollers like I used to when I was a teenage gurl?

It may have seized, sorry for my earlier question but at least we have established that you know you have to rotate the piston (as well as applying axial pressure). The pistons move back and forth and never rotate aside from when being withdrawn with the tool, as such they can be very sticky initially and I frequently resort to a pipe over the short Tommy bar to get the initial movement. Some have left hand rotation but even if you were trying the wrong way through say an incorrect manual it would still move but bind the tool. With the caliper ask an assistant to gently push on the brake pedal to check for seizure. I have no experience with hill hold systems (and hope to avoid them), it would be interesting to know if it needs a different procedure because of it. I would think if the handbrake operates OK then at least one of the pistons must be moving freely.

When I was backpacking around the world I always carried earplugs in my wallet for rides with taxi drivers in some countries who thought it was obligatory to show you how loud their stereo was. I still carry them now and they were used for ferry trips where there were expressive children with disconnected parents. Thankfully I no longer travel across the channel.

Can you get an app for that? 🤣

Back in the day when things did what they said on the tin rather than being painted plastic replicas I did on occasion use both cars bumpers as the earth connection for jump starting, only of they had the same earth polarity of course. I would do so if the battery positions were too far apart or if the persons toy jump leads had tiny conductor cable whereupon I would use both in parallel with the bumpers making the earth circuit. If you viewed a used car with blue pitting on the front bumper like an arc weld strike you knew it either was a bad starter or worse still owned by a mechanic like me!!!!

It's also a case of doing as they were told without understanding why and never trying to work it out, then add that to a desire to be seen to be knowledgable and helping people on social media makes a perfect storm. If you think its bad in the UK, and indeed it is, it is 100 times worse in France, the education system is such that any student actually asking "why, can you please explain?" to a professeur will at the minimum be sanctioned and get a bad report and year end marks (which are really important for a future career) at worse be picked on by them and even their colleagues for the rest of their schooling. It creates adults that accept and obey what they are told without question and who feel really uncomfortable if encouraged to do so, it means that tyre distribution retailers can tell the Kwik-fit type managers and employees complete rubbish citing non existant laws and fines in order to double their sales volume and those people will do it forever with a clear conscience believing 100% that they are acting in the best interests of the customer and protecting them. Thats just one motoring related example, its like that across all industries. The other factor is the Professeur or supposed specialist be it a mechanic or Gendarme is always right and must not be questioned, being elevated to that position means they will never admit they don't know the answer to something so will make up a reply which will be believed 100% and repeated.

Did you have a crystal ball when you wrote "idiocy"? Can you choose some lottery numbers for me? For the love of our lord please just try to resist your obsession Do you really believe that a battery knows or cares the rate at which it was discharged and will react badly if not recharged in the same manner, that James's battery is going to come to harm if he simply lets the alternator recharge it like it has done and will do thousands of times during the life of the battery?

I completely agree and sadly its a frequent occurrence and suggestion on social media, often by one particular gender using the words "I carry my children in that car.........."

I have been repairing my punctures with tyre plugs for 18 years now, never had one fail, all the tyres have continued to wear to the legal limit like the others before replacement and have never been an issue at the CT tests. They do stick out a bit or at least become more visible as the tyre wears, the only time it was ever a problem was when I sold a car and the new owner, a Brit who knew nothing of the regulations or life in France after 2 decades was outraged to find it. I would say conservatively I have avoided replacing 10 tyres because most tyre fitting garages here come out with the nonsense that they are not allowed to do puncture repairs and that they have to replace both tyres on the same axle. The Yeti not having a spare wheel my tyre plug kit is even more important to me than ever, I also have a mushroom plug insertion tool kit but have yet to use it, unless the puncture is on the outside edge of a front wheel giving enough room on full lock to use the tool the wheel will have to be removed, the tyre plugs can be used with the wheel in place, my intention is to use them on the road then remove the wheel and make a repair with the mushroom plug. I started using plugs after paying a garagiste friend for a tyre repair, it took him all of 30 seconds and he only lost a tiny amount of air from the tyre in doing so. If you prepare the plug on the skewer needle and fit the rasp in a battery drill in advance you can then swiftly pull out the screw or nail, insert the rasp and prepare the hole then pull out with one hand while inserting the plug with the other then pull the skewer out which cuts through the doubled up plug sealing the hole, you lose only a tiny bit of air it does not even register on the pressure guage. Easier to do swiftly with the wheel off the vehicle. Did you know that tubeless tyres were originally sold as self sealing for punctures? I read the claims in a 1960's Readers Digest, the problem then as now with tubed tyres is that when they puncture there is an instantaneous total deflation which at speed causes loss of control and often the tyre to come off the rim, a puncture on a tubeless tyre is much slower and controlled, they demonstrated it by driving 2 vehicles with tubed and tubeless tyres over planks with 6" nails sticking out, the car on tubed tyres spun and rolled over , the other came to a controlled halt like you see on footage of a Police Stinger deployment but much slower and with full control.

Bravo Sugar unless you were at 10/10ths on a racetrack & even then I would be highly sceptical. Maybe there was air in the system beforehand, if so then keep a close eye on the braking system as the fault which enbaled it will still be present and it will reoccur.

I agree but those cracks were long established (fractured edges rusted) & the tongue of metal was probably bent outwards at the time of the test. Even if the metal was still in place & the cracks less visible he could not have failed to notice the missing material around the bolt lug, that alone should have been a failure and you would naturally scrutinise the area around it very carefully. It should have failed and been marked as dangerous, do not drive to cover his backside & the customer advised they could drive it home if they wanted but slowly and to be very carefull.

Ah so you mean the two wires in question are to power the rear washer pump but also carry a data signal, a bit like DLan or our French CPL? Isn't the pump on the Yeti the reversible one at the front? Why would those wires go to the rear of the vehicle or is it a parallel circuit? Sorry for the questions, it's a pain not being able to read the wiring diagram!

I have studied my reservoir intently and seen no evidence of a teabag nor a "Mit Silkat" sticker, I had been informed that the later ones with Silkat but no teabag were double skinned but I see from that cutaway view it is not the case. Maybe mine is a later one and does have Silkat after all which would be a bonus having run it without anti-freeze in error for 18 months. Does anyone know where the part number is moulded into the reservoir? I'm not supposed to be doing any DIY while recovering from eye surgery but it's proving difficult, investigative work should be OK though! Editted, also the production date when the later reservoirs were used?

Fusible link, you would know if that was gone by the melted and dripping insulation and by the charred remains of copper & plastic elsewhere in the wiring loom. Don't ask me how I know..................................... Plus that would isolate every part of the electrical system.

Do you mean the communications ("signals") circuit only goes from the BCM to the rear wiper and the washer motor so is not a "bus"? I had cataract surgery yesterday so cannot read the wiring diagram in enough detail. I just wanted to warn off the OP from flashing 12v across that pair of terminals.