J.R.

And that is amusing or humorous?

You failed to say for how long not whether the ignition was on, how do you think it should have prevented the discharge caused by someone remaining in the vehicle, not locking the doors thus causing several can bus nodes to remain active for him to get out and lock the vehicle or use any of the controls, switch on lights, interior lights, seat occupancy sensor, seat belt sensors etc. The current draw from this on modern vehicles is way way more than old generation vehicles where you could sit in a car with the ignition off, lights off, doors unlocked and draw zero current. Before anyone points it out I realise that any discharge is way more, infinitely more than zero discharge!

Congratulations, that would have defeated 95% (conservative figure) of garages but not before running up a huge bill to the customer and loss of goodwill. Good on you

Dont adjust the front axle toe in if that is what you meant, use your string line to assess whether the rear wheels are toeing out, they should have between zero and a small amount of toe in, definitely not toe out. I don't know what, if or where the rear toe might be adjusted or whether your works have disturbed that, I just know from race car set up and driving experience that what you describe tallys with toe out on rear wheels, camber may have some influence but on maximum breakaway grip not the vehicle wanting to change ends from normal road steering inputs, that is not a lack of grip but too much grip at a different thrust vector to the steering wheels.

You read Bravo Sugar. The alarm and immobiliser are two seperate entities, the vehicle is immobilised whenever you remove the key from the ignition.

Does it drift in both directions or just one? Does it do it when you apply power? Did you drop the rear subframe or loosen the securing bolts? It sounds like one or both rear wheels are toeing out, you should check the new control arms dimensionally against the old.

What is the LOL in the title intended to convey?

Yes, simply unplug it, I think you will have to release the wheel arch liner to get access. A non comm error will show up when scanning with VCDS or equivalent but otherwise you would be none the wiser in normal use.

Agreed. They serve a purpose that is unknown to many, if you ever have no choice but to drive through a deep flood then removal of said flap will prevent water being sucked up into the cylinders through the much lower air intake and wrecking the engine, this is more a problem with a diesel engine than petrol.

Have you done lots of short journeys recently and had interrupted regens? I had the light twice, once when I was rebuilding the car after the write off, never driven more than backwards and forwards in and out of the garage, frequent start ups (as you do with a new toy!) and allowing the engine to reach operating temperature. The second time was the beginning of the confinement when travel restrictions were the most rigid and very short local journeys. Both times probably coincided with the car wanting to do a regen and failing multiple times.

I read somewhere that Santa Claus is real!

That depends on how many kms it has driven since the last regen, dont get hung up on the number as its an estimated value in any case, there are VCDS parameters for calculated and measured the former is away with the fairies and the latter is not measured but calculated from the DPF differential pressure, that is the only parameter worth being concerned with. Soot level should be close to zero after a regen but the increased back pressure on a higher mileage engine will raise that to say 6 - 10 grammes, regen is triggered around the 22.5-25 gramme figure, it varies. No point unless the DPF warning light comes on in which case driving the car through a regen is preferable, if succeed in getting the chocolate teapot VCDS to do a static regen then you are a better man than me!

Must be true then

Remove your undertray and you may well find it lying there.

If that is where the driver parked it to go into the store then it speaks volumes!!!

That will be a shunt diode. Lock mode will be contact shut = zero resistance, unlock mode will be open circuit. It may be the opposite dependent on whether the system should fail safe or fail secure.

It may not have been imported, foreign visitors can and do bring their vehicles with them to do rallyes, attend car shows etc, driving on the roads, it said that it was registered and insured in another country. Is there a temporary import procedure like a carnet for this? There are many UK vehicles that cannot be registered in my country due to lack of homologation, mainly kit-cars or modified vehicles, they can be driven legally by the owner if they are not French resident, time limits apply for having to declare residency which then makes driving the vehicle illegal. The car was impounded as part of a swoop on UK nationals driving foreign registered vehicles, now I no longer have a UK address I fall into that category, I can drive over there on visits for funerals etc (my only reason to return) but were I to move back permanently I would have to stop driving the car immediately pending re-registration, probably not even allowed to drive back from the ferry. You will probably know chapter and verse about this. If the driver is the owner of the car then tough justice! He will pay a high price for being a flash show-off, if it's owned by someone abroad then its going to be very complicated and expensive for them to get it back.

Adjust the lock keep plate like they should have done after fitting new seals. To be fair they probably slam everyones doors and tailgates with the same indifference/contempt so may not have noticed.

Yes VCDS should reveal all, if it shows values for soot, oil ash etc then it thinks the car has one which indeed it does visually, you could try a forced regen but when I did that it refused saying a parameter was not met without saying what said parameter was, par for the course with the chocolate teapot. Keep an eye on the readings and also the DPF differential pressure, the values for soot and ash are calculated and not real, the diff pressure is real, if you see the soot and ash reading lower than they were (regen triggered at around 22g of soot I think) and also a lower diff pressure then its reasonable to deduce that DPF regens are being commanded and doing what they should. You could also look at the commanded and measured values of the EGR valve position, if it says N/A then its been coded out in as much as the ECU doesnt think it exists any more, maybe the coding is a software patch that pretends it is still there, in which case you can manually command it using Output Tests and feel it to see if the motor turns, in my case with the emulator simulator the EGR wont budge but the output from the position sensor (false output from simulator) will tell the ECU that it has moved by the correct amount. I hope the above makes some sense, I know what my black box (emulator) does but I dont know what the tuners do when they claim to "map out" something, I am speculating with an educated guess.

Perhaps it was a misunderstanding and it was the EGR that was mapped out? They can be blanked without removal, in fact its the preferred way as it looks stock, a thin shim steel blanking plate is used the same size and form as the original flange gasket. Mine has been disabled by using an emulator/simulator which has the same effect as mapping the EGR out, the car still performs DPF regens but very very rarely as I also had the engine software rolled back to the original emissions cheating version, my vehicle has been remapped. From what you describe you have the ultimate, more power, no EGR and infrequent regens, - enjoy it to the full

Very easy, the only thing easier, slightly easier, was doing the job on a MK1 Octavia. Credit where it is due, VAG certainly put the right sort of effort into the design of the blower installation on both those vehicles.

I presume that you make a mistake typing and that the car was not left standing for 10 years. How much were you paying for insurance? If its anything like what others have said the UK prices are they will get back their outlay very quickly through your future increased premiums. It has only cost them maybe £1K net after taking into account what they will get for the salvage and your excess.

No implication of rarity made, thank you for confirming that the production overlap models were for taxi companies.

Up to 3m resting on the dashboard for the estate, use padding in front to protect the windscreen from emergency braking. You can load 3m long stuff in my case metal stud wall sections up to about 10cm high, 60cm wide before the rake of the screen reduces the length.

Not sure if the rear calipers can be transposed in that way, I have been caught out by not knowing about the master cylinder bleed nipple on the MK1 Octavia. @Joe41 is it really 2008 and a MK1? If so then its an ex cop car or taxi special build.