J.R.

Battery or charging problem, possibly fractured alternator lead were the thoughts I had. I think its safe to assume that the garage do not have a clue and are relying on what the auto-elec is telling them, there is no fault code that says "new steering rack needed" my bet is that the code says cannot communicate with module or supply voltage low and all they can think of is changing the rack. I expect when or if you get the fault code you will be able to decide what to do, it doesn't sound like the garage does.

Yep, thats the one I was thinking of! Add a flywheel to that and you would need to turn off the ignition 5 minutes before the engine would stop!

The conclusion to your previous thread is very sad Gaz, now with the benefit of hindsight I can see that there was some doubt in your mind back then "all being well..........." etc

That was entirely expected! The warranty on your car expired 3 years ago, it became a second hand car the day you drove it out of the showroom. Most turbos will indeed last well beyond 100K miles, yours didn't, that is life, do you understand what MTBF stands for and the significance of the 'M'? Had it failed within the warranty period they should have replaced it but not without first trying to tap you up for diagnostic fees, by all means try and get some contribution but in reality it will end up costing cost you more even if you do succeed.

I'm pretty sure your posting was a wind up but I am biting all the same. Just paint them black, preferably matt black and then let them become covered in brake dust as they should be. A good choice for braking performance though 👍

The revs are falling off at the correct rate, yes an engine would slow down quicker on a closed throttle but at the cost of emissions (oil mist drawn through valve guides and past piston rings) so the idle by pass valve allows air but not fuel to pass removing the intake vacuum. Fuelling is added as it nears idle speed and you can see that by the marked slowing down of the fall of the RPM, the hunting up and down between 800 and 1000 rpm is the idle stabilisation circuit, the first upwards blip I would expect but not the hunting while you were trying to maintain a fast idle, there will be an air leak somewhere, either a vacuum pipe, the idle by pass valve or EGR valve not seating properly. I doubt that the revs will ever fall faster between gear changes than they currently do. The engine may also have a lot of inertia from the flywheel, if it has one of those abortion 3 bearing crankshafts then that alone will produce enough inertia to make you change gear slowly.

Later revision that is all. Why do so many people think that a manufacturer should cough up when a part fails on an old second hand car? Aside from where a manufacturer is liable and there has been a recall most contributions that I have read of have actually cost the customer more than had they not gone to the main dealer asking for one.

In the dry the 1.6mm tyre will massively outperform the 7mm one, people get a big time false sense of security from new tyres. For close to 2 decades I drove on part worn tyres, I would buy on how evenly the tread was worn and not how deep it was, a set of evenly worn tyres with 4mm tread was the optimum, you could drive them to their limit (a much higher limit than a tyre with more tread) and not be concerned about them scrubbing out an inside (usually) edge. You get far more miles from the last 3mm of tread than from the first 3mm (based on 8mm tread) and you don't have to mollycoddle them, far more tyres are trashed in the first 3mm of wear than the last yet many people buy new tyres when their old ones are at the point of giving their best performance.

The fuelling will be much improved if you sort out the thermostat, I doubt that it will need a new one, just some corrosion removing from the spindle or a foreign body removed from the valve orifice. The original part if its serviceable will be better than any aftermarket one.

You may well find that the battery tray has all the retaining lugs for the proper plastic battery case and lid as fitted to earlier models like the MK2 Octavia. I took a punt on a really cheap one from Ali-Express and with a bit of persuasion it fitted perfectly on the Yeti. I know it does not need a cover but once you have had a decent one like the MK2 then the underbonnet area on the Yeti looked naked with the soppy felt thing which looked like Alexis Sale after I had fitted a bigger 096 battery!

Part number is of the engine mounting bracket, the wire is an earth termination, your photos do not show what module if any it is connected to. A missing earth is never a good thing, as a temporary measure you could strip some insulation and clamp the exposed conductor under the remains of the ring terminal.

Not entirely correct, as long as the track surface is not so wet to prevent you getting heat into the tyres then slicks still grip very well, better than intermediates or wets, its a balancing act and many dont have intermediates at all. The biggest danger for slicks is standing water and aquaplaning but as you would have been seeking out the drier line to keep heat in the tyres you will be aware of it and when it starts to encroach on your passage and decide to pit. A driver of a car car on wets or inters side by side with one on slicks will not be able to outbrake it if they take the line through standing water even though the slick shod car is on a wet track, same deal with accelerating out from a corner.

Check the wiring in the tailgate bellows, if you are lucky you will find that one of the canbus twisted pair is fractured and making intermittent contact.

Maybe the phosphating has been dropped along with the shot peening.

Indeed they do, back in the day when I spent all my time repairing old bangers I dont even think they painted coil springs, every one I ever removed (to replace leaking struts, the springs rarely broke) was covered in rust it wasn't until I bought a 1980 Scirrocco that I was surprised to find black painted coil springs. The paint is decorative, its the phosphate layer that gives the limited corrosion protection, if the ends did not rub they would last a lot longer but they are certainly higher stressed these days with the smaller wire diameter which is not desirable on a torsion spring.

Cheap or expensive springs the wire diameter and the latent failure mode will be the same. The paint, thickness or lack thereof is a red herring. I have editted my posting regarding weight saving, I had expressed myself badly.

7 year wait to get a welcome to the forum! 😆

I would check the engine oil level on your dipstick before starting the engine 🤣

Leave the wheels exactly as they are, they make the car look even more honest. I am so jealous of that car, it reminds me in some ways of an 80's Mitsubishi Hatchback (I cant even recall the model) that I resurrected for my sister but that was a high miler with rotten wings (I replaced them) not a time warp honest car like yours, it was the same colour though and cleaned up just like yours, even high miler Jap small capacity engines run like sewing machines but yours is just extraordinary, I'm so pleased it has been saved.

Not sure if that is actually a word but I like it! If it isn't it should be 👍 We need a modern day Michael Winner to use it and make it stick!

Bent conrods? in your dreams!

Not on a diesel it wont, although at the time you posted the OP, like many, had not given out the important information of which engine his car has. After the first 30 seconds of running a diesel has no significant additional enrichment, some of the heat energy will be lost to the overfunctioning cooling system but no more than keeping the heater on full, neither of which are measurable in MPG terms.

If the problem manifests itself again then it was not the thermostat but the far more likely water pump shrod sleeve. Very rare for a thermostat to stick closed, rare but not impossible if the wax capsule has leaked.

I apologise but that frequent misspelling presses all my buttons, I usually keep quiet but you have spelled "brakes" correctly as many times as misspelled it.

I had a similar problem doing the belt on my MK1 Octavia, a neighbour was looking through the flywheel access hole & telling me when it was (not 🥴) at TDC. I also thought there were fuel problems etc, a very good rough & ready diagnostic is to see if the engine fires on Easy-Start, if it does then you have a cam timing/torsion angle problem as I did, if it doesn't start then the valves are bent! You would have already bent them through cranking so no risk in trying to fire it up as a diagnostic. I simply had to retime after setting the engine at TDC myself! Also be aware that an out of measured limits torsion value will show as zero degrees making you think it is spot on, in reality it is incerdibly hard to set it exactly at zero degrees and the value should go negative (maybe positive?) when the engine is revved. Also VCDS or VAG use a negative value for torsion when it should be positive and vice versa which make you adjust the cam in the wrong direction.