J.R.

Air will not have got into suspension in the fluid through the reservoir cap, they are vented in any case. Spongy brakes is quite normal if the old pads had worn abnormally due to a rusted disc or caliper misalignment, it should dissappear once they have bedded in, if it doesn't then investigate.

Designed for vehicles that use mutliplexed, CAN-Bus, Low Voltage signals to the lights. More Canbus confusion for the unwary to latch on to, the lights are powered by 12 volt battery voltage, the signal from the switch to the lighting node is transmitted by the canbus network. The relay takes its control signal voltage from the 12v outputs to the filament or LED bulbs, it is high impedance so does not drop the voltage and will not trigger bulb overload current warnings. But yes, that is the relay to use and they are 100% reliable fit & forget (if not bodged) unlike the old school predecessors with windings around a reed switch that have to be spaced.

Yeah right!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thats about as accurate as all the talk of canbus compatible LED bulbs.

The problem is caused by overfuelling, trying to squeeze the extra in after the pump clicks, something I do all the time but mine is diesel and doesn't seem to be affected. The evaporative canister is intended to recieve fuel vapour, liquid fuel will block it. Filling right to the top of the neck the fuel will just flow down to the canister, even just beneath that it will happen with heat expansion. Once the canister is full of fuel the tank cannot vent other than through the canister pressure relief valve which is full of fuel. The hot weather has made the problem worse and also shown up canisters that have already become clogged, I do not know why mine and other diesels have escaped the problem but it will be to do with the vaporising point of the fuel, amongst the fuel cans in my garage its the petrol ones that swell up and sometimes leak in the heat, never the diesel.

It's a 12 year old vehicle that is going to be carrying a bicycle on the rear, not the Space Shuttle. A bog standard cheapy towbar with a high impedance towing relay will be just fine, the towbar does not interfere with the reversing sensors (if fitted) on the MK2. I do agree with steering clear of Halfords though!

I do all my own repair work, a model year 2006 Octavia was no challenge and neither is my model year 2015 Yeti, you just have to keep up with the changing technology but its incorrect to say that a DIY owner cannot work on his modern car, yours is a 2004 and a clutch change on that would be a breeze compared to the one I did on my Yeti with the integrated 4x4 transmission, the crossmember had to be removed and the transmission unit weighed 68kg but if I can do it without a ramp at 63 years of age anybody can. The problem for me is that at least initially Skodas were just too darn reliable that you never needed to work on them and never got to keep your hand in and keep up with the changing technology, my MK1 Octavia did me no favours, nothing went wrong with it in 13 years and 325000 miles of ownership, I did not even know that it had a Canbus network, I really had some catching up to with the MK2 Octavia.

Sorry to hear that Mike, did they steal the keys?

There must be a reason why so many DPF diff press sensors failed imediately after a cambelt change. Valve timing incorrect resulting in higher exhaust gas temperatures? Hard to imagine them being hotter than during a regen but retarded ignition timing (not in this instance) can cause the exhaust headers to go cherry red even at idle speed.

VCDS error codes or in truth the VAG diagnostics behind it should never be taken at face value, I bet it actually says open circuit or short to ground which are mutually exclusive. You should always start by testing the supply voltage to the sensor and the wiring continuity back to the ECU before condemning a sensor, unless of course you are a garage in which case it's giving you the green light to play parts bingo with the customers money. You could also look at the live data readings before getting down & dirty.

Would you mind editting your posting please to put in some sentences and paragraphs please as it is impossible for me to read in its present form as a solid block of text.

They are not summer tyres, they are simply tyres (without a prefix) capable of all year round use (driving with respect to the weather and road conditions) as have been fitted to vehicles since the pneumatic tyre was invented. There were always specialist snow tyres & off road M&S (mud & snow) tyres, then a company decided to market their new M&S tyres as "Winter Tyres" and since then Internet evangelists have been telling people living in warm Souther towns & Cities like London that unless they swap between summer & winter tyres or fit 4 season tyres then they are dangerous. My answer to the thread title question is 1.6mm, my aim is to change all 4 tyres together, if I can do that when all 4 are at 1.6mm and evenly worn across the whole thread width then I have done my job well, anything less is wastage of a precious commodity.

Having transported my toolbox from its exile in the UK to my new (work in progress) workshop I have been looking through the tools and pondering whether many of them will see use again, but of course they cannot be thrown away. Amongst them are various propshaft sliding yoke front couplings to stop the oil draining when a prop and/or gearbox is removed, also ford, BL and Vauxhall gearbox first input shafts for centralising clutches. My universal clutch aligning tool mlandrel set I made as a first year apprentice including the hinged sheet metal box that contains it, the prop couplings and first motion shafts required a trip to the breakers yard and stripping down vehicles and dismantling gearboxes to source, now we just click a mouse!

Is that the guy who normally wears a balaclava to give himself some anonymity? Or maybe its because it was cold or the best way to keep clean and not get hypoid oil in your hair like mine was for most of my youth. If its the one I am thinking of the videos are very inspirational, I like the way he uses his ribcage as a step when lowering the transmission to the ground. back in my day with RWD gearboxes removed at the side of the road I would lay North/South with my knees clasping the bellhousing and my hands supporting the tailshaft extension just above my neck and wriggle it out onto my chest and stomach in the same way, usually getting hypoid down my neck and on my face and hair as the box tilted.

And as for only getting 3 quotes back from 7 within 2 days from a group E-mailed enquiry during the holiday season and the hottest weather on record....................... What is the world coming to!

Well I for one would not expect a clutch to fail after I had fitted a new headlight, door mirror glass, LED bulbs etc it's disgracefull, they dont make things like they used to, I mean who in the good old days would have believed that a clutch would last for 18 years and 147000 miles? 🤣

Bleeding will alleviate it but the problem will be air being drawn in through the O ring joint between the two plastic parts of the concentric slave cylinder. When you get to the stage as I did of having to bleed the clutch every 20 minutes in town driving (it takes seconds when you have become expert through doing it so many times) you have no choice but to bite the bullet and remoove the gearbox and replace the cylinder usually doing the whole clutch and dual mass flywheel while you are there. The trouble being unless you can find a new old stock original eraly revision number one piece alloy cylinder you will be fitting a new part which will in time fail in exactly the same way, they always suck air in but never leak fluid out. Its been a year since I did mine and 18 months since I first started having problems, back then only a few people had suffered before me, now there are several postings a week ,yours is the second in 2 days.

Issue is revealed towrds the end, it was a long journey to get to the bottom of it.

Its not often that I am speechless. I'm glad that I am self sufficient and dont expect others to bail me out, I stopped paying breakdown insurance premiums 25 years ago because I objected to the way that Green Flag was promoting their service with an Italian Job cameo showing a bimbo painting her nails in her car whilst causing gridlock while the knight in shining armour battled his way to change her unctured wheel for her.

Plastic disc brake heat shields..... mmm.... 🙄, and not even proper moulded plastic with fibre reinforcing. You might as well print them out of chocolate, at least then they would have the same utility as the OE bacofoil ones. For one to get to the stage to drop off you must have been seriously neglecting maintenance.

You called out a breakdown recovery service on a Sunday night because you were struggling doing an oil change? Brave is not the word I would have chosen.

Penny washers through the floorpan for harness mountings would not be sufficient for Motorsport, at least not in the UK with the RAC/MSA writing and enforcing the regs in the Blue Book.

And if you have survived being thrown through the windscreen as you are sailing through the air you can contemplate that when you hit Terra Firma or whatever obstruction stops your trajectory that you really do not want to be doing this with your body folded 90° with 10-15kg of fibre glass and twisted metal strapped to your back, your body and internal organs will become the airbag that absorbs all that momentum.

I have already done it on every tankfull for the last 16 years! I have also ran each vehicle dry (except the common rail Yeti) to establish just how far I could push the envelope. People that fill up as soon as the fuel warning light shows are refuelling 4 times to my 3 times, OK, call it 5 times to my 4 times, nonetheless thats a lot of wasted time over the life of a vehicle. But hey, like most of us when I started motoring it was just putting in a couple of quid at a time when I had the cash.

Absolutely 100% correct. More like 6 or 7 litres from my testing on my various cars, the Yeti being a common rail engine I dont want to run it out completely the lowest that I have gone was to have 1.25 litres of fuel remaining (filled up with 58.25 litres) and I had driven 60 miles since the guage was on zero and the Maxidot said zero miles remaining. This is a post from a long time ago that illustrates the point

That was my exact thought. I saw a Ginetta type kit car presented to scrutineering at Lydden Hill circuit, it was a completely bodged up shed and the scrutineer was looking for a default serious enough so that the guy could not fix it and risk his and the other competitors lives, his lower harness points were attached to the seat frame with spindly roofing bolts, bad enough but the rear attachments were to the rollcage, using a single jubilee clip through the hole in the bolt plate. He offered to reinforce it with Tywraps 😲