J.R.

That looks a pain to use, I have found that even with the proper tool you have to constantly adjust the course threaded sleeve to maintain the axial pressure and engagement of the tool, rotation alone usually ends up spinning and not catching (I want to say tourner dans la vide but don't know how in English). I wont be adding one of those to my toolkit!

That will end up back on the road and not even be shown as a Cat S (structural damage), my vehicle was because the airbags had deployed yet the only bodywork damage was 2 broken plastic slats in the radiator grill and some scuffing to the front bumper which mostly polished out, I still have the same bumper on the vehicle, it looks no different to one on any other high mileage vehicle yet it is recorded as Cat S structural damage.

And no airbags deployed? 🥴

I assume that you are comparing to before the clutch job, its possible that the connector was already cracked and leaking some air, now the vacuum operated systems are working as they should. Unless you mean you have a higher brake pedal force and less engine power.

Unless you are working yourself up for a compo claim there is no way that a scrape along the side like that is going to give the driver any physical pain, pain in the wallet, anger, frustration, all the other emotions yes but not physical pain.

He probably switches off when Battery Man goes into yet another monologue on his favored subject. Pun intended.

You had me googling in excitement for a while though, I am currently selling my UK property and will be transferring the funds into Euros.

There is a label which can be viewed from the front underside if the undertray is removed or by using a mirror. The pumps will vary according to the manufacturer, the Sandex PX15 being the most common but as they are interchangeable they all carry the same VAG part number, you need to know what make it is if ordering aftermarket parts (OE ones dont exist, just the complete assembly) like the modulating valve or shear plate.

€1.9 = £1 is way way off the mark, it has never ever been anywhere near that figure. It has sat comfortably at or around €1.20 = £1 for several years and is at that exact figure today.

There is a risk of overinflating the front tyres, the nose weight on the towball loads the rear suspension and applies a turning moment about the rear axle unloading the front suspension, this is more noticable with stiff rear springs like on my Yeti, as the jockey wheel is lowered you can visibly see the rear suspension sag and the front suspension rise but the physics are exactly the same for the softer sprung Octavia estates. If you look at the load/pressure icon it shows 3 or 4 passengers plus luggage and its the rear tyres that get the most inflation, the fronts hardly any extra. If you are towing a caravan or trailer without a full complement of passengers and luggage/goods in the rear of the vehicle inflating the front tyres over the standard setting will result in less effective front brakes, thankfully most of us when towing try to avoid anything other than gentle braking but emergency situations may not be foreseeable or avoidable although most often are.

First world problem.

Can you expand on that please Aperture S? I realise that the controllers must be monitoring the voltage drop in order to give out high or low resistance fault codes but do not know how to access that detail in VCDS, it would be very usefull and avoid having to hold probes in place with both hands with the meter dangling out of view. I get really peeved with the fault codes that say "high resistance or short circuit", they are mutually exclusive and not specifying which one is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

My MK2 Octavia was sold as spare or repair due to an alleged broken engine block and a recurring airbag fault, looking through the history file I was shocked to see that the owners had spent thousands with their trusted garage over the years paying to have the airbag fault codes removed every couple of months and having allegedly paid to have the passenger seat airbag and both seatbelts replaced, in the end they got fed up with throwing good money after bad. None of the airbag components had of course been replaced but I could see a lot of bodging had been done on the connectors, I had a few false victorys until I removed the seat and found an extra connector tucked up under the foam squab. The MOT (done by same garage) said upper engine mounting broken, needs new engine block, this was just after they had done a timing belt and left a bolt loose, the broken threaded boss was not the engine block at all but the alloy combined alternator and power steering pump mounting bracket which the engine mount bolts on to, I had one the next day from a breaker on ebay for £10.

Hear-hear!

Not much for heatshrink to grip onto, the stub has broken off inside the flexible hose. I would drill both parts out enough to insert a piece of copper brake or fuel line, whatever I had to hand of a suitable diameter and bore, loctite the pipe into both pieces then reinforce the outside with 2 pack epoxy putty or Sikaflex moulding it to shape & into position with wet fingers once it starts to harden. Did they manage to fix your master cylinder? A mechanic pals catchphrase was "if we cant fix it we'll f**k it!" I hope your brake pedal doesn't drop to the floor again.

Rear and/or Front subframe misaligned, these guys with all the electronic gear often don't have a clue from what baseline to start the procedure. What were the readings before he started breaking bolts and fitting new parts? It could be that the new arm is incorrect but without knowing what the pre adjustment readings were it's only a guess. Editted, if neither rear will toe in enough then ignore my comment about subframe misalignment.

There are probably more connectors than the ones you have located, some are buried in the upholstered section, that said you may have already remade any bad contact, the fault code does indeed need to be erased to extinguish the light, assuming the fault is no longer present.

If no fault codes present on a proper dealer level code reader like VCDS or compressor shut down code then it will be either a sticking G65(?) modulating valve, shear plate sheared or the alloy drive hub splines stripped. Those are the only conditions that I know where the ECU has commanded the aircon & believes it is working but the pump is not actually turning.

It's not the damping but the software that decides what level to show, the fuel measurement is astonishingly accurate especially with twin senders on the saddle tanks, however below approx 3/8 of a tank it progressively removes indicated capacity in order to create the 5-7 litre reserve capacity that exists when the guage shows zero and the maxidot shows zero miles remaining. The range indicator is spot on for a full tank if you use the reserve capacity otherwise below 3/8 of a tank it starts to lie and when it shows 1/8 or less it is complete BS.

The central spline can rip out, the shear plate can be replaced and its available from Polish E-bay sellers, I have replaced mine which I damaged by recharging the aircon with the cylinder inverted at too fast a rate. When I have had the hubs strip on a MK2 it made a tinkling noise like breaking glass but with the aircon on, I now have a noise like you with the aircon off, I will decribe it and why I think it could be the bearing the pulley runs on. For expediency when I bought a shear plate I fitted it to an old pulley assembly which had the threaded fasteners as my pulley was rivetted, that pulley and its bearing had done a very high mileage, now I get a whuum-whuum-whuum cyclical droning noise at low engine revs with the aircon off no noise with AC on and it works perfectly, the shear plate, fixings and hub are all intact, its a noisy bearing which gets quieter when under load as it cannot then resonate, another job to be put off till its cooler. The job is simple if the wheel, wheelarch liner and intermediate plastic cover is removed, access is then good, no puller needed just large circlip pliers, the central nut can be difficult to remove if the shear plate is broken and you risk bending the pump shaft, if intact its easy. Use Loctite bearing fit on the splines of the drive hub, I have had a couple strip in service.

I thought the lamp holder unit was plastic? Looks more like a capillary water trap combined with the naturally thin electrostatic zinc primer coat on panel edges to me. Even if the housing was a dissimilar metal the fixings go through rubber insulating grommets so I am giving a myth busted for galvanic corrosion in this instance.

Happy birthday Ken.

Slave cylinder be it concentric or external would be on the passenger side of a UK RHD vehicle. Drivers side indicates the master cylinder, my money is on the pipe joint underneath given that the clutch system was worked on in the last year, the O ring seal needs to be pressed onto the pipe with a positive click and then the pipe pushed into the cylinder and the retaining clip pushed home. Common sense and habitude tells you to put the O ring into the cylinder bore then introduce the pipe, this will cause either an instant or delayed leak. No need to ask how I know. There is no pedal return spring but a control loading spring and cam which will push the pedal either up from just above the mid point or down from just below the midpoint, this produces the weird pedal falling to the floor symptom when a concentric cylinder draws in air from the joint in the plastic parts but does not leak fluid. All of the above is for the OP or anyone else reading as Ken has blocked my posts.

What difference does it make to the battery (or charger) if it is on or off the vehicle?

And you have the best parking surface for oil leaks, you could park a 60/70's British car or motorcycle on that and it would still look good!