J.R.

Why are you removing the alternator? Is it necessary? Most failed or failing alternators on these vehicles can be cheaply and easily repaired by replacing the regulator/brush pack or simply freeing off the brushes if stuck, this can usually be done leaving the alternator in situ. Now I dont know if that is the case on your car but given the stretchy belt thing (is there really no tensioner?) then it has to be worth considering and looking at.

Highly unlikely that the sensor is faulty or has failed, very probable that there is a connector problem. Resetting the warning light will most likely cure the fault until the next occurrence.

Sorry, not biting thanks.

Interesting that you say that, the new fridge freezer I have in the UK draws practically no energy whenever I check the quiescent consumption on the smart meter, the compressor probably cuts in when my back is turned but even when it was running the consumption was very low. I am currently living on site in a touring caravan with a 3 way ammonia absorption type fridge freezer, I was surprised at how much mains current was being drawn, with all the lights, hot water heater, 24v circuits and battery charging circuit etc switched off it was still drawing 200 watts which turned out to be the fridge freezer, it is a constant load 24/7 and given that the caravan heats up to 50°+ in the sunlight in this current heatwave it is working overtime. I left a week ago to collect more stuff, return tomorrow, I did not want to defrost the unit because the frozen food would have defrosted on the 12 hour journey but it will have cost me a lot of money to leave it running, 4.8kw per day, 7 days, that has cost €5.60!!!

Thankyou again 👍

Thanks, that was exactly what I needed. How do you search a flash file database, where is it and what should one be looking for? That said I am very happy with mine now, it is now doing what those nice emission cheating VAG engineers intended it to do!

Declag the throttle valve (and intake tract if necessary) before doing anything else, then you can establish a baseline before you entrust your vehicle to an unknown adolescent with a laptop, you really have no idea of what software they might load or even if they have done anything. Hopefully someone will respond with how to check the software revision number and its applicability and then I can post what mine is now.

They cost from €10, they are all pattern parts in any case as the compressor manufacturers only sell complete compressors, usually they simply require cleaning and testing before refitting but at €10 its worth havin a new one. Try and do a deal with someone to recover your refrigerant gas and then sell it back to you once you have changed the valve.

That is excellent news! Without trawling back through to be sure I think that was one of the possibilities that I mentioned, if it comes to pass then you will look back and say that perhaps it was meant to be! I assume you have no risk taking the exams but from practicing the trade?

There has been synchromesh on most gearboxes since the Sierra MT75 boxes in the late 80's, every Skoda and VAG vehicle I have owned since then has had synchro on reverse gear but I was corrected on this forum after making a generalisation and informed that some of the lower power rated gearboxes on older Fabias etc had no reverse synchro. First thing is to establish whether the OP's gearbox should have synchro on reverse gear, second is does it grind while engaging the gear or the gear fail to engage and grinds when the clutch is brought up?

No problem, it's a natural assumption and the concept of pull up or pull down resistors is not an easy one to grasp, basically if it were an open zero volt input (without a pull down resistor) waiting for a voltage to be applied by the sensor it would pick up all manner of stray radiated and induced voltages so pull up resistors are used with the sensor forming the second potential divider resistance.

I have never used an engine crane to remove a cylinder head unless it was stuck nor needed a second pair of hands although these days I would not be shy of asking for help especially for refitting if the chains have to be threaded through.

I have done 33K miles with rotation and the tyres were not new when I got the car, there is still about 4mm left if not more on all of them, I am very surprised for a 4x4.

They are inputs not outputs, they do not put out 4.7 volts to the sensor as such, that is the open collector (I'm rusty but I think that was the term) voltage from a pull up resistor in the ECU, the sensor when it is working will pull the signal down proportionate to whatever is being measured, the ECU measures the reduced voltage to decide what the parameter value is, if the wire is snipped as you have done then it will measure the full open collector voltage and generate the confusing fault code "signal XYZ open or closed circuit"

Thats what I have done all my life, I finally bought an engine support bar last year to remove my transmission but would not use it to remove the cylinder head. Whilst I would not recommend anyone else to do this but given what you have said the value of your car is in its broken state and that you do not rely on it having access to other vehicles then I would spend the absolute minimum of money on it to get it running after inspection to see if the broken piston holds up or burns through as I suspect it might. If it ran OK for say 1K miles then I would probably do the job again properly. That is to say first time round I would try to straighten the valves on my lathe using a hide mallet and clock guage then grind them in, I would remove the debris from the piston and take a view, I would probably reuse the head gasket if it came off intact, no point wasting money if the engine is going to grenade but if it holds up then do it again with new valves if required, gaskets, stretch bolts, camchain & tensioner etc. It's not worth your time towing it to a garage, it is an uneconomic repair if you have to pay anyone to repair it, most would not take on the risk and I don't blame them.

How have you established that the car is doing 9 kms to one litre of fuel? The dash display will report either MPG or Litres per 100 km.

22mpg does not equal 9 kms per litre, is that a figure you have read or one you have calculated? It does not equal 9 liters/100km either.

Valve is readily available and easy to fit, the problem is you will lose the refrigerant charge and create your own personal hole in the ozone layer. If you have VCDS check the post evaporator temperature sensor and also the system pressure but use temperature tables and a thermometer, the pressure should rise to something like 10 bar (temperature dependant) then fall as both fans cut in, the post evaporator temp sensor should show at least 8°c less than the ambient air. If all this is happening then yes, it's likely to be a flap problem, you can also compare the commanded and actual values for the stepper motors in VCDS. Ignore anything it tells you about cmpressor loading, torque or N280 % actuation, its what it thinks should be happening rather than what is hence the above advice. The best and quickest way is with a manifold guage set, they cost less than €30 from Ali-Express or Ebay.

A missed apostrophe? Interior fan's only working............ ?

The tone and content of your replies bear testament to that.

What difference would it make for someone to give you a figure now? The time to negotiate would have been before you instructed them to undertake the work . In addition to the labour there are their overhead costs, the time to package and send away the ABS unit etc.

Heat generated by the shunt resistors, probably underrated components, combined with a lack of heatsinking, I believe the assembly is potted but could be wrong.

I struggled to get 40mpg from mine (also a 4x4) and it could not pull the skin off a rice pudding, removing and declagging the throttle valve made a vast difference and I immediately gained 5-10mpg on the same regular journeys. Since then I have fitted an EGR emulator to prevent the build up of clag, had it remapped to a supposed 184hp and finally quite recently had the emissions fix rolled back, the latter has made the biggest difference of all and probably negates the need for the EGR emulator. Its hard to give an average MPG now as my journey profiles have changed so much and I am frequently doing 500 mile autoroute runs towing heavily (over)loaded trailers but even on them the economy has increased significantly, on 20km B road journeys where I initially struggled to exceed 40mpg I now get 55mpg all day long and often exceed 60mpg which I never thought I would get with a high flat fronted brick with a part time 4x4 system. The car had 79K miles on it when I declagged it, it has now done 113K, the emissions rollback has made a big difference to the MPG because (I believe) it is no longer wasting fuel doing frequent regens, before it would regen on calculated figures and ignore the actual readings (always very low thanks to no EGR) and passive regenerations, it was regenning every 120km but worst of all my 20 minute cross country commute was not quite long enough to warm up and complete so the fans were running every time i stopped and every journey tried another regen, and this straight after I had towed a massive heavy trailer for 500 miles & the measured soot was zero. I had the fix removed a few months ago and this week was the first time I heard the fans signifying a failed regen, it has done precisely 1000kms since the last one plus the few extra while it was trying, I have been regularly checking the kms since last regen using VCDS, now I am convinced that it regens after exactly 1000kms whether it needs it or not. I forgot to say that it is now almost as economical on short 4km return journeys into town and back as it is on a run.

Check your high and low oil pressures anyway, you have after all bought the tools to do so. Fresh oil will mask a failing oil pump, I would not be convinced that the engine flush has cured whatever the problem was, it may have eased it in the case of a blocked strainer but the engine will still need attention, more likely the new oil has reduced the pumping losses. Check the pressures against the manufacturers specifications and then do so after a couple of thousand miles when the oil has thinned. Was the oil level before the oil change very low or perhaps overhigh?

The word crease makes it sound a challenge but in general these vehicles now have very thin steel and very thick paint, if the dent has not stretched or creased the metal and the paint is intact then if there is access it can be removed completely without paint damage by an experienced person. And there is only one way to get the experience! Once you start using panelbeating hammers and dollies paintwork damage is very likely. I have scores of PDR repairs to do, I have tackled the worst/easiest and in most cases reduced them significantly but they are still visible but that was just with selected hand tools, wooden & rubber blocks & wedges etc, I keep meaning to buy a PDR set, I borrowed a basic one once from a renter, it had some good bridge tools but none of the cranked ball end levers whatever they are called. With that I could bring a dent out close to flush but needed to manipulate and stretch it from the rear to bring it flush and make it stay there.