J.R.

It looks like the heat shield that goes over the RHS inner driveshaft joint on my vehicle, has it had the gearbox removed?

I had visually inspected everything but its hard now with my vision and from lying on my back, I will give it all a good levering during the CT, the tester is a friend.

Were I to be a WW1 anorak like every other Brit in this area I would be saying that date is technically after the Battle of the Somme, but I am not and had to google it!!!! How do you know that Thiepval is a bit further North than where I live? It is indeed, about 8km vol d'Oiseau!

I used to use a certain cold chisel that was exactly the right size & taper for opening up the knuckle, the last time I was doing it with my breakdown tools in France, my main toolbox being in the UK so I bought a special socket with an elliptical spreader for the knuckle, it worked really really well and will remain in position while you are beating the living daylights out of the knuckle. It's a pain having to disconnect the driveshaft to get the knuckle low enough, the MK1 Octavia was far easier.

The top mount will give compliance and that schlonger of a piston rod is not going to bend, you will know all about it through your backside if it does go coilbound over speed humps etc. Re the dustshields, Macpherson struts never used to have them, nor bump stops now that I think of it, they didn't last long so the shielding is wise but the struts fitted to Skodas for the last decade have a pitifully short life anyway compared to previous ones, so bad that they created the new mantra of "misting" for leaking. I reckon they will go the distance.

I didn't either, I was just going to replace the struts as I had always done on previous vehicles, I started the job, got my knickers in a twist thinking that I did not need to release the driveshaft from the steering knuckle (I was thinking of my MK1 and not the MK2 which is the same as the Yeti) in my senile confusion I tried compressing the spring in siut to give me the clearance I needed to lift the strut from the knuckle & then I noticed loads of tiny ball bearings on the floor 😲 What really made me angry with myself is that it took me a minute or so to work out where they came from, it would have been in an instant when I was younger and I would also have seen and heard them falling. So I aborted the job, reassembled & carried on driving whilst waiting for top mounts & bearings to arrive, a shame because they cost as much as the struts which were a real bargain. I was lucky to have started on the one that had failed so as not to have had to subsequently remove the new drivers strut to fit the mount and bearing after having fitted it, I always start on what is usually the more corrodede and difficult kerbside, it served me well this time.

You have just removed the active part of the bumpstop and left the piston and seal exposed. I understand that there was not a lot you could do about it and that Bilstein are selling rubbish if those components cannot be fitted without the butchering, maybe the piston rod is covered with the weight on the car and its difficult to compare them both on the first picture as the spring coil could be hiding that old and new are in fact the same height. I would be very concerned about the springs being able to become coilbound though.

I have changed out all the same stuff as you so I will check the rear drop links carefully, the front ones were causing (I believe) a rumbling noise that I could not quite pin down plus general crashing over the rubbish roads near my UK house, I put the cheapest ones on and 18 months later fed up with the crashing noises decided to replace them with yet more cheap ones 🤣 but they were in perfect order, the joint still stiff enough to remove with a single spanner. The noise remains, bad roads, maybe the tyres but those rear drop links weem to be worth a look, its due for its CT now after 2 years but the waiting list at my mates place is a week currently (he might be on holiday) and I have not spent that long here (Picardie) for over 6 months.

I'm sure they do indeed work fine with your standard rear springs that you correctly felt were not suitable for your future heavily laden journeys. They remain unsuitable and the new dampers will not have changed that. A shame because had you found variable rate springs you would have had a very good solution. He did a good job on you.

Anti-roll bars and their drop links play no part in anti-dive suspension geometry, the tester will have been misinformed & wised up by 2021 if it was the same person doing that MOT.

It is the first port of call for aircon diagnosis when a system is working but not efficiently.

My prices were Ebay a couple of months ago.

So you have neither changed the springs for variable rate or stiffer ones and expect "Special Active" shock absorbers to support the additional weight of a heavily loaded vehicle? They may make a contribution to ride comfort in transient conditions but are not going to prevent the vehicle on standard springs from dragging its backside like a dog with worms when heavily loaded.

Where can I buy one of the lift kits for the vehicle jack that he is using at 5 minutes in?

Have the high & low side pressures tested with a guage set, failing that VCDS will give the high side pressure and any compressor shut off codes.

Read the listings carefully, I bought what was described as mounts & bearings from a someone who had bought them and not used them but they turned out to be mounts only. From memory a pair of mounts & bearings were from £34 and a pair of bearings from £15, mounts alone somewhere between the two.

Anti-dive linkage? - No way!

Incorrect. The NVH isolation mounts are rubber, the bearings allowing the spring to rotate with the strut are ball thrust bearings, without them the mount would fail in torsion and the spring wind up & jerk damaging the underside of the top mount. They are two seperate and different parts, both needed, the more expensive mounts usually have the bearing included.

Mehod to replace, unbolt old hinge & fit new, do them one at a time and adjust as required to get the best fit, you can use the paint marks on the old hinges from the washers as an initial guide.

I am amazed, looking at the picture the bonnet appears undamaged, normally it would be bent double at the hinge point when they reach the limit of their travel. It would appear that Simply Clever Skoda (VAG actually) have designed the hinges to be sacrificial, if the bonnet sits flush with some adjustment on new hinges you have had a very very lucky escape.

Pointless me looking at the fuel consumption display then, I put different tyres on each day and frequently shave some tread off or let air out before leaving!

One spindle wasn't, you and I can see that in a millisecond, so what they said "the corrosion on the spindle is normal" is actually correct! They don't care any more than I would care if a monthly tenant were to say that one of the pasterboard joints (which was done years before their short rental period) was not done well.

It's not his car, they don't care that one wiper spindle on their car is rusty, it does not prevent them from getting their monthly payments on their investment, they will not be charging him for the rusty spindle on their car when it is returned as they have said "the corrosion on the spindle is normal", what is the issue?

If they are the owners of the vehicle what are you upset about and why are you concerned that they don't consider a rusty wiper spindle is "not right" ? I am really surprised that they made the effort to speak to you in person about such a frivolous demand, you should at least be pleased that they did and that you now have no concerns about being charged for the corrosion of their wiper spindle.

The vans made for that market never have toilets.