J.R.

Under 7.5 volts and the smart chargers will not start the charge, above 7.5v but below 11v (or so) they go into a pulse mode to try and regenerate the battery. If you battery is under 7.5v it will have suffered damage and will never be 100% but you will be able to start the charge on the smart charger if you charge it in parallel with another battery as long as it is not equally discharged.

Seems to be a daily occurrence people posting complex problems without saying which engine their car has and what fuel......................... Is your vehicle petrol or diesel? Does it refuse to rev above 2.5k at a standstill when engaging reverse gear or when the vehicle is in motion reversing? The TDi's are rev limited to (usually) 2.5k until the vehicle is in motion to protect the transmission from drag starts. It's hard to imagine a situation where you would want more than 2K or 2.5K RPM (assuming vehicle is diesel) before engaging the clutch in reverse or to want to drive in reverse above 2K rpm. Mind you in my teens both I believed that both were compulsory 🤣

They may have a sign up saying they are trade only but thats only because someone somewhere caused them grief regarding the planning conditions for selling from industrial premises. My TPS had the sign up when I went in but were happy to sell to me and continue to be, I get a minimum of 8% discount and they will deliver FOC to my residential address, in fact they prefer that but invariably I need something immediately and they have it in stock. They sued to sell to me under "Generic trade counter sales" and thats what the invoices show but when I phone up their system recognises my phone number and brings up all my details and the sales guy with all the info in front of him pretends to be my best mate & can recall exactly the last time I was in, what I bought etc just like a recruitment consultant or other sale led organisation will do, they don't do stuff like that if they don't want to sell, if you look through to where they are all on the phones (or used to be before Covid & WFH) you will see the whiteboard with a leaderboard of all their names and daily/weekly/monthly sales targets and performance, they really want your business if you know what you want and don't take up their time, if you are looking for mudflaps, an air freshener and a tartan travel rug you will be shown the door. My recent invoices have all been in the name of "Generic Taxi Driver"!, I'm not one but it's probably their way of getting whatever is the latest restriction forced on them. I am not buying much from them, very infrequent but I buy in quantity for the future so 5 filters and 20 litres of Qunatum oil if its on special offer, I bought a lot when I rebuilt this vehicle but it included lots of tiny low value obscure trim parts etc, they were more than happy to look up the parts numbers etc or confirm that the one that I had given them had the correct suffix for the trim level, colour etc, they didn't get the hump either when I said "forget that one, I can get it cheaper on ebay"

More and more these days "cant find any/anywhere" means nothing came up on Google, if they are available from TPS then they will be available from any main dealer parts counter the length and breadth of the country but many people think if it can't be found on Google then it doesnt exist. Way back in 2005 when I moved to France a friend wanted to visit me, he said "do you know there are no camp sites anywhere in your area, the nearest is 130kms away!" I could walk 15 minutes and pass 3 small camp sites, there were probably 30 within a 10km radius, every large village or small town had a municipal camp site but no, I was wrong there was nothing in my area, he had checked on the internet. To be fair all of them will be either have a web page or be listed somewhere now.

I didn't think of doing the above, I assume my car has those plugs and the manual locking mechanism, doing it that way would not set the alarm off either.

I'm sure mine would with the new battery currently fitted, the problem is that an older battery may have more than enough oomph to start the engine on the coldest of days but not enough capacity to counteract its own self discharge and the cars quiescent consumption (which can be quite high on some) over an extended period of 3 months. I think the alarm battery also plays a part in this, they are supposed to last for 5 years, many don't but while they are still working but on the way to failure they themselves self discharge and are a considerable draw on the vehicles battery replacing that charge, a quiescent current on one car might be 20ma, an identical one where the alarm battery is failing may be drawing 50ma on shut down, the first car will restart after 3 months, the second will refuse after a month or so.

They can even morph into rusty crankshaft position sensors 😆

Yes but they can be recalibrated by performing a long low slow battery charge followed by a slow hot oil change, after doing that they only take 200 miles to react 🤣

Dynamic maps are constantly updating in any case. My favorite one was reading that a knock sensor needs a tankfull of fuel to be consumed to adapt to a different octane 😆

It is true that you will have read that nonsense repeatedly on here.

That will either not lock because the bonnet is open or if you work your way around that then the alarm siren will sound when you disconnect the battery. OTOH deciding to unlock with the key at the end of the term still causes problems because you can only lock/unlock the drivers door and you have to find a way to lock the other doors. With a lot of head scratching and experimentation I did find a way to achieve battery disconnection without sounding the alarm and being able to lock all the passengers doors leaving the drivers door to lock manually with the key, of course I cannot now remember how but at least i know it is possible. With a battery that shows 75% life remaining on a proper electronic tester, one which cranks the engine quickly and always starts the car without hesitation you are unlikely to be able to start the vehicle after 8 weeks with the battery connected, the alarm and central locking reciever etc are always active and draining the battery, you may find it wont even open the doors. The same battery left disconnected would be fine.

It will improve for a while through the bleeding but will likely return, garage was correct to tackle the easier cheaper master cylinder first just in case.

I have 185 tyres fitted to 4.5" wide rims on three trailers, I fitted them myself manually and was expecting a struggle but they slid on like a slippery stick up a dogs jacksie. Why does rim width also depend on aspect ratio? I'm not disputing it but would like to understand why.

Thankyou for your insights.

Anybody able to translate that for me please?

Wait for the andropause & you will no longer be scratching your balls & the car will behave!

With the amount of modifications from standard, mods to fool the ECU, cracked manifold etc I doubt that anyone would want to get involved in fixing the issues without first reverting everything back to standard. My contribution wont resolve your problem but hopefully may help you understand the rich mixture/lean O2 sensor reading conundrum. If the Lambda sensor is telling the ECU that the combustion mixture is weak (probably as a result of the other bodges) then the ECU will enrichen the mixture to compensate and will continue to do so if the Lambda reading does not change, you have a closed loop circuit in open loop.

I am really pleased that with the help and support of this forum you were able to resolve the problem and were very fortunate with the breakdowns, there have been many reported cases of the auxiliary drive belt breaking and estrying the timng belt cover and consequently timing belt failure, bent valves etc. I'm now wondering if many of these might have been through seizure of the OAP or even worse incorrect fitment of the wrong pulley, everybody chooses on price especially a mechanic who has given a price & then wants to pay the least for the repair parts. How many of us would even have known of the existance of an OAP let alone why the alternator we chose was cheaper than the others?

Quoting myself here, the following I copied at random from another thread which illustrates to me the disconnect between myself, a driver and vehicle maintenance enthusiast and the newer generation of owners, its not aimed at the person who posted it, it could have been any of the comments in the thread: I have spin enabled, am the primary user and have biometric set too. It’s always wrong when I open the app. Happens on my driveway, happens at the supermarket etc. it always seems to need me to press the refresh button and wait 10-20 seconds. it’s like either the app isn’t pulling down the data (background refresh on iPhone is enabled) or something is wrong during the information update when the app opens. Maybe the mobile reception for the e-sim is weak. But that doesn’t explain why it works when I press refresh… I’ve tried reloading the app, doesn’t help. I am not ashamed, maybe even proud to say that I do not have a clue what the above means nor do I want to, it also illustrates why when I scan through "Active Topics" most of them these days I have no interest in reading. The title of this thread was very apt for my reaction when I read the above or other similar postings.

I understand your comment now having re-read the first posting, they offer a 2WD Scout, I agree, what is the point!

Is it interchangeable, does it fit your shaft? You have no need for an OAD shaft unless you have an alternator like a power station turbine.

At 70K miles I reckon you would not have seen any deterioration whatsoever on close inspection. Worth changing for the peace of mind though.

There cannot possibly be that many herrings in the sea of any colour!

You would gain fuel economy, the 4x4 system even though the drive is decoupled most of the time has a lot of transmission drag through the transfer box and propshaft, the manufacturers fuel consumption figures are significantly higher for the 4x4 variants compared to the FWD ones. Not sure why you are speaking about looks, they should never be a deciding factor on whether to have 4wd or 2wd.

Given what you have quoted from my posting isn't that stating the obvious?