J.R.

If the cabin heat seems unchanged and reasonable compared to other heaters then it is almost certainly the coolant temperature sensor (CTS), like so many new posters asking for help you have not stated what engine your vehicle has, certainly on the diesels the CTS is a common failure and also affects the idle speed. Many say to steer clear of pattern part sensors, the VAG ones changed colour from or to green, its the later updated one that you need, I think the green one but please check.

Not at all sure, I am working from memory and the units being a volume are meaningless when the service limit for the DPF is expressed in grammes. I am probably out by one decimal place in one direction or the other, what I can say with certainty is the the number clicks up one digit every 10000 miles, it was 0.9 (or 9 or 0.09) from 90K miles throught to 100K when it increased to 1.0 (or 10 or 0.1). But despite 2 years of googling nowhere can I find what the service limit is in volume terms or a conversion factor from grammes to volume so I am no closer to knowing how close to full my ECU erroneously believes the DPF to be, I am doing frequent long removal journeys towing trailers at present, 500 miles yesterday, the frequency of regens is far too high and it does not take into account all the passive regeneration going on, I rely heavily on the vehicle at present and need to know if it is going to arbitrarily shut down soon.

Fractured cables in the drivers door bellows.

Except the parameters that are read by VCDS are all calculated readings, they have an "actual" reading for soot which on my car is always 1/5 of the calculated one, the actual measurement uses the pressure drop across the DPF differential pressure sensor which if it has been calibrated using the adaptation menu should be very accurate. The pressure drop is a measure of how blocked the filter honeycomb is, the sensor does not know whether the pressure drop is from soot or oil ash, if after a regen the pressure drop reduces and the actual soot value is low, say 3 or 4 grammes you can be fairly sure that the DPF is not blocked by oil ash, only the soot that builds up and is burnt off under regeneration. The oil ash measure that any diagnostic tester will give is a calculated one and on my car rises by exactly 0.1 litre per 10000 miles which is as much use as a chocolate teapot when the service limit is expressed in grammes, par for the course with VAG. Having fitted an EGR emulator I can see that my actual soot levels are a fraction of the calculated but sadly the car still frequently regens because the calculated reading is 22g whereas the measured is only 6g, extrapolating that I expect my car to do whatever it does when it calculates the oil ash level has hit the limit but it will in fact be much lower, when that happens if the DPF differential pressure readings are low I will just tell the ECU via VCDS that a new DPF has been fitted.

Its an occupational hazard of being determined to lecture others that I know better than anyone else.

It's not a failure of the fire ring so whilst you should always skim the head if you can that or the block are not the cause of the failure of the gasket which has happened where the gasket is unsealed and exposed to the water passages in the engine block on the lower face and touching but not clamped to the cylinder head on the upper face.

It's transmission wind up from where the Haldex coupling is engaged in anticipation of an event that does not happen. Mine does it sometimes when pulling forward or reversing out of a parking place on full lock, being an ex 4x4 driver I am attuned to the sound and feel of tyres scrub when the front & rear wheels ate following different paths, I only just sense it & the feel a slight jerk as the coupling releases, given the swarf in yours then I would say that the clutch is not releasing promptly when commanded. The Haldex pre-emptively engages, it knows not that you are about to drive slowly on full lock out of a parking space or are going to dump the clutch with maximum revs to turn right (or left) across a T junction. Or you are yet another victim of a mechanic for whom any hole is as good as another and that is your diff oil and the diff is now foutu which will give the same lock up & snatching sensation if the planet wheels are breaking up.

Correct, the cam sensor is only used so the engine can start in one revolution and as a checksum for the crankshaft position sensor output.

What code? Cars had warning lights before people thought they needed a computer for everything and that they could control the world from their phones. It's a brake warning light, check the fluid reservoir level and visually inspect the front brake pads, both of these will set off the warning light but there is no OBDII code for them anymore than there is one to say your fuel tank level is low.

That failure is absolutely nothing to do with how it was fitted 40000 miles ago, nor how clean the surfaces were, sealant, torquing or retorquing, design and manufacture of block and head, condition of head studs, use and abuse, wear and tear of the engine or bad luck. The engine had covered 160000 miles before the first failure so any manufacturing or design faults can be disregarded. 2 seconds glancing at the photo or at the gasket in real life would tell you that there is only one cause of failure, it is 100% the interaction between the coolant and the headgasket material with possible a galvanic influence but it looks like both the head and block are alloy so if there is a potential difference it will be with a metallic layer in the gasket composition. If you have any doubts look at the photos of the machined head posted by R Blue, the very serious corrosion damage to the head face is in exactly the same place as where the OP's gasket has failed, where one sideof the gasket is exposed to the cooling passage of the cylinder block. Shocking that Payen should have produced such an unsuitable gasket but if they are only now for the classic market and have been bought and sold several times they like all the other once well known brand names (except to Ken!!!) will have long lost the values and pride they once had and will just be producing or importing the cheapest crap to sell on to the classic car owners who deserve far better.

I have been using their gasket sets for 46 years, they were and it would appear still are the market leader, I have used literally hundreds of head gasket and conversion gasket sets, maybe 2 over the years have been anything but Payen.

You need to be far more explicit in your explanation, as it is at least 50% of the responses will be following a red herring. What is struggling? The engine lacking power? The steering heavy or stiff? Mechanical noises or snatching when manouevring on full lock? Tyre scrubbing? What do you mean by intermittent, are there circumstances when it has the as yet undefined struggle and others when it doesn't?

Your assertion was incorrect whether you could care less or not. Just saying...................................................

I do, and I doubt that I am alone or in a minority.

It will either be the bleed thumbturn screw is not fully closed in the clutch bleed block or its seal is damaged or one of the two O rings are damaged, one is where the flexible pipe enters the blled block the other is where it connects to the slave cylinder, both are likely to have been disturbed when the clutch was replaced. It should be easy for them to fix but then it should have been easy for them to do right in the first place, often those who make basic errors and incapable of finding them when a problem appears.

I get what you are saying in this context and gave you a like for it, however there are exceptions to what you say. If while at a standstill with the engine idling you declutch very quickly and snatch first gear the input shaft will still be rotating under its own inertia and the synchroniser cone, cones in this gearbox, will bring it to a halt allowing first gear to be engaged, there is a tiny bit of baulking but would not be felt by someone snatching the gear. doing the same thing on a vehicle without synchromesh on first gear would result in a crunch and us older drivers will have never lost the habit of always pausing after declutching before engaging first gear and doing it very gently, a crunch was a sign of a poor innatentive or uncaring driver. Regarding synchro can never work in reverse, on this gearbox not if it doesnt have synchro but one ones that do like my vehicles for the last 3 decades then it can work in reverse under the exact same conditions and it will also enable reverse to be selected while the vehicle is rolling forwards, bad practice but it can be done, when I was young and with XR4x4 company cars I could get them in reverse at 20mph going forwards, I only did it when playing on snow or ice. Editted, "baulking" mentioned above means resistance to the gear engaging while the synchro is doing its work, until the mainshaft and layshaft gear are synchronised (no rotational movement between them) the baulk ring prevents engagment of the gear.

The circumstances of this are not likely to repeat but I want to get to the bottom of what the problem might have been to make any repairs to prevent future problems. My engine has ran like clockwork for the last 23K miles of my ownership and has done 102K miles, never any hint of sticking turbo vanes like my previous Ocatavias. I did a 500 mile autoroute journey yesterday towing a very large very overloaded and unbraked trailer, after 400ish miles driving between 50-60mph so everything nicely warmed through I did a long slow descent towards Brive, above 60mph on overrun there is slight swaying so I changed down to 5th to slow the vehicle, the descent steepened and approached 60mph again so downchange and engine braking in 5th gear, then again in 4th gear, in total it was several kms at about 2500 rpm on a closed throttle engine braking. Then nearing the bottom I got back on the gas to get up to 60mph to gain momentum for the uphill stretch and there was barely any engine power, like a partial loss of boost or the turbo not spooling up, it felt like the initial stages of running out of fuel which manifests on uphill climbs, at also felt and sounded a bit wooly is the best word I can find. The power very gradually came back, its not like it cleared, it was just like boost slowly building up again but over several minutes, its hard to judge if you have full power when towing that sort of weight as there is no real acceleration, I pulled off at the next aire to check that I didn't have a shredded tyre and when I accelerated back onto the autoroute it had full power and has had since. So what anomoly could have been caused by engine braking for so long? Cooling of the pre DPF 02 sensor? Inplausible 02 reading for so long? Cooling of the turbo vanes? Whilst there was no combustion it was acting as an air compressor so would have been producing heat. A higher vacuum maintained for a long time, is there perhaps a valve regulator valve that might have opened & then not closed? Does the wastegate have a vacuum actuator? No warning lights came up, I will scan for fault codes soon. All and any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Cornering lights.

I can't see any difference in the photos, nothing at all which could justify the claim 50% brighter.

I fitted the cheapest Ebay ones, they were about £9 a pair delivered, I was not expecting much from them after reading all the comments about cheap ones and to go for Mayle etc. I have done about 20Kmiles on them since so when I fitted new suspension struts recently I bought another pair of them, I didn't need them, the original cheapies were still fine and still enough stiffness in the joint that I could undo both of them with the spanner only not needing to lock the shaft with a hex adaptor socket. Fitting less than 5 minutes per side, a little longer if removing old seized ones.

I am equally impressed with what you have done but why do you want to open and close your windows and sunroof using the radio? Surely they both have ergonomic controls that can be used without taking your eyes off the road?

Also if you have an up & over door they swing in an arc and if you have only 10cm clearance at that end it will likely strike the boonet or boot as it closes, the bonnet being lower is more likely to escape damage so you will be faced with reversing into a very tight space.

Width will be the problem, if its that tight on length I reckon you will have to be Houdini and get out via the sunroof, thats assuming that the doormirrors will have been able to pass between the door frame. Reglementary garage and parking bay sizes have not been changed since the 60's, with parking bays is not quite so bad because if you and the person to the other side has parked centrally you will have twice the space to swing your door than you will in a garage of the same dimensions. Also so few people use their garages to park their cars these days the developers can get away with it.

No filter on my vehicle.

I didn't use any parts, O rings were fine & I have most sizes as spares and have a splice kit, no renewable filter just clean the gauze screen, only oil needed.